1929 © August Sander / 2008 © Boris Mikhailov

Exhibition on view:
March 22–May 5, 2012

Pace/MacGill Gallery
32 E 57th Street
New York City, NY
(212) 759-7999

Two seminal practitioners of the camera are side-by-side in Pace/MacGill’s current exhibition, German Portraits.

From 1910 through 1956, documentary photographer August Sander, strove to make a visual index of the population classifying Germany’s most conventional groups: The Farmer, The Skilled Tradesman, The Woman, Classes and Professions, The Artist, The City, and The Last People. This monumental project turned into the masterpiece, People of the 20th Century, featuring over 600 images. Twenty portraits by Sander will be shown in this exhibition, each striking a rare symmetry of the individual and an illustration of the archetype, forming a sincere social portrait of the time.

Ukrainian-born Boris Mikhailov has photographed Germany’s middle class. Nearly a century after August Sander, Mikhailov focuses on the distinct appearance of the individual and the transmission of physical traits from parents to offspring. He captures his subjects against a dark backdrop, taken in profile, inviting us to contemplate line and form and what it means to be German in a literal and physical sense.

Mikhailov is featured in Aperture issues 190 and 158. Aperture also published August Sander: Masters of Photography.

With over 60 exhibitions set among beautiful 12th-century churches and former industrial buildings, the 40th Rencontres d’Arles is not to be missed. The carefully prepared exhibitions are mostly produced by the Rencontres team, along with artists and curators, and often travel on to other parts of the world.

Returning to Arles after over twenty years, Nan Goldin is presented in 40 Years of Ruptures, and has invited 12 photographers to participate in the exhibition Ça me touche, Nan Goldin’s Guests: David Armstrong, Marina Berio, Jean-Christian Bourcart, Antoine D’Agata, JH Engström, Jim Goldberg, Christine Fenzl, Leigh Ledare, Boris Mikhailov, Anders Petersen, Jack Pierson, Lisa Ross and Annelies Strba on view at the Atelier de Mécanique.

Additionally, Goldin is presenting three personal exhibitions: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, a visual diary of her life in New York; Sisters, Saints and Sibyls, a tribute to her sister and to those rebel women fighting for survival in society; and her own collection of photographs. On Saturday, July 11, Nan Goldin will be honored with a Discovery and Book Award ceremony for her influential work in contemporary photography. Aperture originally published Goldin’s masterwork The Ballad of Sexual Dependency in 1986.

Les Rencontres d’Arles 2009

40 Years of Rencontres/40 Years of Ruptures
Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie
Tuesday, July 7—Sunday, September 13, 2009
10 rond-point des Arénes
13632 Arles, France
Phone: +33 (0)4 . 90967606

Nan Goldin: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency+ Tiger Lillies
Saturday, July 11, 2009  10:15 pm
Théâtre Antique

Nan Goldin, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency: Atelier de Mécanique