A City in the Mind - Peter Fraser

Portraits come in many forms, however what would we expect a portriat of a city to look like? 
Peter Fraser - A city in the Mind, has addressed this idea with inspiration from the Vintage Classic, Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. 

Peter Fraser - A city in the Mind Exhabition at the 

Brancolini Grimaldi Gallery 

Invisible cities, being a collection of short chapters where by Marco Polo shares his travels and stories with the Emperor Kublai Khan, however the langue barrier between the two men means that Polo uses objects to help tell his stories. 
It is not only that this book was an inspiration to Fraser's work that makes it important it is that idea that, images are language - A picture paints a thousand words. 

With this in mind Fraser has asked us to look at this work and allow us as the viewer to make up our own mind about what city or place he is trying to describe to us, although we know that this is a portrayal of London we still might find that some of the works, might evoke a memory of another city that we might have been to before. Such an image to do this would be the conch shell. 

In some ways this body of work could be seen as the blue print for a city, a city that is in the process of being built. Each image could be seen at the building blocks for a functioning city, for example the first image we see is of a song thrush, this being the adding of nature to the city. Moving on form this image we come across the image of the model city, a representation of people with in a functioning city, again the image Who's Who is again could be read as the adding of people to a city being built. 
As we move through the images we can start to see more objects that we would associate with civilized live such as chairs and chandeliers, however back track a tiny way and we can see representation's of a city thought the stacked playing cards making a tower, much like that of a skyscraper of a city such as London.

Peter Fraser - A city in the Mind Exhibition 

at the Brancolini Grimaldi Gallery 

Over all this body of work is thought provoking, allowing the viewer to understand the different ways in which a city can be seen though different eyes, other than our own. Allowing our judgements of a city to be brushed aside and see a city in a new light.      

Explosions 2010 - Joschi Herczeg and Daniele Kaehr

Explosions is a highly complex body of work created by the duo artists Joschi Herczeg and Daniele Kaehr. 
The sets each have specially made explosions with in them that detonate when the shutter is released. The organisations allows us to see the moment of impact. The concept of the work is to evoke the feeling of unrest and anxiety, thus the work is set in a home environment, an area that the viewer can relate to.

Private Moon by Leonid Tishkov

The Private Moon series is a huge body of work that looks a indoor and outdoor insulations, that illuminate the surroundings. The work its self a a visual poem, explaining the idea of   and thoughts of Chesterton a writer who explained the idea that there is no personal faith, in the same way each person can not have their own private sun or moon to them self's. 
The visual poem tells a story of a man that met the moon her self, and stayed with her for the rest of his life. Each image that you see in its self is another section of the story. 
In the start the moon was hiding from the sun, hidden away in a tunnel, she came to a man house and stayed in his loft, he cared for her and covered her with blankets. 
"Each photograph is a poetic tale, a little poem in its own right.
Therefore each picture is accompanied by my own verse" - Leonid Tishkov. 
The work has been accompanied by seven Haiku's short Japanese poems that in a way sum up the work. Haiku's wirrten by Leong Liew Geok 3 October 2008

Moon at window sill,

Smiling crescent parked outside,

Unwilling to budge 

On flat roof with me

Silent witness of lit rooms:

Unknown company 

Bent over with you

Piggyback-rider,

to gauge—Water below bridge! 

My yoke of white jade,

Sole passenger to ferry

Wherever I row 

Your Brightness on sled

I lug across waves of snow.

Why can’t You float home? 

At this opening

You’ll wait, light at tunnel’s end,

Anticipating 

I’ll come to take you

Home to your usual table ….

Here—eat these apples! 

Stuck on snowy roof

You’re prostrate, an empty stage

I’ll shovel upright 

You’re there, attic moon,

Before I end an antique

Trip to count cobwebs 

Side by side we lie—

Keep your whole self covered, else

I won’t get to sleep!

Outside Inside - Regine Ramseier

Regine Ramseier is a German artist that works mostly with instillations, the image to the left is one of her instillation pieces. It consists of 2000 dandelion flowers suspend from the celling to create a surreal landscape where by she brings the outside inside. I really enjoy this work, its interesting and works well with in the space that she chose to construct it. As an instillation this would have required continuous upkeep to make sure that the space that the dandelions in habited was kept clean and inviting much like a garden should be. 

Sven Fennema - Urban Decay

Sven Fennema a German photographer looks at decay in places, mostly architectural spaces. much of his work looks at buildings and spaces that had history such as old theatres,hospitals, castles and churches form all over the world. 
Fennema's work is captivating, there is almost a feeling of fantasy to the images, the lighting gives a warm feel to some of the images, as well as cold in others. 
What is so special about decay and photography is that there is a dialogue between photographer and the subject weather that is a car tangled by nature or a building whithering away. The idea of this dialogue is that you can feel the past echoing all around you when you are in the spaces, if the image is good that the view should have the very same feelings of past echoing of the people that inhabited these spaces.