INSTITUTE for Artist Management

Rena Effendi's Pipe Dreams show until April 11th

Rena is in Moscow for her show and is signing her beautiful book "Pipe Dreams" at the gallery tonight (March 12th).

Lauren Greenfield's photographs of Alexander Mcqueen's "streamed" fashion show published in Newsweek International

Zed Nelson photographs Albert Popkov for SNOB Magazine

FEATURE: REAL BEAUTY by Jodi Bieber

This project is an extension of a Dove billboard advertising campaign in London showing ordinary women in their underwear advocating and speaking up for Real Beauty.  A BBC radio documentary spoke about an increase in the cases of black anorexic women in South Africa, as the full figured body, which was once more favorable, is no longer as desirable as Western body shapes.

Jodi felt a strong need to create a body of work that goes against what the media has depicted as beautiful. Even within a complex society such as South Africa, across all communities, women hold the unnecessary perceptions of self-doubt around themselves and their beauty from an early age. The world deals with reality and no photoshop has been used to remove blemishes, scars, cellulite, and any other form of imperfection.  The photographic shoot was a collaboration between Jodi and each woman, whom she photographer at their homes.  The setting within their surroundings was Bieber's choice but each woman’s pose was pretty much self-directed. Bieber wanted each woman to project her personality or her fantasy into her shoot. The shoot created a space for each woman to explore her own identity in relation to beauty.

Bieber discovered that most women believe that there is no real perfect body shape and it is more about being healthy and feeling comfortable in ones own skin. The general trend was more accepting of thinner and curvaceous women and less accepting of the ultra thin models we see in the media. It is said that the lighter your skin, the more beautiful you are. The common ground for Jodi’s work is the women she photographed wanted to make a stand for Real Beauty.

Jehad Nga on assignment in Mogadishu

 Mogadishu, Somalia March 2010, TFG soldiers march in formation at a base in downtown Mogadishu. The TFG are saying that they are in the final stages of building their military force to such a degree that they could launch a major offensive to push radical Islamic fighters out of Mogadishu once and for all. Backed by Ugandan Military which are also in the process of building up their number of soldiers on the grounds, the TFG are saying that the launch ins imminent and they are ready. Large numbers of Somalia soldiers have been trained in Sudan for the purpose of preparing for a large-scale attack and to further hold the city should the operation be a success.  Click the image to see Jehad's work from front lines.

Lauren Greenfield's "kids + money" to screen in Cinema du Reel at Centre Pompidou, Paris (18-30th, March 2010)

NEW FEATURE: DATA CENTERS OVERLOAD by Simon Norfolk

Why do we choose to approach the most cutting-edge computer technologies of our brave new world using the language and concepts of cavemen? We talk of loading data 'up' to somewhere – but where do we mean? (Heaven, perhaps?) We transfer data via ethernet cables as if data were 'ethereal.' Developers of tomorrow's computers talk excitedly about a concept called 'cloud' computing. These all seem oddly primitive terms for such an advanced, industrial society. We don't marvel at a Toyota factory and think the outputted cars are the result of magical processes, but when we conceptualise the internet we turn all spiritual and nebulous. I can trace my emails out of my computer as far as a box in the hall near the phone; after that I have no idea where they go, what they do out there or how they come back again. We don't know how or where the web does what it does; but what it does, is childishly wonderful. 

Increasingly our family photos, conversations with friends, the games we play, the videos and music we stream, the applications we use, the way we buy and sell, the societies we are members of; all exist up there - and only up there - on the net. But where is 'there'? 

Norfolk was given a chance to meet the cloud; as it was put to him, 'would you like to go and visit your Hotmails?' This is possible because all the data we produce does not exist nowhere, rather it exists as  memory in row after countless row of computer servers in massive data farms run by the web's biggest players. Norfolk was given access to places like the immense (and immensely secretive) Microsoft facility in Quincy, in rural Washington state. What had been a potato field is now a colossal, half-million square foot, architecturally bland factory. It looks like an agricultural packing plant, except it has the security of a military base or a prison. Nothing outside reveals its inner workings as one of the most important parts of the internet. Inside are hundreds of thousands of computer chips in black cabinets in huge, chilled rooms the size of soccer pitches.

It was surprising for Norfolk to discover that the infrastructure of the Internet Age is as imposing, ugly and 'real' as the cotton mills, mines and factories of Victorian Manchester. Like pulling back the curtain to find that the Wizard of Oz is actually a little old man, the 'cloud' is no more than giant buildings full of computers, air-conditioning units and diesel backup generators; there’s nothing white or fluffy or vaporous about it. It is odd that because we lack the imaginative equipment to talk about the internet, we have persuaded ourselves that 'virtual' is the same as 'non-existent'; that 'invisible' is the same as 'heavenly.' What is it in us that is that, when faced with the unknown, always defaults to the magical?

Zed Nelson: Group Exhibition at Australian Centre for Photography

The Exhibition preview is 6-8pm on Thursday March 11th and LOVE ME opens to the public on March 12.  The show ends on the 24th of April 2010.

Australian Centre for Photography is at 257 Oxford Street, Paddington NSW 2021.

Click the image for further details regarding the event.

Love Me is a collection of images documenting how far people will go for the quest for physical perfection. Negotiating the boundaries of art and documentary photography, this series reflects a world we have created where enormous social, psychological and economic rewards and penalties are attached to the way we look.

Zed Nelson’s subjects are school girls; body builders; Iranian’s queuing for nose jobs; New Yorkers having foot surgery to fit into Jimmy Choo shoes; and South American women undergoing surgery to bring themselves eerily close to Barbie dolls.

INSTITUTE artist Zed Nelson has produced a powerful body of work that forces each and every one of us to question our own place in a culture that compels us to constantly judge, and be judged, by our own appearance.

Lauren Greenfield shoots Longhorns at Rose Bowl for Texas Monthly Magazine

 

Polka Magazine issue 8 launch. Cover story by Jodi Bieber