Civilization
The Way We Live Now

William A. Ewing and Holly Roussell
Thames & Hudson
Publication: 16 October 2018
£39.95 hardback
ISBN: 978 0 500 021705

Our fast-changing world seen through the lenses of 140 leading contemporary photographers around the globe. We hurtle together into the future at ever-increasing speed – or so it seems to the collective psyche. Perpetually evolving, morphing, building and demolishing, rethinking, reframing and reshaping the world around and ahead – and the people within it – an emerging, planetary-wide Civilization is our grand, global, collective endeavour. Never before in human history have so many people been so interconnected, and so interdependent.

With close to 500 images, many previously unpublished, this landmark publication takes stock of the material and spiritual cultures that make up ‘civilization’. Ranging from the ordinary to the extraordinary, from our great collective achievements to our ruinous collective failings, Civilization: The Way We Live Now explores the complexity of contemporary civilization through the rich, nuanced language of photography.

This ambitious publication is accompanied by an internationally touring exhibition produced by the Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography – a global cultural event for a global subject.
To coincide with the launch of the book will be a selection of photographs at Flowers Gallery, London E2. The exhibition ‘Civilization' is on view from 7 November – 22 December. www.flowersgallery.com

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art
Seoul, South Korea
October 18 2018 - February 17 2019

Civilization: The Collective Life is a major exhibition, featuring the work of 100 of the world’s finest photographers. It addresses and illuminates major aspects of our increasingly global 21st century civilization. It stresses the fact that contemporary civilization is an extremely complex collective enterprise. Never before in human history have so many people been so interconnected, and so dependent on one another. In science and art, at work and play, we increasingly live the collective life. The Olympic Games, the giant Airbus, CERN, MRI, the Trident Submarine, Wikipedia, the Academy Awards, the International Space Station, Viagra, the laptop computer and the smartphone... However we feel about any of them, none of these complex phenomena would have been possible without superlatively coordinated efforts involving highly educated, highly trained, highly motivated, highly connected people.

Further information and future touring venues here: https://www.fep-photo.org/exhibition/civilizationthe-way-we-live-now/

Launched by the Pictet Group in 2008 the Prix Pictet has steadily grown in prominence to the point where it is now regarded as one of the world’s leading photography prizes. The first seven cycles of the award have uncovered outstanding photography applied to some of the most pressing environmental and social challenges of our times. Within the broad theme of sustainability each cycle of the Prix Pictet has a specific theme – the seven themes to date have been Water, Earth, Growth, Power, Consumption, Disorder and Space.

To celebrate achievements of its first ten years The Prix Pictet and Les Rencontres d’Arles will present a special exhibition and screening devoted to the seven cycles of the award to date.

The retrospective exhibition will feature works from the prize winning series by the seven Prix Pictet winners – Benoit Aquin, The Chinese Dust Bowl; Valérie Belin, Still Life, 2014; Luc Delahaye; Mitch Epstein, American Power; Nadav Kander, Yangtze, The Long River; Richard Mosse, Heat Maps and Michael Schmidt, Lebensmittel.

In addition to this the work of the Prix Pictet laureates and other photographers nominated for the award will be the focus of a special presentation at the Théâtre Antique in Arles on Thursday 5 July 2018. At this event the new theme for the eighth cycle of the award will be announced.

CROISIÈRE
2 July - 23 September
10.00 - 19.00

Christie’s “The Last da Vinci,”  wins a Gold Lion for Film Craft.
A hidden-camera film which shows the real-life reactions of those who came to see the famed artist’s lost masterpiece on public display. Painted in divine light, each viewer is delicately framed like Leonardo’s depiction of Christ, mirroring the very artwork they are viewing. The response creates an emotional film--a story of awe, admiration, joy, reverence, sadness and beauty--as people gaze upon the last privately owned da Vinci before its public auction. Music by Max Richter perfectly matches the emotion and expressions of viewers, as the music stirs, so do the faces. The film never shows the painting itself. Instead, it only showcases the impact the work has on viewers, making the people in its presence the centerpiece of the film and their emotional response the voice. Nadav Kander of Chelsea Pictures directed for Droga5 NY. 

