Sabine Weiss曾是《VOGUE》雜誌攝影師，也為許多文化界大人物拍攝肖像，包括作曲家Igor Stravinsky、美國作家F. Scott Fitzgerald、瑞士雕刻家Alberto Giacometti、法國女星Jeanne Moreau、Brigitte Bardot及Coco Chanel等。在攝影工作以外，她喜歡在閒暇時漫遊巴黎街頭，隨性捕捉一般人的生活點滴，令人感受生活的樂趣。著名攝影師Edward Steichen十分欣賞她的照片，當他1955年在紐約現代藝術博物館MoMA策劃上世紀最重要的展覽之一《The Family of Man》時，便展出三張Sabine Weiss的作品。
Swiss-French photographer Sabine Weiss passed away recently at 97. She bought a bakelite camera in 1932 and has been photographing for over 80 years. In 1945, she opened a studio in Geneva and began to shoot portraits and advertisements. After moving to Paris the following year, she worked as fashion photographer Willy Maywald’s assistant. During this time, she honed her photography skills.
Sabine Weiss — La Petite Egyptienne 1983
Sabine worked for “VOGUE” magazine for 9 years and took portraits of many cultural icons, including American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, French actress Brigitte Bardot. She loved to roam on Paris streets in her spare time, capturing ordinary people’s lives. Photographer Edward Steichen admired her photos and included three of Sabine’s images when he curated the essential exhibitions, “The Family of Man,” at the MoMA in 1955.
In 1952, she met the famous photographer Robert Doisneau and joined the Rapho Agency, representing “Humanist Photography” with Willy Ronis and Brassai. She captured Paris in the 1950s and 1960s with her brilliant black and white images. Sabine once said, “I take photographs to hold on to the ephemeral, capture something that will disappear: gestures, attitudes, objects that are reminders of our brief lives.”
史國瑞是中國著名針孔攝影家，剛開幕的M+博物館，藏有七件他的作品，可惜並沒收藏他拍攝西九龍及維港的作品《To See Hong Kong Island From Kowloon 15-16 July 2016》，這幅暗箱攝影（Camera Obscura）作品最近在10號贊善里畫廊舉辦的二十週年聯展中展出。
Shi Guorui is a well-known Chinese pinhole photographer. One of his works, “To See Hong Kong Island From Kowloon 15-16 July 2016,” was exhibited at 10 Chancery Lane Gallery’s 20th Anniversary Exhibition recently.
In 1990, Shi majored in Photography at Nanjing Normal University and systematically studied the various genres of photography. Although pinhole photography lacks sharpness, the unique visual effects deeply attracted him. Starting in 1998, he focused on creating pinhole photography. He even built a camera obscura a few meters in size for shooting, exposing the image directly to the photographic paper.
Pinhole Photography has given him a better understanding of the artwork and brings him peace of mind during the long exposure process. His largest work is eight meters long, which is undoubtedly a big challenge for constructing the camera obscura and the image processing.
For more than 20 years, Shi has worked on the Great Wall, Mount Everest, Yangtze River, and Times Square. Since 2013, he has conducted site visits in Hong Kong and created artworks at Tai Kwun, Happy Valley, and Victoria Harbour in the next few years. In this photo taken in West Kowloon, he transformed the Deutsche Bank meeting room of the International Commerce Centre into a colossal Camera Obscura to capture the Victoria Harbour.
約十五年後，她創作出另一件作品《15槍……從1989到2003》(15 Shots…From 1989 to 2003)。當時，畫家李松松(正是他當年為肖魯提供手槍)為她拍攝手握54式手槍的黑白數碼照片，照片裝裱後運至北京某靶場，肖魯用77式手槍先後向十五張照片開槍，子彈穿透玻璃及照片，在照片中她的額頭、臉龐及眼睛等位置留下槍眼痕跡，宣洩在《對話》作品後隱藏多年的壓力及情緒，藉此也告別他與唐宋近十五年的感情。
On February 5, 1989, artist Xiao Lu fired two shots towards her phone booth installation artwork “Dialogue” at the “China/Avant-Garde Exhibition” held at the National Art Museum of China, which became a crucial moment in Chinese contemporary art history. After the gunshots, she and Tang Song, another artist who helped set up the artwork, were imprisoned for three days, and they became lovers for more than a decade after that.
About fifteen years later, Xiao Lu created another artwork, “15 Shots…From 1989 to 2003.” Painter Li Songsong (who provided Xiao Lu with the gun back then) took a black and white digital photo of Xiao Lu holding a 54-type pistol. The image was mounted and transported to a shooting range in Beijing. Xiao Lu shot each photo with a 77-type pistol bullet. The 15 bullets penetrated the glass and pictures, leaving gun marks on her forehead, face, and eyes in the images. The artwork released her pressure and emotions hidden for many years after the “Dialogue” and bid farewell to her years of relation with Tang Song.
Xiao Lu describes the artwork on her website as below.
Love, The sky Knows. Hate, The earth Knows, Without love; Without hate, The devil knows.
I am no good at theoretical explanation and even worse at talking about art. All I know is real life. As a work, it’s from, for me, is just an internal necessity. It can be a painting or a poem. Perhaps it requires a gun. All of this is decided by your own psychological tendencies, your disposition. This is not anything that can be explained by the word “art,” but rather a survival instinct, your very lift.
