peter fraser

EXIT #31 analyses the way in which photography has represented machines throughout the 20th century.

Rosa Olivares, director and editor of EXIT, reflects in her editorial Sensitive Machines, on the cinematographic iconography of the robot and on how the machine not only symbolises man’s fears, but also his desire for perfection. Francisco Javier San Martín, lecturer of History and Theory of Art at the Universidad del País Vasco, traces the history of the way in which the avant-garde appropriated the machine as a metaphor for modernity in his article The Machine and its Shadow. Miles Orvell, Professor of English Literature at Temple University and renowned expert on the history of photography, examines the present day photographic representation of machines. This issue concludes with an essay by Elio Grazioli, Professor of History and Theory of Photography at the Università di Bergamo, which takes Andy Warhol’s famous statement “I want to be a machine” as a starting point from which to investigate the relationship contemporary photographers have with the photographic machine and the concept of automation which can be associated with it.

This issue also includes an extensive interview by Louise Neri, current director of Gagosian Gallery and previously editor of Parkett, with Hiroshi Sugimoto on his Conceptual Forms series, dedicated to teaching models of mathematical formulae and models which recreate complex mechanisms, a series which Thomas Kellein, director of the Bielefeld Kunsthalle, also writes about. Portfolio sections are dedicated to the work of Peter Fraser and Stéphane Couturier and include texts written by the artists themselves. Add to this more than thirty photographers who have dealt with the theme of the magazine from very different points of view.

As always, the Index section can be found in the last pages, where the basic biographical references for all the artists included in this issue of EXIT can be found.

Texts: Elio Grazioli, Thomas Kellein, Miles Orvell and Francisco Javier San Martín.
Interview: Hiroshi Sugimoto, by Louise Neri.
Portfolios: Peter Fraser and Stéphane Couturier.
Artists: Dieter Appelt, Rob Ball, Lewis Baltz, Olivo Barbieri, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Valérie Belin, Margaret Bourke-White, Maurice Broomfield, Edward Burtynsky, Charlie Chaplin, Antonio Júlio Duarte, Alain Fleischer, Lee Friedlander, Moreno Gentili, Ulrich Görlich, Lewis Hine, Peter Keetman, Germaine Krull, Fernand Léger, Man Ray, Étienne-Jules Marey, L. Mercier, Ugo Mulas, Simon Norfolk, Aleydis Rispa, Thomas Ruff, Charles Sheeler, Lukasz Skapski, Michael Snow, Paul Strand, Juan Travnik, UMBO, Franco Vaccari, and Andy Warhol.

EXIT
Quarterly Magazine on Image and Culture
#31 MACHINES
(August, September, October – 2008)
Price: 20 euros, Editor: Rosa Olivares & Asociados S.L., 200 pages / 132 reproductions in colour and black-and-white, Bilingual edition: texts in English and Spanish

Troubled Waters
12 Still Lifes From The Siemens Photography Collection

artists: Claude-Philippe Benoit, Laurenz Berges , Thomas Demand, William Eggleston, Peter Fraser, Dan Graham, Sigmar Polke, Jorg Sasse , Michael Schmidt, Thomas Struth, Lidwien van de Ven , Bernard Voita

texts by Martin Roth, Reinhold Baumstark, Michael Roßnagl, Ulrich Bischoff

Troubled Waters is the title of a 12-part photo series of works taken from the Siemens Photography Collection.

This book presents the genre of ‘still life’ as seen from the perspective of a number of contemporary artists such as Thomas Demand, Dan Graham, and Sigmar Polke amongst others. These are images depicting everyday places, spaces and situations in a subjective way, focusing on the theme of the photographic view itself and its relation to reality.

Through the work of these artists, the historical genre of still life is newly interpreted, when photography as a medium reveals innovative and unusual ‘pictures’ through the lens.

English and German text.

Walther Koenig, £34.00, ISBN 9783865605214, hardback 136 pages, illustrated in colour and b&w , 315 x 240 mm

available to buy online from Cornerhouse

This large-format monograph (14″x14″) from Nazraeli Press features 42 colour plates and an essay by Gerry Badger.

Badger gives a brief overview of Fraser’s career and shows how these recent photographs form a natural progression from earlier work. He says:

In Peter Fraser, Fraser continues his exploration of the overlooked object. The objects that have attracted his attention here are a disparate lot. They range – to pick a few at random – from two pine cones, a shard of blue glass stuck in mud, a paper aeroplane, to a drinking glass stuck behind a metal table leg. Fraser seems to be testing Hazlitt’s famous contention that ‘all things by their nature are equally fit subjects for poetry

If one looks at Fraser’s inventory of things, one finds that some are natural, some man-made. Some are cheap and mass produced, others are lovingly man-made. Some are in use, some have been discarded. Some are new, some are old. Some have form, some are formless. In short, one could take each object and assign a Platonic value. Here is formless chaos, there a thing of value and so on. But Fraser is not looking to assign value, quite the opposite. Here, he is closer to the philosophy of Heraclitus, most widely known for his doctrine that ‘all flows’ (panta chorei). All things are in flux, and the formless will become form, and vice versa. Fraser rather, is seeking to challenge the notion of hierarchies, and look – in a metaphorical sense – for the underlying forces that bind all materials together.

‘Peter Fraser’, Nazraeli Press, USA, 2006; 64pp, 43 colour plates. ISBN 1590051440. Price: £40.

Peter Fraser features in Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography, a global, up-to-the-minute survey of the newest developments in contemporary photography published by Phaidon Press.

It features the work of 121 artists and photographers who have made a fresh and innovative contribution to international art photography in the last five years. The nominators are influential critics, curators and artists from around the world. The A-Z survey showcases over 500 illustrations depicting the incredible richness and variety of the medium.

Grant Watson provides the text for Peter Fraser’s entry.

Vitamin Ph follows previous Phaidon publications ‘Vitamin P: New Perspectives in Painting’ and ‘Vitamin D: New Perspectives in Drawing’.

‘Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography’, Phaidon Press, 2006. ISBN: 0714846562. 352pp. Price: £39.95

In early 2006 The Arts Council of England awarded Peter Fraser a major funding grant, to go towards the start of a new series of photographs and travels to meet curators in Japan, America, Germany, Spain, Austria, Holland and Switzerland.