Sight, Unseen.

Photofusion, 9 April - 21 May 2010

Private view 8 May 2010

Sight Unseen is a visual exploration of how shadow and darkness function in photography, a medium which relies implicitly on clarity, light and vision to impart ideas, thoughts and interpretations of the world around us.

Stories, rituals and narrative traditions surrounding these elements are found in every era, across a diversity of cultures, and have long been associated with negative phenomena such as nightmares, danger, death, hidden strangers, blindness and the supernatural.

The exhibition is the work of four recent M.A. graduate photographers whose exploration of shadow and darkness is inherent within their practice. Through the manipulation of darkness, creating an underlying intensity and tension, they play with the absence of visual information – or what cannot be seen – to place the viewer in an indeterminate, liminal plane between the real and the imagined.

Rachel Cunningham:

Ellie Davies:

Richard Kolker:

Adrian Wood:

Destination Tsunami

Kings Place Gallery, 22 March - 5 April 10

Destination Tsunami: Stories and struggles from India's southern coast

The impact of tourism on tsunami-affected communities, five years on. An exhibition by Tourism Concern

Images by Sohrab Hura

Destination Tsunami, an exclusive photography exhibition exploring tourism's impacts on tsunami-affected communities, five years on.

Art In Mind

The Brick Lane Gallery, 23rd March – 5th April 2010

The exhibition features works by Sorin Dumitrescu, Claudio Giannini, Didi Bjornerud, Hakan Denizer, Ignazio Lasio, Tom MacDonald, Craig David Hills, Jurena Wille, Sharmila Agnihotri and Mary Perrotta.

In continued support of emerging artists, The Brick Lane Gallery is excited to present its next selected group exhibition 'Art in Mind', opening on the 24th March and running through to the 5th April. On this occasion, we bring together diverse concepts of works from various mediums from painting to digital works, and drawing to photography and sculpture from ten talented UK and international artists.

Argentinean artist Claudio Giannini came to painting later in life. Having initially studied psychology, his work combines his knowledge of sociology with his heritage resulting in thought provoking images of modern day city life and iconic figures from the old Buenos Aires tango scene.

Wireman is the story of the trials and tribulations of an innocent creature, plucked from the rubbish heap by Tom MacDonald. The humour, albeit dark, is evident throughout and the seamless staging of each scene brings Wireman to life in all its dangerous glory. Turkish archaeologist and artist Hakan Denizer works intricately with the medium of ink. Countless stories emerge from each piece and his work exposes surprising likenesses between Turkish, Indian and even Celtic symbolism. Ignazio Lasio explores the theme of excess in his work. A clever take on the desire for total abandonment, whether through over indulgence in alcohol or complete immersion in creating art, his ‘quick fix’ solution is a can of inspiration, a combination of these two routes to inner gratification. In this series, Mary Perrotta looks at the obsession we have with how we are perceived by others. The use of personalised number plates on cars is widespread, an apparent statement by the driver, as to who he or she is, which is often misinterpreted by the viewer. The humour of this situation is illustrated by Perrotta’s work. Sorin Dumitrescu’s paintings are textured and layered, seemingly simplified figures intricately hidden and simultaneously revealed in a mystical way. His distinctive style is rich in colour and depth, a myriad of subject matter for the viewer to lose themselves in. Illustrator Craig David Hills uses a variety of media including pen, ink and tissue paper. His work has deeply personal meaning, specific to the moment of creation. While sometimes dealing with chaotic or dark subjects, Hills’ steady and sure draughtsmanship has a reassuring assertiveness. Sharmila Agnihotri uses her experience as a midwife and her appreciation of the resilience of nature as inspiration in her intricate ink drawings. Each piece appears completely symmetrical and essentially perfect but reveals small imperfections on closer inspection, deliberate flaws which reflect the relationship between chaos and order, harmony and disharmony. German tattoo artist Jurena Wille studied psychology and her mixed media works deal with concepts such as the stereotypes associated with identity. Her work is graphical and full of colour, the precision and detail of tattoo art apparent throughout. Didi Bjornerud left Norway in 2003 to study in London and since then has paved a way for herself through the combined worlds of Fashion, Graphics, Painting and Photography. She draws huge inspiration from her homeland and there is a subtle darkness underlying the serene images she presents on silk.

Art in Mind is an ongoing group exhibition organized by The Brick Lane Gallery, offering emerging artists a platform to showcase their work to a fresh and growing London audience.

And the winner is...

Sophie Ristelhueber (b.1949, France) has been awarded the 2010 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.

Irving Penn Portraits

Irving Penn (1917-2009) was one of the great photographers of our time. Focusing specifically on his portraits of major cultural figures of the last seven decades, Irving Penn Portraits is a glorious celebration of his work in this genre.

The exhibition is brought together from major international collections and includes over 120 silver and platinum prints, many vintage, ranging from his portraits for Vogue magazine in the 1940s to some of his last work.

Penn photographed an extraordinary range of sitters from the worlds of literature, music and the visual and performing arts. Among those featured in the exhibition are Truman Capote, Salvador Dali, Christian Dior, T.S. Eliot, Duke Ellington, Grace Kelly, Rudolf Nureyev, Al Pacino, Edith Piaf, Pablo Picasso and Harold Pinter.

