Jamie Parslow
Once upon a time Photography 1970-2005
Bente Geving
Forgotten images
28 August - 16 October 2005
Preus Museum
Horten, Norway
Image: © Jamie Parslow, Just another day in paradise, California, 2004.
Preus Museum is proud to present two retrospective exhibtions by Jamie Parslow and Bente Geving. They have both been active in establishing and developing the field of art photography in Norway: Parslow since the early 1970s and Geving since the late 1980s. At Preus museum they show two retrospective exhibitions emphasizing the connection between their older work and contemporary projects.
Once upon a time presents photographs taken by Jamie Parslow from the time he arrived in Norway from USA until the present day. Jamie Parslow works within a tradition that has been called subjective documentary a genre that is rooted in documentary photography but which opens up for subjective and poetic involvement. Among other things, Parslow uses the aesthetics of amateur and memory photographs, which he processes in an artistic form. His photographs appear to express a type of standstill or frozen moment, with motifs that are as intimate as entries in a diary. Situations with family and friends, selfportraits and landscapes tend to convey an atmosphere with which the viewer can identify. Most of Jamie Parslows work is in black and white, but since 2002 he has been exploring colour photography.
In Forgotten Images, Bente Geving will present two series: Memory (black and white) and Margit Ellinor (colour). The question we often ask ourselves when we look at a photograph is who is in the picture and when was the photograph taken? In the series Margit Ellinor, Bente Geving has photographed interiors in her mothers home, visual arrangements that her mother was once familiar with but which she is now unable to remember from her retirement home. In this exhibition, Geving combines photographs of these arrangements with her own forgotten images. These are images that were exposed long time ago, but not developed at the time. Through the process of choosing, developing, choosing again and hanging the exhibition, she attempts to recreate the atmosphere at the time they were taken and explore their ability to tell new stories.
Arts Council Norway and the Norwegian Photography Fund have sponsored the catalog and exhibition.
All images belong to the artists. Curator: Hanne Holm-Johnsen
