avante garde architectural photography?

[Craig Wactor]

I'm looking for artists who shoot architecture and cityscapes in a non-traditional fashion. Andreas Gursky has some interesting images, and I saw some nice stuff in this month's Lenswork. Anybody know of some other artists doing this kind of stuff in a new and unique way?

[paulr]

michael wolf and thomas struth come to mind ... but is their work still a new and unique if it looks an awful lot like gursky's?

also, check out sugimoto. his architecture pictures are specifically about looking at architecture in a different way.

[Walt Calahan]

Since the early 1990s, Gursky has made subtle digital alterations to some of his photographs, adjusting the composition, eliminating details and enhancing colour. There are no individuals in Gursky’s photographs, instead, where figures do appear, they are reduced to ant-like proportions, embedded within the repeating patterns of the whole.

Gursky has commented:
‘My preference for clear structures is the result of my desire - perhaps illusory - to keep track of things and maintain my grip on the world.’

http://www.artnet.com/artist/7580/andreas-gursky.html

Frankly, first time I've ever heard of Gursky. I'm too typically American to know what's going on in the rest of the world. HA!

Look forward to learning about other "non-traditional" photographers from the group.

[medform-norm]

Joerg's webblog is always a good starting point for such queries. Here's a link to his architecture category. Seeketh and thou wilst find. http://www.jmcolberg.com/weblog/archives/cat_architecture.html

[steve simmons]

Robert Polidori who shoots for The New Yorker does very interesting work.

steve simmons

[Frank Petronio]

Somewhat less avante garde: Robert Polidori

[Nacio Jan Brown]

Karl Lagerfeld: "Casa Malaparte" and "The House in the Trees;" Frank Thiel: "Berlin;"
Lee Friedlander: "Sticks & Stones;" some work by Naoya Hatakeyama, Ryuji Miyamoto, and
Nobuyoshi Araki (yes, some interesting city stills, not just kinky nudes);
"An Eye for the City" with work by Gabriele Basilico, Vincenzo Castella, Mammo Jodice, Walter Niedermayr, and a couple of others.

[Kirk Gittings]

I assume when you say non-traditional you are NOT looking for contemporaries who are simply doing great work. For instance Polidori is doing great work and occasionally interesting work with real irony, but mainly great traditional work. If you mean someone who is seeing architecture in a radically different way than it has been seen traditionally, then you need to look at people like Sugimoto who break all the canons.

[Kirk Gittings]

Actually now that I am thinking on it, I respect most photographers who teach me through their work to look at the world differently. These photographers are not clever posers looking to impress the art world, but people who see more clearly without the preconceptions of tradition or commercial expediency something that is hard to do in a genre with such staunch traditions as architectural photography.

In architectural photography, the person who I learn the most from in terms of seeing architecture in new and different ways is MARK CITRET, who I had the honor of presenting with at the View Camera Conference in Monterey a few years ago. he is a great guy and a true creative.

www.mcitret.com/ (http://www.mcitret.com/)

[Eric Biggerstaff]

Kirk,

As always great post. I really like the work of Mark Citret, I find myself pulling his books off my shelf often as he teaches me to look for the beauty in the commonplace, much like his great influence Ruth Bernhard. He has a true gift

[Brian Ellis]

I don't know that's it's exactly "avant garde" but I thought Balthazar Korab's architectural work was very creative. http://www.balthazarkorab.com

[Struan Gray]

Thomas Ruff and Candida Hofer are two more of the Becher school photographers who are known at least in part for their architectural concerns. Hofer is probably my favourite of all of them.

The consumptive aesthetic is popular with a host of other photographers who don't make headlines. Three of my favourites from online are Simon Ladefoged (www.simonladefoged.com), Kay Röhlen (www.kaykaykay.de) and Joël Tettamanti (www.tettamanti.ch).

One of Sweden's leading art photographers, Gerry Johansson (www.gerryjohansson.com, click on the yellow squares on the exhibitions page) has an ongoing fascination with the built environment, although his concerns are not exactly the traditional architectural ones.

Finally, I would agree that Sugimoto has, as always, made an unmistakable contribution to the photography of architecture that I am sure will propagate into the mainstream, at least for iconic buildings.

[Struan Gray]

I missed one. Stephen Gill (www.stephengill.co.uk - site occasionally plays up) has some fascinating observations of city life.

[tim atherton]

I'm not 100% sure if avant garde is quite the right term... but most of those listed above are coming to photographing buildings/structures and urban space in a somewhat different way.

