Young artists test the limits of photography at Foam Talent’s London show
- (opens in new tab)
- (opens in new tab)
- (opens in new tab)
- Sign up to our newsletter Newsletter

What form can a photograph take in 2017? Don’t expect just pictures on walls. ‘Every year we are again very curious to see how young talents are experimenting with photography on the very edges of the medium,’ says Foam Talent curator Mirjam Kooiman.
Now, Foam has arrived in London to show us photographs not as we know them: camera-less pictures, 3D objects, installations, wallpapers, lightboxes, beamers and projections are among just some of the formats on show at their showcase of 24 artists at Beaconsfield Gallery in Vauxhall.
As well as playing with the physical form of photography, these artists also dismantle its function in relation to places, people space, and time. Among the young photographers (they’re all under the age of 35) carving out new ways of seeing is South African artist Nico Krijno, a sculptor and photographer, who’s work is ‘sculptural in its construction of the very image itself’, Kooiman explains. His Sculpture Studies — part of his selected series Fabricated to be Photographed — gently mock both artistic media, assemblages made out of every day detritus, posing proudly for the camera.
[Untitled, 2012-14, by Samuel Gratacap, from the series Empire
Editing and presentation are also the focus of British artist Felicity Hammond. To create Capitol Growth (2015) she took photos of photos — real estate ads, renderings and architectural plans for luxury living — creating a kind of digital impasto which she manipulates with software and prints again on a large-scale, fashioning them into installations.
Where some photographers connect us to reality by complicating our viewing experience, others use documentary methods but distance us from what we think we know: Mexican photographer Sofia Ayarzagoitia almost exclusively shoots people and places in her hometown of Monterrey — but the works are more of self-portrait than a story about what happens in front of the camera.
In parallel, award-winning Instagram star Juno Calypso presents photographs of herself, taken in a love hotel in the US (designed for couples), reflecting more on universal ideals of romance, female fantasy and the industry of love than they reveal about the woman who looks at herself in the mirror.
This, Foam suggests, represents what photography is now: a fusion of techniques, an atmosphere of real and hyperreal, where documentary is fiction and fantasy is truth.
Lucas, by Stefanie Moshammer, 2016, from the series Land of Black Milk
Mbagne, by Sofia Ayarzagoitia, 2016
Untitled, by Jack Davison, 2013, from the series 26 States
15-5-2015, 13.02:46, by Andrejs Strokins, from the series Cosmic Sadness
Vogue Italia November 2014 (Micheal Baumgarten, Elisa Zaccanti, Enrica Ponzellini, Angelo Seminara, Laura Dominique) from the series Pieces of Me, by Louise Parker, 2015
INFORMATION
‘Foam Talent’ is on view until 18 June 2017. For more information, visit the Foam website (opens in new tab)
ADDRESS
Beaconsfield
22 Newport Street
London SE11 6AY
VIEW GOOGLE MAPS (opens in new tab)
Charlotte Jansen is a journalist and the author of two books on photography, Girl on Girl (2017) and Photography Now (2021). She is commissioning editor at Elephant magazine and has written on contemporary art and culture for The Guardian, the Financial Times, ELLE, the British Journal of Photography, Frieze and Artsy. Jansen is also presenter of Dior Talks podcast series, The Female Gaze.
-
Ferrari teams up with Montblanc for a high-performance fountain pen
The Montblanc Ferrari Stilema SP3 is as sleek and rarefied as the company’s legendary sports cars. We spoke to Ferrari's Flavio Manzoni about the collaboration
By Jonathan Bell • Published
-
Apartment interior design: outstanding spaces around the globe
Apartment interiors can be tricky to balance. Create a sense of space and get inspired by our global edit of architect-designed ideas. From minimalist mezzanines and lofts that bridge old and new, to sleek urban penthouses and dramatic transformations
By Ellie Stathaki • Published
-
Zegna’s ‘Triple Stitch’ sneaker captures the house’s 112 years of innovation
Zegna’s signature ‘Triple Stitch’ sneaker returns for S/S 2023, now available in luxurious fabrications – from grained leather to canvas and soft suede
By Jack Moss • Published
-
Seven exhibitions to welcome London’s Centre for British Photography
Opening on 25 January 2023, the new Centre for British Photography in London is set to build on the Hyman Collection and will be holding seven shows, on until 30 April
By Martha Elliott • Published
-
Royal College of Physicians Museum presents its archives in a glowing new light
London photography exhibition ‘Unfamiliar’, at the Royal College of Physicians Museum (23 January – 28 July 2023), presents clinical tools as you’ve never seen them before
By Martha Elliott • Published
-
London art exhibitions: a guide for early 2023
Your guide to the best London art exhibitions, and those around the UK, as chosen by the Wallpaper* arts desk
By Harriet Lloyd Smith • Published
-
‘Strange Clay’ review: a mucky, uncanny, visceral survey of ceramic art
At London’s Hayward Gallery, group show ‘Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art’ sees ceramic artists explore the physical, psychological, political and power of their medium
By Emily Steer • Published
-
Ai Weiwei to sign blank sheets of paper with UV ink for Refugees International in London this weekend
To mark Human Rights Day (10 December 2022), Ai Weiwei will take to Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park to sign sheets of A4 paper in UV ink, distributed free. We interview the artist to find out more
By TF Chan • Published
-
Home, the London art initiative championing BIPOC artists, launches appeal to save the space
Home, one of the few art spaces in London supporting Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic artists, has launched an urgent appeal to stay alive
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith • Published
-
The art fair personality test: what type of Art Basel Miami Beach visitor are you?
Are you a selfie seeker or a champagne visualist? Take our art fair personality test to identify yourself at Art Basel Miami Beach (1-3 December)
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith • Published
-
The World Reimagined revisits the history of the transatlantic slave trade through art
Ahead of a Bonhams auction on 21 November, The World Reimagined will conclude with an epic finale in Trafalgar Square this weekend (19 and 20 November). The initiative uses art to illuminate the history of the transatlantic slave trade, inviting us ‘to face our shared history with honesty, empathy and grace’.
By Amah-Rose Mcknight Abrams • Published