Black & White Spider Awards™| The Jury

The International Award Honoring Black & White Photography

Jury

THE JURY

For eighteen years Black & White Spider Awards has been committed to bringing you world-class Juries selected from the most influential names in the industry. Annually a new jury pool is created to ensure the program's reputation for recognizing first-movers, new emerging talent and current trends across the industry. Jury members are selected by exclusive invitation to join the international panel and sent ballots to log on, review the entries and nominate their selections. Only by having the greatest talent from both sides of the lens do we produce the intoxicating and diverse photography collections the awards is renowned for showcasing.

 

18TH ANNUAL JURY - To Be Announced

17TH ANNUAL JURY

PHOTO ELYSEE - Lausanne

Pauline Martin - Curator / Head of Exhibitions

PHOTO ELYSEE is one of the world's leading museums entirely dedicated to photography. Based in Switzerland, it presents four major exhibitions in Lausanne each year and an average of fifteen in prestigious museums and festivals around the world. It holds a unique collection including more than 170,000 positive prints, 800,000 negatives on glass and flexible supports, more than 100,000 plates and slides, around 1,000 albums and portfolios, more than a dozen Collections and full Archives including those of Charles Chaplin, Rene Burri, Nicolas Bouvier, Ella Maillart. By supporting young photographers, offering new perspectives on the masters and confronting photography with other art forms, the Musee de l'Elysee experiments with the image. Regional by character and international in scope, it seeks to constantly develop new and exciting ways to interact with audiences and collaborate with other institutions.

MARLBOROUGH GALLERY - New York

Diana Burroughs - Director

Ms. Burroughs graduated with a degree in history from the University of Wisconsin. After spending two years in Egypt, where she taught in a private elementary school and successfully competed in the equestrian world (she won best dressage rider in Egypt), she returned to New York. There she worked at the American-Arab Association for Commerce and Industry. Ms. Burroughs returned to school and got her MA and PhD in Near Eastern Studies (China's relations with the Arab world) at Princeton. She worked for a number of years in the art world, where she was president of Jason McCoy Inc., a contemporary art gallery. In the mid-90s she left the art world and became involved in education, first as co-founder and executive director of PENCIL, then as Manhattan Deputy to the Chancellor of the Board of Education, and finally as the co-founder and executive director of TeachersCount. She returned to the art world in 2010 and is currently one of two senior directors at Marlborough Gallery in New York.

FLATLAND - Amsterdam

Fiona van Schendel, Director

Fiona van Schendel (Guildford, 1968) is a Dutch gallerist, author and curator. She grew up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, after which she attended secondary school in The Hague. She received her master's degree in Social and Economic History from the University of Amsterdam. She pursued her study at the International Institute of Social History (IISH) in Amsterdam by working on her PhD in history on labour relations during late-colonial period in Indonesia. Her book Djolotigo, a case-study of a plantation economy was published by the Netherlands Economic History Archive (NEHA). Prior to joining FLATLAND - one of the main galleries in The Netherlands - she wrote articles on the topic of art and photography as a journalist for newspapers and magazines. As director of FLATLAND social issues remain her core interest, such as the exhibition 'State of Being' by Anoek Steketee in conjunction with the Rijksmuseum or 'The voice of cameramen and women', that included Martin Usborne's disconcerting documentary 'Where Hunting Dogs Rests' on abandoned and killed dogs in rural Spain. Interested in understanding the functions, causes, development, and evolution of animal behaviour she has committed herself - besides her work to FLATLAND - to studies on behavioural ecology and animal behaviour at the University of Wageningen and Oxford University.

GALERIE BENE TASCHEN - Cologne

Bene Taschen, Director

Founded in Cologne in 2011, Galerie Bene Taschen represents some of the world's leading artists in contemporary photography and painting. Galerie Bene Taschen launched in 2011 with its presentation of works by L.A. photographer Gregory Bojorquez and by Joseph Rodriguez from New York. In 2014, celebrated photographer Miron Zownir from Berlin joined the gallery's roster. In 2015, the photographers Jamel Shabazz and Arlene Gottfried, both from New York, were added. Since autumn 2017, the gallery has represented New York-based photographer Jeff Mermelstein and German painter Charlotte Trossbach, and in 2018 hosted its first solo exhibition with the works of David LaChapelle. In 2019, the photographers William Claxton and Larry Fink, as well as the Brazilian photographer Salgado.