Some radically different - some taking a more established way and pushing it somewhat.

Hunting through Consciensous will give you many good links. And I'd second Simon Ladefoged And sometime list member Julian Thomas - www.foundobjectsgallery.com (especial, but not only, oasis, works and rgyb)

Sugimoto is probably in category by himself. Then there are the Becher influenced people - the sort of post-modern/minimlaist group already mentioned - Struth, Hofer, Gursky and several others (see Conscientious). The what I'd call the contemporary Modernists - Basilico, James, Shibata etc - who are often pushing the boundaries a more accepted approach

I'll try and dig through Joergs blog and find some of my favourites

(and there's my own modest contribution - not the worlds best website... www.timatherton.com )

[medform-norm]

Struan, oh wow, thank you for the link to Tettamanti! I'm completely happy for now. Where did you find this?

[Frank Petronio]

yes, this is the best thread in a while. Found a lot of good (and really fricking boring too) stuff to look at.

[Oren Grad]

Agree, this is great stuff. Tim, thanks for the reminder of your own site, just took a quick peek and will definitely go back to spend more time there...

[Struan Gray]

Norm: I lurk at www.galerie-photo.info where it was recommended a short while ago. I loved the Greenland shots most, but the aesthetic is strong thoughout.

The site recommendations at galerie-photo can often turn up hidden gems that don't make it out into the US-biased photo chat sites. There used to be a large thread with website recommendations (of all sorts) there, but I don't think it survived the move to a new server/database.

Do you know Bas Princen's work? Getting a long way from pure architecture, but he has a wonderful way of presenting the sheer daftness of modern urban recreation without sneering or coming over all ironic. Not much online, but his book "Artificial Arcadias" is well worth a read.

And that is where I think the avant garde is: looking at how people use urban spaces and environments, particularly in ways that their designers did not intend. Lars Tunbjörk, Thomas Demand, Paul Shambroom, Paul Raphaelson :-)

Pure depictions of structures are rare. Michael Wesely's year long exposures of things like the regeneration of Potsdamer Platz (http://www.wesely.org/potsdamerplatz.php) would be one counter example, but even that is as interested in time as it is in space.

[tim atherton]

Michael Wesely was one I was trying to find on Conscientious - the Potsdamer Platz works (and similar) are fascinating (you can look at slightly larger images once you've navigated to the page).

Again, I'd second Bas Prinzen - Articial Arcadias is a good book. A lot of this also seems to spill over into the contemporary landscape, with the likes of Jim Cooke

[tim atherton]

"Agree, this is great stuff. Tim, thanks for the reminder of your own site, just took a quick peek and will definitely go back to spend more time there..."

and for something completley different...

www.immersivelandscapes.com

[medform-norm]

Okay, I found another one through Tettemanti that I immediately fell for and who is safely wedged in my bookmarks:

http://www.bert-danckaert.be/

(his work is not only pleasant, but also funny in a way that is hard to explain if you don't 'get it' at first sight - so if you find this boring, you're missing something).

[tim atherton]

http://www.polarinertia.com/mar06/ephemeral01.htm

[tim atherton]

and the quote on Bert Danckaert's site reminded me of Lynne Cohen - I am drawn to (prefer seems to imply an innapropriate sense of pleasure...) her interiors more than Hofers

www.lynne-cohen.com

[medform-norm]

hey, we better watch it before this thread turns into a linkdump blog :)

[medform-norm]

http://www.polarinertia.com/mar06/ephemeral01.htm

What a coincidence! That's where I booked our next vacation - I think you can see our apartment on the 9th picture, second row from the left on the 12th floor











(sorry, just kidding, I can't even afford a holiday)

But thanks for another good link. I vaguely remember seeing that website before.

[Craig Wactor]

Yes! I am only halfway through all the links, and I have seen some terrific stuff. This is exactly the kind of discussion I was hoping for.

[medform-norm]

I'm on a roll! Let me add this one: http://www.frankvandersalm.nl and http://www.nicobick.dds.nl (for the urban experience)

[medform-norm]

And for the really adventurous amongst us:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kazil/

his is more a (non-professional) photo-illustrated log of his urban adventures, but nonetheless he gives an unexpected view on architectural construction you wouldn't have seen otherwise.

[Kirk Gittings]

I am always amazed by the diversity of personal taste. I find the Tettamanti work very derivative and uninspired.

