Lost is Found
Now, regarding the exhibitions, I have to be honest and say that this just my opinion based on my taste and also my practice as a photographer. Some people will no doubt have really enjoyed them. For the curators talk, well, the curators were young and I’d guess that for at least one of them, it was the first time they’d done something like this - very nervous to say the least, as I’m sure I would be too. That’s something that will get easier for them, and I really wouldn’t hold nerves against someone. Where it did suffer was the way that the three curators passed between each other and moved all over the gallery. I felt like I was an 8-year old playing football, and the curators were the ball; we followed them around the gallery as they pinged from piece to piece and machine-gunned their way through their notes - it felt like it only took 5 minutes to go through half a dozen different artists work, although to be fair it probably took 10.
As for the work itself; there was the work from 9 NW artist on show, all working in different media to show “beauty in the redundant and discarded”. It all sounded a little pretentious to be honest, especially when reading the various statements in the show guide. That said, I did find some things interesting. Lucy Ridges’ work showing two images combined was surreal, but why use discarded frames? Did this add or detract meaning? The work was described as “a bewildering, unfinished idea with an open narrative.” Should it be displayed if an unfinished idea? And pictures of naked women really play on secret desires? I’m being harsh here, but as I said, I did like the work. I also liked Jessa Fairbrother’s projected slideshow, although without being told, I would have missed the red dress being overtly symbolic to femininity, but perhaps I just don’t think about things like that too often. I’m not sure what that means about Jon Barraclough’s “Brazilian” though (not really a Brazilian, drawing from his Everything and Nothing - you’d have to see it to understand).
I don’t think it’s coincidental that I preferred the photography based exhibits, but I thinks the inferred meanings behind some of them left a little to be desired.
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.
Si Barber @ Bank Street
The venue was a small one, a far cry from some of the larger exhibition spaces that I’ve been to, but then, it’s one of those spaces where you don’t need to be one of the really big guns to exhibit in. It’s one of those invaluable spaces for us mere mortals to be able to display our work. They need to be applauded for that. It also meant that they were more amenable to a bunch of people coming in on a Saturday when they’re normally closed - having the space to ourselves meant that we didn’t have to worry about upsetting other visitors by gathering around an image and talking about it for 10 minutes. Yes, a big thanks to the gallery, and to resident photographer/curator Andrew Conroy who was on hand to throw in his opinion and some inside info from time to time.
Looking around the 5 rooms, the images were all printed to the same general size, format excepting (yes, the format of the images all seemed a little random - different cameras, different crops?), and all were fastened directly to the wall with drawing pins. There’s been some discussion on other fora recently about quality of prints, mounting and presentation, etc. some of these comments have been my own, notably about Red Saunders at the Impressions Gallery in Bradford (which, with hindsight, may have been more suitable than I originally gave it credit for - still not a fan of the work though). Here though, it felt completely appropriate to the work. Not because it only deserved to be pinned to the wall, but because it was representative of the throwaway society and the less fortunate elements of that society. It was also a budgetary consideration, but it worked. I liked it anyway.
Looking to the images themselves, I think many worked really well in the small groups as displayed, with visual and contextual flow in the adjacent images. The first image we discussed was of a soldiers funeral procession - an interesting image as it was many layered, with different readings possible. The procession was pictured as it passed in front of a Poundland store, and the obvious visual pun was that life was cheap. However, looking further into the photograph, there was more. The roads were lined with people showing their respects to the fallen soldier, which then contrasted with the nearby photograph of another military funeral showing only the coffin bearers and, in the distance, the honour guard at the entrance to the church.
from Si Barber’s Flickr stream
from the Big Society website
This has a more institutionalised respect and tradition, not the societal respect shown in the other. It’s also pretty much timeless as the photograph has no obvious means of being dated; the dress uniform of the soldiers is probably much the same as it has been for decades, although no doubt an expert in the matter might notice a certain issue of boots or something. The “Poundland” image is more placeable through the shop, the fashions of the people lining the street, etc. There was a brief discussion about which would be used in the press, with some division of opinion, but it would depend on whereabouts in the press and the message being communicated - it could really be either.
As Gareth pointed out, there was also a family bond in the small group of people following the hearse, with the connection between the younger man on the left of the group (a brother perhaps?) and the older man (the father?) to his right. An interesting image that shows that there’s often a need to look deeper into an image, moving past the first impressions to reach a deeper understanding. This was true of several of the images here, but is becoming increasingly more difficult to do with the constant stream of visual information to which we are subjected on a daily basis. I will add the following image though, taken from Si Barber’s Flickr stream which shows the tags assigned:
from Si Barber’s Flickr stream
The tags are “funeral, poundland, £1, soldier, death, dead, war, casualty” - they say nothing about this bond that can be seen, or the respect being paid by the people on the street. Just the death of a soldier and £1. Was this a case of the reader “owning” the image more than the photographer, with Si Barber having lost control of the meaning of his work? It would appear so: I’ve posted a question on his Flickr image, and he responded with acknowledging the reader makes their own mind up, but summed up with “However I suppose to me it says something about the way a society can regard life as being very cheap.” This image can be argued to say as much about the death of the author as the death of Private Hendry.