PHILLIPS - London

Justine Gruser - Specialist Photographs

Justine Gruser is a Specialist in the Photographs department at Phillips auction house in London, the destination for international collectors to buy and sell the world's most important twentieth-century and contemporary works of art.

A. GALERIE - Paris

Arnaud Adida, Director

Arnaud Adida, founder of the Acte 2 gallery, has created a new space dedicated to photography and contemporary art named "A.galerie". Located in the 16th arrondissement, close to Pont de l'Alma, between the Palais de Tokyo and the Fondation Yves Saint-Laurent, A.galerie will mainly display photographs and occasionally contemporary art.

SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART (SFMOMA) - San Francisco

Shana Lopes, Assistant Curator of Photography

Shana Lopes, PhD, is an Assistant Curator of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Since her arrival at the museum in 2019, she has organized exhibitions on cyanotypes, the 1906 earthquake, Atget, and Wright Morris. She is the co-curator of Constellations: Photographs in Dialogue, A Living for Us All: Artists and the WPA, and Sightlines: Photographs from the Collection. Over the past fourteen years, she has gained curatorial experience at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

SLAG & RX GALLERIES - New York

Irina Protopopescu, Director

Slag Gallery is committed to present work by emerging artists and to support and sustainably nourish their careers. With this at its core, the gallery's efforts concentrate on local and international exposure of works by artists in its roster, by providing the cultural exchange with art institutions and organizations, publishing catalogs, collaborating with other galleries, and participating in Art Fairs. The artists of Slag Gallery have been included in a number of internationally recognized exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennale (2001), the Istanbul Biennale (2011), Prague Biennial (2011), along with exhibitions at museums and institutions such as PS1 in New York; The Drawing Center, NY; Brooklyn Museum, NY; Marina Abramovic Institute, San Francisco; Kunsthalle Budapest (Mucsarnok); MODEM Modern and Contemporary Art Center, Debrecen; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest; MKM Museum Kuppersmuhle, Duisburg; Kultur Fabrik, Luxembourg; Brukental Museum, Sibiu; The Museum of New Art, Detroit; NJMoCA; Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel; Queens Museum of Art, NY; Birmingham Museum of Art: Boulder MoCA; the Islip Museum of Art, NY; Marfa Contemporary, TX; Kunsthaus Worms, GE; Kunstverein Viernheim, GE, Socrates Sculpture Park, NY; MARe, Bucharest, just to name a few. Slag Gallery was inaugurated in June 2008 in Chelsea. In 2021, Slag Gallery and RX Gallery, Paris started a partnership that provides a broader promotion platform for their artist roster.

ADK CREATIVE ONE TOKYO - Japan

Toru Fujii, Senior Creative Director

Toru Fujii, senior creative director at ADK Tokyo, has more than 25 years of experience in the advertising industry. His guiding principle is simple: "Ideas are more effective when they are relevant to society. Great campaigns propose fine ways of living in the context of the times." Gaining countless awards inside and out of Japan, Toru has been also serving on juries for major global creative competitions such as Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, New York Festivals, ADFEST, AD STARS, Middle East and North Africa Cristal Festival.

GOODBY SILVERSTEIN & PARTNERS - San Francisco

Wes Phelan, Executive Creative Director

Wes Phelan is a South African ECD currently working in San Francisco at Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Before this, Wes worked at Johannes Leonardo across a number of the agency's accounts, most notably on Adidas Originals and TripAdvisor. His work on these brands resulted in significant business growth and impact as well as a successful international awards tally with multiple Cannes Lions, including the first Grand Prix awarded in the new Music Entertainment category in 2017 for the Adidas 'Original is never finished' campaign. In Adweek's "2017 top 100", Wes was recognized as one of the top 22 creative directors "who is completely reimagining what's possible". Wes has been featured in the Cannes Game Changers book and exhibition, celebrating 60 years of advertising that has transformed the landscape of the creative industries. Phelan has an intense passion for film and has directed several commercials, short films, and music videos. Prior to joining Johannes Leonardo, his provocative ideas and talent saw him quickly rise to be one of South Africa's youngest creative directors at WPP company, MetropolitanRepublic in Johannesburg.

