PHOTO50: BEAUTIFUL EXPERIMENTS

London Art Fair - Business Design Centre, London, 18 - 22 January 2023

• Photo50, London Art Fair’s annual exhibition of contemporary photography, will be curated by a curatorial collective - Pelumi Odubanjo and Katy Barron.
• The collection, named Beautiful Experiments, presents a selection of works by 11 multigenerational women and non-binary photographers whose practice engages with their Black and mixed diasporic heritage.
• Images are available here:https://mediacentre.kallaway.com/london-art-fair/image-library/photo-50-beautiful-experiments
• Tickets for London Art Fair are on sale now and available from: https://londonartfair.seetickets.com/

EXPLORE

The 2023 edition of Photo50, Beautiful Experiments, curated by Pelumi Odubanjo and Katy Barron, will present the work of a group of multigenerational women and non-binary photographers whose practice engages with their Black and mixed diasporic heritage. Through their lens, the exhibition will explore domestic life and the idea of “home”.

Echoing Saidiya Hartmann’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals, from which this year’s Photo50 exhibition title derives. Beautiful Experiments includes works from the 1980s through to the present day and presents diverse imagery by artists that reflects their histories and personal ideas of home and identity. The exhibition will think through ideas of ‘home' in a number of ways - as a safe space, a queer space, an invisible space, a space of isolation, a place of memory, and the notion of home outside of the family home. It will consider the difference between generational approaches, and the wide-ranging uses of photographs and archival materials.

In Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartmann writes about the lives of Black women in the US through a lens of fiction, using photographs from the archive and taking a sensory approach to narrating such histories. Beautiful Experiments will capture the narratives of 11 Black women and non-binary photographers, the majority of whom are based in the UK.

“We tried to find a way to allow the photographers space to consider their ideas and share them with us. Some of these voices have not been heard and we feel that they deserve a platform. The exhibition was an opportunity for them to experiment with their ideas without constraints. The beauty in these works is both visual but also emotional as they share intimate domestic or interior moments with the viewer.”

- Pelumi Odubanjo and Katy Barron

2023 EXHIBITING ARTISTS

Heather Agyepong | Joy Gregory | Adaeze Ihebom | Adama Jalloh |Marcia Michael | Bernice Mulenga |Eileen Perrier |Rubee Samuel | Marlene Smith | Maxine Walker|Sofia Yala

ENGAGE

London Art Fair 2023’s curated talks programme compliments their Photography Focus Day (Friday 20 January 2023), a day of talks and tours dedicated to the examination and discussion of the most innovative and distinctive elements of contemporary photographic practice. Visitors can also enjoy expert insight from co-curator of this year’s Photo50 exhibition, Beautiful Experiments, Pelumi Odubanjo and Katy Barron on topics such as women practising in the photographic field today.

Full details of London Art Fair’s Talks Programme will be announced this winter. Subscribe to the London Art Fair mailing list to be the first to hear when Talks and Tours are announced.

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All media questions enquiries please contact:

Kallaway

Email:londonartfair@kallaway.com

Telephone: 07867794989

Notes to Editors:

ABOUT THE CURATORS

Pelumi Odubanjo is a curator, researcher, and writer based in London. Her interests in contemporary art are cross-disciplinary, although her understanding is filtered through the lens of Photography which informs both her work as a curator and researcher. Pelumi works with artists, archives, and cultural artefacts to create and explore dialogues across a global African diaspora to disentangle our understanding of archival practice. Pelumi has a BA from Newcastle University in Fine Art, and an MA from Goldsmith’s, University of London in Contemporary Art Theory. She is currently a PhD candidate in History of Art at the University of Glasgow.

Her writing on contemporary photography, art, and culture has appeared in Magnum Photos, New Contemporaries, Artillery Magazine, Photoworks, and Photo Fringe amongst others. Pelumi currently works as an Assistant Curator at the Serpentine Galleries, and has curated at festivals and institutions such as Photo Oxford, 2021, the Tate Exchange at Tate Modern, 2020, Brighton Photo Fringe, 2020, and the Black Cultural Archives, 2020.

