fototazo: Gomma Magazine

Showing posts with label Gomma Magazine. Show all posts

4.02.2012

Profile: MONO, Volume 1

Gomma Magazine has announced the eight winners of their Call for Entries for MONO, Volume 1:

Daisuke Yokota
Maki
Tricia Lawless Murray
Francesco Merlini
Jan von Holleben
Jukka-pekka Jalovaara
Sofía López Mañán
Stephane C.

We're using Gomma's announcement as an opportunity to sit down with Luca Desienna, Chief Editor of Gomma, to talk with him about MONO, as well as to showcase some of the images that will be presented in the book.

Gomma was formed in 2004 by four artists aspiring to create a new publishing space for both photographers and visual artists that was disengaged from the limitations that come with profitability. Gomma Magazine launched shortly afterwards in 2005 as a high quality photography magazine showcasing renowned artists such as Antoine D’Agata and Daido Moriyama along with promising talents. The printed magazine ceased publication, but an iPad app is due to be released soon and the website has expanded to become an important hub and resource for photographers. A major site redevelopment with new interactive and networking possibilities for members is in process.

In 2011 Gomma Books Ltd. was incorporated by the Gomma team with the aim of publishing a limited number of high quality photography titles per year. MONO is one of the titles planned for the Gomma Books Ltd. 2012 catalog. MONO will be a 250-page hardback book showcasing whom they consider "the most talented contemporary black and white photographers" and a celebration of "that beautiful and timeless art medium that is black & white photography." It will be published in three volumes - Volume One will be published in November.

fototazo: Where did the idea to make MONO come from?

Luca Desienna: As with almost anything that comes out of Gomma's brains, we decided to create MONO because we needed it!

We’ve been looking to buy something like it from a bookshop for quiet some time, but haven’t found anything quiet like it. So we decided to build it ourselves. I think it has to do with the gaps and the needs that we encounter along the way. If we needed it, then we believed somebody else out there would need it also.

f: What was the process of making the selections from submissions?

LD: The selection process has consisted of two different ways. On one side we’ve been selecting photographers that we know and admire and consider for their highly quality work; on the other side we’ve been selecting photographers through a Call for Entries. We decided to open this photo contest because we were hungry of new faces and talents. We wanted to find some uncooked names.

11.27.2011

Reading Shortlist 11.27.11

The Reading Shortlist is an occasional post with a listing of recommended readings and links. A recommendation does not necessarily suggest an agreement with the contents of the post.

Andy Adams (Moderator) with Molly Landreth, Amy Stein, and Phillip Toledano, Light Work, "Photo 2.0 – Online Photographic Thinking / SPE Conference at Light Work"

Darius D. Himes and Mary Virginia Swanson, New York Public Library Series, "Publish Your Photography Book"

C.B. Liddell, Fujiland, "Interview: Nobuyoshi Araki"

Kate Namestnik, Online Conference on Networks and Communities, "Photography 2.0: How Web 2.0 has changed photographic behaviours and practices"

Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, "Viewer or voyeur? The morality of reportage photography" [as a warning, this article has a very graphic lead image]

Scot Sothern with Colin Pantall, Gomma Magazine, "Colin Pantall interviews Scot Sothern for Gomma"

Wayne Ford, Posterous, "Black Passport: the autobiographical work of photojournalist Stanley Greene"

11.13.2011

f100: Kim Thue and Francilins

fototazo has asked a group of 50 curators, gallery owners, blog writers, photographers, academics and others actively engaged in photography to pick two photographers that deserve (more) recognition - the underknown, the under-respected as well as not-appreciated-enough favorites. A little more information on the project is available in the first post in the series here.

Today we continue the series with responses from Luca Desienna.