ARTFACTORY CLUB - Vienna

Dr. Stefan Kallinka - Director

The ARTFACTORY CLUB is a contemporary art gallery in Austria and was established in 2014. It is dedicated to the promotion of Avant-Garde Art of contemporary European artists, providing original fine art to established and emerging collectors. The ARTFACTORY CLUB is specialized in the world-famous artists Gerhard Richter, Franz Gertsch and Helmut Ditsch. Their works stand out for the high quality and impressive power they perform on the viewer. An important characteristic of the ARTFACTORY CLUB is the realisation of exhibitions at public spaces with free entry to provide art to all interested people, regardless of their social background. Therefore the art gallery organized the Gira Nacional in cooperation with Helmut Ditsch in 2014, an exhibition tour which the Argentinian artist originally started in 2010 in his home country. During the tour his paintings were shown in several cities in the interior of Argentina with hundreds of thousands of visitors. After a successful first year the ARTFACTORY CLUB decided to open a second branch in Vaduz, Liechtenstein in 2015. In 2016 the ARTFACTORY CLUB started exhibiting at international art fairs.

DROGA5 - New York

Paul Meates, Group Creative Director

Paul Meates currently lives in Brooklyn and is Group Creative Director at Droga5 NY. Founded in 2006, Droga5 is a highly-acclaimed creative agency with more than 500 employees in New York and London. Since its inception, Droga5 has become synonymous with ambitious, influential and industry-challenging work; recent examples include award-winning work for Amazon Prime Video, Tourism Australia, The New York Times, IHOP and Game of Thrones' epic Super Bowl surprise. The agency has been named Agency of the Year 20 times by organizations ranging from Adweek and Advertising Age to Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and the North American Effie's.

HULSBOSCH - Sydney

Marcel Wijnen, Creative Director

Marcel has over 20 years experience advising companies to challenge their sectors, reinventing their brands and creating new iconic identities and new engaging experiences. His career spans across Asia, Europe and Australia where he has helped a broad spectrum of companies from airlines, banks, telcos, retailers, FMCG, industrial, governments and fashion brands. Marcel is currently located in Sydney where he is Creative Director of Hulsbosch. Previously, Marcel was Creative Director of Marque Branding Consultants and Anthem Worldwide, Executive Creative Director, South-East Asia at Interbrand in Singapore - one the world's largest and leading brand consultancies.

SILVAN FAESSLER FINE ART - Zug/Switzerland

Silvan Faessler, Director

Silvan has been working in leading positions in the international art market since 1994, amongst others in the position of director of a renowned European art gallery for Classic Modern and Russian avant-garde, as well as specialist of Post War and Contemporary Art at Christie's International. He founded the Silvan Faessler Fine Art in Zug/Switzerland, in spring 2006. Silvan is a member of the board of the Swiss Art Trading Association since 2012 and holds a mandate as consultant to a Swiss auction house. He is also active in cultural foundations as conservator and exhibition curator, member of art foundation boards and art prize juror. Silvan published articles specialized in art of the 20th Century, and he is a co-author of the biographic encyclopedia of Swiss Art edited by the Swiss Institute for fine arts, Zurich.

STIEGLITZ19 - Antwerp/Brussels

Dries Roelens, Owner/Director

Stieglitz19 is a gallery specialized in showing young, cutting edge photography, with artists experimenting with new media. Artists like Ren Hang, 223, Zhe Chen, Pixy Liao, Lara Gasparotto, Antony Cairns, Chad Moore had their first European exhibition at Stieglitz19. Apart from this, the gallery shows that have renewed the 21th Century photography: Roger Ballen, Anders Petersen, Daido Moriyama, Zhang Hai'er. The gallery works together with international institutions and curators to promote the artists abroad.