Katy Barron is a photography curator, mentor and advisor based in London. She has worked within the field of photography for the past 20 years, focusing on contemporary and twentieth century artists. Katy has undertaken a myriad of roles within the field – from Senior Director at Michael Hoppen Gallery to Chair of the Board of Photofusion. She currently works for the Maud Sulter Estate in Glasgow and is helping other women artists with issues around their archives, estates and legacies. Katy has a BA from the Courtauld Institute of Art and an M. Litt in the History of Art from Oxford University. She has curated numerous photographic exhibitions in the UK and abroad, most recently at Four Corners in Bethnal Green, St John’s College, Oxford as a part of the Photo Oxford festival and at Photofusion, Brixton.

Photo50 curators and artists available for comment and interview:

Pelumi Odubanjo, Katy Barron, Heather Aygepong, Marcia Michael, Adaeze Ihebom, Marlene Smith, Sofia Yala, Joy Gregory.

London Art Fair 18 – 22 January 2023

The Business Design Centre, 52 Upper St, London N1 0QH

Dates

Press Preview

Tuesday 17 January: 11am – 2pm

VIP Preview  

Tuesday 17 January: 2pm – 5pm

Fair Times

Preview Evening: Tuesday 17 January: 5pm-9pm

Wednesday 18 January: 11am – 9pm

Private View: Wednesday 18 January: 5pm-9pm

Thursday 19 January: 11am – 9pm

Thursday Late 19 January: 5pm – 9pm

Friday 20 January: 11am – 7pm

Saturday 21 January: 11am – 7pm

Sunday 22 January: 11am – 5pm

Ticket prices

Advanced tickets range from £13 for a Thursday Late ticket, to £19.50 for a Day Pass for multiple entrances on a single day, to £34.50 for a Preview Evening ticket. 

About London Art Fair

London Art Fair was founded in 1989 by London’s Business Design Centre in Islington – where the Fair still takes place today – with the aim of providing a space to showcase exceptional Modern and Contemporary Art, to discover and to buy. Launching with just 36 UK galleries, the Fair has grown steadily over the years with well over 100 galleries now regularly exhibiting.

The Fair provides a home for Modern British Art, as well as, embracing an increasingly international and contemporary outlook, with new galleries from around the world expanding our offer and reach – these now make up 25% of our exhibitors, and continue to grow.

The London Art Fair nurtures collecting at all levels, from prints and editions starting in the hundreds, to major works by internationally renowned artists including works by Grayson Perry, Bridget Riley, Henry Moore, and David Bomberg.

Providing a platform for nurturing talent the London Art Fair has played host to acclaimed artists early in their career as well as established names, with Chris Ofili and Jenny Saville awarded ‘rising star’ awards at the 1996 edition.

The Fair’s extensive gallery line up showcases a diverse cross-section of art from emerging talent to established art world favourites; alongside an inspiring programme of curated talks, panel discussions and artists insights.

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PARTNERS

Photo50 Media partner - The British Journal of Photography

British Journal of Photography | Photography Journal | 1854 Media

Through the lenses of world-class photographers, British Journal of Photography explores rich and timely stories of art, culture, politics and society. BJP sets the bar for photographic journalism — and has done ever since writers like Arthur Conan Doyle and George Bernard Shaw first graced our pages in the 1800s. Access BJP content digitally, via 1854.photography, as well as in our newly structured print magazine: now an expertly crafted bi-monthly publication dedicated to a compelling theme of our time.

Genesis Imagery

Photographic Printing, Mounting, Framing for Professionals in London. (genesisimaging.co.uk)

Photo50 supporter, Genesis Imaging, have worked with world-class photographers and artists, international galleries, museums, interior designers, architects and individuals for almost 20 years. Spanning the breadth of the creative industries they deliver a wide range of projects through the diverse range of exhibition production services on offer.