If you want to get a preview of Twin’s imminent second issue head to to The Print Space Gallery tonight for a look at the work of Irish photographer Linda Brownlee. Part of an all-female group show of portrait photography, ‘You Me and Everyone Else’, Linda’s intimate look at the life of an East End family, the Parkers, hangs alongside work by Tara Darby, Charlotte Player, Anna Leader, Jo Metson Scott and Annie Collinge.
Portrait photography is different. It’s not fantasy, or fashion – but real. Capturing the essence of a person in an image is a difficult and rare thing. If you can get close to someone you don’t really know, or closer to someone you do, it has an impact like nothing else. Catching a moment on camera when the guard is down, or the emotions show on the face or in the eyes, can really tell a story. We are complex creatures us humans, half the time we don’t know what we feel, and the other half we are filled with such a sense of our own own-ness it feels like we will never let go of who we are. We are strangers even to ourselves some of the time. Portrait photography can stop us all being islands all of the time – if only for a moment.
‘You Me and Everybody Else’ runs from the 7th – 26th of May at The Print Space Gallery on Kingsland Road. www.theprintspace.co.uk
Twin’s good friend Andreas Laszlo Konrath takes beautiful pictures and makes perfectly formed zines. This month the Brooklyn-based photographer, who graduated with a BA in fine art from London Guildhall University in 2003, will be exhibiting his work ‘So Alone I Keep the Wolves at Bay’ at the Exit Gallery (a siamese twin of Clare De Rouen bookshop).
We asked Andreas some questions about his stuff and his fancy name – where the hell did that come from? That’s a pretty fancy name you got there? What nationality are your parents? It’s a bit pretentious isn’t it!? My father is Hungarian, my mother is English. They met in Germany in the Sixties when my Dad was at the Kunstakademie and my mum was dancing for the Tanz-Forum. I was named Andreas after a German friend of theirs, Laszlo was a Hungarian king, and Konrath is potentially German at it’s roots but I think it’s fairly common name in Hungary.
Where did you grow up? In a quaint town called Chorleywood, north west of London. My parents moved there from Germany in the Seventies, when my brother was born. It’s on the Met line so it’s only 35 mins to Baker Street, which was good for me once I was a bit older since there’s not much to do in Chorleywood!
What makes you want to take someone’s picture? It sounds a bit narcissistic but I suppose I’m always looking for part of myself in the people I like to photograph. Some element of common ground, something that I can use to connect myself to the subject. Skateboarding and music have always been key elements of the subjects that I’m attracted to, since I’ve been skateboarding since I was 13 and played in bands a lot when I was younger. I like to find characters with something that speaks to me, whether that’s their personality, something in their eyes, clothing, or haircut. I’ve always photographed a lot of my friends because firstly they’re easy to get close to, and there’s less boundaries to break. But then it’s also a challenge to persuade someone you’ve never met before to let you photograph them, so I like to photograph strangers too if they have one of these things I’m looking for, and then sometimes, they become friends after taking their picture anyway.
What in your opinion is the best picture you’ve ever taken and why?
It’s of a kid I photographed for a long time called Joe. We shot this in the studio and I used a 4×5 camera. A few weeks before I’d been mucking around with it and fogged some film, and liked the accidental results, so I decided to fog a bunch of my film on purpose. This image of Joe was one of the lucky ones, since you never really know what you’re going to get. But that’s the beauty of doing something like that, it’s a bit of a risk, and it might not work at all.
Who would you most like to photograph and why? I think most of the people I’d love to photograph are really old now or dead. I really wish I could have photographed Richard Hell when he was younger, but in fact to photograph him now would be pretty cool too. Maybe I’m too attached to those old classic images of him. Joe Strummer would have been amazing too. Bowie as well, in his Aladdin Sane days, but even now he would be great. And of course Iggy.
You work with musicians quite a lot, what five songs would you choose to be played at your funeral from beginning to end? That’s the hardest question ever. You see, I don’t know if you’re supposed to play songs for yourself, because since you’re dead, you can’t hear them. Or are you meant to choose songs for the people at the funeral, to make them cry!? Ok, firstly, I can’t get it down to five, but seven….
1. Fix Me – Black Flag
2. Cucurrucucú Paloma – Caetano Veloso
3. I Wanna Be Your Dog – The Stooges
4. Speed Trials – Elliott Smith
5. Party Hard – Andrew WK
6. Killing Moon – Echo and The Bunny Men
7. Watching the Wheels – John Lennon
Do you always shoot on film? I know its obvious but I like the different ways people describe why they shoot on film so tell me why? Yeah I still shoot exclusively on film. I don’t really have a direct answer for why, it’s just I like it. I do all my own printing as well so I really feel like I am attached to that process.
Who are your heros? In terms of photography it would be Larry Clark, in terms of skateboarding it would be the Gonz, in terms of music probably Iggy Pop.
What’s your favourite thing to do when you’re not talking pictures? Skateboarding, albeit badly. I really like riding my crap bike around too. And also fooling myself that I can play guitar.
What is your greatest ambition? To still ride a skateboard when I’m 60!
Whats your death row meal, starter, main, desert and drink??? Ceviche for a starter, my mum’s fish pie for main course, the chocolate tart with sea salt they serve at Marlow and Sons in Brooklyn for dessert, and a Rubicon guarana drink!
