PRESS

RELEASE Masters of Modern & Contemporary Photography October 23 December 21, 2013 Opening reception: Wednesday, October 23, 5:00 9:00 pm Venue: Ikkan Art Gallery, Artspace@Helutrans 39 Keppel Road, #01-05, Tanjong Pagar Distripark Singapore 089065 Open: 12 Noon 7:00 pm, Tuesday-Saturday Free admission Ikkan Art Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition Masters of Modern & Contemporary Photography, organized in association with Pace/MacGill Gallery in New York, on view from October 23 December 21, 2013. This exhibition will present almost 90 works by 17 important international artists and photographers who have continued to shape the world of fine art photography for the past century with their visions of the world. Invented in the first quarter of the 19th century, photography has faced many adversities and triumphs coming to its own as a medium. The artists and photographers presented in this exhibition have found inspiration in photographing their immediate surroundings, the urban environment, and social landscape, like Harry Callahan who captured the cityscapes of Detroit and Chicago, and set his wife Eleanor and daughter Barbara in these locales, while William Christenberry, drawn to the American South of his childhood, studies the evolution of buildings in their rural surroundings. Lee Friedlander depicts storefront reflections, structures framed by fences, posters and signs that combine to become the look of modern life, as William Eggleston finds intrigue in commonplace subjects, literally photographing the world around him. Others have come upon their visions in nature. The seascapes of Hiroshi Sugimoto often allude to themes of time and space, which appear vast and infinite, as JoAnn Verburg combines soft lighting, varied focus and thoughtful compositions to portray the sensuality of the natural world. Emmit Gowins images of global irrigation, natural resource mining, military occupation, and weapon testing on the environment exhibit tension between a beautiful landscape and the harsh reality of human impact on the environment, while Richard Misrachs topography of the earth, though unspoiled and dramatic, are further heightened in their terrains devoid of human beings.

Others have portrayed the likeness of those near and dear to them as in Chuck Closes massive portraits of his friends and family, who in reflecting on his condition of Prosopagnosiaalso known as face blindnesshas realized how painting portraits has aided him in recognizing and remembering faces, or the beloved Weimaraners of William Wegman. Others still have traveled distances to find themselves present and watchful in the unknown and foreign like Robert Frank, who drove a used Ford across America in 1955 and 1956, traveling through thirty states and photographing the things he saw, compiled into the monograph The Americans, a complex portrait of American society during that period, and Diane Arbus, who became deeply involved with people who caught her eye, and found beauty in what was commonly perceived as deformities and unsightliness, simply celebrating things as they are. In the past 175 years of its development, photography has proven itself as a valuable artistic medium, not just as a medium for memory, depiction, advertising, or mechanistic reproduction, but a medium rich with conceptual ideas, history, and a way of seeing and experiencing the world. Artists Diane Arbus Hai Bo Harry Callahan William Christenberry Chuck Close William Eggleston Robert Frank Lee Friedlander Emmet Gowin Paul Graham Richard Misrach Irving Penn Robert Rauschenberg Lucas Samaras Hiroshi Sugimoto Joann Verburg William Wegman For inquiry: Ikkan Sanada at ikkan@ikkan-art.com or (+65) 9088 7056.