Seasonal picks

As the French art world shakes of the last of its summer tan, here's a list of some of the exhibitions to look out for in Paris this autumn, including (shock, horror) some non-photographic selections: Harry Callahan: Variations, Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, 7 Sep. - 19 Dec.

William Kentridge: Breath Dissolve, Return, Marian Goodman Gallery, 11 Sep. - 16 Oct. I don't know how I did this but I managed to miss the Kentridge exhibition at the Jeu de Paume this summer so I will not be missing this.

Takashi Murakami, Château de Versailles, 14 Sep - 12 Dec. 2010. After Jeff Koons last year Murakami is the next to tackle the most famous French château with as much kitsch as he can muster.

Gabriel Orozco, Centre Pompidou, 15 Sep. - 3 Jan. 2011.

Anonymes, l'Amerique sans nom: photographie et cinéma (Walker Evans, Chauncey Hare, Standish Lawder, Lewis Baltz, Anthony Hernandez, Sharon Lockhart, Jeff Wall, Bruce Gilden, Doug Rickard, Arianna Arcara et Luca Santese), Le Bal, 18 Sep. - 19 Dec. (Review of this show coming soon on eyecurious).

André Kertész, Jeu de Paume, 28 Sep. - 6 Feb.

Larry Clark: Kiss the Past Hello, MAMVP, 8 Oct. - 2 Jan.

Thibaut Cuisset: Syrie, une terre de pierre, Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire, 12 Oct. - 6 Nov.

Moebius Transeforme, Fondation Cartier, 12 - Oct. - 13 Mar.

Duane Michals, Galerie Thierry Marlat, 26 Oct. - 18 Nov.

Mois de la Photo, November. 30th anniversary of the biennial month of photography in Paris. Expect more photography than ever all over the city.

Eikoh Hosoe, Galerie Photo4, 5 Nov. - 4 Dec. Organized by yours truly.

Prix Pictet, Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire, 13 - 27 Nov. The sustainability photo prize is holding a preview exhibition at Filles du Calvaire this year.

Paris Photo, 18 - 21 Nov. Annual photo mayhem.

Rewriting history

A few months ago, courtesy of Bryan, I stumbled on a link to this archive of colour photographs taken by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information from Depression-era America (apparently it's a fairly well-known internet resource). I remember seeing a few people's reaction to these images on Facebook including one commenter who was bothered by the use of colour, saying that it somehow felt wrong for the subject matter.

I was intrigued by this comment, because I had almost precisely the opposite reaction. This is the first time that I have seen colour photographs from this period in US history, but like anyone interested in photography, I have seen my fair share of black-and-white images from the Depression years. That period is so intrinsically and deeply associated with black-and-white that I found it shocking to see just how colorful this time actually was. These photographs made me feel like my conception of these years was all wrong.

Subconsciously I had almost come to assume that the world actually was black-and-white during these years: it seems so appropriate for photographs documenting difficult and dark years like these to be totally drained of colour. I realise that this about as basic a eureka moment as you can get with photography ("Wow, look, things seem really different in colour than in black-and-white"), but when a time becomes so characterised by a particular kind of photograph, you can't help but be taken aback when seeing it depicted in an entirely different way.

You can see a fuller selection of images from this archive on the Library of Congress Flickr page.

Apologies and explanations

Once again, dear readers, I have to apologise for my blogging silence. But this time I have a pretty foolproof excuse (see image above).

In fairness I can't blame my recent wedding entirely for the lack of posting as there is another happy event that has kept me busy for the other half of the summer: FOAM magazine's annual Talent issue. I was asked to do all the Q&As with the fifteen contributing photographers, which was an excellent experience as there are never enough opportunities to sit down with photographers and ask them a bunch of questions about their work and a lot of the work featured in this issue I would most likely never have discovered otherwise. With photo-blogs I find that we too often just gravitate towards things that we take an instant liking to and too often end up overlooking interesting work that doesn't immediately resonate with us, so being presented with a really broad cross-section of work from all different fields and styles and trying to engage with all of it is an experience that I highly recommend. As a bonus, I'm not the only blogger to feature in the issue, as I understand that Mrs Deane has also contributed a text... two virtual salmon swimming upstream into the world of the printed page. The magazine is going to be released this week so keep an eye out for it at your local photobook store. And more to the point, keep an eye out here as eyecurious gets cranked back into action.