The work by the fourth nominee, Jochen Lempert, from Germany, did not carry as much impact as the others, both visually and thematically. Simpson’s work became more interesting upon a closer look and audiences could identify the old and new images, though one couldn’t help but note the influence of Cindy Sherman upon her output. Exploring themes of gender, identity, culture, memory and body, she integrates the duality of past and present, word and image. Nominee Lorna Simpson from the USA has work on view from her exhibition Lorna Simpson (Retrospective) at Jeu de Paume, Paris (2013). His self-portraits are also selected, offering a sincere insight into the artist’s life over several decades, revealing a life of both intimacy and excess, as photography becomes the agent used to arbitrate experiences, fears, neuroses and inner battles. Selected for the exhibition is a black and white video piece with a poetic narrative that has an intriguing romantic, dark and surrealistic appeal that is truly magnetic. The artist went to great lengths to produce this body of work by placing himself in the path of danger, and the extraordinary result marries photojournalism with fine art.Īlso on view is the work of the other nominees, including a strong body of work by Spanish photographer Alberto García-Alix, featuring pieces from his publication Autorretrato/Self-Portrait, La Fabrica Editorial (2013). In doing so, the photographer brought Africa’s first world war to the fore with a new perspective a catastrophic conflict that has seemingly been overlooked despite the loss of over five million lives. Mosse aptly utilised military technology by shooting his imagery with Kodak Aerochrome, an infrared film originally developed for aerial reconnaissance during World War II. While this level of skill and execution can arguably be award-winning in itself, it is its intense content regarding the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo and how the artist has portrayed it that propels this work to the next level. Mosse’s photographs alone are impressive for their visual aesthetic: their enchanting lands of pink mountains and blue rivers ostensibly depicting some far-away or imagined utopian place. Not having previously seen Mosse’s work in person, the photographs on view within the gallery were more beautiful and captivating than expected. ![]() The Photographer’s Gallery London, did not include The Enclave video installation in its Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2014 exhibition, but instead showed large-scale photographs from his Infra series. To be experienced in a dark immersive chamber with ambient surround-sounds and seen on several screens, The Enclave is charged with a raw vibrancy and futuristic yet frightening imagery as the 40-minute film captures the “real” in a surreal light. ![]() ![]() Mosse was nominated for his exhibition The Enclave at the 55th Venice Biennale commissioned for the Irish Pavillion, featuring a multi-channel video installation created in collaboration with cinematographer Trevor Tweeten and composer Ben Frost. Shortlisted with Alberto García-Alix, Jochen Lempert and Lorna Simpson for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2014 was Irish photographer Richard Mosse, who deservingly took home this year’s prize.
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