Curved Lines | Three Shadows

Curved Lines

“Curved Lines” brings together three photographers from Magnum Photos.

The inspiration for the title stems from a simple observation about where on the planet the photographers are based in relation to one another and Shanghai. Emin Özmen in Istanbul is almost the same distance to the west of Shanghai as Alessandra Sanguinetti in California is to the east. In turn, Özmen’s Istanbul happens to sit exactly equidistant between Rochester, New York where Gregory Halpern lives and works and Shanghai. While this mental geographic wrangling might not be especially relevant to the work on show it did make me think about two things. Firstly, how glad I am that despite the intense disconnect of all of us in the world for the nearly three years COVID lasted, we are once again able to pull off a project where the participants pretty much span the globe and show their work in China. And secondly, that travelling from one point on the globe to another requires one to travel not in a straight line, as seen on a map, but in a curved one.

Now if the quickest way to get from A to B is in a straight line then going in curves represents something of a detour. But detours, meandering journeys, dead ends and walking on curved, twisting paths are all part of making new work. In addition, nature also seems to prefer curved shapes to straight ones, be it the wings of a bird, the curves of the human body or the waves of the ocean. Curved lines then shall be the metaphor that brings the work of these three very individual photographers together.

Emin Özmen, filled with the expectations and challenges of becoming a father, photographs life at the waterfront of his hometown Istanbul. The famous strait that divides the Asian and European continents becomes the backdrop of the everyday life he encounters. His images explore the contrasts that the city encapsulates: quiet moments by the water and the noisy ones, the thoughtful and the bashful, young and old, ancient and modern, light and shadow. His images work in the classic humanist tradition of documenting life as he finds it.

Gregory Halpern’s daily walks do not take him to the waterfront of his hometown Rochester on the Great Lakes. Halpern’s images, even though firmly documentary in nature is not of a particular place and one feels his portraits do not seek to reveal specifically the person depicted, rather Halpern seems to be seeking something universal that remains undefined yet strangely tantalizing. In his pictures, he traces the liminal space on the edge of Americana. The familiar yet alien landscape is on the edge of everyday life.

In contrast to both, Alessandra Sanguinetti’s approach is more conceptual. She is returning to a subject that has fascinated or possibly troubled her throughout her career: the often-fraught connection between humans and animals. The images she presents here in stark black and white, often lit by a single light source underlining their dramatic, somewhat gothic atmosphere, are what can be thought of as an investigation, a taking stock of what she finds around her. In addition, she visits the collection of a natural history museum to broaden the scope of her examination to include bugs and butterflies. Her images speak of power relationships. Clearly, humans are in charge, but there is the eery feeling of being watched and in several of her pictures I am not so sure who really is on top.

When curved lines intersect in space they form interesting shapes that can be hard to define. Photography at its best shows up new shapes in the familiar patterns around us and shifts our point of view. Sanguinetti, Özmen and Halpern’s works do just that, each in their own unique way.

Text By Philipp Ebeling
Portrait of Alessandra Sanguinetti

ARTIST: Alessandra Sanguinetti

Alessandra Sanguinetti was born in New York, 1968, and is based in San Francisco and Buenos Aires. She’s a recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship, Hasselblad Foundation Grant, Sundance Development Grant, Robert Gardner Peabody Fellowship, and a Rencontres d’Arles Discovery Award. She’s a MacDowell Residency Fellow. Her photographs are in various public and private collections, such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her monographs include On the Sixth Day (Nazraeli, 2005), TheAdventures of Guille and Belinda(Nazraeli 2012 / Mack 2021), Le Gendarme Sur la Colline (Aperture, 2017), Sorry, Welcome (TBW, 2013), The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer (Mack, 2020) and Some Say Ice (Mack, 2022). She has been a member of Magnum Photos since 2007.
Portrait of Emin Özmen

ARTIST: Emin Özmen

Emin Özmen was born in Turkey in 1985, currently lives in Istanbul. He is concerned with documenting human rights violations in his home country and around the world. His deeply affecting work has brought attention to the suffering of those who are victims to natural disasters, civil unrest and corruption.

