Danuta Hasinska, Conversation with the Sun, 2014

I discovered Hasinska’s photographs at The Other Art Fair in October and thought it matched perfectly my mood at the moment. The nature depicted is often out of focus, blurry but it leaves you with a strange sensation of unstable peace, as you wake up from a dream. I like particularly Conversation with the Sun, for its light, movement, and sensation of freedom that don’t necessary appear in her other works. (and gosh, we do need sun at this time of the year…!)

For her, “photography is the most intimate form of art. Too many words are lost in translation, and photography can be appreciated without any dialogue at all.” So better to leave you appreciate her works here, without adding anything else…

Danuta Hasinska, Conversation with the Sun, 2014

Danuta Hasinska, Morning, 2014

Danuta Hasinska, Summer, 2014

#DanutaHasinska #Photography #sun

Vintage Newton

The pop up ONGallery opened this weekend in Putney for a 3 days exhibition about Helmut Newton’s vintage prints (1967 – 2000).

And oh boy! Even if you know the artist was a provocative photograph and you’re gonna see lots of sexy poses and other nudes, you are still positively shocked how well-done it is!

Newton truly knew how to stage his models: the lights, the frame, the pose, the bodies, the settings, all are perfect. He created his own filmic atmosphere, using the background (sometime a simple window or a car) to magnify the model and exploiting the black and white at its best helping the viewer to focus on the essential – a face for the portrait of Charlotte Rampling, 1967 or an ass for Winnie at the Negresco, 1975.

It is flawless and often fun.

Plus, it is so good (and still too rare) to see pictures of self-confident women, assuming fully their body and feminity, it is empowering!

As the pop up is now closed, you may see the works online from the gallery website here.

Rue Aubriot, 1975

Surprise, 1985

Definition

One of my favourite art historian, Richard Leeman, told us one day “we look at the famous painting ‘Birth of Venus’ from Sandro Botticelli and we can converse for hours about Neo-Platonism in art, write several essays on its impact or not in the artist’s life, in art history or for contemporary artists… but we should never forget this is also a beautiful naked woman, who is still pleasant to look at, and that even centuries after being paint”.

I think this is a pretty good description for this chef d’oeuvre as it shows how powerful and ambiguous  an image can be.

Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (c. 1486)