[medform-norm]

Kirk,
perhaps Citret and Polidori are mutually exclusive with Tetttamenti and Dankaert?
And perhaps you could explain why you think 'derivative' and 'uninspired'. Derivative of what? Uninspired by what/whom? Withouth further ado, your opinion has no ground to stand on.

[Kirk Gittings]

My point was about the "diversity of tastes".

But if you want to know.....I looked at the work with some interest based on the reports here, but left mystified. I found the work overwhelmingly similar to allot of undergraduate architectural photography done by students at the beginning of seeking a personal vision (I have taught architectural photography for twenty years). I found it rather casual and common technically and aesthetically with roots in Baltz, Eggleston and Shore, but not nearly as interesting. Dankaert is only slightly more interesting to me.

Citret and Polidori have virtually nothing in common, apples and oranges. Polidori is at the cutting edge of very slick commercial architectural photography and though one of the best (a contemporary version of masters interpreters of the modern like Stoller, Korab, etc) his work ultimately bores me as does all commercial photography (even my own). Citret is the antithesis of slick commercial. His work is very contemplative and minimalist.

[medform-norm]

Kirk,
thank you for shedding some light on your earlier comments. I appreciate that. About diverging tastes we could have endless exchanges. I agree with you on Polidori: technically well executed, but too slick, too commercial, too artificial and in the end, utterly boring. But for me, for instance, Mark Citret doesn't rock my boat. I get the feeling he is more obsessed with finding 'interesting compositions' than with rendering an impression of what a certain space looks like to the natural eye. If I look at his work, I am left wondering about his motives for this or that motif. I don't have that problem with Tettiamenti's work, where I immediately grasp what he is trying to convey. I seem to recognize what he sees and the way he sees it. Although I may agree were someone to say there are plenty of other photogs doing the same kind of work, that fact alone doesn't make his work any less pleasurable to look at. It fills a certain visual craving in a way that Citrets work doesn't.
Perhaps (and this is a horse I like to beat) part of the taste differences may well be attributed to me being not only European but also a bit younger than you. Perhaps my taste is very 'thirtyish- fourtyish' and yours is what? fourtyish-fiftyish?

[Frank Petronio]

Don't be ageist! And don't mispell forty. You'll be there soon enough sonny...

[medform-norm]

I knew there was something fishy about the way I spelled that...duh...must have been a pre-Senior moment ;)

[Walt Calahan]

Here's a different Tettamanti I find very fun and full of life even though very commercial with no architectural photographs on his web site. Hey at least he's photographed architects!

http://www.francotettamanti.com/

The other Tettamanti mentioned here. Yep, boring. Plain snap-shot-ty. Isn't growing on me. But I have a hard time with dadaism which my 78 year-old dad loves. Go figure.

But then again I'm "fourty"-nine with perpetual senior moments. Grin!

I-yam what I-yam.

[Kirk Gittings]

It would be nice if I knew your name. Is it Norm? I hate forum psuedonames.

"Mark Citret doesn't rock my boat. I get the feeling he is more obsessed with finding 'interesting compositions' than with rendering an impression of what a certain space looks like to the natural eye."

True enough, he is not "illustrating space" in the traditional sense of the genre and that is why I find it refreshing. He is breaking with tradition. Some of his work is even commission "documentary" work, by very visionary clients. He avoids the obvious and never fails to illuminate the simple and mundane.

There may be something to the age thing at least in the sense of current styles and what I call "visual weariness". If you spend 35+ years as I have done immersed in photography, you weary of repeated motifs and can see repeated patterns in art that may escape younger artists. Some younger artists get by in their own generation with a rehashing of earlier work, because their audience is not well informed in the history of photography. This is how I see Tetttamenti and Dankaert. From the long view their work is neither new nor exceptionally well seen. There is always room for a rehashing old styles if the work is exceptionally well seen.

What wearies me most though (not the same as being burned out-I live for photography-much to my various wifes dismay), is in each generation there is an attempt at being clever, which more often than not is not a new vision, but a thinly veiled rehashing of some earlier work, but with less attention or even total disdain for craft. Somehow this lack of craft is supposed to substitute for real vision. Lack of craft is not vision. Sugimoto's work does not lack craft. It is carefully crafted even when it is completely out of focus.

Some comments from an old fart.

[Struan Gray]

I think that photography is a mature enough medium that almost anything can be labelled 'derivative' if you so desire. Sugimoto's modernist icon series is 'derivative' of Corbijn's out-of-focus celebrity portraits.

