SIMON NORFOLK
curriculum vitae
Born: 24 January 1963 in Lagos, Nigeria.
Lives and works in Brighton.
www.simonnorfolk.com
Simon Norfolk is a landscape photographer whose work over the last ten years has been themed around a probing and stretching of the meaning of the word 'battlefield' in all its forms. As such, he has photographed in some of the world's worst war-zones and refugee crises, but is equally at home photographing supercomputers used to design military systems or test launches of nuclear missiles.
His work has been widely recognised: he has won Le Prix Dialogue at Les Rencontres d'Arles in 2005; The Infinity Prize from The International Center of Photography in 2004; the Foreign Press Club of America Award in 2003: and he was winner of the European Publishing Award, 2002. In 2003 he was shortlisted for the Citibank Prize now known as the Deutsche Böurse Prize.
He has produced four monographs of his work including 'Afghanistan: chronotopia' (2002) which was published in five languages; 'For Most Of It I Have No Words' (1998) about the landscapes of genocide and 'Bleed' (2005) about the war in Bosnia. The most recent is 'Burke+Norfolk; Photographs from the War in Afghanistan.' (2011)
He has work held in major collections such as The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, The Getty in Los Angeles and the collection of Tate Modern.
He has been described by one critic as 'the leading documentary photographer of our time. Passionate, intelligent and political; there is no one working in photography that has his vision or his clarity.'
Solo Exhibitions
2012
'Burke + Norfolk: Photographs From the War in Afghanistan,' Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland
'Burke + Norfolk: Photographs From the War in Afghanistan,' Side Gallery, Newcastle, UK
2011
'Burke + Norfolk: Photographs From the War in Afghanistan,' Tate Modern, London, UK
'Burke + Norfolk: Photographs From the War in Afghanistan,' Michael Hoppen Gallery, London,
'Burke + Norfolk: Photographs From the War in Afghanistan,' Gallery Luisotti, Santa Monica,
'Burke + Norfolk: Photographs From the War in Afghanistan,' Moeller Fine Art, Berlin, Germany
'Burke + Norfolk: Photographs From the War in Afghanistan,' Bonni Benrubi Gallery, New York
'Burke + Norfolk: Photographs From the War in Afghanistan,' Athens Photo Month, Greece
'Generation 9/11,' GEMAK, The Hague, The Netherlands
'Metropolis – City Life in the Urban Age,' Noorderlicht Photo Festival, Groningen, The Netherlands
'30 Years of the New York Times Magazine' (Aperture Foundation) Les Rencontres d'Arles, France
2010
The Guernsey Photo Festival, Guernsey, Channel Islands (Afghanistan: chronotopia)
'Simon Norfolk: A Retrospective.' Andulsian Centre of Photography, Almeria, Spain
2009
'Manifest Destiny,' Moeller Fine Art, Berlin, Germany (Full Spectrum Dominance)
2008
'Full Spectrum Dominance: missiles, rockets, satellites in America,' New York Photo Festival
'Simon Norfolk: A Retrospective,' MACUF – Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Unión Fenosa, La Coruńa, Spain (Genocide, Landscape, Memory)
'Beirut: How did you come to smell of smoke and fire?' Gallery Luisotti, Santa Monica, USA
2007
'I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.' La Médiatine, Brussels
'I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.' McBride Fine Arts, Antwerp
'Archaeological Treasures from the Tigris Valley,' Le Theatre Royal de Namur, Belgium
'Et in Arcadia ego,' Ogilvy and Mather, New York
'Et in Arcadia ego,' Illinois Holocaust Museum, Chicago, USA
'Et in Arcadia ego,' The Halsey Gallery of the College of Charleston, South Carolina, USA
2006
'Et in Arcadia ego,' Russian Academy of Fine Arts, Moscow
'I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.' The AoP Gallery, London
'Et in Arcadia ego,' Shanghai Art Museum, China
'Welcome to the Hotel Africa,' Lavitt's Quay and Sirus Arts Centre, Cork European City of Culture 2005, Ireland
2005
'RefugeRencontres Sirius Arts Centre, Cork European City of Culture 2005, Ireland
'Et In Arcadia Ego,' Bonni Benrubi Gallery, New York
'Eastern Bosnia and Northern Normandy,' The Photographers'Gallery, London
'BleedRencontres Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, OR, USA
'Et in Arcadia Ego,' Les Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France
'Utah, Omaha, Gold, Sword, Juno.' Galerie Martin Kudlek, Köln, Germany
2004
'Scenes from a Liberated Iraq,' FotoFest, Houston, USA
