Birgit Naomi Glatzel – Photo London 2024
Birgit Naomi Glatzel – Photo London 2024
At Photo London 2024 we are presenting a solo presentation of Brigit Naomi Glatzel’s work.
a friend is a friend of a friend
In the last couple of years acquaintances and networks have been discussed in the media excessively. These local connections seemed charming and were the save havens as anti-poles to the impending threats of globalisation. Birgit Naomi Glatzel looks beyond this scenario and started in June 1998 her foray that led her from Berlin around the globe to friends, their friends and friends of their friends. The artistic method is nearly classical: all portraits are handheld shots made with a vintage Rolleiflex 6 x 6 camera, model 1937. She spent a day with the friends she met and took photographs of them in their everyday surroundings, preferably their apartments. 340 people from 40 cities and 19 countries are part of the net and have been preserved on film.
At Photo London, we present one “line” of friends as well as the art book created for the project. In addition, the project will continue into the present: Birgit will start taking Polaroids of friends in Berlin and continue the line to London. Current pictures will then complement the line and lead into the next generation and future.
Ideal City (concept in cooperation with Hennink Stöve)
Kroc-gu-fant by Sara Ball is a children’s flip-book book that allows one to forge utterly strange creatures out of limbs of existing animals; a crocodile head attached to a jaguar’s body and elephant feet virtually constitute a new species. Ideal City expands this concept to urban features: It creates a framework of public spaces in one image. The Project displays constructions, environments and features located in cities worldwide classified into three categories that are essential for modern living: commerce, traffic, recreation.
Ideal City joins global cities in one locality. The process of creating an amalgam of unacquainted environments fades the peculiarity of any given specific location and focuses its social and historical values. When set in an unforeseen relation to each other stigmata of the traditional context vanish as new relationships unexpectedly coalesce. Ideal City is an ongoing modular project, noteworthy places of the hosting town are incorporated and added to the framework, the number of documented places will increase continuously.
Using a computer interface the user creates his favourite city by combining public spaces of his choice.
At Photo London we present the project digitally on an iPad; further we hang 9 of the works (each 40 x 40 cm, printed on Dibond) in a square on the wall and the visitors will have the possibility to put the works in any order of their choice to build their own Ideal City.
South Side Beats_ TEL AVIV
The Clubbing Scene of Tel Aviv was in the early 90ies a fairly new baby. In this humid, filthy, and noisy city on the Mediterranean, club culture arose when the peace treaty stated that people would soon be living normal lives. Meanwhile, the Clubs of Israel have become places where this normal life is a manifestation of conflict, longing, passion, and rushes. Here one finds people doing their own thing, living and partying, spending their evenings together and getting on. In May and June 2004, Birgit Naomi Glatzel returned to Israel to photograph her DJ friends and some of their friends, to tell one of many Tel Aviv stories. The photographs are timeless and show the longings of people all over the world: peace and joy.
At photo London we would show 8 photos of the series, all gelatine silver print, 24 x 30 cm, wooden frame.
Birgit Naomi Glatzel
The freelance concept artist and architect Birgit Naomi Glatzel was born in Kempten/Allgäu, Germany, in 1970. Already during her architectural studies she began an intensive occupation with painting and photography. Her first solo exhibit took place in Würzburg in 1991.
The artist has worked predominately in the area of photography since 1998. She started the photo project “a friend is a friend of a friend” in the Summer of that year. Other projects followed such as “Ideal City” (since 2003) and the photography project “You and Me” (since 2007) which a continually developing just like her video project “Going to Jerusalem” (2005), “Umtauschbriefe meines Vaters” Exchanged Letters from my Father (part 1 of the father trilogy), “sports sound” (2005) and others.
The book “A friend is a friend of a friend” was presented at the Shanghai Book Festival in March of 2017.
The artist lives and works in Berlin.
Further information and projects can be found here.
Program:
Wednesday, 15 May 2024, 11:00 – 21:00 h
VIP Preview Day
Thursday, 16 May 2024, 11:00 – 20:00 h
11:00 – 13:00 h: VIP; 13:00 – 20:00 h: Public
16:00 h: Artist Talk at booth D16
Friday, 17 May 2024, 11:00 – 20:00 h
11:00 – 13:00 h: VIP; 13:00 – 20:00 h: Public
Saturday, 18 May 2024, 11:00 – 20:00 h
11:00 – 12:00 h: VIP; 12:00 – 20:00 h: Public
Sunday, 19 Mai 2024, 11:00 – 18:00 h
11:00 – 12:00 h: VIP; 12:00 – 18:00 h: Public
Birgit Naomi Glatzel – Photo London 2024
16. – 19. Mai 2024 – Booth D16
Venue: Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA, UK