Biography
Antony Cairns (London, 1980) is a visual artist who has exhibited and published widely in Europe, the United States and Japan, in numerous galleries and in prestigious museums such as the Tate Modern in London in 2018. He won in 2015 the Hariban Prize awarded by the Benrido Collotype workshop in Kyoto.
Antony Cairns’s work combines tradition, experimentation and nostalgia for the origins of digital technology. The artist produces unique works from a photographic corpus representing the vertiginous urbanism of megalopolises such as Tokyo, London or New York.
Antony Cairns is both a master darkroom shooter and a brilliantly futuristic geek. He has mastered both the use of the effect of light on analog film by a range of experimental darkroom processes and the clever invention of printing processes on obsolete digital media.
In Computer Punch Card, Antony Cairns explores the prehistory of the digital age by printing his photographic works on the first computer punch cards found on the parallel network and assembled into montages. The E.I. Screens, strange distant descendants of the daguerreotype, present the same urban photographic corpus, this time reproduced in electronic ink on the boneless screens of pirated e-readers.
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SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
SOLO SHOWS
2021
Antony Cairns CTY_TYO3-TYO4, Webber Gallery, London, England
Antony Cairns: TYO3-TYO4, Akio Nagasawa Gallery, Tokyo , Japan
2020
Antony Cairns CTY-TYO3, Stieglitz 19, Antwerp, Belgium
2019
Touchstone, The Photographers’ Gallery, London, England
Antony Cairns: CTY, Akio Nagasawa Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2018
Independent Brussels (represented by Roman Road), Vanderborght Building, Brussels,Belgium
The Tale of Adam Earl Gordons, Théâtre de Verdure (part of Festival Images Vevey),Vevey, Switzerland
NADA New York (represented by Roman Road), Skylight Clarkson Sq, New York, USA
2017
TYO2-LDN4, Roman Road, London, England Antony Cairns, Stieglitz 19, Antwerp, Belgium
2016
Antony Cairns: Process II, daikanyama photo fair (represented by Roman Road), Tokyo,Japan
OSC - Osaka Station City, Roman Road, London, England
LA-LV / LDN Process, SferaExhibition (part of KYOTOGRAPHIE), Kyoto, Japan
2015
E.I. / Transition, Roman Road, London, England
2014
LDN, Roman Road, London, England
LDN, Stieglitz 19, Antwerp, Belgium
2013
LDN, Rencontres d’Arles, Arles, France
Dalston Takeover, Victoria & Albert Museum,
London, England
GROUP SHOWS
2021
What Remains, Encounter Contemporary, London England
2019
Expired, Sara Kay Gallery, New York, USA. Curated by Maya Benton
Material Art Fair (represented by Roman Road),Frontón México, Mexico City, Mexico
2018
Through the Looking Glass, Cob Gallery, London, England
Artificial Impressions, Stedelijk Museum Breda, Breda, The Netherlands
My London, Copeland Gallery (part of Peckham24), London, England. Curated by Emma Bowkett
Photo London (represented by Roman Road), Somerset House, London, England
London Nights, Museum of London, London, England
Shape of Light: 100 Years of Photography and Abstract Art, Tate Modern, London, England
2016
A Matter of Memory: Photography as Object in the Digital Age, George Eastman Museum, New York, USA
TOUCHED – Craftsmanship in Contemporary Photography, Museum Het Schip (part ofUnseen Photo Festival), Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Curated by Anton Corbijn
2015
Abstracts, HONORÉ at Galerie RueVisconti, Paris, France
Abstracts, Copperfield, London, England. Curated by Inès de Bordas and Alix Janta-
Polczynski,
Memory Lab: Photography challenges history, Mudam, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
2014
Unseen Photo Fair (represented by Stieglitz 19), Amsterdam, The Netherlands
AM projects, Photobastei, Zurich, Switzerland
2013
Collected Shadows , Contact Festival, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, Canada
Collected Shadows , Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
ICP Triennial, International Centre of Photography, New York, USA
TIFF Festival 2013, Wroclaw Contemporary Museum, Wroclaw, Poland
2012
Collected Shadows, Paris Photo (represented by The Archive of Modern Conflict), Paris, France
Middlesex, Picturae’s Paris Photo (represented by The Archive of Modern Conflict), Paris, France
AWARDS
2019
Hyundai Card GapadoAir residency
2017
Images Vevey Special Jury Prize
2015
Grand Prize Winner of the Hariban Award
Paris Photo – Aperture Foundation PhotoBook of the Year (Shortlisted)
2014
Special Prize Winner of the Hariban Award
2013
Kassel Best Photobook (Shortlisted)
PUBLICATIONS
Computer Punchcards Selected Artworks Catalogue, Part 1, 2020 (Self-published)
CTY, Antony Cairns and Simon Baker, 2018 Akio Nagasawa Publishing
CTY, Antony Cairns and Simon Baker, 2018,Morel Books
TYO2, Antony Cairns, 2017, GOLIGA
LDN4, Antony Cairns, 2017 (Self-published)
TYO2-LDN4 Slide Viewer, Antony Cairns, 2017 (Self-published)
Nightcity, Antony Cairns 2017 Kominek Books
LA-LV, Antony Cairns, 2016, Kominek Books
OSC [Osaka Station City], Antony Cairns, 2016 (Self-published)
LDN EI, Antony Cairns, 2015 (Self-published)
LDN3, Antony Cairns, 2014, AMC Books
LDN2, Antony Cairns, 2013, AMC Books
LPT, Antony Cairns, 2012, AMC Books
LDN, Antony Cairns, 2010, AMC Books