Belmond presents ‘Shifting Horizons’
Rosie Marks, ‘Maintenance III’, 2023. Courtesy of Rosie Marks
Photo London’s Presenting Partner Belmond returns to the Fair after its 2023 debut with Fotografia Maroma. Their 2024 presentation will evolve the Belmond Legends series, which featured artists including Durimel, Jack Davison, Jeano Edwards, François Halard, Chris Rhodes and Thomas Rousset (amongst others). Curated by Dani Matthews and entitled Shifting Horizons, the 2024 exhibition champions new perspectives in travel photography and features works by Coco Capitán, Letizia Le Fur and Rosie Marks. They are accompanied by photobooks created in partnership with Parisian publishers RVB.
The new body of work has been shot at three diverse locations: Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town (Rosie Marks), the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express in Europe (Coco Capitán) and the hotel Caruso on Italy’s Amalfi Coast (Letizia Le Fur). Each of the three artists’ expression and approach is unique, and the diversity of work reflects not only their singular lens, but their personal fascinations with travel and the Belmond destinations they document. These new commissions push us to collectively be open to the ever-evolving possibilities of artistic photography as a vehicle to share meaningful experiences of travel.
Coco Capitan, ‘Coffee O’Clock’, 2022. Courtesy of Coco Capitán Studio
Three new photographic books from the photographers, combining their unique perspective on Belmond destinations with personal work exploring contemporary travel photography, will be launched at the Fair to mark the start of an ongoing collectible book series. This series of independent publications is led by RVB Books in collaboration with the photographer and creative director, Dani Matthews (20xx). The books are available for sale through RVB Books international distribution network of premium bookstores and galleries, as well as online.
This presentation builds on last year’s partnership that saw the exhibition Fotografía Maroma and reflects the brand’s ongoing commitment to contemporary travel photography — the most notable example to date being the global Belmond Legends campaign, which presented original commissions from artists including Durimel, Coco Capitán, Jack Davison, Jeano Edwards, Letizia Le Fur, François Halard, Rosie Marks, Chris Rhodes and Thomas Rousset.
‘Shifting Horizons’ will be on display in The Portico Rooms at Somerset House. It is one of four Public Programme exhibitions for Photo London 2024, alongside: ‘Silent Stories’ by the 2024 Master of Photography Valérie Belin; ‘The Magic Art of French Calotype. Paper Negative Photography 1846 – 1860’ curated by Robert Hershkowitz; and ‘See/Change: Art Collection Deutsche Börse @25’.
Letizia Le Fur, ‘Caruso 015’, 2022. Courtesy of Letizia Le Fur
Exhibiting Artists
Coco Capitán was born in Seville, Spain and is currently based in London, where she completed her MA Master of Fine Arts with honours in the field of Photography at the Royal College of Art, London, in 2016. Coco Capitán’s acutely intimate and emotive portraits capture the subtlety of human gestures and spontaneous moments that manifest in her poetic and narrative-driven imagery. Her art practice straddles the fine art and commercial art worlds, and includes photography, painting, and prose.
British Photographer Rosie Marks (b. London, 1993) documents subjects as they focus on their day-to-day lives. Her subjects are engrossed in their worlds, her fascination with them sometimes left unrequited. Marks’ voyeuristic eye allows for the absence of sentimentality, giving her the ability to capture the oddities of human behaviour. Marks’ work takes place in scenarios where people are their most free and individualistic – teenagers at prom, couples on holiday or people at home. Marks personal work to date is a human study; at times a reaction against the self- awareness we now have with cameras, seeking genuine moments of the everyday; and other times an honest document of the daily experiences of individuals and their quest to find meaning in their lives. Marks at her purest finds beauty, awkwardness, and vibrancy in the lives and rituals of strangers.
French Photographer Letizia Le Fur graduated from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in France in 1998 and first trained as a painter. With the encouragement of artist and teacher Valérie Belin, she soon shifted to photography. Her work centres on the depiction of beauty and the representation of a fantasized otherworld. Her fascination with Greek mythology has led her to reflect on the place of humanity in our primal environment.