Marco Citron : a photographer with a zest of irony

© Marco Citron ” Boring Landscapes” / Food For Your Eyes

Marco Citron is a italian photographer with a lot of irony in his eyes.

“The Heroic deers of People Lives in the Centuries”, which he called one time “Boring Landscapes” according to a series well known by a quiete famous british photographer, looks like vintage postcards from the soviet era. But it’s not. He used old films and altered a little bit more the colors digitally. He did the photographs  in Ukraine shooting modernist buildings in the suburbs  where nothing had really changed from the 60’s or 70’s, even the cars.

This slideshow was produced few months ago for Food For Your Eyes Slideshow presentation  in Vienna. Marco suggested me a music who plays so well with his series.

Watch and enjoy !

Tomas Van Houtryve inside North Korea : Radio Interviews

Exclusive Slideshow for Food For Your Eyes. Photographs by Tomas Van Houtryve, North Korea Secret and Lies, 2008

Photojournalist Tomas Van Houtryve infiltered  North Korea last year pretending he was a business man who wants to sell chocolate to the most secret country in the world . That could be a Marx Brothers stories, it was also a tour de force. One year later, hearing the terrible news of two american journalists have been sentenced for 12 years of hard labored, he then realized how much it was a risky business. The photographs he managed to take in hospitals, factories, shops, subway in Penyang show what no foreigner could see.

His interviews about his photography inside North Korea were recently broadcast on BBC World Service and NPR . It is worth the listen.

“Rare Photos From Inside Kim Jong Il’s North Korea” in TIME Magazine

The slideshow above was prepared for Food For Your Eyes screening in Paris in June 2008 . It was the very first public presentation of this exclusive story. Check also Tomas Van Houtryve Journal

Critical Mass 09 : open for registration

Since 2004, Photolucida’s Critical Mass program has been a tremendous resource for photographers trying to get their work out into the world as well as for gallerists, curators, publishers, and editors in their search for good talent. A totally unique celebration of photography, Critical Mass is a way for photographers to have their work seen by over 200 of the best professionals in the business and to help produce and receive monographs of the work that everyone agrees is great. 
And in addition to the monographs for 2009, Photolucida is proud to announce that a Critical Mass Top 50 group exhibition is being planned for PCNW, curated by Andy Adams, editor/publisher of Flak Photo.

Critical Mass 2009 is now open for registration and will remain open through July 22nd!

UPDATED : Extend deadline for Critical Mass 2009 through Sunday July 26


Food For Your Eyes Slideshow at F/Stop Festival, Leipzig on July 1stF


F/STOP International Photography Festival in Leipzig, Germany will host Food For Your Eyes Slideshow on July 1st during the opening of the main exhibtion ” Where do we go from here ? “

Food For Your Eyes Group Show Screening on July 1st at 9.00 pm at Alter Handelshof, Grimmaische Str. 1-7 / Leipzig Center

I’m delighted to present  Food For Your Eyes summer show program and highlighting ten visions to tell our world…and life.

This new photo- group slideshow features works by east, north and south europeans, americans and australian photographers : Jens Olof Lasthein , Alexander Gronsky, Jörg Brüggemann, Szabolcs Barakonyi, Juliana Beasley, Will Steacy,  Graham Miller,   Felix R. Cid,  Esther Levine & Flore-Aël Surun


ESTHER LEVINE Berlin 1999-2004

GRAHAM MILLER - Suburban Splendour

SZABOLCS BARAKONYI- Mine T ( a town without a mine)

FELIX R.CID - Bureaucraty of Love Stories

WILL STEACY - Down These Mean Streets

JENS LASTHEIN - White Sea Black Sea

JÖRG BRÜGGEMANN - Same Same But Diferent

JULIANA BEASLEY - Last Stop Rockaway Park

ALEXANDER GRONSKY - The Edge

FLORE-AÊL SURUN /Tendance Floue - Temptation for Peace

If in Rome : FotoGrafia, International Festival of Rome, through August 2

Works from Food For Your Eyes fellow photograhers will be on display at Fotografia, International Festival of Roma from May 29th untill August 2nd at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni.

As a part of a group -exhibtion “La Gioia” fearuring many good photographers works,  you can enjoy Same Same But Different by Jörg Brüggemann (one photo from his series photo made the festival poster ), Instants Separated by Intervals, a portrait series by Manuel Capurso and Last Stop Rockaways Park by  recipient of the 2008-09 Aaron Siskind Foundation IPF grant, Miss Juliana Beasley ….


Asia-Europe Emerging Photographers' Forum 2009 in Kuala Lumpur

By the end of March, I’ve reeceived an invitation to participate in Asia -Europe Emerging Photographers’ Forum”, a cultural exchange program planned from May 10th through May 19th, 2009 in Kuala Lumpur. Then I’ve realized how much having created Food For Your Eyes Projects could be so grateful. Having such an oppotunity to collaborate with 23 young photographers from Europe and South-East Asia was an awesome experience !

