A walk and talk with artist Simon Roberts whose Thames Tideway Tunnel hoarding commission The Thames Wunderkammer: Tales from Victoria Embankment in Two Parts is currently on show at Victoria Embankment.
Participants are invited to gather outside Embankment Underground Station (River Thames exit) where the artist will meet you and take you on a short walk to the site of the hoarding. There, he will discuss his 25-metre ‘cabinet of curiosities’ that presents a fascinating and diverse collection of objects from the past and present. Ancient swords, photographs from the women’s pro-suffrage march and comical engarvings of the dirty water of the Thames contribute to an artwork that reflects the area’s complex history, geology and devleopment.
Simon Roberts’ commission draws on exciting research with the Museum of London, British Museum, Houses of Parliament, Parliamentary Archives, Parliamentary Art Collection, Wellcome Trust, and Thames 21; and Flowers Gallery London.
The event is free and can be booked here: TICKETS
This event is part of Totally Thames, which takes place over the month of September and brings the river to life via an exciting season of arts, cultural and river events throughout the 42-mile stretch of the Thames in London.
More information about Tideway’s arts programme is available here: https://www.tideway.london/news/media-centre/tideway-launches-vision-for-public-art-to-celebrate-history-and-culture-of-the-river-thames/
Image: Detail of ‘South Downs Way, East Sussex, 2007’ from the series, We English
British Landscape and the Imagination: 1970s to Now
I have several pieces included in this group show, an Arts Council Collection National Partner Exhibition running from 30 SEP – 21 JAN 2018.
This major survey exhibition focuses on artists who have shaped our understanding of the British landscape and its relationship to identity, place and time. Exploring how artists interpret urban and rural landscape through the lens of their own cultural, political or spiritual ideologies, the exhibition reveals the inherent tensions between landscape represented as a transcendental or spiritual place, and one rooted in social and political histories.
Though primarily photography, A Green and Pleasant Land includes film, painting and sculpture by over 50 artists, illustrating the various concerns and approaches to landscape pursued by artists from the 1970s to now.
Artists included in the exhibition: Keith Arnatt, Gerry Badger, Craig Barker, John Blakemore, Henry Bond and Liam Gillick, Paul Caponigro, Thomas Joshua Cooper, John Davies, Susan Derges, Mark Edwards, Anna Fox, Melanie Friend, Hamish Fulton, Fay Godwin, Andy Goldsworthy, Paul Graham, Mishka Henner, Paul Hill, Robert Judges, Angela Kelly, Chris Killip, John Kippin, Karen Knorr, Ian Macdonald, Ron McCormick, Mary McIntyre, Peter Mitchell, Raymond Moore, John Myers, Martin Parr, Mike Perry, Ingrid Pollard, Mark Power, Paul Reas, Emily Richardson, Ben Rivers, Simon Roberts, Paul Seawright, Andy Sewell, Theo Simpson, Graham Smith, Jem Southam, Jo Spence, John Stezaker, Paddy Summerfield, The Caravan Gallery, Chris Wainwright, Patrick Ward, Clare Woods and Donovan Wylie.
http://www.townereastbourne.org.uk/exhibition/a-green-and-pleasant-land/
An exhibition of my new series, Normandy, produced during a residency with the Centre photographique in Rouen will be touring to Abbaye aux Dames in Caen and then Le Musée d’Art-Histoire-Archéologie in Evreux, France.
ABOUT: “So here is Normandy, her holidays and festivals, as seen by an Englishman. This particular cross-Channel cousin, Simon Roberts, is a young star of English photography. Born in 1974, he belongs to a typically British tradition that consists of trying to illustrate the link between landscape and people. In 2009 he finishes a landmark series of images, gathered in a book titled We English: it’s a narrative of the English countryside as it is lived and hiked through—a space where life happens in daily routines, in holidays, in rituals even.” Raphaëlle Stopin, Curator.
