Photography is often at its most exciting when it veers from the expected path, the artist combining it with a wider practice or else using it as a tool to explore the outer limits of the digital field. At this year’s Unseen Photo Fair, the galleries and artists who look the most promising have tended away from a traditional approach, often choosing to display works that merge photography, sculpture and installation.
Unseen brings together a range of global galleries to show the photographic work of artists, both new and established, that has (naturally) not yet been seen. There is an especially interesting selection of work coming from within the Netherlands this year, with many established and exciting up-and-coming galleries catching Elephant’s eye.
Flowers Gallery currently represent 10 photographers and have a space set aside purely for photographic work, though they do have a total set of three spaces spread over central London, East London and New York’s Chelsea. For Unseen they are showing the work of Boomoon (South Korea), John MacLean, Melinda Gibson and Thomas Sauvin (all UK); artists who all address both the power and fragility of nature and landscapes through a variety of means, such as intense colour palettes and surface experimentation.
Based in Rotterdam, Cinnnamon was founded by Pieter Dobbelsteen only this year, and the gallery focusses on new to mid-career artists across a range of disciplines. This open approach is reflected in their choice of artists at Unseen, who in many cases forge new links between different art forms and concepts. Nicolás Lamas, Rachel de Joode and Theis Wendt will all be shown at Cinnamon’s booth, three very contemporary artists who create a fresh look that combines classic 3D sculpture and installation with digital manipulation.
Galerie Ron Mandos, Netherlands
Galerie Ron Mandos is a large Amsterdam gallery, which features new developments within contemporary art, highlighting the ways in which it can be used to discuss and inspect the everyday. There will be a group exhibition at Unseen, with the work of Hans Op de Beeck, Jasper de Beijer, Mohau Modisakeng and Sebastiaan Bremer.
Boetzelaer|Nispen, Netherlands
Boetzelaer|Nispen was first created in London in 2011 and is now based in Amsterdam. The gallery represent a mix of artists from London and the Netherlands, although they have chosen a solo show at this year’s Unseen, from young Dutch artist Anouk Kruithof. The ‘sweaty sculptures’ shown here have a playful and wholly new feel to them, merging vivid digital aesthetics with boxy sculpture.
GRIMM was founded in 2005 and moved to Amsterdam in 2010, now representing 20 artists from around the world. They will be showing Gwenneth Boelens and Letha Wilson at Unseen, from the Netherlands and Hawaii respectively. Both artists work with an experimental approach to photography, Wilson creating mixed media works that also experiment with sculpture and installation, Boelens operating an academic practice, often mixing writing with her conceptual photographic work.
Unseen Photo Fair runs from 18-20 September
