Paris Photo - Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards

The 2018 Paris Photo Fair has come and gone this weekend and in partnership with the Aperture Foundation the PhotoBook award winners have been announced. For the past 6 years, the annual Paris Photo Fair has celebrated the PhotoBooks contribution to the narrative of photography. Out of over 1000 submissions, this years winners are:

• PhotoBook of the Year: On Abortion by Laia Abril

• First PhotoBook: One Wall a Web by Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa

• Photography Catalogue of the Year: The Land in Between by Ursula Schulz-Dornburg

• Juror's Special Mention: Experimental Relationship Vol. 1 by Pixy Liao

Deutsche Börse Photography Shortlist Announced

The highly regarded Deutsche Börse photography prize shortlist has been announced. The shortlist considers different approaches such as documentary, archival appropriation and conceptualism. The Deutsche Börse prize works to acknowledge photographers who “uniquely address and expand the fluency and capabilities of the medium.”

This years shortlist includes: Susan Meisals for her retrospective Meditations; Arward Messmer for his archival exhibition, RAF: No Evidence; Paris PhotoBook of the Year award Laia Abril for her book, On Abortion and Mark Ruewdel for his show, The Artist and Society. The Photographers’ Gallery’s Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2019 will be on show from 8 March 2019, with winner announced on May 16, 2019.

Sandinistas at the walls of the Esteli National Guard headquarters, Esteli, Nicaragua, 1979 © Susan Meiselas, 2018

Controversial Wyoming Law Overturned

The controversial “Data Trespass” laws in Wyoming have been deemed unconstitutional and in violation of the First Amendment. Originally the law had criminalized the gathering of data on public land, including photographs for the purposes of reporting illegal pollution or workplace violations.

The non-profit organizations such as, The Western Watersheds Project, the National Press Photographers Association and Natural Resources Defense Council were instrumental in overturning the law as they are responsible for pushing it as an issue and bringing it to the federal courts.

D.C. Artists Protest Censorship

The artistic community in our nations capital organized quickly to overturn a controversial measure put in place by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. The DCCAH provides grants and other means of support for artists living and working in the area. The new measure, if upheld, would move to censor grant recipients requiring that artists and arts organizations avoid producing work that could be considered lewd, vulgar or overtly political or they would be at risk of losing their funds.

Although short-lived, the artists want to be sure these actions are rescinded and no one sign on to the new measure. As Deepak Gupta, a lawyer from the ACLU who represents local artists has said, the vague language of the contract is troubling and could mean a poem criticizing Donald Trump would be considered overly political and therefore censored.

A display of Christopher Kardambikis's "Paper Cuts/Live" exhibit at Washington Project for the Arts. WPA stands to lose $112,700 in funding from the DCCAH by not signing the memorandum. © Washington Project For The Arts — A display of Christopher Kardambikis's "Paper Cuts/Live" exhibit at Washington Project for the Arts. WPA stands to lose $112,700 in funding from the DCCAH by not signing the memorandum. © *Washington Project For The Arts*

Jean-Pierre LaFont Retrospective Underway

“In America, people give you a chance.” Pierre LaFont was in his 20s when he moved to New York from Paris. Already having success as a celebrity photographer in Paris he took to the streets of his new city where he was welcomed graciously. Taking up odd jobs, giving bicycle lessons and driving trucks he would continue to push inyo the realm of photojournalism. Some years later, after taking pictures of the Bronx, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, he would go on to start a photo agency with his wife called, Gamma.

His work is now part of a special collection called “New York Down and Out” at the Leica in SoHo, running from Nov. 8th to Dec. 31.