'Scenes from a Liberated Iraq,' Gallery Luisotti, Santa Monica, CA, USA
'Conflicted Landscapes,' The Photographers'Gallery, London, UK
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' Benham Gallery, Seattle, WA
2003
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' Grand Rapids Community College, Grand Rapids, MI
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' Blue Star Art Space, San Antonio, TX
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' Fotofestival Naarden, The Netherlands
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' 2nd International Photography Festival, Rome, Italy
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' The Sirius Arts Centre, Cork, Ireland
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' Belfast Exposed, Belfast, N.Ireland
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' The Citibank Prize, The Photographers' Gallery, London
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' The Citibank Prize, Photo Espana, Madrid, Spain
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, OR
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' The Citibank Prize, Museum Kunst Palast, Dusseldorf, Germany
'For Most Of It I Have No Words: Genocide, Landscape, Memory,' The Society For Contemporary Photography, Kansas City, MO
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' Trace Gallery, Weymouth, Dorset , UK
2002
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' Minneapolis Center for Photography, Minneapolis, USA
'For Most Of It I Have No Words: Genocide, Landscape, Memory' Minneapolis Center for Photography
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' The British Council, London, UK
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool,UK
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' Side Gallery, Newcastle, UK
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' Photofusion Gallery, London, UK
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' Hereford Photography Festival, Hereford, UK
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' Les Rencontres d'Arles, France
'For Most Of It I Have No Words: Genocide, Landscape, Memory,' Photosynkyria, Thessaloniki
'For Most Of It I Have No Words: Genocide, Landscape, Memory,' Holocaust Museum, Houston
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' Deutsches Architektur Museum, Frankfurt, Germany
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' Gallerie FOTO, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina23
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' Florence Photography Festival, Florence, Italy
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' The Sani Festival, Thessaloniki, Greece
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' The Griffin Center for Photography, Boston, MA
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' Galerie Martin Kudlek, Köln, Germany
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' The Halsey Gallery at The College of Charleston, Charleston, SC
'Afghanistan: chronotopia,' FotoFest, Houston, TX
'For Most Of It I Have No Words: Genocide, Landscape, Memory,' Portland Art Museum, Portland,
'For Most Of It I Have No Words: Genocide, Landscape, Memory,' Imperial War Museum, London
2000
'For Most Of It I Have No Words: Genocide, Landscape, Memory,' Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool
'For Most Of It I Have No Words: Genocide, Landscape, Memory,' The Royal Photographic Society, Bath, UK
'For Most Of It I Have No Words: Genocide, Landscape, Memory,' 5th International Fototage
Herten, Germany
1999
'For Most Of It I Have No Words: Genocide, Landscape, Memory,' Blue Sky Gallery, Portland
'For Most Of It I Have No Words: Genocide, Landscape, Memory,' Side Gallery, Newcastle
'For Most Of It I Have No Words: Genocide, Landscape, Memory,' Nederlands Foto Institute,
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
'For Most Of It I Have No Words: Genocide, Landscape, Memory,' Impressions Gallery, York, UK
Selected Group Shows
2013
Sala Gasco Arte Contemporaneo, Santiago, Chile (TBC)
2012
Lumiere Brothers' Center for Photography, Bolotnaya, Moscow (TBC)
'Contested Territories' Herter Gallery, Amherst, Massachusetts (TBC)
2011
