We love seeing the digital world and the real world combine, and our latest Happenings pick is a great example of that. To celebrate their third birthday, online photography magazine Paper Journal has teamed up with agency Webber Represents to host an exhibition in their London gallery space.
Paper Journal is one of our favourite rainy-day inspiration sources, constantly updated with fresh, innovative work, so we were very excited to hear about this new gallery outing.
Democratically curated by Paper Journal and the featured artists themselves, via a process of each photographer selecting another, the exhibition brings all the things we love about the site to a gallery space, This includes the inter-connected nature of the internet which can sometimes be lost in real life. Recreating perfectly the online platform’s ability to bring a wide range of looks and styles together, the show is true to its source: walking around the gallery brings much the same feelings of thoughtfulness and pleasant surprise as scrolling the site does.
Featuring work ranging from haunting portraiture by Antone Dolezal to arresting natural imagery by Heikki Kaski, the exhibition is also an intercontinental affair. Artists from all over Europe, the US and Australia are featured, reflecting Paper’s dedication to putting the most inventive photography around front and centre.
The show reflects this commitment, with the motivation behind it simply being “to showcase the very best visual artists presented in Paper Journal and working within photography today.” It puts paid to unnecessary themes and the sorts of national borders which tend to separate artists, in order to focussing much more simply on excellence. This means that as well as making an engaging, impressive visit, it’s also a who’s who of global contemporary photography.
And we’ve certainly got our favourite pieces and artists. We’re particularly enamoured by the idiosyncrasies of Hanna Putz’s everyday snapshots, David Brandon Geeting’s understated still lives featuring flowers, and Tereza Zelenkova’s eerie, staged greyscale images. Amongst the other inspiring work in the show, they make for an interesting and varied exhibit which stands out from the London photography scene’s crowd.
A must for readers of Paper Journal and photography fans in general, this is a unique and intriguing show which manages to channel the energy of the site into a real life experience. Visit for a thought-provoking day out, and your first glance at the most exciting artists currently emerging in photography, courtesy of one of its most finger-on-the-pulse journals.
Paper Journal runs until 23rd September at Webber Gallery Space, 18 Newman St., London, W1T 1PE. Words: Lauren O’Neill
Cover image: Bubblegum, Marton Perlaki, webberrepresents.com