JACKSON FINE ART - Atlanta

Coco Conroy, Gallery Director

In 1990, Jane Jackson opened Jackson Fine Art, a gallery in Atlanta specializing in 20th century and contemporary photography. Jackson Fine Art quickly became an important voice in the south as well as the international market. In March of 2003, Jane Jackson sold the gallery to her director of six years Anna Walker Skillman. Ms. Jackson went on to become the director of the prestigious Sir Elton John Photography Collection. Jackson Fine Art continues to have a strong focus on contemporary work while maintaining a blend of 20th century and vintage works. Jackson Fine Art participates and has participated in various international art fairs including, The Photography Show (AIPAD) in New York and Miami; Paris Photo; Art Chicago: The Navy Pier Show; and Photo Los Angeles.

TOLUCA EDITIONS/TOLUCA FINE ART - Paris

Alexis Fabry, Curator

Toluca Editions is a publishing house founded in 2003 in Paris by Alexis Fabry and Olivier Andreotti. Each project is the result of a close collaboration between an artist using photography, a writer, and a designer who contributes a custom-made case. The "artist's book," as it had been understood since the early years of the twentieth century, has given way to a hybrid art object which occupies a novel position in the field. Alexis Fabry works as an adviser for several private collections and is deputy artistic director of Hermes Maison. Exhibitions Mr Fabry has curated include: Southern Geometries, from Mexico to Patagonia, at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris (2018-2019); Noches Fieras 1970-2017, at the Museo Universitario del Chopo in Mexico (2018); Pulsions Urbaines (Leticia & Stanislas Poniatowski Collection), at the Espace Van Gogh in Arles, as part of the international photography festival Les Rencontres d'Arles (2017); Transiciones. Diez anos que trastornaron Europa (Motelay Collection), at the Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, as part of the international photography festival PhotoEspana (2016); Fernell Franco. Cali clair-obscur and Daido Moriyama: Daido Tokyo, at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris (2016); Latin Fire. Otras fotografias de un continente (Anna Gamazo de Abello Collection), at CentroCentro in Madrid, as part of the international photography festival PhotoEspana (2015); Urbes Mutantes (Leticia & Stanislas Poniatowski Collection) at the Museo del Banco de la Republica in Bogota (2013) and then at the International Center for Photography in New York (2014); America Latina, 1960-2013 at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris (2013).

GALERIA SAO MAMEDE - Lisbon

Francisco Pereira Coutinho, Owner/Director

Francisco Pereira Coutinho was born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1964. He graduated in Economics in 1988 and worked as a manager and administrator in three different companies. In 2003 he acquired the Sao Mamede Art Gallery (which had been founded by his father in 1968) and has been running it ever since. Sao Mamede is a historic Art Gallery and one of Portugal's first. Over the course of its history it has exhibited and promoted works from the country's most notable artists (such as Vieira da Silva, Paula Rego, Almada, and Nadir Afonso), as well as many contemporary and upcoming talents. With its ancient brick archways and stone floors, the Gallery is considered a local landmark. It is located in the heart of the city, in Principe Real and features a wide variety of rooms with ample displays and several ongoing exhibitions. As of 2018, the Gallery has annexed an exhibit space within a short 30-meter walk. The new venue is comprised of two different levels, with concrete floors and expansive white walls, in a total area of 500 square meters. In this additional space, further modern and contemporary works are showcased.

GALLERI RAMFJORD - Oslo

Elisabeth Ramfjord - Director

Galleri Ramfjord was founded 16 years ago by Elisabeth Ramfjord. Centrally located in Oslo, our premises hold three exhibition spaces constituting more than 4,300 sq. ft. in total area. Historically, the gallery's primary focus has been emerging artists, and it is still our mission to champion newcomers. However, since the artists who joined our stable 16 years ago have now made names for themselves, we currently also represent well-established artists. A dynamic exhibition venue in downtown Oslo, Galleri Ramfjord is known for its frequent cross-disciplinary events and artistic stunts. While now a well-established gallery in Norway, we consider ourselves "up-and-coming" on the international art scene. Over the past two years, we have collaborated with partner venues in New York, Amsterdam and Copenhagen. Our very first entry onto the international art fair circuit occurred at Art Copenhagen in August 2013 and proved a great success, attracting much attention both to the gallery and to the represented artists. As one of very few fair exhibitors, Galleri Ramfjord was featured in primetime on Danish National Television. We also participated at SCOPE during Art Basel Miami week in December 2013 with great success.

