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Atget’s Paris

Photography by Eugène Atget (1857–1927).

Atta Kim: On-Air

New York Series, 57th Street, 8 Hours (2005).

Atta Kim: On-Air
International Center of Photography
1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street, New York
June 9 through August 27, 2006

This exhibition presents a selection of recent works from the ON-AIR Project by the Korean contemporary artist Atta Kim (born 1956). For these large-scale, visually spectacular color photographs, Kim employed extended exposures—sometimes as long as eight hours——to explore fundamental questions of time and perception. Using such varied subjects as parliamentary sessions, soccer games, outdoor military exercises, and erotic unions, Kim suggests that it is possible for us to perceive the passage of time in radically different ways.

The Sex Series, 1 Hour (2003).

Barta’s Golem

The Pied Piper.

Jiri Barta is a great Czech animator whose 1985 film, The Pied Piper, is an extraordinary, hour-long re-telling of the familiar fable. In Barta’s version, the medieval town and its inhabitants are rendered as beautifully-carved, Expressionist wood figures, and Barta twists the story in a darker direction by having the Pied Piper turn the materialistic townspeople into rats.

The Golem.

His current project is a film based on the old Prague legend of the Golem, taking Gustav Meyrinck’s classic novel as its inspiration. Since the collapse of the Communist regimes, Barta and other independent filmmakers have struggled to find financing for their more personal projects, which means that The Golem—which looks quite incredible—remains unfinished. This is especially ironic given that Prague is now a major movie-making centre for big Hollywood productions.

Kinoeye talks to Barta about The Golem and his other films, while Darkstrider has a trailer and clips from many other Czech animations.

Dubai, then and now

Or how to turn desert into downtown Los Angeles in only 14 years…

1991.

2005.

The Essex Street Water Gate, London WC2

He crossed the road and went into the darkness towards the little steps under the archway leading into Essex Street, and I let him go. And that was the last I ever saw of him.

The Diamond Maker (1894) by HG Wells

Old and New London – Its History, Its People and Its Places (1878).

London’s water gates date from the time before the building of the embankment and the road on the north side of the river, when the tidal wash reached a lot closer to the buildings (and former palaces) that follow The Strand and Fleet Street. The gate in Essex Street dates back to t0 1676, and was used for a time as an emblem by Methuen publishers when they had their premises here.