Pedder Street, The Bund, Hong Kong. Photograph by John Thomson, 1868/1871. Photo credit- Wellcome Collection
John Thomson用十年時間在亞洲各地遊歷拍攝，照相機一直陪伴他的旅行，記錄沿途的所見所聞。 1872年回到英國後，他用大量時間整理照片，並出版五套關於中國的著作，包括《中國和中國人照片集》（Illustrations Of China And Its People）、《鏡頭前的舊中國》（Through China With A Camera）等。他是第一位在西方出版圖書介紹中國的攝影師，其著作大大擴闊西方人對中國的認識，也使他名留青史。
The Bund, Hong Kong. Photograph by John Thomson, 1868/1871. Photo credit- Wellcome Collection
Scottish explorer John Thomson (1837-1921) was one of the first western photographers to photograph Hong Kong. He came to Hong Kong and opened a photo studio on Queen’s Road in 1866. In addition to taking portraits of people with wet plate photography(wet-collodion process), Thomson also likes to document the streets of Hong Kong in his spare time, such as the clock tower in Pedder Street, Government House, Sedan chair, and Lion Rock, leaving precious visual records for Hong Kong in the 19th century, which may be regarded as the earliest street photography.
廖家明在2017年開始拍攝同志議題，第一個作品是在九龍公園拍攝的同志社群秘密基地，第二個是為於交友程式上認識的人拍攝的肖像，而這次所展覽的是在前兩個的基礎上，進一步探討科技的發展如何影響同志在交友程式上的自我形象。過往他曾將人工智能生成的照片做成類似「Yes! Card」效果的作品，這次因應賽馬會創意藝術中心七樓綠色空間的半露天空間，把影像打印在巨幅油畫布及透明布料上，當中有些圖像明顯是電腦效果，有些則幾可亂真。望天的空間懸掛著科技構成的肉身，「larger than life」地呈現出「完美肉體」這主題。
在研究動物園源起的過程中，袁雅芝得知法國凡爾賽皇宮有一個八角形的動物園，中間有個瞭望台，人們可以在中間360度觀看四周圈養的動物。「在原始時代人類與動物同樣處於大自然生活，隨著人類文明越來越發達，慢慢與動物劃分成從屬關係。動物園的出現限制了動物的自由，將動物關起來作展示或觀賞，也是國家權力彰顯的象徵。」法國哲學家傅柯（Michel Foucalt, 1926-1984）在其著作《規訓與懲罰：監獄的誕生》（Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison，1975）中，將英國功利主義哲學家邊沁（Jeremy Bentham，1748-1832）提出的環形監獄（也稱全景監獄「Panopticon」）概念與動物園聯繫起來，因為它們都有禁錮與監視的功能。
2016年，他帶著疑問，踏足中國西部的十個省份，前後用一年時間在廣西、雲南、四川、青海、甘肅、新疆等地拍攝第一部曲《In search of Nirvana》，試圖尋找一個答案，然而卻令他感到迷失。在中國無法覓見「極樂世界」，他轉而前往英國尋找所謂的天堂，繼而創造出第二部曲《夢迴 Another day in Paradise》，這也是最近在土瓜灣1a space新空間的展覽。
香港人對英國的印象，往往是大笨鐘、雙層巴士、高帽御林軍或紅色電話亭，李展翹的照片卻呈現截然不同的一面，是冷清的景觀及當地人的家園。「很多香港人對英國一知半解，我們不是很認識又未至於完全陌生，而這種模糊的狀態，某程度上就是我們的身分。」在當地拍攝的過程，經常有人好奇問他「where are you originally from?」，這也令他深刻意識到，即使你有英國護照，在當地人眼中仍是外國人。「拍攝完第二部曲後，我很肯定自己不是英國人，同時為香港人的身分感到自豪。」
經歷過2019年的社會事件後，他更加強烈地想留在香港，嘗試梳理創傷性的記憶如何重塑我們的身分，作為第三部曲的內容。近年很多港人移民到英國，他覺得傷感之餘，同時也質疑離開是否能解決所有問題，移民可能並非想像中那麼理想化。作品名稱《夢迴 Another day in Paradise》別有意味，他將照片印製在鋁板上，觀看時畫面有些許反光，似乎也反射出不少人心中對英國的fantasy。
《夢迴 Another day in Paradise》 日期：即日至11月14日 時間：11am-7pm（週二至日） 地址：土瓜灣道122號地下1a space｜
張諾文——《Megalopolis Nebula: Post 2019 – Hong Kong》
移民或留低、悲觀或希望，表面上是一道選擇題，其實也是觀點與角度的問題。當你身處最黑暗的環境，才能看見最亮的星星，這也是看完張諾文（Ike）展覽《Megalopolis Nebula Post 2019 – Hong Kong》後最直接的感受。
展區與展區之間的角落寫有狄更斯《雙城記》的名句「We had EVERYTHING before us, We had NOTHING before us.」，前路是光明還是黑暗，每個人都有不同解讀。當你身處一片光明時，是無法看見星光的；只有置身最黑暗的環境，才能見到滿天星星，一切視乎你站在甚麼角度去思考。張諾文雖然沒有直接道出感受，但那片夢幻的「星雲」，是令人感到樂觀及有希望的。
