Yesterday's Papers

I am trying to get hold of a download of the 3-minute TV spot which was made about the Innsbruck exhibition (it seems the online clip was only available for one week), but in the meantime here is a full-page feature from the local paper, followed by what I hope is an accurate rendering of its content.

By the way, if you are puzzled by the picture of me apparently attempting to hypnotize Rupert Larl, that is in fact me demonstrating the aggressive style of street photography practiced by the likes of Bruce Gilden.

Fotoforum is celebrating its 25th anniversary. And it is being celebrated with an exhibition by Mike Chisholm, who is not a professional photographer, and does not define himself as an artist.  Mike Chisholm is a blogger, who uses his Idiotic Hat blog as his main platform, and regards galleries as a secondary outlet.

He photographs every day.  He does this mainly in his lunch break, mainly on the campus of the University of Southampton, where he works as a librarian.  With degrees in literature, he is is less interested in the subject matter of his photographs, than what can be made out of it.

The reality of his immediate personal surroundings provides a sort of poetry to Mike Chisholm.  He is a creator of illusions, so that, for example, a rusty old box becomes, in the viewer's imagination, a Japanese dragon.  The sober surroundings of the campus are transformed, in Mike Chisholm's concentrated gaze, into a world of picturesque beauty.  He never interferes with what is there, but skillfully composes what would appear to be of minor interest into the main subject.  Inspiration becomes visible.  The title of the exhibition, " A Tourist from Mars", is a hint:  through Mike Chisholm the "tourist", the everyday environment comes to seem like that of another planet -- full of secrets, riddles and passion.

As part of the Anniversary Fotoforum director Rupert Larl has invited the Briton to photograph for ten days in the Tyrol.  "I'm interested to see what draws his attention", says Larl.   It is possible the results will be seen not only on his blog but in a further exhibition.  That would mean Mike Chisholm will have broken all the records at Fotoforum:  he would become the only artist to have shown his work at Fotoforum three times.  He already holds the record for the most sales, following his 2010 exhibition.