For several years, Özmen has been working on his two long-term projects: Limbo,which documents populations uprooted by the spiralling of conflicts, and Hidden War, which focuses on the Kurdish conflict that has simmered for decades in Turkey. Özmen worked in South Sudan in 2018, focusing on adversity and resilience in a Protection of Civilians camp and surrounding villages. In 2019 he travelled to Venezuela, where he covered the humanitarian crisis afflicting the country.

His work has been published by Time, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Der Spiegel, M Le Magazine du Monde, Paris-Match and Newsweek, among others. He has won several awards, including two World Press Photo Awards and the Public Prize of the Bayeux Calvados-Normandy Awards for war correspondents. He was also a member of the jury for the 2016 and 2018 World Press Photo Multimedia contests. Özmen became a Magnum Photos nominee in 2017.
Portrait of Gregory Halpern

ARTIST: Gregory Halpern

Gregory Halpern was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1977. He is known for a distinctive style of documentary photography that is rooted in both the real and the sublime. This approach has led him to photograph, among other things, life in post-industrial towns of the American Rust Belt, the people and places of Los Angeles, and the uniquely unifying experience of a total solar eclipse. Of his practice, he says, ‘What’s interesting to me about the world is its chaos and contradictions, the way opposites can be so beautiful in relation to each other.’

Though Halpern says he is primarily motivated by the desire to "create" rather than "document", his work is powerfully affecting in its reflection of the world around us. A study of working conditions for service employees at Harvard, created while he was a student there, resulted in a successful bid for a living wage and was published as a book, Harvard Works Because We Do (2003). ZZYZX, his fantastical book of photographs of Los Angeles, published by MACK in 2016, is now in its fourth edition.

Halpern became a Magnum Photos nominee in 2018. He has published seven monographs, is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and his photographs are in major public and private collections, including The Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Portrait of Philipp Ebeling

CURATOR: Philipp Ebeling

Philipp Ebeling is an experimental film maker, curator, photographer and publisher. He is co-founder of a space for photography in East London called Fishbar that developed into an important hub for emerging photography in London over the ten years of its existence. At Fishbar, Philipp curated many exhibitions with works of emerging and established international Photographers. He has also curated a young Magnum exhibition and published several books of emerging talents.
Imaging Partner

Fujifilm

Since its founding in 1934, the Fujifilm Group has continued to be a leading company in the field of photography, and at the same time, we have adapted our business portfolio to meet the changing needs of the world and have continued to provide new value to society. In January 2024, we will celebrate the 90th anniversary of our founding.

Looking ahead to the future, the Fujifilm Group is promoting various initiatives with the aim of continuing to contribute to the resolution of social issues and the realization of a sustainable society for the 100th anniversary and beyond. To further the realization of a decarbonized society, the Group has targeted net zero CO2 emissions from our energy consumption by the Fiscal Year ending March 2041 (FY2040).

Especially, our Group focuses on creating products and services that contribute to digital transformation (DX), which is revolutionizing business systems making full use of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). We are creating sustainable innovation across the group by enhancing innovative technologies while creating new business value.

We will use leading-edge, proprietary technologies to provide top-quality products and services that contribute to the advancement of culture, science, technology and industry, as well as improved health and environmental protection in society. Our overarching aim is to help enhance the quality of life of people worldwide.
Emin Özmen, from “Curved Lines” series, 2022. Giclee print, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.
Emin Özmen, from “Curved Lines” series, 2022. Giclee print, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.
Gregory Halpern, from “Curved Lines“ series, 2022. Giclee print, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.
Emin Özmen, from “Curved Lines” series, 2022. Giclee print, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.
Emin Özmen, from “Curved Lines” series, 2022. Giclee print, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.
Gregory Halpern, from “Curved Lines” series, 2022. Giclee print, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.
Emin Özmen, from “Curved Lines” series, 2022. Giclee print, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.
Alessandra Sanguinetti, from “Curved Lines” series, 2022. Giclee print, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.
Alessandra Sanguinetti, from “Curved Lines” series, 2022. Giclee print, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.

This website uses cookies
This site uses cookies to help make it more useful to you. Please contact us to find out more about our Cookie Policy.