You are warmly invited to the private view of ‘for ever Amber’ at the Laing Art Gallery on Friday 26th June from 6pm til 8pm
In 1978 Henri Cartier-Bresson celebrated his 70th birthday with Amber Film & Photography Collective and a retrospective at Side Gallery, the group’s then new documentary photography venue in Newcastle upon Tyne. As a thank you, he sent a photograph inscribed “for ever Amber. 37 years later his words come to life in the first major retrospective for Amber’s remarkable collection.
This exhibition, developed in partnership with the Laing Art Gallery, was made possible through the support of Arts Council England and Heritage Lottery funding.
We hope you can join us in celebrating the launch of this long awaited exhibition.
« Photograph, it’s a behavior, a way of being, a way of living. » It is what Henri Cartier-Bresson told us few years ago and what Arien Chang Castan reminds us today.
Arien always knew that he will do photography. When he was seven years old, he liked playing with his father’s Zenit Russian old camera. He always liked images, colors, movies.
Arien started his career studying paintings but after one year he was not really convinced. In 2003 he started to study photography and as he said “painting is the base of photography”, maybe that is the reason why his feeling was first studying paintings. Reading several books on photography, he discovered some famous and talented artists like Henri Cartier-Bresson – his favorite – Sebastião Salgado and William Eugene Smith. There, his passion for the photography returned.
When its class was over, he “didn’t know anything about photography”. His friends and the practices help him to learn more, to discover and to improve his own photographic style. For 7 years, he made black and white pictures, just analogical pictures. He learnt a lot doing this. Since 2009 he also make colorful photography. Two different kinds of photography, two ways of expressing his feelings.
Arien always wanted to do photostory to document Cuban life. He worked in Freelance for newspaper and brands. The documentary photography offers him the opportunity to expand their horizons and experiences through travel to new and interesting places, first around Cuba and then in the entire world wide. “The silence can explain more than thousand words” said Arien.
“I don’t feel that I’m working when I take picture” he said.
Actually, photography is much more than his job even more than his passion, photography is life lesson, his “way of living”.
![disease: “ZAGREB (YUGOSLAVIA)”HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON // 1965[gelatin silver print | 10 1/8 × 15 1/8″]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/052b0692f0028618bc2d240e2ed21304/5df9558dcf5353f8-72/s1280x1920/5ab7806816dcc8c7b0a776eb835efd9ecfaa62b0.jpg "disease: “ZAGREB (YUGOSLAVIA)”HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON // 1965[gelatin silver print | 10 1/8 × 15 1/8″]")
![HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON / “SPAIN” / 1933[gelatin silver print | 19.4 × 28.7 cm.]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/f7a3c23833f8bf1d3b9a7775555ba855/aa8178ef1ab2623b-ea/s1280x1920/b7b82ce2709061c2c1a83d1fd030af06166c9671.jpg "HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON / “SPAIN” / 1933[gelatin silver print | 19.4 × 28.7 cm.]")