The series also includes responses from Nicholas Nixon, Matt Johnston, Blake Andrews, John Edwin Mason, Aline Smithson, Colin Pantall, Michael Werner, Liza Fetissova, Laurence Salzmann, Bryan Formhals, Richard Mosse, Shane Lavalette, Amy Stein, Amani Willett, Wayne Ford, S. Billie Mandle, Leslie K. Brown, Gordon Stettinius, Marc Feustel, Hin Chua, Adriana Rios Monsalve, Daniel Augschoell, Larissa Leclair, Elinor Carucci, Pieter Wisse, Daniel Echevarría, Natalie Minik, Qiana Mestrich, Jason Landry, Rona Chang, Stella Kramer, Joanne Lukitsh, Yumi Goto, Gwen Lafage, Heidi Romano, Julie Grahame, Stefano Bianchi, Steve Bisson, Charles Guice, Ulf Fågelhammar, Tamas Dezso, Oliver Schneider, Julia Schiller, Lars Boering, John Matkowsky, Greater Middle East Photo, and Adriana Teresa.

Respondent: Luca Desienna is Co-Owner and Chief Editor of Gomma Online and Gomma Books Ltd., respectively a popular online portal for photographers and a bijou publishing house specializing in high-quality collectible photo books. Gomma was established in 2004 and for a few years it also ran an acclaimed photography magazine. "Gomma has over the years acquired a bold and reassuring image. Focusing entirely on contents and not on personalities, Gomma has a distinctive feel and a quiet anarchic approach to the industry." Luca is also behind MONO, a hardback photo book showcasing the best contemporary black and white photographers (to be published in fall 2012).

In addition Luca is an award-winning photographer who has received, among other prizes, the 3rd Place Winner at PX3, 1st Prize Winner at Simulacrum Photo Contest (judged by Richard Billingham), an official selection at the 2011 VOIES OFF and an Honourable Mention at this year's LENS CULTURE Exposure Awards. He's also taking part at the renowned PhotoVoice Auction in London. He has exhibited throughout Europe and has taken part to numerous Art Fairs and collective exhibitions.

Selections: Kim Thue and Francilins

Kim Thue was born in September 1980 in Grindsted, a small Danish town situated on the windy moors of Jutland. As a restless teenager he moved to the U.K. and is now based in London. He describes his work as "sequenced accumulations of unsung tragedies, vulnerable integrity and personally profound chance encounters."

Currently, Kim is drawing to a close a long-term book project from Freetown, Sierra Leone entitled "Dead Traffic." About the book he writes: "Despite Sierra Leone being renowned for its brutal civil war, this work doesn’t have a hidden political agenda in mind, a specific humanitarian issue to pinpoint or even a clear story to tell. Instead I hope to have shot something the viewer can tune into emotionally. Something that hits a nerve without being conceived as coercive in nature. A collection of images, suggesting simply an incredible abundance of human vitality and perseverance, flourishing within an overwhelmingly harsh and inclement city."

Publisher Calin Kruse adds, "Shot over the course of two trips lasting 10 months, Kim allowed enough time to fully submerse himself in the livelihoods and emotions of his subjects. His efforts leave us with an extensive, highly engaging and subjective visual account of a corner of the world normally unrevealed to most of us."

"Dead Traffic" will be released as a book by dienacht Publishing in Spring 2012 and will be available to pre-order from their website soon.

Francilins is a quiet mysterious artist; his website has only two links, one to his email address and one to his blog – however his outsiderness, being premeditated or not, has a direct connection to his striking work.

Francilins is a true visionaire, an artist that is stretching the boundaries of photography. He savages the medium for his own visions, forcing us to enter a world that is blurred and scarred and raw. He seems to be using sex and lust as a mean to recreate a balance within the maelstrom of human emotions.

He’s recently been selected at Noorderlicht with a series titled VI ELAS - an outstanding work documenting a prostitution complex in Belo Horizonte.

Speaking about this place Francilins says "…light does not come from the same Sun, the light is weaker, it comes from little sources, in bright colours, mostly red. The air is much denser, sticky. Strong, sweaty smells invade my nostrils. This other world is labyrinthic, a great complex of narrow corridors compose the cartography. The movement is intense, many beings walking down the corridors, it seems like a big street market to me, apocalyptic and popular, where fast food is sold. …This dimension seems to me an eternal war, when I look up I see the image of a being who lives in another world."

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