The Centre Photographique in Rouen has asked Roberts to look at the region of greater Normandy as part of an ongoing project initiated several years ago, involving a selection of photographers, to focus on landscapes such as the ocean cliffs, the Seine valley, and renovated urban areas. This time, Roberts’ residency has revealed a territory conceived of as a vast human landscape.
Simon working, Le Mont-Saint-Michel, Normandy © Alex Valin, 2016
Image: by Alex Valin, 2015. Waiting for the Tour de France, Etretat, Normandy.
My new series, Normandy, has just launched at Centre photographique – Pôle Image Haute-Normandie. The work was made between 20014-2016 as part of a residency with the Centre photographique.
ABOUT: “So here is Normandy, her holidays and festivals, as seen by an Englishman. This particular cross-Channel cousin, Simon Roberts, is a young star of English photography. Born in 1974, he belongs to a typically British tradition that consists of trying to illustrate the link between landscape and people. In 2009 he finishes a landmark series of images, gathered in a book titled We English: it’s a narrative of the English countryside as it is lived and hiked through—a space where life happens in daily routines, in holidays, in rituals even.” Raphaëlle Stopin, Curator.
The Centre Photographique in Rouen has asked Roberts to look at the region of greater Normandy as part of an ongoing project initiated several years ago, involving a selection of photographers, to focus on landscapes such as the ocean cliffs, the Seine valley, and renovated urban areas. This time, Roberts’ residency has revealed a territory conceived of as a vast human landscape.
Image: Célébration du 14 juillet avec un barbecue, Yport, Seine-Maritime, 14 Juillet 2014
“Beware, O voyager, the road travels as well,” Rainer Maria Rilke wrote. A landscape, far from being a frozen reality, is experience and interaction, a negotiated interface between the environment and the person who peoples it with his or her footsteps and emotions. Collectively and individually, we and the landscape weave together a storyline mixing the real and the symbolic, the cultural and the natural, the objective and the subjective.
Over two years of work the photographer has followed a trail of local fêtes, parades, memorial ceremonies and leisure activities. While everything around him is movement, flux, mobility, he stands still. Camped on the top of his van or perched on top of a ladder, he captures the fleeting encounter between an environment and those who occupy it for a day. The tone of the encounter is often casual, as in a still showing a group of friends adopting a corner of the Yport cliffs, readying a barbecue grill as if in a corner of their own garden. Finally these are “affective” landscapes, sites made for sharing.
Image: Football Club Barentinois, Barentin, 22 Novembre 2014
From such a vantage point, the lens of Simon Roberts seems panoramic. The resulting space between the lens on one hand, and its subject and characters on the other, avoids the pitfall of the anecdotal or ephemeral to confer on scenes as trivial as a swim or bike ride the majesty of a landscape portrait. In the physical space of his large images Simon Roberts crafts a generous, inquisitive and friendly portrait of Normandy and of those who wander her byways. His images, as they explore rural hamlets, beaches, and sports fields, reveal an unexpected and joyous diversity of customs and manners of “living” her landscapes.
You can find more information and some installation photographs HERE.
After Rouen, the exhibition will tour to Caen and Evreux. More details to follow.
Simon Roberts “Public Performance”
Exhibition from May 27 to July 31 2017
Opening Reception on Friday, May 26 at 7pm
Robert Morat Gallery is thrilled to be able to show new work by Simon Roberts this summer. “Public Performance” assembles works from three different series by the British photographer – The Last Moment, Sight Sacralization: (Re)framing Switzerland and Urban Parks.
Read more on Photography-Now.
My work New Vedute – Alternative Postcards, Rome Commission 2016, will be on display at the Italian Cultural Institute from 16 May to 18 June 2017, on the occasion of Photo London.
Last year we showed a group exhibition based on several Rome Commission – from Martin Parr to Paolo Ventura, Guy Tillim, Alec Soth, Anders Petersen and much more. This year we will show the 2016 Rome Commission by Simon Roberts.
