This photo by Nadav Kander, from his award-winning personal project "Yangtze - The Long River," is on view in the exhibition "Coal + Ice" in Beijing.

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The Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Beijing is currently hosting “Coal + Ice,” an exhibition that “seeks to do something unprecedented: to chart the horrific grandeur of our effects on the planet, from the coal mines beneath our feet to the dwindling glaciers on our highest mountains,” to quote Evan Osnos of The New Yorker‘s Photo Booth blog. The show, curated by Jeroen de Vries and Susan Meiselas, features work by 30 photographers, including Nadav Kander, and is on view through November 28. For more details, and to watch a behind-the-scenes video, go here: http://sites.asiasociety.org/coalandice/.

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"Swimmers," 2011, by Nadav Kander. Chromogenic print, 48 x 58 inches.

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If you’re lucky enough to be at Paris Photo, stop by the Flowers stand (D54). As La Lettre de la Photographie notes, Angela Flowers is showing work by Edward Burtynsky, Michael Wolf, Mona Kuhn, and Nadav (including the above photograph).

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Nadav Kander, "Yibin IV, Sichuan Province," 2007. Chromogenic color print. Courtesy Flowers, London.

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Last Thursday, “Yangtze—The Long River,” an exhibition featuring previously unseen photographs from Nadav Kander’s Prix Pictet–winning series, opened at Flowers gallery in London. The show, which will be on view through November 13, coincides with the publication of a comprehensive monograph issued by German book publisher Hatje Cantz. Tomorrow, Flowers will be hosting a conversation between Nadav and Philip Dodd from 7 to 9 pm. For details, visit flowersgalleries.com.

Here’s an excerpt from a review by the British culture site Spoonfed:

“When we arrive at Flowers on Kingsland Road, the place is heaving, as crowds admire Nadav Kander’s mesmerising photographs taken along the course of China’s Yangtze River. Yangtze – The Long River captures the constant urbanisation of life in modern day China. Kander’s images are magnificent; the extraordinary tonal differences between the muted, dense greys and misty bands of thick fog contrast with the fleshy tones of the people which populate them, the bright touches and hues of their clothing pops against the translucent veil of pollution.”

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Nadav (far right) with gallery owner Matthew Flowers (center) on opening night.

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Bill, Maureen, and Stockland Martel photo editor Katya Arsenieva flew to London to attend the opening and to spend time with Nadav, who is fresh off of his epic fund-raising, glutes-testing bike ride to raise funds for two British hospitals (see Nadav Kander’s Bicycle Diaries). Here are a couple of photos they took in his studio, which is in the Kentish Town/Camden area of London…

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Nadav and Maureen review images at Nadav's studio. At left is Felicity McCabe, Nadav's first assistant. Bill is way in the back at the computer, no doubt trying to winnow down the contents of his inbox.

From left: Maureen, Katya, Nadav, Zoe Tomlinson, Nadav's studio manager, and Bill.

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While they were across the pond, Bill, Maureen, and Katya visited several other

Europe-based Stockland Martel photographers, including Jason Hindley…

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Jason Hindley and his wife (and ace studio manager) Keiko at breakfast with Bill and Maureen.

A photo that Keiko took of Bill at the Islington outpost of the famed Ottolenghi restaurant.

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…and Michael Wirth…

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Maureen and Michael Wirth at Ukai Sushi.

Maureen and Bill dining at one of Bill's favorite vegetarian restaurants, near Nadav's studio.

Bill, Katya, and Maureen.

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Bill and Maureen value these opportunities to spend time with the SM photographers who are outside of New York. It’s sort of like visiting with a family member who lives far away—you don’t get to do it as often as you like, but it’s always a fun and special time when you do get together.

Plus, we’re all very proud of Nadav. If you’re not familiar with his “Yangtze” series, here’s some excellent background on it taken from the exhibition’s press release:

 

Nadav Kander made several voyages along the course of China’s Yangtze River, travelling up-stream from mouth to source over a period of three years. Previously unseen photographs from the resulting body of work – ‘Yangtze – The Long River’ – go on display at Flowers from 14 October 2010 to coincide with the publication of a monograph comprising the complete series.

Using the river as a metaphor for constant change Kander attempted at every stage of the journey, to relate and reflect the consequences of the incomprehensible and seemingly unnatural development in modern-day China.

The journey begins at the coastal estuary, where thousands of ships leave and enter each day, and moves past renowned suicide bridges, coal mines and the largest dam in the world – The Three Gorges Dam. Further inland we encounter Chongqing – the fastest-growing urban centre on the planet.

Kander never photographed further than twenty miles from the river itself. In the shadow of epic construction projects we see workers, fishermen, swimmers and even a man washing his motorbike in the river. Dense architecture gives way to mountains in the upper reaches towards the river’s Tibetan source – a sparsely populated area where the stream is mostly broken ice and just ankle deep.

The river is embedded in the consciousness of the Chinese, even those separated from it by thousands of miles. It plays a pivotal role in both the spiritual and physical life of the nation. More people live along its banks than in the USA – one in every eighteen people on the planet. Common man however, appears to have little say in China’s progression and this smallness of the individual is alluded to in Kander’s work.