Nadav Kander in Conversation with Max Houghton, National Portrait Gallery, London

Portraits are everywhere. One finds them not just in museums and galleries, but also in newspapers and magazines, in the homes of people and in the boardrooms of companies, on stamps and coins, on millions of cell phones and computers. Despite its all-pervasiveness, portraiture has not received much philosophical attention, contemporary philosophy remaining largely silent on the subject. Philosophers with different areas of expertise and art historians with a philosophical knack discuss this enduring and continuously fascinating genre.

Speakers include: Diarmuid Costello, Reader in Philosophy, University of Warwick; Stacie Friend, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Birkbeck; Martin Hammer, Professor of Art History, University of Kent; Hans Maes, Senior Lecturer in History and Philosophy of Art, University of Kent; Bence Nanay, Professor of Philosophy, University of Antwerp/University of Cambridge; Kathleen Stock, Reader in Philosophy, University of Sussex; portrait artist Nadav Kander, and Max Houghton, London College of Communication.

Talk details:
Seeing in the Dark
11 May 2018, 11.20 - 11.55
National Portrait Gallery, London

The Historic Dockyard, Chatham 23 March – 17 June 2018

Nadav Kander's landscapes from Dark Line - The Thames Estuary will be featured in an upcoming exhibition at The Historic Dockyard, Chatham, Powerful Tides: 400 years of Chatham and the Sea. From Tracy Emin to Chris Orr.

Powerful Tides: 400 Years of Chatham and the Sea is not only a celebration of the artists inspired by The Dockyard and the ships that were built there, but also links The Dockyard back to the waterways and the sea to which it was once intrinsically connected.

The exhibition reflects how Chatham impacted on key artists between the 18^th and 20^th centuries – names such as John Constable, J.M.W Turner, William Wyllie, Norman Wilkinson and Eric Ravilious – inspired by the engineering wonders created at the Royal Dockyard at Chatham.

The historical works show a transition of styles from the romanticism of shipbuilding, including the actions fought by Chatham built ships in the 18^th Century, to the colder industrial perspective of the mid-twentieth Century; where submarines and cranes replaced wooden warships with their towering masts.

The contemporary works included in the exhibition provide a link to the present – how the River Medway, Thames Estuary and the North Sea – all important route ways to the dockyard in its past, still inspire artists today. Nadav Kander’s reflections on the River Medway and the Thames Estuary, Christiane Baumgartner’s photogravures of the Medway’s banks and river; Catherine Yass’ lightbox of the Thames at low tide and Nikolaj Larsen’s extended film portrait of the Thames reflect visually on the river, its banks, bridges and its constantly changing surface. Some artists such as Langlands and Bell’s new work explore the play on words of names of Chatham built ships and the world’s waterways, others such Yinka Shonibare MBE (RA) with his Nelson’s Ship in Bottle refer both to British colonialism and its expansion in trade and Empire, made possible through the freedom of the seas and new trade routes, which contrasts with J.M.W Turners The ‘Victory’ Coming up the Channel with the Body of Nelson’.

Richard Wilson’s Ships Opera with its references to sail, steam and diesel and Layla Curtis’ maps of the journey of messages in bottles refers to time and tide, while Tracey Emin’s neon enigmatically glows in the space. Maps and historic models of lightships contrast with Chris Orr’s contemporary engraving and Steffi Klenz’ installation of images of the glowing refracted glass from lighthouse lamps. Anselm Kiefer’s photographs of the sea over laid with drawings of mathematical formulae extends our view of the flow of the river and the sea to the realms of measurement.

The Historic Dockyard Chatham is a commanding site of history. The exhibition, Powerful Tides: 400 Years of Chatham and the Sea both celebrates The Dockyard, the site’s history and also makes us think of the tidal waterways and seas that the ships and submarines moved over and under. 

Curated by Jean Wainwright

To coincide with Nadav Kander's current exhibition Dark Line - The Thames Estuary, Flowers Gallery will host a discussion between Nadav Kander, writer and curator David Campany, and author Iain Sinclair.

Join us on Thursday 7th December 6-8PM, Flowers Gallery, 82 Kingsland Road, London, E2 8DP.

