Michael Ackerman was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1967. When he was seven years old his family emigrated to New York City, where he grew up and began photographing at the age of eighteen. Michael has exhibited internationally and published five books, including End Time City, by Robert Delpire, which won the Prix Nadar in 1999. His other books are Epilogue (Void, 2019) Half Life (Delpire, 2010) Fiction (Delpire, 2001) and Smoke (l'axolotl, 2023). His work is in the permanent collection of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Brooklyn Museum, and The Biliothèque National, France among others, as well as in many private collections.

“In Michael Ackerman’s work, documentary and autobiography conspire with fiction, and all of the above dissolve into hallucination. His photography explores time and timelessness, personal history and the history of places, immediate family and love, with all it’s complexities and contradictions. “ Jem Cohen.

Michael currently lives in Berlin and is represented by Galerie Camera Obscura, Paris, Spot Home Gallery, Naples and MC2 Gallery, Milan.

In episode 229, Michael discusses, among other things:

• A little family history
• Why he put that info on his website
• Collating family photos on becoming a father
• Why he loves New York
• How he started photography there
• Being ‘very, very slow’
• Why he uses cheap plastic cameras
• What he likes about photographing animals
• Mood
• Anders Petersen
• Longing being the human condition
• Photographing ‘life’
• Text and context
• Transcending the facts while keeping a strong hold on a deeper truth
• His life in Berlin with an impossible ‘to do’ list

Referenced:

• Teru Kuwayama
• Sylvia Plachy
• Lorenzo Castore
• Anders Petersen
• Robert Frank
• Masao Yamamoto
• Boris Mikhailov
• Jem Cohen

Website | Instagram

“For me photography is always a negotiation between confrontation and avoidance. And I think my pictures show that. I think my pictures are very intimate and they do get close to something and they are an attempt at getting close, but there’s also a lot of fear in them I see, because I know it in myself, and a lot of solitude.”

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A student at the École Beaux-arts de Versailles (1983–1985), and then at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Bourges (1985-1988), French artist Valerie Belin obtained the French higher national diploma in visual expression in 1988 and also holds a diploma in advanced studies (DEA) in the philosophy of art from the Université de Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne (1989).

Initially influenced by various minimalist and conceptual tendencies, Valérie became interested in the photographic medium in its own right; this is at once the subject of her work and her way of reflecting and creating. Light, matter and the “body” of things and beings in general, as well as their transformations and representations, constitute the terrain of her experiments and the world of her artistic ideas. Her work is articulated in photographic series, each one produced within the framework of a specific project.

Valérie’s work has been exhibited around the world and is held in numerous public and private collections. Winner of the Prix Pictet in 2015 (Disorder), she was made an officer of France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2017. This same year, a touring exhibition was co-produced by the Three Shadows Photography Art Center in Beijing, the SCôP in Shanghai and the Chengdu Museum. In 2019, Valérie unveiled a major new series at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and this year, 2024, she has been named as Master of Photography at Photo London where she will have a major career retrospective.

Valerie lives and works in Paris.

In episode 228, Valerie discusses, among other things:

• Her father being an artist at heart
• The influence of a particular teacher
• The dual influence of American minimal art and Italian baroque art
• How she discovered photography and was inspired by a misogynistic teacher
• Not photographing people initially
• Presence and absence
• Why she chose bodybuilders as her first foray into shooting people
• The theme of beauty
• How women are ‘attacked’ by stereotypes
• AI being paradoxical to what she wants to show
• The importance of Photoshop to her practice
• Where the ideas come from
• Use of comic books
• Making a living
• Recent series’ ‘Heroes’ and ‘Lady Stardust’.

Referenced:

• Carl Andre
• Robert Morris
• Tony Smith (sculptor)
• Richard Serra

Website | Instagram

“I think it’s still true to say I’m very close to my medium and to the hybridation, because if you think of it what is photography today when with the same camera you can make videos, you can make whatever you want? I think we are in a time when you always have a kind of superimposition in your mind, you have several channels on all the time in your mind and maybe my pictures are showing that way of thinking or way of living.”

• Become a full tier 1 member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of previous episodes for £5 per month.
• For the tier 2 archive-only membership, to access the full library of past episodes for £3 per month, go here.