I had also the pleasure to join with a group of coleagues and ressource persons : charismatic Shahidul Alman director of Chobi Mela International Festival of Photography and founder of Drik Agency in Bangladesh, German photographer Peter Bialobrzeski, Hiromi Nakamura curator of Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Martin Fuchs also known as the editor behind Magnum Photo Blog.

Siddharth Jain (Delhi) discussing his work with Peter Bialobrzeski during a portfolio-review session on day 3, at Asia-Europe Emerging Photographers’ Forum, Kuala Lumpur May 2009

Our busy schedule was divided between lectures, portfolio-reviews and discussions for the final exhibtion. We had lot of fun for sure, a lot of talks about photography (of course! ) and then we managed to took up a challenge : an exhibtion ready for a public opening scheduled on May 17th at Annexe Gallery , an alternative art space and gallery in Kuala Lumpur

Editing, printing,mounting, hanging, curating for Emerging Photographers’ Forum Exhibition in Kuala Lumpur :

Editing with Ziyuan Wang from Bejing in a photographer’s room turned into a working place during the first evening. Asia Europe Emerging Photographers’s Forum in Kuala Lumpur, May 2009

Agung Nugroho Widhi(Indonesia) looking for printing done. Day 3 at Asia-Europe Emerging Forum in Kuala Lumpur May 2009.

Evening before the opening , Jörg Brüggemann from Berlin, with Hiromi Nakamura, (Tokyo Metropolitan Photography Museum ) hanging Agung Nugroho Widhi photos for Creative Economies group-show at Annexe Gallery, Kuala Lumpur May 2009,

Thanks to Tammy David and Maika Elan for the photos !

Indeed, before the launch of the official meeting in Kuala Lumpur, photographers have been asked to prepare work related with ” Creative Economies ” the thematic focused for Asia -Europe Emerging Photographers’ Forum 2009 .

How can creative photography impact the perception of shifting economies in the globalised world ? In which ways can social cooperation and creativity meet in the space of indeterminate economic capacity ?…… The result was eclectic and chaotic in the beginning but after a high level of collaborative efforts from the group, then it ended-up with a coherent exhibition featuring 23 projects dealing with sustainable economy, gift economy, ressourceful economy, etc in Asia and Europe.

Now the Forum is over but it has left most of participants with the wish to meet again somewhere on the planet !

Participating photographers for Asia-Europe Emerging Photographers Forum 2009 : Tammy David ( Philippines), Siddharth Jain (India), Anastasia Taylor-Lind (UK), Ivor Prickett (Ireland), Jörg Brüggemann (Germany), Rafaela Persson (Sweden), Fernando Izquierdo (Spain), Agata Marzecova ( Slovakia), Assada Poranamond (Thailand), Erna Dyanty (Malaysia), Ziyuan Wang (China), Vignes Balasingam (Malaysia), Agung Nugroho Widhi (Indonesia), Kerstin Duell (Germany), Zhao Renhui (Singapore), Amit Madheshya (India), Angarag Davaasuren (Mongolia), Alex Wong (Malaysia), Maika Elan (Vietnam), Markel Redondo (Spain), Adam Adamus (Poland), Thy Heang (Cambodia), Ahmet Polat ( Nederlands) .

UPDATE : Finally it was decided to develop further our collaboration with ASEF on the topic of Creative Economies, involving selected photographers to participate, and yours trully as a project coordinator. Second Step of the Asia -European project aims to support participant photographers on their ongoing project documenting “Creative Economies” and to organize a touring exhibtion of the works in Europe and Asia  in 2010. More to come, stay tuned….

Festival ImageSingulieres

ImageSingulieres Documentary festival of Photography, is a very promising new comer on the map of Photo Festivals in France. ImageSingulières is held in Sète, a fishing town on the Mediterrannea, thanks to photographer Gilles Favier, founder and artistic director of the Festiva. Photography was on display in galleries and museums around town, and as well as on screen in a old wine storehouse each evening, where local oysters was abundant and so delicious !

Attending the Festival opening week-end on the first days of May, I had a good time with a bunch of photographers : Rena Effendi (Azerbaïdjian), Jens Olof Lasthein (Sweden), Sohrab Hura (India), Kosuke Okahara (Japan) , Ali Taptik (Turkey)….

I was delighted to visit their exhibtions, especially “House of Happiness” by Rena Effendi. ,. Her work documents family and cultural rituals in the traditional society of the Ferghana Valley in Ouzbekistan, through vibrant portraits of women.

