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French-born Lise Sarfati has lived and worked in the United States since 2003. She has produced six important series of photographs in America, each followed by major exhibitions. They include The New Life (2003), Austin, Texas (2008), She (2005-2009), Immaculate (2006-2007), Sloane (2009), and On Hollywood (2010). Two upcoming shows of her third series,She, will open shortly in London and in L.A., with a Twin Palms monograph to follow in the Spring, 2012.

Publisher Jack Woody (Twin Palms) confided about Sarfati’s work, “When I look at the women in her photographs I suspect in some way they are all self-portraits. Lise sees in these women an incredible endurance, confronting their circumstances across the surfaces of the indifferent western landscape they have come to occupy.”

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Image courtesy of artist and ROSEGALLERY

Fantastic article for Lise Sarfati’s new work. Lise’s series She is on view now at Brancolini Grimaldi Gallery in London.

Her On Hollywood series will open at ROSEGALLERY February 25th.

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Stand before “Nil I, Egypt 2001” (54.5” x 78”), the largest of a dozen serene depictions by German photographer Elger Esser of landscapes captured during his recent voyage from Luxor to Aswan, and the softly rippling surface of the Nile River draws you in with all of the allure of a James Turrell light and space construction. Minute details of a boat’s emerald green and ruby red trim stand out against a vast, muted synchronicity of light on dulled expanses of sky and water. The wind fills the sails of the old vessel, a dahabiya on which Esser anchored the 8 X 10 land camera he employed to capture Egypt’s lifeline, carefully framed as it threads its way through each UltraChrome print in this romantic series. The pictures are hauntingly monochromatic and infused with glowing gold and yellow hues. While the river occupies the bottom portion of most images and the sky the top, what happens in the center changes as Esser moves from place to place. The beauty and the vastness of the landscape comes across in these almost people-less compositions. Smaller works, such as “Salwa Bahry lll,” have a painterly, abstract quality that is quite compelling. Rather than seducing audiences with iconic architectural elements, or the drama of recent political uprisings, this former student of Bernd and Hilla Becher systematically animates sublime expanses with that diffused light and color and intriguing areas of precisely detailed landscape elements (Rose Gallery, Santa Monica).
—DC/JZ

Text courtesy of ArtScene

Elger Esser: Voyage en Egypte

Taken from a great distance with the artist’s signature precision and formal grace, the photographs of Voyage en Egypte are calm, grandiose landscapes in addition to being provocative meditations on light, space and color.  Large expanses of water and sky in dissipating pastel hues form the cornerstone of these compositions, while the land and civilization itself provide sharp but remote horizon lines which are dwarfed by the natural elements.  Like 19th century landscape paintings, which are strongly echoed in these works, Esser’s latest photographs capture an element of the sublime in nature.  The mystery and beauty of the river, which has been the lifeline of Egypt since the Stone Age, is elevated in these images, and like his previous work, they strategically blur the line between pure documentary photography and painterly concerns.  RoseGallery’s exhibition marks the debut of Voyage en Egypte in the United States and is the first in-depth presentation of Esser’s work in Los Angeles.

Elger Esser was born in Stuttgart in 1967 and was raised in Rome.  In 1986, he moved to Dusseldorf, where he worked as a commercial photographer until 1991.  He then attended the Dusseldorf Kunstakademie, Studying with Bernd and Hilla Becher until 1997.  His work has been published in several monographs published by Schirmer/Mosel Verlag including Vedutas and Landscapes, 2000; Elger Esser, Cap d’Antifer-Etretat, 2002; Anischten/Views/Vues, 2008; and Elger Esser, Eigenzeit,, 2009.  He has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Kunstpreis der Stadt Dusselfdorf, Forderkoje Art Cologne, Friebe Gallery, and the Deutsches Studienzentrum Venedig.  Esser’s pictures are included in numerous public and private collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Guggenheim Foundation; Kunsthaus, Zurich; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Netherlands; and the Centre Pompidou, Paris.

Text Courtesy of Artweek.LA

The Place Is The Thing: This Artweek.LA (January 2, 2012)

BILL BUSH

Elger Esser: Voyage en Egypte | For his latest body of work, Esser traveled along the Nile from Luxor to Aswan with an 8 x 10 land camera, photographing the banks of the river, traditional feluccas, dahabiyas, and fisherman. Taken from a great distance with the artist’s signature precision and formal grace, the photographs of Voyage en Egypte are calm, grandiose landscapes in addition to being provocative meditations on light, space and color. Large expanses of water and sky in dissipating pastel hues form the cornerstone of these compositions, while the land and civilization itself provide sharp but remote horizon lines which are dwarfed by the natural elements.

Like 19th century landscape paintings, which are strongly echoed in these works, Esser’s latest photographs capture an element of the sublime in nature. The mystery and beauty of the river, which has been the lifeline of Egypt since the Stone Age, is elevated in these images, and like his previous work, they strategically blur the line between pure documentary photography and painterly concerns. This exhibition marks the debut of Voyage en Egypte in the United States and is the first in-depth presentation of Esser’s work in Los Angeles.