This fascinating survey brings to light the significance of Penn's visual language and provides a rare opportunity to explore his innovative use of composition, light and printing techniques.

Deutsche Borse Photography Prize 2010

The Photographers' Gallery, 12 February - 18 April 2010

The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize rewards a living photographer, of any nationality, who has made the most significant contribution, in exhibition or publication format, to the medium of photography over the previous year.

The four shortlisted artists for this year's Prize are:

Anna Fox (b.1961, UK) is nominated for her exhibition Cockroach Diary & Other Stories at Ffotogallery, Cardiff (28 July – 10 October 09), initiated by Impressions Gallery, Bradford.

Zoe Leonard (b.1961, USA) is nominated for her retrospective exhibition Zoe Leonard - Photographs, at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (1 April – 5 July 09), initiated by Fotomuseum Winterthur.

Sophie Ristelhueber (b.1949, France) is nominated for her retrospectiveSophie Ristelhueber at the Jeu de Paume, Paris (20 January – 22 March 2009).

Donovan Wylie (b.1971, UK) is nominated for his exhibition MAZE 2007/8 at Belfast Exposed(27 March – 1 May 2009).

This year’s Jury is: Olivia Maria Rubio (Director of Exhibitions, La Fàbrica, Spain); Gilane Tawadros (Chief Executive, Design Artists Copyright Society, curator and writer); James Welling(artist, USA); and Anne-Marie Beckmann (Curator, Art Collection Deutsche Börse, Germany).Brett Rogers, Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, is the non-voting Chair.

The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2010 Catalogue is available from ourBookshop for the special exhibition price of £17.99.

This exhibition will be touring toFrankfurter Kunstverein, 12 May - 25 July 2010

Jim Goldberg: Open See

The Photographers' Gallery, 16 October 2009 - 17 January 2010

Open See documents the experiences of people who travel from war torn, socially and economically devastated countries, to make new lives in Europe. They have left often violent, oppressive, poverty-stricken or AIDS ravaged communities, in search of stability and the promise of a better future. Originating from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, these 'new Europeans' have met violence and brutality as well as hope and liberation in their new homes.

Since 2003, Magnum photographer Jim Goldberg (b.1953, USA) has been photographing and collecting stories through a range of media: Polaroids, video, written text, ephemera, large and medium format photographs. The exhibition installation reflects his dynamic approach to documentary through dense displays of images, objects and texts.

The Polaroids on show have often been defaced and written on by the people they portray. The words and images combine to tell intimate stories of past and present experiences. Faces and features are sometimes scratched out, coloured in, or marked in some way. Large-scale colour photographs depicting landscapes from the subjects' countries of origin appear both poetic and dystopic in equal measure. One image shows a young family walking along a sunlit road, while another one is of man standing on a vast rubbish tip holding a dead goat salvaged from the debris.

Part of an ongoing project by Goldberg, Open See confronts us with the realities of migration and the conditions for desiring escape.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Magnum Photos.

Jim Goldberg is winner of the HCB Award 2007.

Jane Bown: 100 Portraits

King's Place Gallery, 23 October - 21 November 2009

Jane Bown had been taking portraits for The Observer since 1949 and in that time has photographed everyone from Bertrand Russell to the Beatles to Samuel Beckett to the Queen. Working almost exclusively in black and white and with an absolute economy of means her portraits are immediately recognisable and many have become classics of the genre.

Over the past few years, Jane's extensive archive has been catalogued for the first time leading to a significant reassessment of her work. The exhibition will showcase 100 of Jane's best photographs across her six-decade career. This will include many familiar images, however, a significant number will be drawn from previously unknown shoots.

Accompanying some of the images featured in the book EXPOSURES, published by Guardian Books to coincide with the exhibition, are Jane Bown's recollections of the day the pictures were taken, including anecdotes from, amongst others, her photo-sessions with Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Rudolph Nureyev and Vita Sackville-West.

The exhibition and book will confirm Jane Bown's reputation as one of Britain's most significant photojournalists and a portraitist with few peers.

Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005

'I don't 'have two lives, this is one life, and the personal pictures and the assignment work are all part of it.' Annie Leibovitz

From the very beginning of her career, Annie Leibovitz has redefined the modern celebrity portrait, altering the way we think about the people who populate our cultural landscape. Annie Leibovitz: A photographer's Life, 1990 - 2005 includes more than 150 photographs, encompassing well-known work made on editorial assignment as well as images of her family and close friends.

The exhibition features many Leibovitz's best-known portraits of public figures, including actors Jamie Foxx, Nicole Kidman, and Brad Pitt; her famous images og Queen Elizabeth II, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and then-pregnant actress Demi Moore, one of the most recognizable photographs of its time. The show also highlights portraits of artists, architects, and writers such as Richard Avedon, Philip Johnson and Cindy Sherman. Leibovitz's assignment work includes reportage from the siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990s and the election of Hillary Clinton to the U.S. Senate.

At the heart of the exhibition, Leibovitz's personal photography documents intimate and moving moments from her life, including the birth and childhood of her three daughters, as well as holidays, reunions and rites of passage with her parents and extended family. A Photographer's Life threads together the two sides of Leibovitz's work both chronologically and creatively, projecting a narrative of the artist's private world against the backdrop of her public image as one of the world's best known portrait photographers.

National Portrait Gallery, 16 October 2008 - 1 February 2009