GALERIE BUGADA CARGNEL - Paris

Claudia Cargnel, Founder

Founded by Claudia CARGNEL and Frederic BUGADA in 2002, BUGADA & CARGNEL (formerly known as COSMIC GALERIE) occupies 500 sq. meters in a freehold industrial building, a former garage form the early 30s and represents French and international emerging or established artists.

AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART - Melbourne

Jessica Clark, Curator

Jessica Clark is a proud palawa woman and a curator of contemporary art living and working on Wurundjeri Country in Naarm (Melbourne). She currently holds the position of Yalingwa Curator at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (2022-24). Jessica has a background in art history and art education and has been working in varying independent and collaborative curatorial roles since 2017. She is currently undertaking a curatorial practice-led PhD at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne focussed on investigating intercultural curatorial models for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australian art. ACCA was established in 1983 and moved in 2002 to the heart of the Melbourne Arts Precinct - to a purpose-built, award-winning architectural building designed by Wood Marsh - which secured ACCA's position as a leading centre for contemporary art in Australia focusing on creating opportunities for artists and bringing the best international contemporary art to our audiences. With a long-standing tradition of adventurous, provocative and ambitious programming, ACCA has an outstanding track record propelling artists' careers, and a significant legacy of major commissions which continue to circulate and influence the understanding, appreciation and recent history of contemporary art.

PAOLA ANSELMI CONTEMPORARY ART - Perth

Paola Anselmi, Curator and Arts Writer

Paola Anselmi is a Perth-based curator, arts writer and consultant. The City of Perth Arts & Cultural Development Coordinator from 2009-2014, Paola is a contributor to Australian arts publications such as Object, Artlink, Eyeline and Broadsheet and Scoop magazines. She has held curatorial and research roles at the Art Gallery of WA, Royal Perth Hospital Art Collection, Centre for Contemporary Art, Luigi Pecci, Prato and undertaken numerous public and private collection development projects, as well having an established public art coordination practice, developing major projects locally and regionally throughout Western Australia.

ALFRED EHRHARDT FOUNDATION - Berlin

Dr. Christiane Stahl, Director

The Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung is committed to promoting the study of the work of Alfred Ehrhardt, a photographer, documentary filmmaker and outstanding representative of the New Objectivity movement. In addition to operating as an archive, the foundation is also committed to presenting contemporary photography and media art. Exhibitions have a special dialogical approach, which provides an encounter between contemporary positions addressing themes intrinsic to Ehrhardt's work-nature and the construct of the natural - and original photographs and films by Alfred Ehrhardt. In January 2010 the foundation moved from Cologne to Berlin, a step made to enhance the foundation's public presence. The foundation also oversees the ALFRED EHRHARDT HOUSE, which opened in Triptis, Thuringia in the spring of 2008. Built around 1800, the birth house of the artist was very dilapidated after a long period of vacancy. The house was extensively renovated, and an exhibition space designed by an architect from the Dessau Bauhaus was installed to provide an overview of Alfred Ehrhards artistic oeuvre.

GOLDSMITHS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

Conrad Hechter, Correspondent

Conrad Hechter studied film-making and photography in Sydney where he ran a school for foreign students and revelled in the exceptional light quality of Terra Australis. Moving to USA Conrad worked as Gallery Director at Michael Shapiro Gallery, San Francisco and David Aden Gallery in Santa Monica. He was the Business Director of FotoFactory Press and helped curate numerous catalogues and shows. He was correspondent for Studio Magazines (Black + White and Blue) and is currently based at Goldsmiths, University of London.

