EXIT #30 - Pictorialism

The Magazine EXIT will examine the historical context of pictorialism and contemporary photography and I felt the press release would be of interest.

Exit Quarterly Magazine on Image and Culture
# 30 PICTORIALISM May, June, July - 2008)

EXIT #30 retrieves the 19th century Pictorialist movement as a basis for explaining some of the latest photographic trends.

Rosa Olivares, director and editor of EXIT, asks in her editorial Is Beauty Old-Fashioned? why a concept like that of beauty, traditionally associated with art, has currently lost value. Ulrich Pohlmann, director of the Fotomuseum del Münchner Stadtmuseum of Münich, writes in his article, A New Art? A Different Nature!, about the relationship between painting and photography during the first decades of this new medium's existence. Michel Poivert, Professor of History of Art at the Université Paris 1-Sorbonne and president of the Societé française de la photographie, comments on the use of the strategies used by 19th century Pictorialists in contemporary photography. The issue concludes with a text by Phillip Prodger, recently named curator of photography at the Peabody Essex Museum of Massachusetts and co-curator of the exhibition Impressionist Camera, in which he outlines a brief history of Pictorialism and explains why it can be considered to be an innovative and avant-garde movement.

Also in this issue is an interview with Marie Cosindas, pioneer in the use of colour and Polaroid, as well as seven portfolios of the work of contemporary photographers, with texts written by them, who use painting as an inspiration for the creation for their images or which use some of the elements or subjects of the 19th and early 20th century Pictorialists. Photographs of more than thirty artists are included, by predecessors of Pictorialism, by Pictorialists and by contemporary creators, creating plays of continuity and parallels.

EXIT # 30. PICTORIALISM.

Texts: Ulrich Pohlmann, Michel Poivert, Phillip Prodger.
Interview: Marie Cosindas.
Portfolios: Jeff Bark, Pierre Gonnord, Laszlo Layton, Shinichi Maruyama, Youssef Nabil, Anoek Steketee, Carla van de Puttelaar.
Artists: Elina Brotherus, Julia Margaret Cameron, Toni Catany, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Gregory Crewdson, L.J.A.D. Creyghton, Edgar Degas. Robert Demachy, Desiree Dolron, Pierre Dubreuil, Tamotsu Enami, Frank Eugene, Roger Fenton, Vincenzo Galdi, Émile Gsell, Bill Henson, Fred Holland Day, Tom Hunter, Kim Keever, Rudolf Koppitz, Édouard Levé, Rita Magalhaes, Sally Mann, Sheila Metzner, Barón Adolf de Meyer, Gabriele Münter, Oscar Gustave Rejlander, Guido Rey, Henry Peach Robinson, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Baron Franz von Stillfried-Ratenicz, Jeff Wall, Liu Zheng, Heinrich Zille.