This thread alone is proof that there are plenty of photographers working in the pale, subdued, human-free style. But then, those who are wholly individual are by definition not part of the avant guarde, a phrase which in the context of Craig's question suggests to me a movement, not just a singular novelty. To me, this style, and the typical motivations and concerns of those who adopt it, are not just a fashion or a fad, but do represent a fresh way of looking at the world, albeit one that now is well established. Photographers like Tettamanti are applying a technique invented by others to particular sites and subjects that are unique to them. It is the combination of style and subject that appeals, not just the raw formal aspects.

There again, we may be divided by a commen language here. I see a lot of humour in many of these shots - wry, well-informed grown up humour, which is hard enough to export at the best of times.

The major problem though is that 'avant guarde architectural photography' is a bit like 'extreme ironing' or 'ultimate crown green bowls': a contradiction in terms. Something like www.blansky.co.uk is arguably more akin to traditional ideas about what an avant guarde is and does.

[Struan Gray]

OOF. Too much time on APUG. Make that www.banksy.co.uk.

[medform-norm]

Blansky may wish that he has his own website in the UK! You had me thinking there for a sec.

And thanks for putting me back on the Bansky track, I lost his bookmark during a spring cleaning, good to see his work again.

[medform-norm]

"There may be something to the age thing at least in the sense of current
styles and what I call "visual weariness". If you spend 35+ years as I
have done immersed in photography, you weary of repeated motifs and can
see repeated patterns in art that may escape younger artists. Some younger
artists get by in their own generation with a rehashing of earlier work,
because their audience is not well informed in the history of photography.
This is how I see Tetttamenti and Dankaert. From the long view their work
is neither new nor exceptionally well seen. There is always room for a
rehashing old styles if the work is exceptionally well seen."

Kirk,
I didn't mean to be ageist and there may be something to your point that after being immersed for 35+ years one develops a 'visual weariness'. But then, I've often heard from people immersed in life for over 65 years that after a while everything starts to repeat itself, not just motifs in photography. For me, 'new' is not always what I look for in a photographer's work. Perhaps the satisfaction I get from looking at Tettamenti's work can be put down to a certain lack of experience, in the same way that Dali's work tends to be liked by people who are only beginning to look at art. However, I can't jump over my own shadow to see if it is my 'naivity' which makes me like his work. What I do know is that I am not a complete novice in the visual arts nor in the history of photography. I mentioned my age to point to the possibillity that Tettamenti and Danckaert may cater to a certain age group (mine and Struan's) with a preference for this style of work. Perhaps this work somehow belongs to people of my generation more than to people of your generation. Which is quite allright. I already see a lot of work done by much younger artists (20-25 yo) that tells me of 'generation gap' between them and me, meaning these young people did not grow up in the same world/time segment as I did. Meaning also they relate to that work in quite a different manner than I do. I somehow miss the immediate attraction it has for them, the ease with which they understand it, but I also see different qualities than they do. Perhaps in the same way I don't see the immediate attraction in Citret's work, who is of a much older generation, for whom different things mattered, not only in photography but also in life. Like Walter, who said he didn't share his fathers interest in the dadaists.

Oh well, as I said, this is an endless topic to drivel on about, so I'd better stop here. Let's get back to the topic that made this thread so enjoyable: architectural photography!

BTW, call me Norm if you hate pseudonames.

[Kirk Gittings]

Norm, just for the record I do not consider myself any kind of critic or aesthetic revolutionary. I gave up trying to chase the whims of leading egde art culture after I finished my undergraduate work in 1972. Since then I have simply concentrated on what I love and try to do that well. But freeing oneself from from that does give you a more distanced and objective look at it because you are no longer invested in it.

"Citret's work, who is of a much older generation" Jeez....he's only a year older than I am......

[Walt Calahan]

Kirk, at least you're articulate about your views, whether you see yourself as a "critic or aesthetic revolutionary" is immaterial. Thanks for letting us read what you think. Cheers!

[Kirk Gittings]

Thank you Walter. One of the advantages of having a foot in commercial work and a foot in academia is that you tend to learn how to express yourself about art in an uncomplicated way.

[David R Munson]

Don't know if it's quite what you're looking for, but when I got the new Lenswork, the architectural images immediately made me think of one of my favorite volumes of architectural photography by Cervin Robinson, specifically Cleveland, Ohio. Definitely not avant-garde, but he does strike me as having a different sort of style from most. Fantastic B&W images. It is out of print and it was fairly hard to get a copy when I got mine about four years ago, but if you're near a university with a good library, they may have one on hand that you could take a look at.