DAVID CLARKE - London

David Clarke, Curator, Fine Art Photography Specialist

David Clarke has been a fine art photography professional for over 30 years. Head of Photography for the Tate Gallery from 1994 to 2014, he oversaw management of 11 staff at 5 Tate sites and the implementation of his main objective, to digitize and publish all works of art in the Tate Collection. The Collection consists of over 90,000 paintings, sculptures and works on paper. David was also ultimately responsible for all photography carried out at Tate, including scientific, press, promotion and the image management systems which make the images accessible to staff and public alike. Mr Clarke's personal work has been exhibited at galleries and museums from London to Beijing. He is also a founding member for the Association for Historical and Fine Art Photography which is an international membership organization founded to support and promote fine art photography.

DIANE RUGGIE - Chicago

Diane Ruggie, Creative Director, Writer, Editor

Award-winning Chicago-based creative director, writer and editor with 30 years of experience creating standout brand personalities for top marketers across the globe, primarily in the food, fashion, home furnishing and philanthropic categories. She has won more than 40 of the advertising industry's most prestigious international awards and is profiled in the book Copywriting: Successful Writing for Design, Advertising and Marketing. Brand Expertise for: Soft Surroundings, Payless ShoeSource, LensCrafters, JCPenney, Playtex/Hanes, Frontgate, Aveeno, Janssen Cosmetics, Sephora, Sears, Unilever, Henkel, Bally Shoes, McDonald's, Safeway, Sargento, General Mills, Anheuser-Busch, Tyson, Wrigley, Dell Computers, Nokia, Discover Card, Disney Home Video, Rubbermaid, American Cancer Society, Alzheimer's Association and Chicago Field Museum.

CENTRO PORTUGUES DE FOTOGRAFIA - Porto

Bernardino Castro, Director

Bernardino Castro is Director of the Portuguese Center of Photography (CPF). A visiting professor at the Universidade Portucalense in the Specialization Course in Documentary Sciences; Senior Archival Technician at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto and on the General Archive of the Porto City Council. Author and collaborator in communications and publications in the areas of archiving and photography, Mr. Castro also guests as a Jury member in various photography programs and competitions. The Portuguese Photography Center aims to ensure the valorisation, conservation and legal protection of photographic heritage by supporting policy-making, archival technical treatment and promoting access to photographic information for the benefit of present and future generations as a source knowledge for cultural, social and economic development.

CHIARA / BADINELLA - Milan

Chiara Badinella, Art Advisor & Appraiser

Chiara Badinella is an independent consultant for Gurr Johns, one of the largest, oldest, and most trusted independent advisory and appraisal firms in the world. Ms. Badinella holds a MA Distinction in Art History and Conservation of Cultural Heritage, with specialization in Contemporary Art, from the University of Genoa, a MA in Art Business from Sotheby's Institute, London and has completed academic courses in Emerging Art Markets and Marketing the Visual Arts. Before focusing on art advisory, Ms. Badinella co-founded and directed Brand New Gallery in Milan, listed in the best 500 galleries worldwide as per Modern Painters Magazine and as a gallerist, created and developed art management software for galleries, collectors and institutions. An accredited Member of the Appraisers Association of America and of the CRSA (Catalogue Raisonne Scholars Association), New York. Appraisals are compliant with the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP), the highest professional standards promulgated by The Appraisal Foundation. Chiara Badinella is an Appointed Expert and Appraiser for Modern and Contemporary Art for the Chamber of Commerce of Milan. Combining a deep expertise in the global art market and an established network of galleries, dealers, auctioneers, and collectors, Ms. Badinella assists individuals and corporations in collection development, management, and appraising and attends international art fairs, such as Art Basel, FIAC, Frieze, Armory, Art Brussels, Tefaf, and ADAA.

NSU ART MUSEUM FORT LAUDERDALE

Ariella Wolens, Curator

Founded in 1958, NSU Art Museum is a premier destination for exhibitions and programs encompassing all facets of civilization's visual history. The Museum is the hub of the South Florida Art Coast, situated midway between Miami and Palm Beach in the heart of downtown Fort Lauderdale, one of the fastest growing areas in the U.S. Its distinctive modernist building which opened in 1986 was designed by the renowned architect Edward Larrabee Barnes. Located in Fort Lauderdale's active Arts and Entertainment District. NSU Art Museum's 83,000 square-foot building contains 25,000 square feet of exhibition space, a 256-seat auditorium, Museum Store and Cafe.