Prix Pictet - Fire, at Alerkal Avenue, Dubai
Fire is the ninth cycle and the latest theme for Prix Pictet, the global award in photography and sustainability. This year’s winner is Sally Mann with her Blackwater, 2008-2012 series, with a shortlist of 11 artists.
You can visit the Prix Pictet Fire exhibition in A1 Space in Alserkal Avenue in Dubai, it opened on September 30 and on until October 16 (free entrance and open Monday to Sunday from 10 am to 7 pm).
The last Prix Pictet exhibition in Dubai (Consumption) was in 2015 at East Wing, a photography gallery that closed its doors a few years ago, and one I miss having in this city.
The following is an overview of all the works in this cycle, and I’ve included extracts from the artist statements, linking to the Prix Pictet site to see and read more. I’m looking forward to seeing the works in person.
“For years I have been examining the racial history of my homeland, the American South, viewing the land as a vessel for the memories of the complex struggles enacted upon it. The fires in the Great Dismal Swamp seemed to epitomize the great fire of racial strife in America— the Civil War, emancipation, the Civil Rights Movement, in which my family was involved, the racial unrest of the late 1960s and most recently the summer of 2020.
Something about the deeply flawed American character seems to embrace the apocalyptic as solution, the Fire Next Time, fire as a curative. Perhaps we do need to tear it down before we can rebuild, perhaps fire, uniquely, does cleanse and restore, yielding the small green sprigs and vines starting now to re- vitalize the swamp, offering hope for restoration. But fire does not destroy memories and no matter how our laws are revised to be more equitable or how our tortured racial past might somehow be mitigated or how completely the Great Dismal Swamp is engulfed in flames, no one will forget. These pictures are a testament and a reminder.” — Sally Mann
See the complete series here.
Shortlist:
Brent Stirton: Burns Capital Of The World
“Despite over six million people being burnt every year, India has very few burns facilities at clinics and hospitals and the best of those are very expensive, especially for the complex and multi-layered surgeries that burn victims require as well as the plastic surgery afterwards. This is particularly tragic for impoverished women and girls. The ability to marry is very important in India, in large part because of the dowry price that is attached to the marriage and how that can uplift the bride’s family. Dr Subodh Singh is a very talented plastic surgeon who made a deliberate decision to build a clinic for the most impoverished burns victims. He offers free surgery to them and runs camps where he can locate those most in need and provide transport so they may come for surgery.” — Brent Stirton
Carla Rippey: Fire
“I started collecting images and working from the resulting archives in the late 1970s; one of the subjects that emerged with time was that of vanishing points, another was fire: the act of burning registered in reiterated images clipped from newspapers, magazines and later on, downloaded from the internet.
When laser photocopies were commercialized in late 1980s, I discovered that the toner from the photocopies could be transferred with solvent and an etching press to Japanese papers and began to apply the practice to the making of artist’s books. Starting around 2010, with this technique I made a series of artist’s books with the fire images, a series called “Immolation”.” — Carla Rippey
Christian Marclay: Fire
“I use fragments of popular culture as material with which to create new meaning and form, through a process of mixing and re-contextualisation that is rooted in a sampling aesthetic originating in sound works I developed throughout the 1980’s using vinyl records. This approach to found material subsequently evolved to include the use of video, photography and printmaking.
The work that has triggered my nomination for the Prix Pictet was exhibited at the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco (January 21 – March 25, 2021) and was comprised of photographs, collages, and a video animation. The works selected for the Prix Pictet exhibition, however, are more specifically about fire.
The photographic prints originate from small-scale collages. Cut and torn fragments from comic books, movie stills, and images found on the internet are arranged into expressive composites of screaming faces. Sometimes the fragments are taped or glued directly onto the screen. Other faces are made from aggressively altering the paper by crumpling, tearing, and burning. These small ephemeral collages are then recorded by the camera.
Fire, 2020, is a video animation made from paper cutouts from comic book illustrations of fire. More than 1,500 photographs shown in rapid succession suggest a flip book, creating the illusion of a flickering fire. This animated collage transforms the representations of all manner of war, catastrophe, explosion, and arson into abstracted yellows, oranges, and reds.
These works reflect on the fear and anxiety associated with the raging pandemic, the erosion of democracy, systemic racism, and the damage to our environment.” — Christian Marclay
Daisuke Yokota: Untitled
Daisuke Yokota has presented to the public an immense installation using 100,000 photographic prints coated in wax, which was exhibited in Aichi Triennial held in August 2016. Yokota’s work ‘Matter’, a work whereby photographs have been printed on rolls of paper.
‘MATTER / BURN OUT’ is an extension of the work ‘Matter’ which was exhibited in Xiamen in 2015, 70 years after the war between Japan and China. Once the exhibition had come to a close, the work was burnt in the, once again, vacant space in the area.
