FotoFest 2010
The FotoFest 2010 Biennial recently concluded in Houston and, while I am perhaps a bit late in this posting, I’d like to share with you some of the most compelling work I saw during the festival.
Perhaps my very favorite photos from the biennial are, sadly, available online only in small doses. Hans Pieler’s “Shadows of Time” consists of lith print studies of architectural structures built for the purpose of charting time.
Aperture Portfolio Prize winner Michael Corridore presented his artfully ambiguous series “Angry Black Snake”, which compels the viewer to invest the frame with their own narrative meaning.
Heather McClintock was in Houston signing copies of her new book “The Innocent: Casualties of the Civil War in Northern Uganda”, a powerful document depicting the children swept up in the brutality of a decades old civil war.
While at FotoFest, I met two artists on essentially opposite sides of the career spectrum who were both working to find new markets for vastly under-appreciated bodies of work. World-renowned photojournalist Peter Sibbald shared an evocative new series on the Canadian rodeo circuit. Emerging Israeli artist Mark Yashaev presented a moving portrait of his own family in “Curriculum Vita”.
The UK’s rising stars The Jackson Twins, Ian and Karl, arrived fresh from their exhibition at the Australian Center for Photography. Their self-portrait collection “The Cataclysmic Accounts From the Binary Institute” explores identity issues through elaborate theatrical images of mythological and folkloric archetypes.
Interestingly, the Jacksons were not the only identical sibling artists in attendance at FotoFest. Boston-area performance artists Alicia, Kelly, and Sara Casilio, better known as Triiibe, presented a collaboration with National Geographic photographer Cary Wolinsky. Triiibe’s tableaus examine gender and social identity in technically arresting large-scale photographs.
It was indeed a remarkably fortuitous coincidence that both groups of siblings brought their bold work to Texas simultaneously. By the end of FotoFest, there were rumors of a possible future collaboration between the five artists...
NEWS & EXHIBITIONS
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
All images © copyright Robert Shults. Unauthorized use prohibited.