World Photography Day is an annual, worldwide celebration of the art, craft, science and history of photography.
A photograph has the ability to capture a place; an experience; an idea; a moment in time. Since the 19th century, a picture has indeed been worth a thousand words.
The Exact Editions platform boasts an impressive collection of art and design magazines. We have handpicked four digital magazine issues from the archives of our publishing partners, which unpack photography’s status in the artworld and showcase talented photography centered around important issues.
ArtReview ‘Special Focus: Art Photography’ October 2006
The October 2006 issue of ArtReview invited leading artists, curators, critics and academics to select a photographer they felt best represented an aspect of photography that was particularly relevant to that period.
Skye Sherwin comments on photography’s place in art, arguing the rich wealth of contemporary work included in the the article is testament to the immense creative potential of the discipline.
“Photography is the most widespread form of image making and, paradoxically, the least understood. In the artworld its status remains ambiguous. Anyone can take a photo. There are some photographers who are considered to be artists and many artists who use photography in their work.”
Read the full article, pages 59–82, here.
Foam Magazine ‘Future Perfect’ Issue 57
The world we are living in is being impacted by several crises, that in some way or another are all connected. Instead of asking ‘what is photography’, Issue 57 ‘In Limbo’ of Foam Magazine asked the reader to think about ‘what photography can do’.
Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs’ work moves between the natural, the human, and technoscientific and mathematical abstractions. The future, while not perfect, is contained in the shadows, lines and colours of these images.
“Art may indeed hold a mirror up to nature, but nature is also our mirror, a narcissistic idealised postcard, and more like Dorian Gray, an abjected place to expel things we don’t want to see or confront.”
Read the full article, pages 265–280, here.
SOURCE ‘A Decade of Graduate Photography’ Autumn 2017
The Autumn 2017 issue of SOURCE celebrated a decade since they launched the ‘Graduate Photography Online’ website, back in 2007. With the benefit of hindsight, the issue showcases the work that stood out the most.
Peter Watkins’, ‘The Unforgetting’, is the culmination of several year’s work that examined his German family history; the trauma surrounding the loss of his mother as a child, as well as the associated notions of time, memory and history.
“My approach to photography begins with the studying of this particular form of memory; memory as if viewed through smoked glass; memory that has become murky and unstable through the passage of time.”
Read the full article, pages 40–43, here.
Aesthetica ‘Historic Interpretation’ August/September 2018
Sustainability is a key concept of our time. The August/September 2018 issue of Aesthetica looks at ‘why materials matter’ and ‘manufacturing architecture’, concentrating on human interaction with spaces.
Romain Veillon’s photographs ignite the imagination through reminders of the past and the deep-rooted presence of unknown narratives. Taken in Kolmanskop, a ghost town in Namibia, the series documents what has been left behind after inhabitants moved onto a richer plot of land.
“I wanted to pay a tribute to this particular place, underlining the strength of nature and the ephemerality of human constructions — symbolised here by the progress of sand and dunes through what remains of the town. The silted doors are icons for the inevitable passing of time.”
Read the full article, pages 104–117, here.
Access to the digital magazine issues included in this post will be active until the 19th of October 2021.
Fully-searchable digital subscriptions to ArtReview, Foam Magazine, SOURCE & Aesthetica are all available in the Exact Editions individual and institutional shops.
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