This ‘burn out’ process was documented in 4,000 photographs, whereby the data was processed, manipulated and revived to form a brand new, large scale work called “MATTER / BURN OUT” – text from MATTER / BURN OUT (artbeatpublishers, 2016)
David Uzochukwu: Ignite
“I have a recurring daydream. Bodiless, I float in outer space and watch from a distance as the sun swallows up the Earth. Everything that has ever breathed or been built now burns away. I recognize the thrumming of life just before it returns to its disintegrated and silent state of origin. The dream is a strangely calm chance of recognition of all that would have been worth saving.
Similarly, I am drawn to moments of reflection in my photographs. With self portraiture as starting point, my aim is to recognize myself in others, and to have them see themselves in me. In The Wake in particular speaks of destruction and rebirth. Digitally stripping places from clear historic and geographic markers, and bodies from the confines of their social reality, I imagine what core remains when layers of our everyday are dissolved one by one.” — David Uzochukwu
Fabrice Monteiro: Untitled #9
“Fire: The element without which life would not be, has gradually evolved into a weapon of mass destruction for the environment since Man learned to control it.
It is fire that pollutes the atmosphere, when mountains of plastic waste are burned in dumpsites all over the world because we don’t know what to do with the waste of our modern life.
It is fire that devastates and sterilizes arable land when the slash-and-burn technique is used systematically season after season it’s the fire that burns thousands of tonnes of diesel each year to keep our cars moving again. It is fire that spews toxic fumes into the atmosphere when children burn old computer cables to extract copper on the Agbobloshie electronic dump in Ghana.” — Fabrice Monteiro
Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige: WONDER BEIRUT, The story of a Pyromaniac Photographer
“When we received the nomination for the Prix Pictet, we asked ourselves how is our work related to sustainability? It made us realise that not only our country, Lebanon, but also our lives and our artistic practice were constantly threatened.
A challenge that reminds us of the necessity of persisting, in our country and our region despite the political, social, human and ecological catastrophes that are projecting us into chaos and anarchy just hoping that after the disaster, there will be a possible regeneration…” — Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige
Lisa Oppenheim: Pendant 1943 2021 (Version-I)
“The presence of smoke indicates the existence of fire, even if it remains, as in these photographs, unseen. Smoke can be thought of as a metonym, standing in for and even obscuring a wider set of events and occurrences. Smoke obfuscates its source. Therefore my titles are often hyper specific. I use the full caption of the source image, whether the source is from the archives of The Guardian or Instagram, shedding a different kind of light on the meaning of the image. The titles often include two dates, the date the source photograph was taken and the date was “reprocessed” in my darkroom. Instead of using the light of an enlarger, the light of a match is used to expose a negative and also to solarize it. Fire lies outside the frame of the photograph, cropped out of sight, reemerging in the ignited match in the darkroom in which the image is made.” — Lisa Oppenheim
Mak Remissa: Our families were not allowed to take rest along the street
““Left 3 Days” is a keyword to recall some memories during my childhood at that time; particularly on 17April 1975 when Khmer Rouge troops took control and occupied the capital city “Phnom Penh”. During that time earsplitting gunfire shots could be heard for miles around the city. For everyshot fired, a shiver would run down my spine. The soldiers clad in black — most are very young of age– were ordering all residents to leave their home for only three days, even patients had to leave the hospital in the city without any clear information. My family hid in our house over a night, hoping the situation may change for the better. However, to our dismay, the capital city that was once so lively and rich with life became a ghost town.
As orderd, everyone was evicted out of the capital city. The only living human beings left are the Khmer Rouge troops that are searching for remaining citizens from house to house. Due to worsening situation, my father decided to leave Phnom Penh the next day. My parents and other family members are tasked to carrying heavy and overburden belongings. We were to head out of the city, along the national road “3”, walking to Angkor Chey district in Kampot province. There, my father’s hometown reside.” — May Remissa
Mark Ruwedel: Verdugo Mountains Fire #5
“The Los Angles area has always burned. Fire is an integral part of the ecology of southern California. In recent years, however, the fires have increased in both frequency and intensity. The La Tuna fire, in 2017, was considered to be the largest in the history of the city. Each year is hotter and drier than the previous one, and the “Fire Season” is extended to encompass much of the year. Climate change, decades of fire suppression, and general human carelessness all contribute to the recurring conflagrations.
I would like for these photographs to function as both document and metaphor. As Robert Adams has said, “You want ghosts, and the daily news and prophecy”.” — Mark Ruwedel
Rinko Kawauchi: Untitled
“I photographed fireworks every summer between 1997 and 2001, and this collection represents that body of work.
I was still in the process of making my first works at the time, and every day I underwent an agonizing repetition of trial and experimentation. For that reason, I found simple joy in photographing fireworks. Not only do they function as a beautiful subject, but they provided me with a sort of healing; I was living alone in Tokyo at the time, and watching the displays allowed me to be with others and to share that experience with them.
Alongside people of all ages, I would look up at the sky and marvel at the beautiful sparks. In an instant they would vanish – and so would we return to our own daily lives.
In a chaotic world, such moments felt like salvation: an affirmation of being alive.
Fire – a metaphor for both life and death. Beauty that dissipates in an instant. These have functioned as motivations for photography from the beginning; and over time, I think these notions have become symbolic of my early work.” — Rinko Kawauchi