Biennial of world photography. Bielsko-Biała. Poland.
16 - 30 October 2015

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 The FotoArtFestival 2015 features 15 large exhibitions by international photographers from all over the world, including the Italian living in the USA Ernesto Bazan, David Burdeny (Canada), Petrut Calinescu (Romania), Enri Canaj (Albania), Ruud Van Empel (The Netherlands), Andreas Horvath (Austria), Aaron Huey (USA), Maciek Nabrdalik (Poland), Rafael Navarro (Spain), Zed Nelson (UK), Chris Rain (Germany), Martin Wágner (Czech Republic), Irina Popova (Russia), Klavdij Sluban (France) and Franco Zecchin (Italy). All of the forthcoming exhibitions, featuring an astounding 1,500 award winning photographs, will be presented for the first time in Poland.

The festival will be accompanied by two additional exhibitions - FotoOpen with the winning works of a photographic competition, and Digigraphie by Epson, showing 18 works by six famous Polish photographers - all top-quality collectibles.

The festival does not focus on any main theme. On the contrary, the exhibitions are highly varied and targeted at a wide audience, including enthusiasts of the traditional documentary and reportage, and aficionados of fine-art photography which often involves digital manipulation.

Similarly to previous years, the exhibitions will also be accompanied by meetings with the artists - some of them visiting Poland for the first time - who will gather at the traditional Authors' Marathon (Sat. and Sun., 17 - 18 October) to talk about their work, do slide shows on photography and participate in Q&A sessions.

The organizers will also run free photographic workshops for all those interested in photography. These will be held on 21 and 28 October.

The festival's program director is Inez Baturo - the founder of FotoArtFestival; and the general director - Andrzej Baturo. Both are renowned photographers running the Photography Centre Foundation in Bielsko-Biała, and the Photographic Gallery B&B.

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EXHIBITIONS DURING THE 6TH FAF 2015 AT GALERIA BIELSKA BWA:

ERNESTO BAZAN (ITALY/USA) - CUBA

 

Ernesto Bazan - outstanding documentary filmmaker of international renown, awarded at prestigious international festivals and competitions. He will present an exhibition of photographs entitled Cuba which documents the daily life of the Cuban people. This is the Polish premiere of the exhibition. Born in Palermo in 1959, the artist became interested in photography when he was only fourteen. He views photography not just as a profession but more a mission and passion. During his stay in Cuba between 1992 and 2006 he created a series of truly unique photographs capturing the life on the island. These have earned him numerous awards, including the World Press Photo, as well as scholarships of the Alicia Patterson Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation. The artist has exhibited his work in Europe, Latin America and the United States. His photographs can be found in famous museums and other institutions, including MoMA and ICP in New York, SFMoMA in San Francisco, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Fondazione Italiana della fotografia in Turin and Biblioteque Nationale in Paris.

The artist owns the publishing house BazanPhotos Publishing. He also runs photography workshops in Latin America, dedicated to photography, as well as photo editing and publication. This will be his first visit to Poland.

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RUUD VAN EMPEL (THE NETHERLANDS) - THE WORLD

 

Ruud Van Empel - world-renowned photographer and visual artist, famous for his computer-processed portraits. The artist photographs people, plants, objects, and then he combines individual fragments of them into new, beautiful albeit unnatural, entities. The exhibition presented at the 6th FotoArtFestival is a review of his most famous works brought here from the collection of the well-known and highly regarded Flatland Gallery in the Netherlands.

Ruud Van Empel was born in 1958. He is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Breda, the Netherlands. He lives and works in Amsterdam.

He has held numerous solo exhibitions organized in the most prestigious galleries and museums around the world. This will be the first time the artist shows his work in Poland.

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The remaining exhibitions will be held in the Gallery of Photography B&B, Municipal Gallery (Książnica Beskidzka) ,Wiktoria Kubisz Community Centre in Bielsko-Biała, Historical Museum ‘Old Factory' in Bielsko-Biała, Polish Visual Artists' Association Gallery (Rynek 27), Regional Community Centre, ‘Sfera' Shopping Centre, and ATH University Gallery.
Details coming up soon.

Galeria Bielska BWA (ul. 3 Maja 11) will house:
Festival Centre
Press Office
Meeting Point

PRESS CONFERENCE:
Galeria Bielska BWA, 16 October 2015, 3 pm
Meeting with the artists and media representatives (admission free)

FESTIVAL LAUNCH:
Teatr Polski, Friday 16 October 2015, 5 pm

AUTHORS' MARATHON:
Saturday-Sunday, 17-18 October, 10 am-7 pm
Higher School of Administration, ul. Frycza-Modrzewskiego 12

PRESS CONFERENCE IN KRAKÓW:
"Pauza In Garden", Małopolski Ogród Sztuki, ul. Rajska 12, 6 pm
The conference will be combined with the opening of the exhibition Artists of the 6th FotoArtFestival 2015

PRESS CONFERENCE IN WARSAW:
Galeria Stara ZPAF, Warsaw, plac Zamkowy 8, 12 October 2015
The launch of the 6th FotoArtFestival will be preceded by a press conference in Galeria Stara ZPAF in Warsaw.
Also as part of the festival, the Gallery will showcase an exhibition by the outstanding Austrian photographer and documentary filmmaker Andreas Horvath, who has spent many months in Siberia capturing its people, cities and landscape in black and white.

FotoArtFestival is organized by the Photography Centre Foundation and the Municipality of Bielsko-Biała.

Go to FotoArtFestival web site to find the latest about the exhibitions and events within the festival framework >>

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