#27: Offline Journal Newsletter : November 2021
Autumnal Distractions
With October and its three photography festivals been and gone in Wales, here are a few tasty morsels to help satisfy your appetite for photography…
Copies of Offline Journal #007 still available
Published in early October, a limited number of copies of issue #007 of Offline Journal are still available. Copies are dispatched within 48 hours and anyone opting for a 2-issue Subscription will receive the latest issue along with a copy of the Pete Davis FOLIO exhibition poster that accompanies his ‘The Expressive Land’ exhibition which opened in Ffotogaleri y Gofeb in Machynlleth.
Single copies of issue #007 or 2-issue Subscriptions to Offline Journal are still available via www.offline.wales
National Museum Cardiff: ‘David Hurn: SWAPS’
Originally shown in Spring 2017 as part of the Photo London festival, prints in this exhibition now join the others donated to Museum Wales by David Hurn as part of his substantial ‘Swaps’ collection.
As mentioned in the article in issue #007 of Offline Journal, the design of this exhibition offers the viewer some insight to not just Hurn’s taste in work by his fellow Magnum Photos colleagues, but also their taste in his work through swapped photographic prints, illustrated in this show through Swap ‘groupings’.
Like the first Swaps exhibition in Wales in late 2017, this new show at Museum Cardiff doesn’t disappoint. The work on show really is world-class, with prints by Josef Koudelka, Alex Webb, Olivia Arthur, Sergio Larrain, Eve Arnold and Elliott Erwitt to name just a few. Given that Hurn gave the Museum over seven hundred swapped prints, it will be interesting to observe how Museum Wales might curate future exhibitions with as-yet unseen prints in the collection.
I made a point of going along to the exhibition on Saturday 23 October - its first day open to the public, partly because I was interested to see how many people might attend but mainly as a 11am rendezvous point to meet a couple of photographers before we headed across to Bristol for the excellent BOP 21 photobook event that lunchtime. The gallery was getting busy when we left just before midday - so hopefully that bodes well for Museum Cardiff for the exhibition’s run through now until 27 March 2022.
I highly recommend going to see it.
One cluster of print Swaps in the exhibition (above) was of particular interest to me as it featured an image by American photographer Matt Black. The photograph of four rows of birds perched on overhead cables against a grainy and almost boiling, cloudy sky features in Black’s recently published AMERICAN GEOGRAPHY book which I’d taken delivery of just a few days before. Featuring work made over the last five years, Black continues to document the raw poverty in, around and beyond his home area of California’s Central Valley with a high migrant worker population.
Well worth buying - it’s one of those books that inspires and makes you want to go out with a camera to pay closer attention in your own locality!
Ffoto Newport Gallery launch
Newport gains its first photography gallery this month with the opening of Ffoto Newport - a grassroots effort by local photographer Ieuan Berry, with support from Ron McCormick and others in the Newport photography scene.
Located in the Market Arcade just off High Street, and close to the old Newport Market, the new gallery aims to establish itself as a destination for photographers and visitors to see photography in the city.As stated on the gallery’s Facebook page:
“Newport has had a long association with photography going back over 100 years with an international reputation for its School of Documentary Photography established in the 1970's by the well-known Magnum photographer, David Hurn. Opening soon, Ffoto Newport aims to showcase the work of photographers associated with Newport and Wales as a whole”.
To celebrate the launch of Ffoto Newport, the team are presenting Ron McCormick’s humorous depictions of the Carrot and the Fly from his project and book titled…wait for it…Carrot Fly. Occasionally described as “carrotica” this exhibition is sure to surprise and amuse the viewer in equal measures.
All are welcome for the Ffoto Newport Gallery opening and exhibition preview:
5 - 8pm on Friday 26 November 2021.
Ffoto Newport - Market Arcade, Market Street, Newport NP20 1FS
Follow Ffoto Newport adventures on Facebook
Photo Book Sale - Newport
Newport photographer John Crerar will be offering a selection of rare and out of print photobooks from a wide range of British, American and European photographers as part of the Art on the Hill activities in venues across the city. The Photo Book Sale will be held in the Cwtch Community & Arts Centre
12 - 5pm on Sunday 28 November 2021
‘What Comes Next?’ Film Screening
Later the same evening in the same venue, John Crerar will be screening his short film What Comes Next? which was shown as part of Diffusion Festival in October and features rare documentary film footage shot in Wales prior to and during the Festival of Britain in 1951.
Cwtch - 226 Stow Hill, Newport, NP20 4HA
Listings of Art on the Hill events held at Cwtsh on their website
‘‘ABYSM’ by Gareth Phillips
Following his ‘I’m afraid of violence, but I’ve often submitted to it’ photobook installation exhibit as part of the recent Diffusion Festival in Cardiff, photographer Gareth Phillips will be exhibiting three editions of the same work in photo book dummy form but in very different iterations, demonstrating his continuous re-working of narrative.
Organised by the ESPY Photo Awards, the work will be shown in the Elysium Gallery in the centre of Swansea.
There’s a Private View next weekend: Friday 26 November 2021, 5 pm - late, followed by drinks at Elysium Gallery & Art Bar.
The exhibition runs 26 November - 4 December 2021.
Elysium Gallery is open Wednesday - Saturday, 12pm -4 pm
and is located in College Street Gallery, 16 College Street, Swansea, SA1 5AE.
You can find full information on the exhibition over on the ESPY Photo Award website