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.
Flowers Gallery will be presenting prints from my Sight Sacralization: (Re)framing Switzerland work at the 37th edition of The Photography Show, presented by AIPAD.
It will be held March 30– April 2, 2017 at Pier 94 for the first time.
Pier 94, 711 12th Avenue, New York, NY 10019, USA
Hours
Wednesday, March 29
Vernissage VIP Hours: 2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Vernissage Public Hours: 5:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Thursday, March 30 through Saturday, April 1
VIP Hours: 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Public Hours: 12:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, April 2
VIP Hours: 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Public Hours: 12:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
The newly expanded Show, organized by the Association of International Photography Art Dealers, will present exceptional photography from early masters, modern luminaries, and rising and established contemporary names from more than 100 of the world’s leading fine art galleries.
One of the world’s most prestigious annual photography events, The Photography Show is the longest-running and foremost exhibition dedicated to the photographic medium, offering a wide range of museum-quality work, including contemporary, modern, and 19th-century photographs as well as photo-based art, video, and new media.
The Photography Show will feature galleries from across the U.S. and around the world, including Europe, Asia, Canada, Mexico, and South America. With four new sections – Salon, Gallery, Positions, and Discovery – the Show will offer work from both AIPAD members and new exhibitors, as well as younger galleries, and book dealers and publishers.
Opens: 9 March, 7 pm
Introduction: Andrew Phelps in conversation with Simon Roberts
FOTOHOF will present the first exhibition of the British photographer Simon Roberts in Austria. Simon Roberts is a prolific and internationally renowned photographer of the contemporary British photography scene, who has spent the past 10 years tracing the “British”. The exhibition in Salzburg is titled “Landscape Studies of a Small Island”, the beginning of an international exhibition tour of this work.
In 2005 Roberts began to deal with the question of what it means to be British and decided to focus his camera on his own country, the British and their landscape. The result is a series of several works showing the political, social and cultural British landscape. Non-judgmental and free of irony, his photographs provide evidence and information about social relations not only between people, but also between people and the places of their leisure activities in the English countryside.
Press Release available here.
A series of my photographs made for the Rome Commission are included in the group exhibition Colosseo Un’Icona on show at the Colosseum in Rome.
For more information about visiting: http://www.coopculture.it/en/colosseo-e-shop.cfm
Blurb-
The ambulatory of the second order of the Flavian Amphitheatre will host the exhibition entitled “Colosseum. Icon “, curated by Rossella Rea, Serena Romano and Richard Santangeli Valenzani , with exhibition design by Francesco Cellini .
For the first time the Colosseum is told in an exhibition that will trace the long and intense life of the site over the centuries up to the present day.
The exhibition is divided into six sections arranged in chronological order, through which we will highlight the historical and cultural influence of the amphitheater, which is found in the most diverse: from painting to restoration, from architecture to urban planning, from the show literature, sociology and politics.
Over time, the monument has become the symbol par excellence of eternity and power of civilization and culture. Even today, the attention of the international news, the Colosseum is present in the collective imagination not only of Italian: his myth continues.
The exhibition is promoted by the Superintendence for the Colosseum and the central archaeological area of Rome, with Electa. It ‘also accompanied by volume The Colosseum Book and will follow the catalog, both published by Electa.