Admission free, booking online: http://bit.ly/2pc6kty
Curated by Marco Delogu and Flavio Scollo.
Image: Karl Hugo Schmölz © Archiv Wim Cox
A series of my works in the Art Collection Deutsche Börse will be included in the group exhibition, “Work & Leisure” which will be exhibited in The Cube, Eschborn, Germany.
Dates: 12 May to 8 September 2017
The exhibition “Work & Leisure” devotes itself to the two living environments which most impact everyday human life. The displayed photographs cover a broad range of different working environments and conditions that dominate workers’ rhythm of life. This ranges from images of Brazilian mine workers in the works of Sebastião Salgado and surface mining areas in the former German Democratic Republic by Inge Rambow to Andreas Gursky’s trading floors of international stock exchanges and Candida Höfer’s images of library reading halls. Set against these workplace images, the exhibition shows photographs depicting recreational activities and diversion, recounting the places and rituals sought out to find regeneration. This can seem somewhat bizarre in the works of Martin Parr and Jürgen Nefzger, while the works of Lucas Foglia and Simon Roberts tell of where the quest for leisure in the vastness of nature can lead. The central theme of the exhibition is therefore the search for identity and freedom of the individual in everyday life, covering various periods, regions and cultures.
With more than 100 photographs by 28 artists of the Art Collection Deutsche Börse, “Work & Leisure” offers a multifaceted artistic insight into the places we spend a large part of our lifetime in, which in turn makes them highly relevant, to society as a whole as well as to the private realm of the individual.
The exhibition is curated by Anne-Marie Beckmann, Sebastian Knoll and Annekathrin Müller.
To sign up for a tour, please visit: http://bit.ly/2pezN2M
You can find more about the Collection here: https://www.deutscheboersephotographyfoundation.org/en/collect/artists.php
I will be participating in this symposium hosted by the MA Documentary Photography and Photojournalism course at University of Westminster.
9th May, 11-1pm
Speakers include-
David Moore, Head of MA Documentary Photography, University of Westminster
Dr Massimiliano Fusari, Teacher and Photographer
Clare Grafik, Curator, The Photographers’ Gallery
Anne Bourgeois, Global Digital Director Magnum Photos
Britain in Pictures: Landscape, History and Identity
with Simon Roberts and David Chandler
I will be involved in a Photography Research Dialogue event with Professor David Chandler at the Plymouth University as part of the MA Photography Programme. The event is open to visitors.
Wednesday 3 May
Scott 114, 2.00pm to 5.pm
Through highly regarded publications such as Motherland (2007), We English (2009) and Pierdom (2013), and for his incisive coverage of the General Election of 2010, photographer Simon Roberts has emerged over the last decade as one of our most interesting chroniclers of the British social landscape. In this timely research dialogue, Roberts will discuss his recent work and the preparations for his new book project with David Chandler, who will be contributing an essay to that publication. Linking a number of his different series over the last ten years, Roberts’s new book continues his investigation into the relationship between landscape and national identity, while paying more specific attention to the texture of British life during the unfolding of recent historical events. The afternoon will be structured around two presentations: one by Roberts about the book and one by Chandler about the ideas and images informing the research for his essay. The presentations will be followed by an in-conversation between the two speakers and a general discussion.
I have two video pieces included in this upcoming exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, London. They will be showing my Sight Sacralization Part 1 & 2 in the group exhibition ‘From Selfie to Self-Expression‘.
The show will be the world’s first exhibition exploring the history of the selfie from Velazquez to the present day, while celebrating the truly creative potential of a form of expression often derided for its inanity. Showing alongside examples of many influential artists’ work will be selfies that have quickly become icons of the digital era – from the beautiful and sublime to the mad, bad and downright dangerous.
Rembrandt van Rijn Self-Portrait with Two Circles, Juno Calypso The Honeymoon Suite, Actor Benedict Cumberbatch jumps behind U2 at the 86th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California, Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still #21.