RSVP is essential, as space will be limited - rsvp@flowersgallery.com

Nadav Kander answered the famous fifteen questions on Robert Elms' BBC Radio London show on Monday 20th November. The programme is now available to listen to on demand on BBC iPlayer. The Robert Elms show is a celebration of every aspect of the city of London. For three hours a day Elms' discusses art, architecture, history, movies, shopping, drinking and dining with his guests.

We're excited to announce the opening of Nadav Kander's newest body of work at Flowers Gallery, on Kingsland Road, London. 

This will be the first solo UK outing of the series 'Dark Line - The Thames Estuary.' which has been made over the past three years here in London. 

This ongoing series, is a personal reflection on the landscape of the River Thames at its point of connection with the sea, through atmospheric images of its slow-moving dark waters and seemingly infinite horizons. Kander's increasingly abstracted photographs describe the landscape through minimal compositions and a painterly layering of tones that appear to stain or bleed through the photographic surface, conveying an inner experience parallel to that of the visible world.

17 November 2017 - 13 January 2018
Flowers Gallery,
82 Kingsland Road
London
E2 8DP
flowersgallery.com

It was decided to honour the significance of Salvator Mundi  — the greatest artistic rediscovery of the last 100 years — by turning the tables and documenting its profound effect on those looking and pointing their camera phones.

Within the beautifully lit Christie’s exhibition space in Rockefeller Center, a camera was set up beneath the Salvator Mundi  to record a video portrait of those who came to spend time with it. Using the wide range of responses to the masterpiece, a single piece of film has been created that shows the divine moment of connection between this powerful, mysterious, enigmatic portrayal of Christ and those who have felt compelled to observe it.

The film is cut to four minutes and 14 seconds to reflect the fact that in his painting, Leonardo presents Christ as he is characterised in the Gospel of John 4:14: ‘And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the World.’

Director: Nadav Kander
Agency: Droga5 NY
Client: Christies
Production: Chelsea Pictures

Nadav Kander’s Exhibition Dark Line - The Thames Estuary will be opening at Flowers Gallery, Kingsland Road next week. The work is also being featured as a part of PRISMES at Paris Photo. Visit Flowers Gallery at Booth A 02 or the PRISMES Sector P 14.

Paris Photo
Grand Palais
9 November - 12 November 2017
www.parisphoto.com

Nadav Kander is at Unseen Amsterdam this year and will be giving an artist talk on his practice, discussing his new body of work Dark Line - The Thames Estuary - in the run up to his solo show at Flowers Gallery, London in November.

Friday 22nd September, 15.00pm
Location: Living Room, Unseen Amsterdam

Scottish National Portrait Gallery
24 June – 1 October 2017

Nadav Kander's portrait of Tinie Tempah will be featured in an upcoming exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Looking Good: The Male Gaze From Van Dyck to Lucian Freud.

This exhibition considers the theme of male image, identity and appearance from the 16th century to the present day. The selection of portraits, from the National Galleries of Scotland and National Portrait Gallery, London collections will explore the elaborate hairstyles and fashions of the courtiers and cavaliers of the 16th and 17th centuries; the emergence of the dandy in the early 18th century; the rise of celebrity and the interest in male beauty and personal grooming; and representations of gender and sexuality.

In response to the exhibition, Mercury prize-winning band Young Fathers have created a soundscape and video which address the challenges associated with masculinity in the twenty-first century.

The exhibition is part of a national tour of Sir Anthony Van Dyck’s final Self-Portrait, c.1640 recently acquired for the nation. The Scottish National Portrait Gallery is the final and only Scottish gallery to host this high profile painting. The exhibition will comprise 28 works of art, including paintings, photographs, drawings, sculptures and miniatures which will be accompanied by an exciting programme of events. 

Flowers Gallery returns to Somerset House for the third edition of Photo London, exhibiting a Triptych from Nadav Kanders latest series - The Thames Estuary. Plus works by Edward Burtynsky, Scarlett Hooft Graafland, Mona Kuhn and Michael Wolf.