Andreas Laszlo Konrath: So Alone I Keep The Wolves At Bay is at Exit Gallery, Charing Cross Road from 6th May – 18th June 2010. www.clairederouenbooks.com
Hot out of the Central St Martins MA fashion oven like a freshly baked monochrome cupcake, young Simone Rocha is a star of the future. We love her.
How old are you? I am 23.
What’s the inspiration behind your MA collection? Irish travellers, the mourning traditions of the Aran islands in the West of Ireland and masculine tailoring.
If you could do a collaboration with anyone, who would it be? The artist Louise Bourgeois.
How was it doing an MA at St Martins? Its reputation for ‘tough love’ is legendary. It was tough but fair, hardcore but worth it.
What has been your career high to date? Showing at Somerset House during London Fashion Week as part of the CSM MA fashion show.
Being Irish, does the mighty little Green Island itself influence your work? Yes.
Why????? It’s everything from the people to the places…I’m inspired by my grandmother’s graveyard in Birr Co.Offaly and Meath Street in Dublin. To me Ireland is home, and home is where the heart is and if you put your heart into something it’s going to make much better work.
Who would you most like to see wearing your clothes? Me, my mates, Chloe Sevigny.
Where would you like to show London, Paris, Milan or New York? Why? Right now London, I think it’s the best place for a young designer to show at the moment. It’s the best starting platform.
What is your ideal outfit on a man? Depends on the man.
What music are you listening to at the minute? Hank Williams,The Slits,The XX.
Who or what is your greatest inspiration in your work? Art and family.
What’s your favourite word? SCUM
Favourite books? Pony Kids by Perry Ogden, 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo and The Barrytown Trilogy by Roddy Doyle.
Favourite film? In the Mood for Love.
Death row meal – starter, main, desert and drinks? My mother’s roast dinner, champagne and Jamesons whiskey for desert.
If you had to be on a desert Island for the rest of your life, and you could bring seven things what would they be? Book,pencil, pen, paper, discman, cds, batteries(for the discman) and Jamesons.
Your six dream dinner party guests – alive or dead? Dad, mum, Max, Caireban, Celo and Fayzer.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Most likely still living in London, summers in France, my own label, designing, showing, selling, wearing beautiful clothes, hanging out with my dachshund Rufus…
Born in New York City and raised in the Hollywood Hills, Terry Richardson is as American as Coca Cola, Hersheys Kisses and Reeses Pieces. I first bought his book Terry World back in Dublin in 2004, and I had to hide it from my mother because it was filled with pictures of his penis, other peoples penises, tits, asses, blowjobs and lickouts. It was bright and beautiful and fun and explicit and I loved it. Terry made Benetton sexy, he pumped a bit of porn into fashion and we lapped it up. Now he has a diary of everyday cool stuff and ace pictures of funny shit from the street and in his life.
I first met Niall in Dublin in 2000. Our friendship was wrought over whiskies in a bar looking out over the sea. Even back then Niall was doing something different to everyone else. He was stubborn and driven, and had the energy and enthusiasm of a small tornado. In 2006 Niall made a short film called ‘Superheroes’ with a group of young punks which has developed into an ongoing project, involving scrapes with the law, dalliances with anarchy and lots of drinking – being Irish he’s good at that bit. Niall is a living Tarry Flynn from Patrick Kavanagh’s book by the same name, an eternal dreamer and artist who never quite has his feet firmly planted on the ground.
Niall O’Brien’s work will be on show from 1st Feburary – 11th March 2010 at Art Work Space in the Hempel Hotel.
When I was a kid you the way you worked out your porn star moniker was the name of your first pet plus your mother’s maiden name. Real life porn star Sasha Grey – born Marina Ann Hantzis – took her name from the founder of German industrial rock band KMFDM, Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ and the Kinsey scale of sexuality – which puts everyone on a scale from 0 (heterosexual) to 6 (homosexual). Logically Grey is in the middle which means both, or all, or everything.
The magic of Sasha Grey is that she embodies everything a man/woman desires – and has tenacity – sexual and otherwise – beyond her years. At 21 she already has a number of AVN awards (the Oscars for the adult movie industry) including ‘best three way sex scene’ and ‘best group sex scene’ – amongst her alternative accolades. She’s in a band called Altacine that makes experimental death dub noise, and has her own production company, LA Factory Girls.
Now, director Steven Soderbergh has cast Miss Grey in his latest film ‘The Girlfriend Experience’ out on Friday. Ok, so we know that her transition from adult to mainstream film has been greeted with mixed reactions by critics – but we can’t help but look on with fascination. She’s hot enough to sway anyone’s Kinsey rating, and somehow we can’t help but love her.
Mark your skin for life, no going back, no changing your mind, sometimes reckless abandon, sometimes drunk, sometimes high, sometimes in love. Stand by your decision, believe absolutely in what you
believe in and just do it.
Don’t think about anything too much life’s too short.
Drink some whiskey.
Smoke some cigarettes.
Never regret and never try to alter or change. It’s life. It’s learning. It’s all good.
A good pain. A gentle pain. An I’m alive pain.
That’s stick and poke.
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