Intimate portraits and nudes that brought Eva Rubinstein international recognition, surreal worlds created from food by Umiko Utsu, projects telling stories of towns in the Czech Republic and Slovakia - this year's Zory Plein Air Photography Festival will show a cross-section of subjects, forms and places through the lenses of seven female artists. The organizers invite between September 1 and October 31 to Zory for the annual encounter with photography.
The Plein Air Photography Festival grew out of the tradition of the Zory Photo Plein Air Festival, which has been organized since 2010. At the invitation of the organizers, the charming city in Upper Silesia and the unique spaces of the Museum of Fire or the City Museum are visited by authors specializing in various types of photography, and their appearances in the intimate festival circle are one of the highlights of the program.
One of the highlights of the program will be an exhibition and meeting with the Buenos Aires-born 1933 artist, whose biography events would be enough to swarm a couple of people. Eva Rubinstein will visit Poland on the occasion of an exhibition in Zory and the conferment of an Honoris Causa title by the Film School in Lodz. Coming from an artistic family, the daughter of a well-known pianist, she lived among others. in Paris, New York, Los Angeles. In the family home among the guests of the Rubinsteins appeared Charlie Chaplin, Grace Kelly or Cary Grant, which meant that art quickly appeared.in the life of Eve herself - she initially took up ballet and acting. The artist made her debut in photography in her thirties, as a mature woman fresh from a divorce. She learned the craft from Sean Kernan, Lisette Model, Jim Hughes, Ken Heyman and Diane Arbus. She has done commercial photography for Vogue magazine, among others, and has been published in Europe, the United States and South America. Her trademark became intimate portraits, taken in natural light, giving the impression of closeness and intimacy. They were complemented by nudes and photographs of interiors - usually empty, as if just abandoned by people and their stories and dramas. Characteristic of Eve Rubinstein's work is her approach and respect for the people she photographs: "- For me, photography is not an end in itself. - she said - It is a means to understand myself, to understand the other person, to know. Photography itself as an activity does not interest me." The artist has had more than 100 solo exhibitions around the world. A cross-section of her work will be shown in Zory. The meeting with the artist will take place on October 16. The meeting will be hosted by Dariusz Stanchuk of RMF CLASSIC radio.
A completely different approach to the medium and the world will be offered by conceptual, decisive and colorful works Ymiko Utsu. The Japanese artist uses food and toys to construct surreal worlds inhabited by octopus-eyed kittens or pineapple cities populated by bizarre owls and phallic carrots. Her aesthetic combines a penchant for kitsch and exaggeration from Japanese manga with the European tradition of paintings by Hieronymus Bosch, Dali or the artist's favorite artist, Jan Švankmajer. Utsu's works are in the collection of among others. Charles Saatchi, and on September 29 its curator and artist, who lived in Tokyo for 10 years, will tour the exhibition, Pavel Yashchuk.
More local, but also universal stories will be told by four female artists at the festival. Vanda Mesiariková is the author of the visual essay Deleted Land about the area marked by the largest mining activity in Slovakia. The project Eva Bystranskaya We will see Czech Jihlava and the atmosphere of life in residential suburbs. Monika Cichoszewska in the project Wrath of the Earth will refer to the history and volcanic landscape of the Spanish island of Fuerteventura, Immortalized using the ambrotype technique. Joanna Kinowska, art historian and photography expert makes her debut as a photographer in a project that refers to the history of the city of Zory and its unique relationship with fire.
The debut solo exhibition will also be Apnea Aneta Nytko, a participant in the Sputnik Photos Mentorship Program, who in recent years has worked on long-term documentary projects, both domestically and internationally, on various forms of exclusion and relationships.
The program will close with a lecture Gender in photography prepared by Justyna Kociszewska. Creativity among others. Pierre Molinier, Claude Cahun, Helmut Newton and Alice Springs, Nan Goldin, Ugo Woatzi will be the starting point for questions about what is the so-called female gaze in photography, how women have been depicted in photography, how women's photography, and what has sometimes escaped in stories about the body, sexuality and gender identity in the work of men.
Marek Jan Karas, festival director
