Gregory Eddi Jones photographed New York’s Twin Towers in the summer of 2001. It was a tourist shot, taken on a trip to the city. A few months later, the towers were gone, but the American artist was left with his picture. ‘It had a very profound effect on me and my understanding of images,’ he reflects. His recent photo-collage series Flowers for Donald, is the artist’s way to respond to the 2016 election, exploring the idea of spectacle, specifically through aesthetics valued by Trump.
Now, Jones is one of 20 young photographers deemed to be outstanding by Foam Magazine, included in an exhibition at Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall, coinciding with the opening of Photo London and running until 16 June. As Jones suggests, this year’s show proves that photography now is more about the personal and political experience of spectating than ever. How do we experience imagery? What do photographs make us feel, and how do we interact with them? What kind of power can they have? It might all seem obvious in the Instagram age, but photographers working in very different environments are hyperaware of their context.
From the series Flowers for donald, 2017, by Gregory Eddi Jones.
Eric Gyamfi – who in March was announced as the winner of the 2019 Foam Paul Huf Award – was selected for his ‘Trojan horse-like approach’. Gyamfi has spent time with women accused of practicing witchcraft who have been forced away from their communities in his native Ghana, and queer communities lived on society’s peripheries in Accra. His most recent project, Fixing Shadows; Julius and I, on show in London, is concerned, like Jones, with the evanescent quality of images in the digital age, investigating, ‘what happens to the life of a photograph as it gets sited through time, through death’.
From death, to life. Despite the long stretch of artists who have contemplated both, there has been no significant art on the subject of how we come into the world. Writer and artist Carmen Winant’s groundbreaking My Birth project – comprising more than 1,000 found images of births in the US – presents us with that miracle over and over again. It’s the cyclical nature of life that connect us – and with wit and panache, British artist Maisie Cousins reminds us of this, by taking us on a journey towards our digestive organs.
Ants, 2017, by Maisie Cousins, from the series grass, peonie, bum.
Delcia, 2018, by Durimel, from the series Frères d’une île pas très proche.
Aziade, 2017, by Senta Simond, from the series Rayon Vert.
The element, 2018, by Valentine Bo, from the series Your next step would be to do the Transmission.
Water composition 5, 2017, Stelios Kallinikou, from the series Studies in Geology
Untitled, 2015-18, by Salvatore Vitale, from the series How to Secure a Country
Collage, 2016, by Carment Winant, from the series Pictures of Woman Working
INFORMATION
‘Foam Talent’ is on view from 16 May – 16 June. For more information, visit the Foam website
ADDRESS
Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall
22 Newport Street
London SE11 6AY
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‘Humour is foundational’: artist Ella Kruglyanskaya on painting as a ‘highly questionable’ pursuitElla Kruglyanskaya’s exhibition, ‘Shadows’ at Thomas Dane Gallery, is the first in a series of three this year, with openings in Basel and New York to follow
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Australian bathhouse ‘About Time’ bridges softness and brutalism‘About Time’, an Australian bathhouse designed by Goss Studio, balances brutalist architecture and the softness of natural patina in a Japanese-inspired wellness hub
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Marylebone restaurant Nina turns up the volume on Italian diningAt Nina, don’t expect a view of the Amalfi Coast. Do expect pasta, leopard print and industrial chic
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‘Humour is foundational’: artist Ella Kruglyanskaya on painting as a ‘highly questionable’ pursuit
Ella Kruglyanskaya’s exhibition, ‘Shadows’ at Thomas Dane Gallery, is the first in a series of three this year, with openings in Basel and New York to follow
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The art of the textile label: how British mill-made cloth sold itself to Indian buyersAn exhibition of Indo-British textile labels at the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP) in Bengaluru is a journey through colonial desire and the design of mass persuasion
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Artist Qualeasha Wood explores the digital glitch to weave stories of the Black female experienceIn ‘Malware’, her new London exhibition at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, the American artist’s tapestries, tuftings and videos delve into the world of internet malfunction
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Ed Atkins confronts death at Tate BritainIn his new London exhibition, the artist prods at the limits of existence through digital and physical works, including a film starring Toby Jones
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Tom Wesselmann’s 'Up Close' and the anatomy of desireIn a new exhibition currently on show at Almine Rech in London, Tom Wesselmann challenges the limits of figurative painting
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A major Frida Kahlo exhibition is coming to the Tate Modern next yearTate’s 2026 programme includes 'Frida: The Making of an Icon', which will trace the professional and personal life of countercultural figurehead Frida Kahlo
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A portrait of the artist: Sotheby’s puts Grayson Perry in the spotlightFor more than a decade, photographer Richard Ansett has made Grayson Perry his muse. Now Sotheby’s is staging a selling exhibition of their work
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From counter-culture to Northern Soul, these photos chart an intimate history of working-class Britain‘After the End of History: British Working Class Photography 1989 – 2024’ is at Edinburgh gallery Stills
