Channel is Somerset House’s new curated online space for art, ideas and the artistic process.
The Programme will showcase the rich and diverse history of photography up until the present day, and explore the current and future direction of the medium in a dynamic format. It will feature talks, debates and discussions with some of the world’s most important and innovative photographers, artists, curators, critics and authors. As well as featuring many celebrated practitioners including Erwin Olaf, Susan Meiselas, Ralph Gibson, Hannah Starkey, Tim Walker, Maja Daniels, Ed Templeton and Vanessa Winship, the Talks Programme includes:
- The Photo London Master of Photography 2019 Stephen Shore in conversation with curator David Campany
- Martin Parr discusses British identity in his work with historian and broadcaster Dominic Sandbrook
- The acclaimed biographer Ann Marks in conversation with the author Anna Sparham on the legacy of Vivian Maier
- Gavin Turk discusses his Photo London project Portrait of an Egg with Matthew Collings
- Zackary Drucker discusses her work on transgender identities in photography with Chris Boot, Executive Director of Aperture Foundation
- Contemporary portrait photographer Martin Schoeller in conversation with publisher Gerhard Steidl
- Liz Johnson Artur in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist
- Photographer, electronic music producer and DJ, Eamonn Doyle discusses his special Photo London installation Made in Dublin with collaborators David Donohoe and Niall Sweeney
- Panel discussions on subjects such as representations of the body; collecting photography; the future of photography curation and the legacy of the pioneering early photographer Roger Fenton
- Tickets on sale now at photolondon.org/tickets – Fair tickets are not required to attend talks
The Photo London Talks Programme is curated by William A. Ewing, renowned curator and writer, former Director of the Musée de l’Elysée, and former Director of Exhibitions at the International Center of Photography, New York.
Michael Benson and Fariba Farshad, Founding Directors of Photo London, said:
‘We are thrilled that William A. Ewing has once again curated an outstanding Talks Programme, with an incredible line-up of extremely talented leading artists. The Talks Programme is a core element of the Public Programme that also features wonderfully exciting exhibitions, installations and other special events. It is this Programme that enables Photo London to continue to strengthen year on year and further consolidate itself as a world-class, international photography fair.’
The Photo London Talks Programme 2019:
WEDNESDAY 15 MAY
2.20 – 3.50pm
Sofia Vollmer de Maduro, Pedro Slim and Artur Walther: The Collector’s Mind
This panel discussion with Director and Curator of the Alberto Vollmer Foundation, Sofia Vollmer de Maduro, artist Pedro Slim and German-American art collector Artur Walther will focus on collecting photography.
5.30 – 6.20pm
FT Weekend Presents: Maja Daniels
Swedish photographer Maja Daniels will be speaking about her latest project Elf Dalia, which is being released as a book by MACK (2019). Embedded in the historical enigma of a place and its people, Elf Dalia weaves together a narrative born out of the Swedish valley of Älvdalen. Daniels combines photographs taken from 2011-2017 with photographs from a local archive made by Tenn Lars Persson (1878-1938), a local inventor, mechanic and photographer. The two artists come together across centuries to create a coherent narrative that engages with the many mysteries of Älvdalen, particularly the preservation of the ancient language Elfdalian. Through this intermingling of past and present, Elf Dalia draws attention to the possible fictions of historic events and documentary photography.
THURSDAY 16 MAY
10.00 – 11.30am
Mishka Henner, David Maisel and Jeffrey Millstein: Eyes in the Air
in conversation with curator William A. Ewing
Photographs from the air have become commonplace in a world of planes, helicopters and drones, not to mention satellites. Three photographers renowned for their aerial practice – though each one works at different altitudes, come together to discuss the opportunities – and limitations – of new ways of looking at the world.
11.45 – 12.35pm
Martin Schoeller
in conversation with Gerhard Steidl
Martin Schoeller is one of the world’s preeminent contemporary portrait photographers. He is most known for his extreme-close up portraits, a series in which familiar faces are treated with the same scrutiny as the un-famous. Gerhard Steidl is a publisher, known for publishing international photobooks and contemporary literature. Furthermore, he is active as a curator, conceiving and producing photography exhibitions worldwide.
1.00 – 2.30pm
Stephen Shore
in conversation with David Campany
US photographer Stephen Shore is Photo London’s 2019 Master of Photography. Shore will discuss various aspects of his long career and his most recent series Details, which will be shown at the Fair this year. Renowned for his engaging and rigorous writing, exhibitions and public speaking, curator David Campany has worked worldwide with institutions including MoMA New York, Tate, Whitechapel Gallery, Centre Pompidou, Le Bal, and the Stedelijk Museum.
2.45 – 3.35pm
Liz Johnson Artur
in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist
Based in London, Bulgarian photographer Liz Johnson Artur will have her first solo exhibition in the US at the Brooklyn Museum, New York in May 2019 and her first major museum exhibition in the UK in June 2019 at the South London Gallery. Hans Ulrich Obrist is Artistic Director of the Serpentine Galleries, London.
