Photography

The last couple of months surely took a toll on our carefreeness towards physical contact with people in our close environment and especially towards people we don’t know (yet). Shaking hands or the french Bisou-Bisou have been somewhat eliminated from our gestural repertoire and leave us awkwardly waving at our friends instead of giving them a hug.

At Forward Festival Munich, we invited photographer Stefan Grau to look through his Digital Eyes and take one-of-a-kind portraits of our speakers.  

Max Siedentopf's latest book is the first bootleg copy of the infamous Toiletpaper Magazine by Mauricio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari. TOILETPAPA shows some of Toiletpaper's most iconic photos reenacted by big fans of the magazine, Max Siedentopf himself, and - hence the name of the project - his father Eckhard.  

Humid, crammed, compressed. Photographer Michael Wolf captures the everyday horrors imposed on Japanese commuters by Tokyo's underground system.

Raw, unfiltered, provocative – just a few words that come to one’s mind while looking at the artistic work of Larry Clark. Regardless of whether it is about his photography or his films, the expressive images move anybody and everyone has their opinion. His main motive is youth culture and everything regarding it, from sexuality and violence to skateboards and drugs.

Gebhart latest work A Guide To Better Being draws attention to the art of inventing practical but useless tools - called Chindōgu. Chin..what? Chindōgu is Japanese and literally means "useless/weird tool". The term was coined in the 90ies by Kenji Kawakami who used it in his comical section in his monthly magazine Mail Order Life. Popularised in the English-speaking community through Kawakami's and Dan Papia's magazine Tokyo Journal, a fan base for odd tools grew steadily. Chindōgu as such is the perfect balance between creativity and absurdity.

Great Britain is known for it’s grey and rainy weather, but where there’s rain, there might also be a rainbow. In this case a very colourful and shimmering rainbow: The drag queens and LGBTQI party-goers. Photographer Charley Williams portrays the queer community of her hometown Bristol, one of the most progressive and vibrant places in Britain. She manages to catch this liberating spirit in her work.

"At first there was a beep" - this is the introductory phrase of Docubytes description of his work Cosmic Pop! Documenting objects, in celebration both of the achievements of the Soviet space program and these early charming but brutal designs, in a flashing and poppy pink.

UK-based land-artist Ellie Davies constructed pathways through the New Forest in New South England for her 2011 series “Come With Me”. Built from wool, powder, paint, wood or dirt, the pathways create a natural curvature around trees and bushes, incorporating the labour itself as a central concept to her work process. With the title of the piece, Davies invites you to follow her through the scenery.

Dutch graphic designer, advertising manager, editor, collector, exhibition curator and artist Erik Kessels is well known for his versatile projects. He is a creator of the digital age who, in his work, pays close attention to the most popular or trivial forms of photography. May this be family albums, commercial documentation or others, normally rejected by canon-defining museums. In his newest exhibition “Group Show” he shows an extensive collection of ‘vernacular’ vinyl records with, simply spoken, large groups of people on the cover.

In their series “Icons”, Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger recreate some of the most famous photographs in recent history. The seamlessly perfect illusions are immediately broken by the invasion of the work process.

In his newest series „Pools“, the German photographer Stephan Zirwes presents intriguing drone shots of public swimming pools.

Whether attempting to sell clothing, coffee, or food, vintage ads from the mid-20th century were often riddled with sexism, forcing women into traditional gender roles. Now, however, a Lebanon-based artist has changed these out-of-date ads.

A beautiful, brunette woman is holding her face in both of her hands, her head turned away from the camera. "Fuck! I fell in love, how did this happen? He looked at me in French. I thought that kiss meant we were going to be lovers" Two pictures later, she is laying on her bed sideways, looking into the camera. "But I look at him, he looks out the window."

What you should know first of all is that Apple doesn’t really do social media, except for Instagram. It has official Facebook and Twitter accounts, but hasn’t posted anything on there yet. However, it does have multipible Instagram accounts for Apple Music, iTunes, Beats 1, iBooks, Carpool Karaoke, and even Planet of the Apps.

Winter-time camping enthusiasts, Jehovah’s Witnesses and curious Tyrolean traditions: Viennese photographer Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek, speaker at Forward Festival 2015, has an eye for the bizarre. His latest project is a comic and surreal 12-image set (and calendar) titled Jumping Cats.