Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni, from the series Güle Güle, 2019

The Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie to open on February 28

The Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie, one of Germany's largest curated photo festivals, is scheduled to open its doors on Feb. 28, 2020. It has gained a well-respected international reputation with its twice-a-year exhibitions that are presented in three different cities at the same time: Mannheim, Ludwigshafen and Heidelberg.

This year, the exhibitions will be curated by David Campany (b. 1967, London), a celebrated writer, curator, artist and lecturer in photography. He often writes for MoMA New York, the Tate, the Centre Pompidou and others. Besides the 70 distinct photographers presented in the six exhibitions under the Biennale's umbrella, there will be an extensive educational program that "promotes a lively exchange about photography". The festival will run from February 29 to April 26, 2020.

Gordon Parks' historic The Atmosphere of Crime Will be Shown in May by MoMa

The MoMA in New York is scheduled to exhibit the exclusive Atmosphere of Crime series that it has just been acquired from the Gordon Parks Foundation. The 15 piece series will go on view in May of this year, and will be accompanied by an excerpt from his classic 1971 film Shaft, as well as a vintage gelatin silver print that was given by the foundation to match another piece already given by the photographer in 1993.

The Atmosphere of Crime was a part of a photo assignment Parks created for Life Magazine in 1957 concerning crime in the United States. This task took him on to the streets of New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, where he used his camera to portray people involved in the criminal justice system in a different light. With his photographs, Parks challenged the typical images of the incarcerated, drawing parallels between social and economical injustices and further crime involvement.

Gordon Parks, Drug Search, Chicago, Illinois (1957, printed 2019) The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Family of Man Fund. © The Gordon Parks Foundation

South African photographer Santu Mofokeng dead at 63

Santu Mofokeng, one of the most prominent South African photographers shedding light unto life during the apartheid, has recently passed away. For the last decade, the revolutionary has been using a wheelchair and was not able to speak due to progressive-supranuclear palsy.

Mofokeng's peak was from 1980s to the end of the 90s, when he began photographing street protests and instanced of police violence, primarily focusing on the injustices committed against the black community during and after the fall of the apartheid. Mofokeng was born near Johannesburg, Soweto, and was mentored by David Goldblatt. His photographs captured the feeling of alienation and somberness, portraying the everyday life of black people South Africa in black and white. Besides working in his home town, Mofokeng also ventured to other places to portray the labor-class members of the Black communities, like in his On the Tracks project on New York City subway workers in 1994.

Santu Mofokeng, Eyes-Wide-Shut, Motouleng Cave, Clarens, 2004. © Image of Courtesy of the artist

Edward Steichen’s flower study leads at the Swann Auction Galleries

Swan Auction house has been operating for the last 70 years, specializing in everything from rare books and photography to African-American Fine Art, performing around 40 large sales a year. As a part of their Classic & Contemporary Photographs: Winter-Spring 2020, the lead highlight of the auction will be a $75,000 flower study by Edward Steichen.

Steichen's White Lotus (1939, printed 1940) will be just one of many distinguished works presented at the auction, along with Margaret Bourke-White's The George Washington Bridge (1933).