First Glance: LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph

3 minute read

An international photo festival in Charlottesville, Virginia? On paper, it seems an unlikely fit.

“Don’t kid yourself,” warns Scott Thode, editor of VII The Magazine and a guest curator of the LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph. “There’s a real appreciation for photography here.”

After one year off, the three-day photography event returns to Charlottesville, Virginia June 9-11 with a lineup of exhibitions, outdoor projections and a lecture series curated by Thode and Kathy Ryan, director of photography for The New York Times Magazine.

Each year’s festival centers around three core photographers, called INSight artists, who present an exhibition and participate in on-stage interviews to speak about their process, inspiration and work. This year’s honorees are Antonin Kratochvil, Massimo Vitali, and Nan Goldin, —all artists presenting work during the festival’s MASTERS Talks series. Each of their shows will focus on the theme of “HOME.”

Thode says the festival theme came to him as he was working on Kratochvil’s show (titled “Homeland”)—the photographer had just moved back to Prague after 40 years of exile. “This whole idea occurred to me that he was going home, and this idea of home, and of building his show around the concept of home came to me,” says Thode. “It’s a very loose concept… it’s about friends, it’s about coming back and having a place of meeting and carrying about each other… things like that.”

Though the title of Goldin’s exhibition, “Scopophilia” is derived from the Greek words “scopo” (to look) and “philia” (love of friends), her collection of images was actually inspired by a moment of solitude in the Louvre museum in Paris. Meanwhile, Vitali’s exhibition examines human communities, with several images depicting groups of people in nature.

Mary Ellen Mark, Christopher Anderson, Ashley Gilbertson, LaToya Ruby Frazier and Steve McCurry, among other photographers, will present work and participate in the nightly MASTERS Talk Series.

A guest swims in the infinity pool of the Skypark that tops the Marina Bay Sands hotel towers in Singapore June 24, 2010Vivek Prakash / Reuters

Rounding out the event will be the TREES exhibit, in which George Steinmetz’s aerial photographs of global landscapes will be projected onto banners in the trees along the city’s downtown pedestrian mall. “The town just lends itself perfectly to a festival like this,” Thode says. “And it’s got the atmosphere of people who really enjoy themselves.”

— Reporting by Feifei Sun. Produced by Vaughn Wallace.

The LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph begins on Thursday, June 9th, and continues through Sunday, June 11th. A complete schedule of events is available at LOOK3.org. The festival has sold out of passes, although a special “Big Love” pass is still available.

The beach at Coney Island, NY from his latest book Natural Habitats exhibited at Chroma Arts Project June 3-26.Courtesy Massimo Vitali
LOOK3 INsight Artist Massimo Vitali. From his Beach Series.Courtesy Massimo Vitali
LOOK3 INsight Artist Nan Goldin's Charlotte and Marie-Anne watching sunset, Christmas Eve, Sete, France, 2003.Courtesy Nan Goldin
INsight Artist Nan Goldin. The Hug, NYC, 1980Courtesy Nan Goldin
Chistopher Anderson's son Atlas on their bed. The work will be featured in a Masters Talk with the photographer. Courtesy Christopher Anderson—Magnum
Huxtables, Mom and Me, 2008Courtesy LaToya Ruby Frazier
From Ashley Gilbertson's series on the bedrooms of Fallen Soldiers. Marine Cpl. Christopher G. Scherer, 21, was killed by a sniper on July 21, 2007, in Karmeh, Iraq. He was from East Northport, New York. His bedroom was photographed in February 2009.Courtesy Ashley Gilbertson—VII Network
David Liittschwager will present his work which concentrates on biodiversity in the ocean at his Masters Talk One Cubic Foot: Close To Home.Courtesy David Liittschwager
Shrimp from David Liittschwager's series One Cubic Foot.Courtesy David Liittschwager
Cholera Epidemic in Arcahaie, Haiti.Courtesy Carlos Cazalis—Corbis
Dust Storm, Rajasthan, India, 1983.Courtesy Steve McCurry
MASTERS TALK artist Steve McCurry. One of the portraits from Steve McCurry's Last Roll of Kodachrome series.Courtesy Steve McCurry
Dunes on Isla Magdalena, off the west coast of Baja California, Mexico.Courtesy George Steinmetz
Greater flamingos congregate on Lake Tashk on a cold morning with a temperature of -5°C.Courtesy George Steinmetz
Look3 INsight Artist Antonin Kratochvil's work from Czech Republic.Courtesy Antonin Kratochvil—VII
INsight Artist Antonin Kratochvil. Polluted Garden, Romania 1995. The cover image for Kratochvil's book, Broken Dream.Corutesy Antonin Kratochvil—VII
From the Prom series.Courtesy Mary Ellen Mark
Bangkok, May 16th, 2010Courtesy Corentin Fohlen—Fedephoto
From the BD Hope for a Healthy World exhibit. Polio victim Abubakar, 6, crawls next to the footprint of his mother at the family home in Kano. The photo is part of a series that brings attention to a highly infectious virus that cripples the children it does not kill.Courtesy Mary F. Calvert
A selection Rodrigo Alfaro, one of the winner of this years BD's Hope for a Healthy World exhibit, from a series about maternal mortality. Courtesy Rodrigo Alfaro

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