© Rena Effendi - Gula, a 22 year old Uzbek woman left her husband because he took a second wife. She now sells icecream in a park. Osh. Kyrgyzstan. September, 2007


One of my favorite exhibition during ImageSingulieres , “White Sea Black Sea,” a powerful series of panoramic photographs by Jens Olof Lasthein is a visual journey along Europe’s eastern borders. His book White Sea Black Sea (2008 - Dewi Lewis Publishing ) is definitively a must-have !

Update : Congrats to Kosuke and Sorhab who have been selected to participate in Joop Swart Masterclass 2009

In Print : roundup of FFYE's photographers in magazines
Among the numerous feedback, one good news  with Food For Your Eyes Slideshow , is when a picture editor inspired by the photograhs,  choose a story  for his/her  publication. Then I’m pleased to announce that  “Security ” by Aleksandar Zaar features in the spring issue of the french magazine De L’Air.

Among the numerous feedback, one good news  with Food For Your Eyes Slideshow , is when a picture editor inspired by the photograhs,  choose a story  for his/her  publication. Then I’m pleased to announce that  “Security ” by Aleksandar Zaar features in the spring issue of the french magazine De L’Air.

Do I have to remind you ,  Last Stop : Rockaway Park by Juliana Beasley made the cover of View Magazine Issue 13 with a 18 pages portfolio. It’s the first time ever View Magazine (also my favorite photo magazine from Belgium ), features an emerging photograher on his  cover….Yes, Europe should know about this photograher from New Jersey !

Do I have to remind you ,  Last Stop : Rockaway Park by Juliana Beasley made the cover of View Magazine Issue 13 with a 18 pages portfolio. It’s the first time ever View Magazine (also my favorite photo magazine from Belgium ), features an emerging photograher on his  cover….Yes, Europe should know about this photograher from New Jersey !

” Boring Landscape” series by the italian photographer Marco Citron,  features in german magazine PhotoNews, with a review about the work written by Martin Parr : “The photos of Marco Citron from ex-soviet countries look strangely familiar. They remind us of the images of Utopia, so beloved by Communist block photographers in the 60’s and 70s. These can be found in postcards, propaganda books showing the bright new cities they depicted and many other forms. Yet somehow we also knowthey are different. Not only are these taken by a artist of some sophistication, but just the way he arranges the cars, and the foregrounds,for example, in the photographs has a real wit to them.It is both playful and very subtle. The photographs have a humour to them which is almost a contradiction, given the dry and pedestrian nature of the subject matter.That little ambiguity is  what makes these photographs really work.” A part of Food For Your Eyes Slideshows presented during  Month of Photograhy in Vienna last november ,  “Boring Landscape” is exhibited at the 5th Darmstädter Tage der Fotografie

” Boring Landscape” series by the italian photographer Marco Citron,  features in german magazine PhotoNews, with a review about the work written by Martin Parr :

“The photos of Marco Citron from ex-soviet countries look strangely familiar. They remind us of the images of Utopia, so beloved by Communist block photographers in the 60’s and 70s. These can be found in postcards, propaganda books showing the bright new cities they depicted and many other forms. Yet somehow we also know
they are different. Not only are these taken by a artist of some sophistication, but just the way he arranges the cars, and the foregrounds,for example, in the photographs has a real wit to them.
It is both playful and very subtle. The photographs have a humour to them which is almost a contradiction, given the dry and pedestrian nature of the subject matter.
That little ambiguity is  what makes these photographs really work.”

A part of Food For Your Eyes Slideshows presented during  Month of Photograhy in Vienna last november ,  “Boring Landscape” is exhibited at the 5th Darmstädter Tage der Fotografie

food for your eyes at Photo Finish '09

Photo Finish is a new photo event orgnised in Brussels by Photo Gallery Asbl and Hogerschool Sint-Lukas from  March 5 to 7 . The program includes exhibtion, auction, conferences and portfolio-review. I feel very honored to be a part of this first edition !

Juliana Beasley Print sales and so on

Good news dear readers and visual gourmets , Miss Juliana Beasley is offering  four images from her long term ongoing series Last Stop;  Rockaway Park , in edition of 15 for a very fair price of  250$ to 300 $ each. The prints are in a nice size of 18” x 18” ( 45,7 cm x 45,7 cm).

This Holiday Edition is a great opportunity not to be missed. You can purchase them directly through  her website .

Recently, this long term project has been shown at Frieze in London and has become part of the collection at the Victoria and Albert also in London. The project has been shown in the US, Spain, Germany, and most recently in Paris.

Last Stop: Rockaway Park make the cover in the Winter  issue 13 of View Magazine.

And last but not least , Juliana started  a blog  Juliana’s Lovely Land of Neurosis

UPDATE : The excellent webmag  Lens Culture joins the supporter and presents  Juliana Beasley’s Work here and here

“Leopard Lady”, © Juliana Beasley

“Leopard Lady”, © Juliana Beasley

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© 2007-2009 Food For Your Eyes Curated by Nathalie Belayche