Fondation A Stichting Delivers Calling Card

Brussels has a new place for photography. And with the intense and intriguing opening exhibition of Judith Joy Ross’s work, Fondation A Stichting is off to a great start.

Fondation A Stichting is housed in a former shoe factory in Vorst/Forest, not far from Wiels. The platform devoted to the photographic image is the initiative of Astrid Ullens de Schooten, who owns an important photo collection, and Jean-Paul De Ridder. The collection contains extensive American documentary photography by Lee Friedlander, Lewis Baltz, Larry Sultan, Judith Joy Ross, and Mitch Epstein, to name but a few. Jean-Paul De Ridder: “We know Mitch well. He introduced us to other American photographers. Why documentary photography? Because the photos raise questions. How do we look at images, and how do we interpret them? We aim to explore the borders that documentary images collide with.” Fondation A Stichting plans to organise three exhibitions per year, and will collaborate with others to do so.

(A, 1978-1979 © Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco/Thomas Zander Gallery, Cologne)

Work by Lee Friedlander is displayed in the reception area. He provides the perfect calling card for Fondation A Stichting. In his series Letter from the People, Friedlander investigates language, which is part of everyone’s reality. He photographs letters, words, logos, and slogans. For the foundation, he has rummaged through his archives and found 24 unique, never-before-exhibited photos with the letter A. “A is of course the first letter of Astrid, but it also indicates a beginning. It is easy to remember, and entails no limitations,” De Ridder says.

The exhibition space is not that large, but that makes visiting an intimate encounter. The black and white portraits by American photographer Judith Joy Ross (1946) are shot with an unwieldy, large camera on a tripod. Focusing takes ages, and shooting images quickly is completely impossible. As a result, the spontaneity of the moment is somewhat lost. The pictures remind us of the photos by Dutch photographer Rineke Dijkstra, who uses the same method. While Dijkstra’s subjects are struck with doubt and uncertainty, Ross’s portraits are dignified, honest, and even forceful. “Rineke Dijkstra knows Ross’s work,” De Ridder tells us. “What’s more, they are friends and maybe even influenced one another.”
Ross obtains the shades of brown and grey and the exceptional focus of her photos using the “Printing Out Paper” technique. The photographer does not use a dark room during development, but makes contact prints in the open air. The photos are then given a toning-bath, reminiscent of portraits from the early days of photography. Ross photographs children in their free time or at school, young people, demonstrators against the war in Iraq, but also soldiers preparing to leave for the Gulf War. She shoots her portraits in public places: in parks, at schools, on the street, or at supermarkets. The subjects are usually photographed alone and frontally, and fill almost the entire frame. The individual is central to Judith Joy Ross’s work. She does not photograph events, but people. Not as a voyeur, but as someone with great respect for those standing in front of her. The portraits by the spirited Judith Joy Ross effortlessly transcend the everyday and are grand in their simplicity.

Judith Joy Ross, Photographs since 1982
> 23/12, do/je/Th > zo/di/Su 13 > 18.00 & na afspr./sur rdv./by appointment, €2/4
FONDATION A STICHTING, avenue Van Volxemlaan 304, Vorst/Forest, 02-502.38.78, www.fondationastichting.be

Photos
1. Judith Joy Ross, Layne Cole, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Protesting the Iraq war, 2006
2. Judith Joy Ross, Untitled, 2046, Allentown, Pennsylvania, 1996
3. Judith Joy Ross, Art Landis, Sellarsville, Pennsylvania, Protest the War, 2006
4. Judith Joy Ross, Otema Alimadi Samuel, 15, former Child Soldier, Washington Square Park, New York, 2001
© Judith Joy Ross, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York – Sabine Schmidt Gallery, Cologne