Continuity,' International Group Exhibition, Center for Contemporary Art, Celje, Slovenia (B+N) New Delhi Photography Festival, New Delhi, India (Burke + Norfolk film) Collateral Damage,' Look 11 Festival, Liverpool, UK (Full Spectrum Dominance) Belfast Photo Festival University of Ulster N. Ireland (Full Spectrum Dominance) Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera,' San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (Ascension Island) Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera,' Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (Ascension Islands) The Museum of Contemporary Art, Fenosa, Barcelona, Spain (Afghanistan: chronotopia) 'Conflict, Conservation and Contemplation' Metal Culture, Southend and Liverpool, UK (Refuge: The first safe place) Migration and Nomadic Living in 21st Century,' Backlight Photo Festival Tampere, Finland (Refuge: The first safe place)
2010
'Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera' Tate Modern Gallery, London (Ascension Island and Full Spectrum Dominance)
'BIP 2010 (OUT OF) CONTROL,' 7th International Biennial of Photography and Visual Arts Ličge, Belgium (Supercomputers)
'What We're Collecting Now: Constructed Spaces,' George Eastman House, Rochester, NY
2009
Garden of the Year Award Photographic Exhibition at Blenheim Palace, HHA and Christies, London (Blenheim Oaks)
2008
'Fall Out: War and Conflict,' British Council Collection, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK
AOP Gallery Summer Exhibition, London, UK (Blenheim Oaks)
'Tilt,' Breda International Photo Festival, Breda, The Netherlands (CERN)
'*20,' Hereford Photography Festival , Hereford, UK (Full Spectrum Dominance)
'FotoGrafia,' Festival Internazionale di Roma, Italy
'REVIVE' Group Show, Michael Hoppen Contemporary, London (Full Spectrum Dominance)
'Human Conditions,' Noorderlicht Photo Festival, The Netherlands (Full Spectrum Dominance)
Biennale Internazionale di Fotografia di Brescia, Italy (Afghanistan 2001)
The Brighton Photo Biennale (Baghdad)
2007
'Dark Shade, Light of Hope,' Chung-pa Gallery, Seoul, Korea 'Dark Shade, Light of Hope,' The Mongolian National Modern Art Gallery, Ulaanbaatar 'Beautiful Suffering, Photography And the Traffic in Pain'. Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts 'Ingenuity' (Engineering in Photography). The Calouste Gulbenkian, Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal 'Loaded Landscapes,' Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago 'Aftershock,' Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art, Norwich, UK
2006
'Break 2.4,' International Art Festival, Ljubljana, Slovenia
'post-doc,' Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, Greece
'Night of the Museums' Stifftung Deutsche Börse, Frankfurt
'Ecotopia,' The Second ICP Triennial, International Center of Photography, New York
2005
'Long Exposures: Contemporary photo-essays from the permanent collection,' LACMA, Los Angeles (Baghdad)
'Vital Signs,' The George Eastman House, Rochester, NY, USA
'Srebrenica - Remembrance for the Future' organized by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung. Tour to Brussels, Belgrade, Berlin, Athens, Washington, Strasbourg and Sarajevo
2004
'Arti & Archittettura,' Palazzo Ducale, Genova, Italy (Afghanistan 2001)
2003
'War,' Centre de Cultura Contemporŕnia de Barcelona, Spain (Afghanistan 2001)
'IN NATURE - The obsessive eye, the absent mind,' The Tenth Turin Biennale, Turin (Afghanistan 2001)
'M_ARS Art and War,' Neue Gallerie Graz, Austria (Afghanistan 2001)
The Citibank Prize, The Photographers' Gallery, London (Afghanistan 2001)
The Citibank Prize, Museum Kunst Palast, Dusseldorf (Afghanistan 2001)
The Citibank Prize, Photo Espańa, Madrid (Afghanistan 2001)
International Prizes
2011
Makers' Muse Award, The Kindle Project, Santa Fe, New Mexico
2010
American Photography 24
'Photography Annual'PDN
Shortlisted for the BMW prize Paris Photo
2008
American Photography 24
'Photography Annual'PDN
2006
The Association of Photographers 'Document' Prize and a Silver Award
2005
The Association of Photographers' Bursary
Le Prix Dialogue, Les Rencontres d'Arles
Grant from Aperture in conjunction with the Joy of Giving Something, Inc NY
2004
The Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography, New York (for the Refugee Camp work in the New York Times Magazine.)
2003
Shortlisted for the Citibank Prize 2003
The Stuttgart Fotobuchpreis
The Olivier Rebbot Award for Best International Reporting from the Foreign Press Club of America (for the Afghanistan work in the New York Times Magazine.)
2002
The 'Sani' Prize from Photosynkyria. Thessaloniki, Greece
2001
The European Publishers'Award for Photography (for 'Afghanistan: chronotopia.')
World Press Award.
