Open Eye and others
Sounds cosy? Well, yeah, but there were other people there too - it was an event organised by Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool to promoted the new exhibits “Richard & Famous” and “Painted Photographs”. The talk kicked off with Martin introducing Richard Simpkin, an Australian who has been working the same project for the last 23 years: photographing himself with famous people.
This could raise all sorts of questions about Simpkin, he’s obviously got quite a singularly obsessive and addicted personality in order to pursue this project for so long. Has he actually done anything else in his life? Looking at his website, it’s all pretty much about celebrity, and he says he doesn’t care for it! The work could be said to be self-absorbing, egotistical and a little disturbing, after all, there’s a case for him being a serial stalker. And to put on an exhibition (and book) with hundreds of photographs of yourself surely feeds your ego!
It is fascinating though, and he’s an engaging speaker. No matter what you say your views are on celebrity, some of the stories and escapades he told would pique your interest. And I challenge anyone to visit the exhibition and not go “Wow, he’s had his photograph with xxx”. So, beyond being a comment about Simpkin and his personality, this is undoubtedly a narrative on modern culture in general, the celebrity game and the commodity of it all, especially after Simpkin has become better known for what he does, and the PR guys actually want Simpkin to take the photographs. Parr refers to it as “art”, I think more of a ‘narrative”, but the two are interchangeable these days anyway.
Simone Lueck’s “The once and future queens” is perhaps a more traditional form of photography to be found hanging in a gallery. The large sized portraits depict older women from LA, dressed and posed in a glamorous way, recreating images from the golden days of Hollywood.
I find the images to be tinged with sadness, but perhaps that’s of my own creation. Certainly Mara, who poses in several of the photographs, seems to be having fun, enjoying the opportunity to play make-believe in what must surely be the world capital of fantasy and glamour. I guess the collaboration with Lueck (and she is keen to point out that it is collaboration, with the women picking their own clothes and setting their own scene) may have been deeply therapeutic for the women who will, in all probability, be coming to terms with ageing, and particularly feminine ageing, in Tinseltown.
I’m not by nature a huge fan of portraiture, certainly I don’t like taking portraits myself, but there was much to be read into these photographs, and it was all very enjoyable. There was something to be said about presentation here though; the images were all glass fronted and reflections were a major issue, certainly nearer to the large windows.
The layering effect might be interesting in its own right, but sometimes it’s nice to see the image on its own…
The final exhibition in the Open Eye was a number of artefacts from Parr’s own collection of “painted photographs”. Yes, once again Parr is proven to have an odd but nonetheless interesting taste in things to collect.
These historical items are a little surreal but complement perfectly the subject of celebrity, as they are celebrity photographs (poodle excepted) that have been altered and re-used for a different purpose. We don’t see the final ‘after image”, just these remnants from a process no longer in use because of the power of Photoshop. Yeah, interesting from a photographic history perspective…
Not sure why I did this really, but I did so here it is.
I also went to a couple of other places - the Museum of Liverpool (not impressed by Mike McCartney’s photographs though) then to the Tate where there was some significant works by well known artists that I was quite happy to see. I’ll not comment too much here, they’ve been spoken about by people far more eloquent and informed than I am. I will say however that the photographs by Gillian Wearing were disappointing, this one in particular was blurred when blown up to exhibition sizes!
This sculpture by Don Brown was exquisite though - so delicate, although perhaps disturbing in its subject matter.
Finally it was off to the Slavery Museum for 42 women of Serra Leone, which I found to be too centred on the caption - I took longer to read these than look at the image, and sometimes the image and caption didn’t particularly match. I’ll say something more about this in another post though.