PHOTO:Liz Johnson Artur-Of Life Of Love Of Sex Of Movement Of Hope
Liz Johnson Artur has taken photographs across Europe, America, Africa and the Caribbean for more than three decades. She calls this ongoing project the Black Balloon Archive, alluding to a 1970 song lyric by Syl Johnson that describes a black balloon “dancing” in the sky, which is how Artur imagines her own movement when taking photographs.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Foam Archive
Liz Johnson Artur shoots exclusively on film, and here her images are printed at various sizes, materialised using traditional photographic techniques onto paper as well as applications onto fabric, tracing paper and cardboard. Artur uses these different techniques in the workbooks she has regularly made since she first picked up a camera, and the exhibition functions as an expanded version of these ongoing journals. Through site-specific photographic installations – individually developed for a particular location – she retells the stories of these meetings to her audience. After photographing, Johnson Artur often builds the narrative in personal sketchbooks: printing and inserting her images on its pages, she experiments by annotating, painting or writing on them. The book form has multiple values for Johnson Artur. She uses it as a holder, a medium, to tell the stories of her photographs. It also provides a platform to experiment with paper, materials, and the possible applications of her photographs. Here she plays with texture and determines how materiality influences the perception of the photograph. This is an essential element in understanding the work. This past year, Johnson Artur has developed five presentations specifically for Foam, encouraging the visitor to experience their own personal encounter with the work, but more so with the story, scene or person that the photograph presents.
Born in Bulgaria in 1964, Liz Johnson Artur lives and works in London. Her work incorporates photography, film, and installations, and centers on the strong connections she has forged with people for more than 30 years. In recent years, Liz Johnson Artur has exhibited selections of Black Balloon Archive in several countries, in solo exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum in New York and at the South London Gallery in London (2019), and via group exhibitions, including at the Serpentine Galleries in London alongside Grace Wales Bonner’s A Time for New Dreams (2019); at the 10th Berlin Biennale (2018); and at the Photographers’ Gallery (2016). She received the Turner Bursary in 2020, was shortlisted for the Aimia AGO Photography Prize in 2017 and became a Jane Lambard Fellow at the Vera List in 2018.
Photo: Liz Johnson Artur, © & Courtesy the artist
Info: Foam, Keizersgracht 609, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Duration: 15/10/2021-9/2/2022, Days & Hours: Mon-Wed 11:00-18:00, Thu-Fri 11:00-21:00, Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, www.foam.org