The photographs are dominated by immense architectural structures where humans are shown as small in their environment. Figures are dwarfed by landscapes of half completed bridges and colossal Western-style apartment blocks that are rapidly replacing traditional Chinese low-rise buildings and houseboats.

Throughout the series, we can almost feel the weight of the humid air and haze of pollution, which Kander describes in muted tones occasionally enlivened by the smallest bright touches of clothing.

Kander responded intuitively to a feeling that China is severing its roots – the resulting landscapes and documentary-inflected fictions weigh the human and environmental cost of China’s often brutal, dehumanizing shift from state-controlled communism to state-sanctioned capitalism.

Nadav Kander said: “The photographs are an emotional response to what I saw. I gave them simple titles so that viewers are encouraged to respond subjectively before seeking the facts.”

Kander’s China is a country both at the beginning of a new era and at odds with itself, and one that inspired him to create works of sublime, soulful art.

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Related:

• Previously Unseen Images by Photographer Nadav Kander on View at Flowers

• “The Yangtze: Rapids Ahead,” a feature by Jonathan Watts, the Guardian’s Asia correspondent, published in the Weekend magazine

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From the publisher:

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Nadav Kander (born 1961 in Israel) creates images in an age of radical change: in a series awarded the famed Prix Pictet in 2009, he photographed a China in the process of revolution. Traveling along the Yangtze River, he took serene pictures of people haplessly facing overwhelming change. In these pictures, the river—China’s main artery—becomes a metaphor of constant transformation. The tiny figure of a mother with a baby in her arms leans against a huge bridge piling, and one cannot help but wonder what the country will look like when this child is an adult. There are still traces of the old China, for whose spirituality the river was important, but the idyllic old buildings and houseboats have been replaced by colossal new apartment complexes that emulate Western architecture. As Kander himself says: “China is a nation that appears to be severing its roots by destroying its past in the wake of the sheer force of its moving ‘forward’ at such an astounding and unnatural pace. A people scarring their country, and a country scarring its people.”

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A couple of the images in the book:

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"Chongqing I." Photo by Nadav Kander. From the book "Yangtze, The Long River" (Hatje Cantz, September 2010).

"Fallen Bridge II, Qinghai." Photo by Nadav Kander. From the book "Yangtze, The Long River" (Hatje Cantz, September 2010).

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To see sample spreads, and for ordering info, go here.

You don’t often see publishers offering behind-the-scenes coverage of their monographs, but that’s just what Hatje Cantz has done with Yangtze. You can follow along as the book progresses from image selection and sequencing to final corrections and more. Here are a couple of the behind-the-scenes photos they’ve posted:

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From left: Nadav (right) and Chris Littlewood, the director of photography for Flowers Gallery, editing the "Yangtze" layout at Nadav’s London studio; Nadav with designers Simon Gofton and Mark Tappin and Hatje Cantz publishing director Markus Hartmann discussing "Yangtze" at Foyles bookshop in Charing Cross Road, London.

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At one point, Nadav is asked why he wanted to present the work, which he created over a period of more than three years, in book form. His response:

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“Sometimes when I am in front of a Bridge, River or whatever and I’m not sure that what I’m looking at is valid and worthwhile pursuing (feeling as if I am having a bout of blindness), I imagine the picture on the page of a book.This is my gauge of worthiness, my test as to whether to carry on or abandon the picture or idea.I see books above all else in this medium, partly because they can be such beautiful objects but most importantly they are a way of putting a period of your life and a set of works to bed, beautifully encased in a jacket, and allowing you to be free to carry on.”

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The behind-the-scenes journey starts here.

Hatje Cantz is also offering a limited edition of the following photograph from the series…

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Photo by Nadav Kander. From the book "Yangtze, The Long River" (Hatje Cantz, September 2010).

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“This atmospheric image,” the publisher notes, “focuses beautifully on the central statement of the photo project: boys swimming along the shores of the river, while behind this idyllic scene, a factory smokestack pollutes the air.” The edition, available in October, will comprise 25 signed and numbered prints. More info here.

Elsewhere at the site, Nadav explains a bit about what this project means to him and to the people he photographed:
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“A Chinese friend I made whilst working on the project reiterated what many Chinese people feel: ‘Why do we have to destroy to develop?’ He explained that in Britain many of us can revisit where we were brought up and it will be much the same, it will remind us of our families and upbringing,” Nadav recalls. “In China that is virtually impossible, the scale of development has left most places unrecognisable. … China is progressing rapidly, and to this end I feel there is a mirroring of the bad habits of the West. The landscape both economically and physically is changing daily. These are photographs that can never be taken again.”
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An exhibition of “Obama’s People,” Nadav Kander’s New York Times Magazine series of portraits, has just opened at London’s Flowers gallery. The show, which the London Evening Standard wrote about yesterday, will be on view through Oct. 10.

As you’ve surely heard by now, Kira Pollack, who worked with Nadav on “Obama’s People” in her role as deputy photo editor for The New York Times Magazine, has been named director of photography at Time magazine. The Times has posted a story on Kira at its Lens blog.

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