Booth F04, Sommerset House, London
http://photolondon.org/

Thames Estuary

Of the elemental forces upon earth, slow moving expanses of dark water have the strongest affect on me. I’m drawn to the grace, the power and its ability to conceal what is unknown.

This work implies a passage of time, in contrast to our own. The life of the River Thames; flowing before, then into my frame and forever beyond.

I’m drawn to making work that bears witness to the river and to time. Yet the photograph is static, while referring to the world and nature beyond its edges. It conjures images of destiny; it invokes the past and points to the future.

The water moves past ignoring me, widening out, flattening, slowing down, ending its passage, absorbed into a bigger whole only to be drawn up again into a cloud that wets the earth and begins again. This cycle never ends. So, the river’s end is also the river’s beginning.

Since 2015, I have been echoing the pace of the river. Absorbing, photographing slowly, producing slowly.

Nadav Kander, London 2017.

Britain in Focus: A Photographic History is a major new exhibition at the National Media Museum, exploring the fascinating and remarkable history of British photography; from everyday snapshots through to world renowned iconic images.

The Exhibition will run from 17 March - 25 June 2017.

https://www.scienceandmediamus...

It partners a three-part documentary series on BBC 4 presented by photographer and editor Eamonn McCabe, part of a wider season of programmes exploring photography in the UK.

Here you can watch Eamonn McCabe interviewing Nadav Kander at his London Studio:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/e...

From fine art exhibitions, to international magazines, Nadav Kander’s globally renowned work spans portraiture and landscape shoots. His huge back-catalogue of photographs, many of which are housed in public collections, include portraits such as the iconic TIME magazine covers featuring Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump, and his images are always about the 'human condition'. 

This interview, led by curator Bill Ewing, offers an opportunity to get insight into Nadav's unique career and approach.

Monday 20th March 2017, 3pm - 4pm
The NEC, Birmingham

Tickets are available here: photographyshow

Flowers Gallery announces their 34th edition of the annual Small is Beautiful, which is taking place at their London Cork Street Gallery. In the exhibition features Nadav Kander's black and white nude - Charlotte, 2002. 

Small is Beautiful, which was first established at Flowers Gallery in 1974, invited selected contemporary artists working in any media to present works with a fixed economy of scale, each piece measuring a maximum of 7x9 inches.

There are over 100 works on display and they are also available to purchase online today.

For further information please visit FlowersGallery

The Conversations is Paris Photo's video platform featuring artists, in their own words, as they discuss their creative practice and the medium of photography. Here you can watch Nadav Kander in a new interview.

“I always gravitate to the fringes....”. 

“And if a person is quite mainstream, then maybe it’s fringes of feeling or the fringes of mood. I’m always interested in that edge where people are, I suppose, slightly left out.”

Series Producer:  Michael Kurcfeld

Nadav Kander's 'Yangtze The Long River' series is currently on display in a group exhibition - The Laureates - at the Mouravieff-Apostol House & Museum in Moscow.

The show features work from the six previous winners of the Prix Pictet, they are Benoit Aquin (Water), Nadav Kander (Earth), Mitch Epstein (Growth), Luc Delahaye (Power), Michael Schmidt (Consumption), and Valérie Belin (Disorder).

The exhibition will be on display from September 23rd until October 30th 2016.
Thursday and Friday from 2pm to 8pm, Saturday and Sunday from 1pm to 7pm

For further information please visit: 
mamm-mdf

You can watch Nadav Kander's Here London 2016 Presentation here.

Nadav illuminated his many inspirations and the questions he considers when creating his images, such as conveying intrigue, something he sees as central to his work.

The artist, photographer and director takes us inside his London studio — discussing death, beauty, and the works that mean most to him.

‘If you boil down a picture to its abstract elements, you probably know more about me than anything else,’ says Nadav Kander, who recalls finding ‘affirmation’ in photography after a school life that was ‘never really’ what he wanted it to be.

Here, Kander discusses series including The Long River, which documents a three-year journey along China’s Yangtze, as well as Bodies. 6 Women. 1 Man. — his near-sculptural portraits of models painted in white marble dust.