4.00 – 5.30pm
Sophie Gordon, Hope Kingsley, Frances Hodgson and Martin Barnes: The Essential Fenton
This panel discussion brings together experts on historical photographer Roger Fenton from various institutions and will focus on the public exhibition The Essential Fenton, which is curated by Bob Hershkowitz and on show at the Fair. Special attention will be paid to Fenton’s ‘object photography’, specifically his museum photographs, photographs of objects in the British Museum and his still life photographs.
5.40 – 6.30pm
Martin Parr
in conversation with Dominic Sandbrook
Martin Parr is one of the best-known documentary photographers of his generation. With over 100 books of his own published, and another 30 edited by Parr, his photographic legacy is already established. Dominic Sandbrook is a historian, broadcaster and columnist and he is renowned for his best-selling series of books on life in post-war Britain. This conversation will examine how British identity is explored in Parr’s work.
6.40 – 7.30pm
Jem Southam
in conversation with Susanna Brown
Jem Southam is one of the UK’s leading photographers and is renowned for his series of colour landscape photographs, beginning in the 1970s and continuing until the present. His trademark is the patient observation of changes at a single location over many months or years. Susanna Brown is Curator of Photographs at the V&A, where she has worked since 2008. Before joining the V&A, Susanna worked in the Photographs Collection at the National Portrait Gallery, London.
FRIDAY 17 MAY
11.45 – 12.35pm
Susan Meiselas
in conversation with Jo Webster
Susan Meiselas is a documentary photographer who lives and works in New York. She is recognised for her documentation of human rights issues in Latin America. Jo Webster is the Managing Editor for Strategy and Operations in EMEA at Reuters.
1.00 – 1.50pm
The Ever-Intriguing Vivian Maier
Anna Sparham and Ann Marks in conversation
Photographer nanny Vivian Maier took the world by storm with the posthumous discovery of images that captured the universality of the human condition. Heralded as one of the most acclaimed photographers of the last century, Maier’s personal life and motivations have remained a mystery. Now biographer Ann Marks reveals new information regarding Vivian Maier’s background and photographic development in order to better inform our understanding of the artist and her work. In this conversation, author Anna Sparham will discuss the astonishing presentation by Ann Marks and her discoveries regarding the mystery that is Vivian Maier.
2.15 – 3.05pm
Yang Li and Antoine d’Agata
in conversation with Lucy Kumara Moore
Director of Claire de Rouen Lucy Kumara Moore will discuss the collaboration and upcoming exhibition between Magnum Photos photographer Antoine d’Agata and the fashion designer Yang Li. Moore recently curated Here We Are, a major exhibition of post war British photography for the luxury fashion brand Burberry.
4.00 – 4.50pm
RPS presents Ellen Carey Back to The Future: The Avant-Garde is an Address
For the Royal Photographic Society’s lecture, Ellen Carey will discuss her own work from her student days to the present and, in so doing will contextualise photography as a visual art and game-changer in the forefront of the avant-garde.
5.15 – 6.05pm
Erik Madigan Heck
in conversation with Andrew Sanigar
Erik Madigan Heck, one of the most prolific and successful fashion photographers working today will be in conversation with Andrew Sanigar, Thames & Hudson Commissioning Editor for Photography and Design. They will discuss Erik’s career to date, his art and fashion publication Nomenus and his many creative collaborations.
6.30 – 7.20pm
Vanessa Winship
in conversation with Alona Pardo
The acclaimed British photographer Vanessa Winship will discuss her work with Barbican curator Alona Pardo. Since the late 1980s Vanessa Winship has assiduously chronicled the lives of those living in contested lands, from Turkey to Kosovo and beyond, making work that moves surefootedly and poetically between reportage, portraiture, landscape and documentary practice.
7.40 – 8.30pm
Leica Presents Ralph Gibson
This year Leica Camera honours the long-time Leica devotee Ralph Gibson.
Ralph Gibson is one of the leading fine art photographers working today. Known for his evocative, sensual and surreal gaze – producing deeply monochrome images via the combination of vision, camera and oily black print. Gibson has been compiling images for over 60 years with his first introduction to photography taking place during his time in the U.S. Navy in the late 1950s. He went on to study photography at the California School of Fine Arts, to work in the dark rooms of Dorothea Lange and Robert Frank and to create the stela and revered bodies of work; The Somnambulist, Deja-Vu, Days at Sea and Quadrants to name only some. He founded the publishing company, Lustrum Press and was the first person to publish Larry Clarke’s book; Tulsa.
SATURDAY 18 MAY
10.00 – 10.50am
FT Weekend Presents: Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa
in conversation
Join the FT Weekend for a conversation with Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa about his new book One Wall a Web, which gathers together work from two photographic series, Our Present Invention (2012-14) and All My Gone Life (2014-17), as well as two text collages all made in and focused specifically on the United States. Through a mixture of writing, portraiture, landscape and appropriated archival images, the book describes quotidian encounters with fraught desire, uneven freedom, irrational fear and deep structural division, asking whether the historical and contemporary realities of anti-Black and gendered violence – when treated as aberrations – do not in fact serve to veil violence’s essential function in the maintenance of ‘civil’ society.
