Virginia Heckert has been a curator of photographs at the J.
Previously holding curatorial roles at the Australian National Portrait Gallery, London College of Fashion and the Australian War Memorial her expertise spans nineteenth century to contemporary and she is particularly interested in women’s practice. She is currently working on a major representation of the NPG’s historic collection for the Inspiring People redevelopment project. Recent publications include: 100 Fashion Icons (National Portrait Gallery, London, 2019) and contributions to publications including Cindy Sherman (National Portrait Gallery, London, 2019), Know my Name (National Gallery of Australia, 2020), and A World History of Women Photographers (Editions Textuel, 2020). She has written widely for exhibition catalogues, books and magazines notably around fashion photography and contemporary practice. At the NPG Keaney has curated the 20 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibitions, Ethan James Green: Couples and Inspiring People: Collecting for the future. Her work encompasses acquisitions, commissions, displays and exhibition development. Magdalene Keaney is Senior Curator, Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, London, where she is responsible for the care and development of one of the world’s largest and most significant collections. Jim Casper, on behalf of the jury and the whole team at LensCulture We hope you will take the time to savor each of these to find some personal connections and inspiration. In all of these wonderful examples, a profound sense of humanity comes through. These winners and finalists hail from 19 countries on five continents, and depict people coming from diverse sets of circumstance. Some are formal, staged photos, while others have been captured in wonderfully fresh candid moments. Other portraits are conceptual, trying to deliver social messages about groups of people or cultures while depicting specific individuals. Here you will discover several variations on self-portraiture (indeed, all three of the top winners in the singles category this year are self-portraits made by female photographers). At times the discussions were quite passionate, and with this final selection, we believe these photographers all capture and convey something true about their subjects. The members of the international jury met for multiple hours (via video) to discuss these photographers and many others. The 38 winners, jurors’ picks and finalists presented here represent a wonderful range of styles and approaches to the art of portrait photography. The best portraits are touched by nuance, mixtures of feelings and emotions, subtle signals of communication, and connections that can be felt indirectly from the subject via the camera and photographer through to us, the viewers.Īnd because photography is such a generous medium (as Lee Friedlander once famously put it) every aspect of a great portrait contributes to its success - the level of intimacy, the direct or indirect gaze, the environment and surroundings, the light (of course), the level of honesty and trust, and the degree to which a psychological mask is in place, or dropped, to reveal something true and real. Portraiture is a powerful medium, and, despite its universal popularity, it is still perhaps the most elusive genre in photography.
0 kommentar(er)
