This was my second viewing of the Deutsche Borse prize at the Photographer’s Gallery. My visit to the 2016 edition was eye opening for the simple fact that the winner was my least favourite of the finalists. Once again I am viewing the entries prior to the winner being announced, It felt like a challenge to see if I could identify what the judges were looking for in the 2017 winner.
The Deutsche Borse prize is the Photographer’s Gallery very own award which rewards a living photographer, of any nationality, for a body of work presented in an exhibition or publication, which significantly contributes to the medium of photography. The finalists are usually chosen for their contemporary photographic practice encouraging experimentation in the various approaches of landscape, portraiture and documentary.
This year’s finalists are:
Sophie Calle (b. 1953, France) for her publication My All (Actes Sud, 2016)
Dana Lixenberg (b. 1964, The Netherlands) for her community project Imperial Courts (Roma, 2015)
Awoiska van der Molen (b. 1972, The Netherlands) for her exhibition Blanco at Foam Fotografie Museum, Amsterdam 2016
Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs (both b. 1979, Switzerland) for EURASIA exhibited at Fotomuseum Winterthur, 2016.
These finalists were displayed as seems to be the norm, across the top two floors of the gallery building.
It should be noted that I visited the gallery at a time when I was recovering from a period of low mood and was attempting a phased return to work. I mention this here as it impacted the way I viewed and received Sophie Calle’s work. The selection of work presented was from her project Les Autobiographies, titled My mother, my cat, my father, in that order. It is a very personal project dealing with the death of her parents and her cat. The Photographer’s Gallery booklet describes it as telling of “the fragility of memory and the transitory character of relationships”. For me it was too personal, it covered a subject that was troubling me at that particular time in my life but I understand why artists produce work of this nature. It provides an additional layer that the artist themselves may not even be aware of. The overall feeling was morbid, I just felt sadness and that was not a good feeling for me at that time.
The Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs created a road trip narrative of their journey across Europe and Asia. The exhibition presented mixed media forms including movie projections. The work combined digital and analogue processes and utilised varying formats including large format plate cameras. This work never caught my attention and was describing parts of the world in a random way. The website describes it as “a narrative that is much fiction as documentation”. I can see that it was experimental in its use of mixed media but it contained too much variation which I have noticed in other collaborative works such as Hay on the Highway (1994).
Avoiska van der Molen studies landscape but creates them in abstract form and in black and white. She visits remote scenes from around the world and studies them in solitude and silence. Her approach allows the landscape to make an impression on her and the results are her way of communicating that to the viewers. The results are quite dramatic and very dark but the focus of attention is on the white edges and surfaces. These are large scale prints and certainly look like works of art.
Dana Lixenberg presents a documentary project that she worked has worked on across twenty two years. Her subject is a housing project in Los Angeles, USA. She first visited the Imperial Courts community housing project in 1992 for a magazine following the riots that resulted in the Rodney King verdict. She has continued to visit since and has captured the lives of people as they grow up. Some have died, been killed, disappeared or in jail. The large scale images are black and white which may have been the choice in 1992 as it was a serious documentary piece. This format has remained and emphasises the time span as well as racial aspect of the area. This was the pick of the four artists. The images captured the essence of day to day life in a housing project. The lives are captured in detail across the faces of the portraits.
On this occasion I was in agreement with the judges…the winner of the Deutsche Borse Prize 2017 is Dana Lixenberg for Imperial Courts.
Martyn Rainbird 