11.45 – 12.35pm
Zackary Drucker
in conversation with Chris Boot
Zackary Drucker will speak about her own work, followed by a conversation about photography and transgender representation.
1.00 – 1.50pm
Tim Walker
in conversation with Susanna Brown
Tim Walker, one of the world's most inventive photographers and contributor to magazines including Vogue, W and Love, will be in conversation with V&A curator Susanna Brown. They will discuss Tim's eclectic sources of inspiration, the importance of make believe, and his newest and most ambitious collaborations.
2.15 – 3.05pm
Aperture Conversations: Erwin Olaf
in conversation with Erik van Ginkel introduced by Chris Boot
On the occasion of Photo London and the Aperture’s release of Erwin Olaf : I Am , Erwin Olaf and Erik van Ginkel (Director of Finance and Operations of the Rijksmuseum and photography enthusiast) will discuss Olaf’s work and his great inspiration of the Dutch Golden Age of painting. In 2018, the Rijksmuseum became home to five hundred works of Olaf’s core collection, comprising prints, portfolios, videos, magazines, books and posters. The vast majority are donations; sixty photographs and three videos have been acquired with the support of the BankGiro Loterij. The museum will celebrate this gift with an exhibition of twenty iconic works by Olaf installed alongside paintings from the museum’s collection by artists such as Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Breitner. It is scheduled to open on 5 July 2019.
3.30 – 4.20pm
Ed Templeton
in conversation with Matt Martin
Matt Martin, curator of Doomed Gallery London and founder of the photocopy club project, will discuss the work of cult photographer and skateboarder Ed Templeton, including Templeton’s photographic process when shooting, editing and archiving, his zine archive and mix media works, and his latest book Wires Crossed.
4.45 – 5.30pm
Eamonn Doyle, David Donohoe & Niall Sweeney: Made in Dublin
Irish photographer, electronic music producer and DJ Eamonn Doyle will discuss his audio-visual work titled Made in Dublin, made in collaboration with Michael Hoppen Gallery, with artist and musician David Donohoe and graphic designer Niall Sweeney.
5.50 – 6.40pm
Nick Brandt
in conversation with David Campany
British photographer Nick Brandt will discuss his most recent body of work This Empty World with curator and writer David Campany. This Empty World is Brandt’s first work in colour and addresses the escalating destruction of the natural world at the hands of humans, showing a world where, overwhelmed by runaway development, there is no longer space for animals to survive.
SUNDAY 19 MAY
1.00 – 1.50pm
Andrew Moisey and Anne Wagner
Historian and critic Anne Wagner, and photographer, professor and author Andrew Moisey, will talk about the strange combination of sociology and voyeurism that Moisey’s book The American Fraternity: An Illustrated Ritual Manual achieves. Shot over seven years, The American Fraternity captures America's privileged past and future leaders learning to pledging allegiance to enlightened ideals that will cover for a life, photographed in depth for the first time, driven by the pursuit of self-interest and male privilege. When shooting Moisey was present, yet somehow invisible—not an easy trick. How and when did it dawn on him just what he’d managed to do?
2.30 – 3.50pm
Gavin Turk
in conversation with Matthew Collings
Art critic and broadcaster Matthew Collings will discuss Gavin Turk’s public exhibition Portrait of an Egg, created especially for Photo London with Somerset House. Turk will present a giant bronze egg sculpture that will installed on the River Terrace ahead of the Fair. The egg will inspire an Instagram photography competition with entries being projected on the walls of the Great Arch Hall during the Fair.
4.00 – 4.50pm
New York Times: Carbon Casualties Josh Haner
in conversation with Meaghan Looram
Since 2015, Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times photographer Josh Haner has worked across the globe specialising in drone technology to document the pressing and wide-ranging realities of climate change. Haner will be in conversation with Meaghan Looram, New York Times Director of Photography, and they will discuss the complexities of capturing climate change and the significance of creatively using visuals to engage and inform the public on this pressing topic.
5.15 – 6.05pm
FT Weekend Presents: Hannah Starkey
in conversation
For more than 20 years Hannah Starkey has committed her practice to representing the experiences of contemporary women. Often blurring the lines between portraiture, documentary and staging, Starkey carefully reconstructs glimpses of interior lives by capturing her subjects in moments of introspection amid ordinary urban spaces. Aimed at constructing a new way to represent women, Starkey’s photographs act in defiance against the myopic identities in which women are overtly empowered or exploited. As a woman, Starkey has a fundamental connection to her subjects and the motifs explored in her pictures. Acutely aware of the ways in which women of all generations are constantly evaluated and judged, Starkey’s photographs offer a respite from the male voyeuristic lens that saturates society and the portrayal of women. By forming a different level of engagement with her female protagonists, Starkey’s visual language offers itself as a possible mechanism to deconstruct and diffuse the power of the prevailing patriarchal media definitions of femininity
Photo London 2019
16 – 19 May 2019
Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA
www.photolondon.org #PhotoLondonFair19
#PhotoLondonWeek
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