_-_ Paolo Woods _-_

Paolo Woods was born of Canadian and Dutch parentage. He grew up in Italy, lived in Paris and is now based in Haiti. Paolo Woods ran a laboratory and a photo gallery in Florence, Italy, before dedicating himself to documentary photography. He is devoted to long-term projects that blend photography with investigative journalism. In 2003, with the award-winning writer Serge Michel, he published the book Un monde de Brut (A Crude World). Tackling the subject of the oil industry this story involved working in twelve countries among which Angola, Russia, Kazakhstan, Texas and Iraq. In 2004 he published the book American Chaos, a detailed reportage on western debacle in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both books have been published in France and Italy, and as magazine pieces in over ten different countries. In 2007/2008 he has documented the spectacular rise of the Chinese in Africa. The book Chinafrica, again cosigned with Serge Michel, has been published in France and translated in eleven languages including English, Spanish and Chinese. The work has been acclaimed as the most thorough investigation in the phenomena, and as an exemplary encounter between fine art and documentary photography. The book has enjoyed significant commercial success, selling over 40.000 copies in France only. In 2010 he completed the project Walk on my Eyes, an intimate portrait of the Iranian society. The resulting book has been published in France and has been translated in German, Spanish and Persian. The show has premiered at the Festival of Arles in France and is currently touring worldwide. His work is regularly featured in the main international publications. He has had solo exhibitions in, amongst others, France, US, Italy, China, Spain, Germany and Holland and numerous group shows around the world. His pictures are in the French National Library, the FNAC collection and the collection of the Sheik Saud Al-Thani in Qatar. For his work he has received various prizes including a World Press Photo for his work in Iraq, the “Alstom prize for Journalism”, the GRIN prize in Italy and the Open Society’s Moving Walls.

paolo woods 

** Richard mosse **

RICHARD MOSSE, age 30, was born and grew up in Ireland and is now based in New York. He is driven by an ambivalence toward photography and a desire to revisit and even rewrite traumatic cultural histories. Mosse studied at Yale, Goldsmiths and the London Consortium.
Since 2009 he has contributed a column to Visura Magazine titled Via.
Represented by: Jack Shainman Gallery
Editorial Commissions: Institute For Artists Management
Studio: info@richardmosse.com

The Persistence of Wishes - LEAFLOOD

 

 

 

The Persistence of Wishes from Leaflood on Vimeo.

The Tendency to Persistence in Psychological function and development, with special reference to Fixation and Regression.
(...)No structure can ever be lost once it has been created (although it can be damaged by normal processes of organic involution).

The structures are constantly being modified based on experience, using overlays from other structures (while still retaining substantial parts of the previous versions).

(...)The progressive development will require the gradual inhibition of ways of functioning, which were structured in the past, replacing them with updated procedures. If we use the mechanisms of a computer program as an example, we can compare development and learning in general to the development of a new computer program.(...)

The old programs will still remain, and may be applicable under certain conditions; the new programs may be prevented from running, and the older ones will have to be reused.

(...)In essence we would continue to make use of a discharge modes and older solutions, except that on balance these can prove to be less adequate and secure than current modes.  When it is shown that (in terms of economies of affective states) a more modern adaptive solution proves to be less adequate and secure, it is quickly abandoned in favor of the more primitive solution.(...)

Joseph Sandler and W.G. Joffe Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, Vol.31, N.5, 257-71 (1967)

Persistent: retained beyond the usual period, continuing without change in function or structure...

Time passes, and various events overwhelm your life.  The problem is that you can forget how to listen to yourself, but a strong desire cannot be repressed.  Sooner or later, the inner-child will return to collect the bill.

You begin to find a solution through the birth of your innermost desires, and by confessing them to someone who is able to make you feel that it is actually possible to realize them.

"The persistence of wishes":  a bear becomes the link between the present of adulthood, and the past of childhood.  The animal is synonymous with the natural.  It is essential, a true comfort through the inevitability of time.


the persistence of wishes

°° victor cobo °°

Victor Cobo is an American artist who specializes in creating large scale black and white photographs. His works explore our evolving isolation through memory, dreams, sexuality and the translucency of the psyche. Cobo is a self-taught photographer who was originally trained in life-drawing. He grew up in northern California where his earliest memories of photography involved stealing his stepfather's cameras, playing dress up and creating theatrical images with teenage friends. In 1999 he was fired from his first job out of college after being caught with inappropriate photographs he had taken around the streets of San Francisco during his lunch breaks. Thus began his career as a Fine Art Documentary Photographer focusing on the margins of society. His work has been featured in the New York Times Magazine; Newsweek; Time; Surface; the San Francisco Chronicle; Ojo De Pez; Burn Magazine; Leica World; Courrier Int'l.; The Advocate; Private; Foto8; American Suburb X; One Giant Arm; Fraction Magazine, Eyemazing and Idoménée. In 2007 he was the winner of the Aaron Siskind Individual Photographer's Fellowship. Cobo's photographs have been exhibited nationally and internationally and his work is featured in private and public collections such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Akron Art Museum, the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive and the Amon Carter Museum, as well as numerous private collections. In 2009 the Amon Carter Museum featured his work in a group exhibition titled, "Masters of American Photography", amongst such artists as Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander, Robert Frank and Diane Arbus. He currently lives and works in New York City.

victor cobo