Silver Award from the Association of Photographers, UK
Museums and Institutions
Tate Modern Gallery, London
The National Media Museum, Bradford
The Moscow House of Photography, Russia
Gana Art Center, South Korea
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego
The Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
Illinois Holocaust Museum, Illinois
Wolverhampton Museum
St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Cleveland Museum of Art
Milwaukee Art Museum
The Weismann Art Museum, Minneapolis
Portland Art Museum, Oregon
George Eastman House, Rochester, NY
International Center of Photography, New York
The Dow Jones Collection, NY
Wilson Centre for Photography, London
The British Council Collection, London
Channel 4 TV (UK), London
The Hayward Gallery, London
The Sir Elton John Collection
The ING Bank Art Collection, Belgium
Deutsche Börse Collection
Deutsche Bank Collection
The Joy of Giving Something, Inc. New York
The Citibank Collection
The Bank of America Collection
and various other private and corporate collections in Europe, the Far East and the USA
Commissions
2004
Joy of Giving Something, Inc. Fund commission for Aperture Magazine
'Coalfield Stories,'Side Gallery, Newcastle; looking at changes in the landscape of East Durham
coalfield since the end of the mining industry.
2005
Artist in Residence to the Irish Army commissioned to produce work on Irish UN Peacekeeping
operations in Liberia and Kosovo. To be exhibited at Collins Barracks, Cork and Sirius Art
Centre, Cork, part of 'Cork 2005, European City of Culture.'
Publications
2011
'Burke + Norfolk Photographs from the war in Afghanistan' p166 (Dewi Lewis Publishing, Manchester)
2009
'Full Spectrum Dominance – Missiles, Satellites, Rockets.' (Self-published, limited-edition leporello)
2007
'Afghanistan: chronotopia.' 166 pp. (Dewi Lewis Publishing, Manchester) 2nd Ed.
2005
'Bleed' 64 pp (Dewi Lewis Publishing, Manchester)
2003
'Afghanistan' A limited edition box set of 12 images. (Dewi Lewis Publishing, Manchester)
2002
'Afghanistan Zero,' 166 pp. (Edition Braus, Heidelberg)
'Afghanistan.' 166 pp. (Peliti Associati, Rome)
'Afghanistan: chronotopia.' 166 pp. (Actes Sud, Arles)
'Afghanistan: chronotopia.' 166 pp. (Lunwerg Editores, Barcelona)
'Afghanistan: chronotopia.' 166 pp. (Dewi Lewis Publishing, Manchester)
1998
'For Most Of It I Have No Words: Genocide, Landscape, Memory.' With an introduction by Michael Ignatieff. 194 pp. (Dewi Lewis Publishing, Manchester)
Editorial
Periodicals featuring Simon Norfolk's work
for The New York Times Magazine:-
'Michael Heizer, Art's Last Lonely Cowboy,' 2003
'Portfolio: Political Landscapes,' 2004
'Senator John Kerry's Presidential Election bid,' 2004
'What is a Foreign Movie Now?' 2004
'What is an American Movie Now?' 2004
'An Artist at the End of the World,' 2005
'Oscar Niemeyer, Last of the Moderns,' 2005
'War Films,' 2005
''The Summer War in Lebanon,' 2006
''The Border Dividing Arizona,' 2006
''Where Protons will Play,' 2007
'The Rise of Rockets,' 2008
'Agro-Imperialism,' 2009
'Data Center Overload,' 2009
'Yemen: The next Afghanistan,' 2010
Broadcasts
2011
'Lives of the Great Photographers: Photographing Conflict,' The National Media Museum,UK
'Burke + Norfolk: Photographs From The War In Afghanistan,' Made by Tate Films for Tate Modern
2007
'The Genius of Photography,' for BBC4
2004
'The Spoils of War,' part of 'The Art Show' strand for Channel4 (UK)
2003
'Different Voices' a 30-minute broadcast for RTE Radio, Ireland.
Online resources
'Lives of the Great Photographers: Photographing Conflict,' The National Media Museum,UK
http://vimeo.com/22388610
Burke+Norfolk film made by Tate Films for Tate Modern
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXrmBhpRG2U
'The Genius of Photography' clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feVVIwvjesY
Interview on Lens Culture blog
http://www.lensculture.com/norfolk.html
Interview on BldBlg blog
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/warphotography-interview-with-simon.html
On nuclear missiles
http://herefordphotofest.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/simon-norfolk-talks-photography-festivals-and-nuclear-missiles/
Some of a decade's work from the New York Times Magazine
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/10/19/magazine/20071021_NORFOLK_FEATURE.html
About John Burke
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/a-collaboration-across-130-years/
