Obama Comes to Town…

To celebrate President Obama’s inauguration, the New York Times photo director, Kathy Ryan, teamed up with Nadav Kander to photograph the administration of Barack Obama as it was being assembled. 52 photos later, today’s leading figures of America have been captured in Obama’s People.

The series was released online on January 15th, 5 days before Obama was inaugurated as president of the United States of Smerica. The New York Times also ran a series of the images in a special magazine edition (published 18 January), which immediately sold out and is now selling on eBay for $50. It’s the first time in the magazine history that they have devoted an entire issue to one photographer.

The rights to hold the World Premiere of the Obama portraits were won by Rhonda Wilson, Creative Director of Rhubarb-Rhubarb, a creative development agency for image makers based at the custard factory in Birmingham UK. Wilson has been co curating the show with project partners – Flowers Gallery – who represent Nadav Kander for print sales.

The project is being supported by an investment partnership including : Birmingham City Council; AWM; Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Staffordshire University, Heavy Object design, All Trade Printers and PR company, Idea Generation, assisted by Marketing Birmingham, Arts Council England and a group of individual patrons – Jonnie Turpie, Cary Welling, Lesley Pinder, Noel Dunne, Roger Shannon and Glen Howells.

Wilson and her team saw the images online and immediately contacted the photographer’s studio to inquire about their plans for a show.

“The brief answer was that an exhibition didn’t exist,” says Wilson, “so we asked them when they could get one made and proposed that we would like to show it first, here in Birmingham. We were convinced, and still are, that this show is in the spirit of the moment in the world and something Rhubarb-Rhubarb should make happen. Things became more challenging when other international parties became interested so we had to pitch for why it should premiere here. Then we had a phone call from Nadav Kander’s gallery representative, Matthew Flowers, from Flowers Gallery in London, saying they were going with us. The whole of the photographic world and beyond are excited by these images so it was a real honour!”

Since the end of February, Wilson has worked to find the partners and resources necessary to stage the high production exhibition. Neil Rami, from Marketing Birmingham, was the first to work with her on the project in a very short timeframe.

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery proved an enthusiastic partner, offering to host the show in Gallery 20, for an extended period, to cover the school holidays, tourist season and Rhubarb-Rhubarb’s International Review, 30th July to 2nd August.

On promissory notes from funders, she raised an overdraft from HSBC to enable the exhibition prints and frames to be ordered.

“The day that the money went from our account to Nadav’s was the day that we knew there was no going back. It is true to say though, that this exhibition has had the most extraordinary karma. Everyone has worked in its best interests and like the Obama team itself, has come together to promote change and collaboration.”

Internet technologies have proved invaluable in enabling the process of curation to happen very quickly, particularly with Nadav Kander traveling on assignment throughout most of the timeframe of the project.

“We’ve been working with Nadav Kander and his team, and viewed the photographs in London for the first time, some of which are life sized and truly stunning,’ Wilson continues. “All of the curating has been done between the two parties, using state of the art technologies, including an E-maquette of the venue, with the final edit in place. This has allowed us to work as fast as we had to, in order to get the project made at such short notice. So there have been many very late nights and a few nail biting moments, but we feel its been so worthwhile to create something as topical as this and open it here in our own city.

“Though being first with this particular project is hugely significant, its about other things too – the fit with the diversity of the city and region, the power of photography to evidence possibility and political change at this historic moment and the opportunity for thousands of people to see this ground breaking aspirational project, furthering Birmingham’s ambition to be an international centre for creative excellence’, says Wilson.

Nadav Kander

Nadav Kander is one of the most original and highly regarded photographers of our time, moving across advertising and fine art practices. Living and working in London he is a regular contributor to the New York Times, Rolling Stone Magazine, Dazed and Confused Magazine, and the Sunday Times Magazine to name but a few. Nadav recently exhibited ‘Yangtze From East to West’, his personal project on the great Chinese river, at Flowers Gallery, London and the Lianzhou Photography Festival.