Awoiska van der Molen

Artist lecture Thursday, October 05, 2017 7PM
Timken Lecture Hall, California College of the Arts, 1111 Eighth Street, San Francisco CA, 94107
Awoiska van der Molen, #422-7, 2015

The work of Amsterdam-based Awoiska van der Molen develops from a desire to comprehend the essence of the isolated world she photographs. Spending long periods of time in solitude in remote landscapes, she slowly uncovers the identity of the place. Her large-scale, black-and-white images convey her experience of the emotional and physical qualities of the places where photographs. The meditative process of photographing the landscape continues in the darkroom, where van der Molen prints her gelatin silver prints by hand. Of her process, she writes, “I often experience the scenes in my works as borderlands. They can be the beginning or the end, life or death, something that invites or something to turn away from. I only make a picture when I sense these paradoxes.”

Van der Molen studied at Minerva Art Academy, The Netherlands, and at Hunter College, New York, before receiving her MFA in photography at St. Joost Academy in The Netherlands. Her work has been exhibited internationally, at institutions including FOAM Fotografie Museum, Amsterdam; FoMu Antwerpen, Antwerp, Belgium; The Photographers’ Gallery, London; and. Van der Molen’s work is included in the collections of institutions such as the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; and Museum of Photography, Seoul. In 2017, Van der Molen received the Larry Sultan Photography Award and was shortlisted for the Deutsche Borse Photography Foundation Prize. Her work is currently on view in the exhibition The Grain of the Present at Pier 24 Photography.


Larry Sultan Visiting Artist Program

Pier 24 Photography is pleased to present the Larry Sultan Visiting Artist Program in collaboration with California College of the Arts and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Each year, the Larry Sultan Visiting Artist Program brings six photographers, writers, and curators to San Francisco to offer free and open lectures, and to work one-on-one with students at California College of the Arts.


Larry Sultan Photography Award


Jonathan Calm, Double Vision (Recording I), 2018

Jonathan Calm

Fall 2019 Residency
Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA

Click HERE for more information on the Larry Sultan Photography Award

Jonathan Calm is a visual artist who works in photography, video, installation, and performance. A central theme of his work is the relationship between photography and urban architecture, and the powerful role of images in the way architectural constructs shape the lives of individuals and communities.

In his most recent work, Calm explores the complex representation of African-American automobility from a historical and contemporary perspective, focusing and drawing on the importance and resonance of the Negro Motorist Green Book. Of this project, he explains, “the image of the infinite highway and the unbridled freedom to roam the land has always been considered a quintessential expression of the modern American spirit, but the black American experience of travel, which involves heightened subjectivity and exposure, has to this day proven a precarious privilege rather than an inalienable right.”

Calm’s art practice is international in scope and has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including Frequency at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2005); Role Play at the Tate Britain (2006); Black Is, Black Ain’t at the University of Chicago’s Renaissance Society (2008); Streetwise at the Reina Sophia Museum in Madrid (2008) and the Chelsea Art Museum (2011); deCordova Biennial at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (2013); and Rooted Movements at LMAKprojects in New York City (2014). Calm currently lives in Palo Alto, CA where he is a faculty member in the Department of Art and Art History at Stanford University.