‘There isn’t life without death, and there isn’t beauty without imperfection,’ reflects Kander, who adds ‘making pictures is exploring one’s own life’. 

Nadav Kander recently photographed David Beckham in his London Studio as part of a special commission ‘David Beckham: The Man’. This specially commissioned work will be part of a unique Phillips public viewing and gala auction in support of 7: The David Beckham UNICEF Fund and Positive View Foundation - two charities that support disadvantaged young people in the UK and Internationally.

This innovative international gala auction is part of a high profile three-year global philanthropic program and exhibition of signed contemporary photography featuring and celebrating David Beckham. This inaugural and high-profile event features more than 50 original works, some previously unseen, by internationally acclaimed artists including Nadav Kander, Annie Leibovitz, Steven Meisel, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin.

The works will be on view at Phillips’ European Headquarters at 30 Berkeley Square in London from Saturday, 27 February until they are sold at auction on Thursday, 10 March. 

“This wonderful project in support of my own 7 Fund at UNICEF and Positive View Foundation will help create change for children and disadvantaged young people around the world.” says David Beckham. 

Further information please visit:
unicef.org.uk
phillips.com
positiveview.org.uk

Monuments are deliberate gestures—objects or structures created to commemorate an event, person or era. Their meaning is usually  imposed, and they often serve as focal points for aspirational civic and political attributes like valor and sacrifice, or to underscore a foundational political narrative. But their meaning can transform, changing over time as the relevance of their symbolism ebbs and flows due to social and political shifts.  Like monuments, architecture and photography are also inflected with a grace of intention, and both have the ability to commemorate or represent a nation, event, time or place. The act of photographing monuments and buildings transforms them, sometimes revealing some of the original qualities and more closely evoking the response that they were originally intended to have. And photographs have an inherent memorial quality. This group exhibition examines the work of international artists, some of whose work addresses actual monuments, some whom look at architecture and its relationship to memory and how its importance and symbolism can shift over time, and others approach the idea of the future monument.  

Grace of Intention: Photography Architecture and the Monument
Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago

The Exhibition will run from 15 October - 23 December 2015
For further information please visit:
www.mocp.org

Nadav Kander is among the 18 leading photographers chosen to be part of Constructing Worlds, an exhibition at Barbican Centre. The exhibition is presented chronologically and traverses a broad spectrum of photographic approaches and themes. Over 250 works taken between the 1930's and the present day will take viewers on a global journey through twentieth and twenty-first century architecture.

'Photography and architecture have a long and shared history and yet amazingly this is the first major exhibition in London to throw light on this relationship. Featuring key photographers and major architects it brings together two key strands of Barbican Art Gallery's programme and is a must see for anyone interested in how we experience architecture and the world in which we live.' Jane Alison, Head of Visual Arts, Barbican

Nadav's work will be featured within a space dedicated to Cities in Change which investigates the contemporary experience of the urban built environment.

Barbican Centre
25 September 2014 - 11 January 2015
For more details please go to:
barbican.org.uk

The exhibition will travel to the following Museums in 2015:
Swedish Centre of Architecture & Design, Stockholm
20 February - 17 May 2015
www.arkdes.se
Museo ICO Madrid
3 June - 6 September 2015
fundacionico.es.

Nadav Kander awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal Photographic Society along with Viviane Sassen, Bryan Adams, Jonathan Anderson and Edwin Low.
rps.org

We are pleased to let you know of Nadav's involvement during Photo London:

Nadav Kander in Conversation with Chris Littlewood
21 May, 15pm - 16.30pm, Fernandez Wells, Somerset House
Nadav Kander speaks about his work to Flowers Gallery Director of Photography, Chris Littlewood.

Kander on Sargent
22 May, 18pm, The National Portrait Gallery
Join Nadav Kander for an exclusive guided tour of Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends. Kander will give his perspective, as a practising contemporary artist, on selected portraits, decoding what Sargent might have been trying to achieve through the composition, and how this connects with his own work.

FT Weekend Presents: Simon Schama On Portraiture. Saturday 23 May, 17.35pm - 19pm. 
The Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House
Simon Schama speaks on portraiture with guests Nadav Kander and Jason Bell.