There were other images that were discussed at length, those of the sex workers being one of the prominent discussions, particularly of the ethics in running such images. The women were paid to pose as they would do if Si was a punter, and how would we approach such a project should we choose to run it? Would we do like Si and pay for the image (as I believe Philip-Lorca DiCorcia did with “Hustlers”, but I’m not sure on this), or use some other technique? Sniping with a long telephoto, or snap and dash, or getting under the skin and using gatekeepers, etc. Also, would we show them online, in a book or even in a gallery? It was no coincidence that these images where in a room that could be seen from the street, should you pause and look through the windows.
from the Big Society website
Another image discussed was of an older lady with a “do not resuscitate” tattoo, a strong image that showed a determined and outwardly upbeat woman who has made her choice about life and death. The image was in stark contrast to the adjacent photograph of a woman apparently in a care home petting a lamb. This other woman did not come across as in control of herself, perhaps largely due to the setting itself (plastic chairs and sheeting on the floor) but also because of her pose at the time the photograph was taken. Maybe this was a split second view on the woman, but it did come across as markedly different to its neighbour. Yes, a strong juxtaposition of images.
from the Si Barber’s website
from the Si Barber’s Flickr stream
Also interesting to compare is the image of Joy from the Big Society exhibition with that on his Flickr stream, which has either been left unprocessed, or far more subtly done.
from the Si Barber’s Flickr stream
Less dramatic? Certainly. A little more human? Yes, I think so. The image from the exhibition is in keeping with many there in the style of processing, which is quite bold and vibrant.
The last image we discussed that I think needs a mention (there were many interesting and provoking images there) is that of the Coke can crack pipe. Obviously there is an historical connection between Coca-Cola and drugs (not sure if it’s all just an urban myth though), but the thing that I think needs to be mentioned is the orientation of the image in the gallery, which was vertical, as opposed to horizontal on the website and in the book. I read them differently, with the vertical image almost being a defiant celebration - the can held aloft, almost as the Statue of Liberty does with the torch. Horizontally, it’s perhaps more of an offering…
from the Big Society website
A thoroughly enjoyable visit, and an engaging exhibition. I’d like to thank Si for giving me permission to reproduce his images here, his responses on Flickr and also for posting the book of the Big Society out to me so quickly.
Si’s websites:
www.sibarber.co.uk/
www.flickr.com/photos/si_barber/
www.thebigsociety.me.uk/
One
I suspect the 500 photographs don’t need much of an introduction, all the photographs are of identically framed faces, showing just eyes, nose and mouth. Some time ago I commented on the Steve McCurry ‘Portraits’ book suffering because I found it all a bit “samey”, a bit formulaic. This should be the case here, and to some extents it is, but here there is a little something extra that I find more rewarding. Sure, it’s easy to flick through sections of the book without paying particular attention, and I guess it’s unreasonable to expect an in depth inspection of each and every photograph in a single sitting: there’s 500 of them, but that’s not the point anyway, these aren’t singular images, it is without doubt a collection of images. And one that takes repeated viewing.
I’ve read that the framing and monochrome printing that averages any racial colouring makes the faces unified, and hence the title of the book. To a degree I can see this, although with the Taschen imprint there are pretty clear differences for colour, although not as great as they could have been if printed more “normally”, and certainly they’re more unified than if they’d been in colour.
What I can see from the repetition of images though is a different form of unification - we’re all built the same, give or take. The repetition of these facial ‘points’ shows that this is the case. Older people have larger noses than younger, some people have broader noses, others have freckles or spots, there are differences in this stream of similarity. This also brings to mind something said by Kanemura Osamu: “though repetition (I aim to) discern significant differences within the subject...” (Tucker, 2003, p268). And yes, this is where my fascination comes, through the differences that this attempt to show ‘one’ identity highlights. We may be the same, but we are all also different. I might not be explaining myself well here, but I know in the back of my head what I mean!
One thing I would like to do here is to merge the images. A video would be the obvious choice, and so perhaps a little less interesting because it is so obvious (although I have hinted at this when I did a similar exercise but with a single person). An image merge might be more interesting. I can’t bring myself to detach the pages from the book though!
Bibliography
Tucker, AW. Friis-Hansen, D. Kaneko, R. Takeba, J. (2003) The history of Japanese photography. Houston. The Museum of Fine Arts.
Espen Rasmussen @ Nobel Peace Centre
The work was entitled "Transit" (there's a book by the same name too - see here, not sure it's a full version, but you get a good idea) and looked at the subject of displaced people, whether within or without their own country or community. The exhibition was split into several sections based upon the country/people in question - a logical way to do it really. There was an interesting mix of presentation styles - some printed large and one in particular was a little too large in my opinion: it featured a very narrow depth of field and you lost the sharpness because of the size. The general idea of the style of display can be seen here, courtesy of the Nobel Peace Centre website (I took some reference shots but subsequently lost my memory card). There was one section that featured a simple bed in the middle of the room, the full meaning was a little lost on me, but I assume it somehow reflected the plight of the Iranian teenager who tried to escape to Norway.
The photographs featured off-kilter compositions, shallow depth of field, and rich colouration. A few also seemed to be a little "false" feeling, one of twins chained in a room almost felt superimposed, a composite image. Bearing in mind the photographers reputation, this will not have been the case, but it's how it felt to me. It will likely have been as a result of the post-processing with the saturation, grain and perhaps sharpening (or whatever it was he did). It made me feel uncomfortable with the image, but not because of the message it was conveying about the twins. This was the minority though, and the style did bring across a sense of movement, of snatched moments and a journey from A to B. Yes, if you take away the stylistic elements, there was a narrative to be read and the images can be seen as a strong documentary.
We didn't stay too long at the exhibition, but the book would be interesting and as a documentary series, I found it to be very strong.