Exhibition Visit: Two Exhibitions in Cornwall

Having a partner who is an art student and exhibition addict, it is hard to get away from art galleries, wherever in the world we may be. A week’s holiday in St Ives inevitably involved a visit to the Tate gallery there and another rainy day later in the week prompted a visit to the Newlyn art gallery. Both held exhibitions of interest, which are briefly commented upon here.

“Images Moving Out onto Space” (Tate St Ives)

This exhibition featured art works that relied upon movement to produce their effect. Old and new works by almost 20 artists were featured, with a series of kinetic sculptures from the 1960s by Cornish artist Bryan Wynter (example: Image 1) lending the exhibition its name. Wynter’s sculptures involved placing rotating mobiles in front of a refracting lens to achieve a pleasing, constantly-changing abstract effect. Sadly, Wynter died before he could fully realize his concept.

     Image 1: “Imoos 6” (Bryan Wynter)  

 Elsewhere, the gallery featured abstract, minimalist and kinetic works of art by (mainly) living artists. I was particularly taken with Liliane Lijn’s rotating conical structures, which are wrapped in enamelled copper wire to produce constantly changing lines of reflected light (see Image 2). As far as I could see not every work of art moved, but the exhibition did raise the question of whether it would be possible to produce a kinetic work of art involving moving photographic prints (as opposed to the obvious example of the moving image) and, if so, how? Photographs depicting change were part of the exhibition (along with several typical works by Bridget O’Reilly), but they didn’t move!

Overall, this was a thought-provoking and appealing exhibition.

Image 2: “Red Line Koan” (Liliane Lijn)

Exhibition Review: “In Search of the Miraculous” (Newlyn Art Gallery)

The exhibition was inspired by the life of artist Bas Jan Ader, who set sail alone in July 1975 from Massachusetts to cross the Atlantic to Falmouth in Cornwall. He was lost at sea and never seen again.

The exhibition features grand concepts and designs, mainly involving video work, by an international group of artists. In common with Jan Ader, many of the artists have embarked on journeys in pursuit of new experiences and recorded these journeys for the viewer. For example, at the start of the exhibition we see a looped 10 minute video of artist Guido van der Werve, walking across sea ice in Northern Finland, followed by an icebreaker (Image 3). The video is trance-like in its monotony, but somehow manages to convey a grand picture of cold Arctic scenery.

Image 3: “Everything is going to be Alright”, Guido van der Werve

As I live within a few hundred metres of the Greenwich meridian line I was interested to see Simon Faithfull’s video of his journey along the meridian line from Peacehaven in Sussex (where he walks out of the sea) to Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire (where he returns to the sea). In between we see him using ladders to climb over hedges and walk through peoples’ gardens as he attempts to keep exactly to the meridian line. Did he really follow the meridian line so exactly? I have my doubts, but Faithfull’s work is certainly a classic example of a grand concept put into practice. The depiction of artists’ journeys, using a variety of art forms, is becoming more and more popular. As a keen walker myself, who is also becoming more interested in video art, here is an area that I can consider developing as part of my own practice.

Other videos in the exhibition featured an Icelandic trawler going round and round in circles, creating a circular vortex of water, and a work called “blind date”, in which a blindfolded Mat Collishaw  travels to The Prado in Madrid to view (blindfold removed) Velasquez’ classic painting conundrum, “Las Meninas”.

Final Thoughts

Both exhibitions feature classic, concept-driven works of art. Whilst the exhibits at Tate St Ives are material they are also changing. At Newlyn the art is largely ethereal, representing (artistic and/or real) journeys, often on a grand scale. Here is “art for art’s sake”, a pure representation of artists’ pursuits of new experiences.

Exhibition Visit: "Environmental Photographer of the Year" (Royal Geographical Society, London, 4 July 2015)

This exhibition featured the shortlisted photographs from the 10.000 images submitted for the 2015 Atkins CIWEM Environmental Photographer of the Year competition. The competition encourages participants from around the world to “share their images of environmental issues to encourage our awareness and understanding of the causes, consequences and solutions to climate change and social inequality”. Whilst largely concentrating on human issues, such as poverty, culture, population growth and human rights, environmental issues such as biodiversity were also covered.

My interest in this competition was threefold: to observe how winning entrants in the portfolio competitions presented their selections of photographs, to understand better how some of the drier subject areas could be given aesthetic photographic appeal and to study how photographers dealt with wildlife-related issues such as biodiversity (a subject of particular interest to me).

The exhibition was visually stunning: beautiful photographs highlighting important environmental issues. Most of the portfolios, in particular, had been taken by professional photo-journalists. I envied them their opportunities to travel to spectacular places in order to highlight important environmental issues. Having said that, having recently returned from Vietnam with around 2500 images I have nothing that remotely compares with Ly Hoang Long’s beautiful night-time image of fishing net checking there (Image 1)!

Image 1 (Ly Hoang Long)

Some familiar themes were highlighted, such as the growing accumulation of (mainly) plastic waste in our oceans and on land and the shortage of (clean) water in many parts of the world. Burtynsky’s epic photographs of the massive ship-breaking yards in Bangladesh have encouraged many other photographers to visit the Chittagong area and some beautiful images have emerged, with Michael Blach’s photograph (Image 2) being my favourite from the exhibition. Work in these yards is fraught with danger and many deaths have resulted: Bangladesh appears to be one of very few countries that are prepared to take on the task of breaking up massive container vessels and dealing (or not) with the resultant environmental legacy.

Image 2 (Michael Blach)

The exhibition was quite small and easy to negotiate in under an hour. It was also very popular: when we visited (admittedly on a Saturday), the crowds were such that it was difficult to get close enough to the photographs to read the accompanying texts or fully appreciate their impacts.

The photographs in this exhibition resemble those one might expect to find in an issue of “National Geographic” magazine. They are beautiful to look at, as well as highlighting the many environmental problems that the planet and its people face. But will they have any impact on dealing with those problems, and does this matter for a visual arts exhibition? These are the issues that I find hard to come to terms with. As a former scientist I have spent much of my life tackling problems and trying (usually unsuccessfully) to come up with solutions in order to make the world a better place. Using photography as a documentary tool to record and highlight social and environmental issues is an area that I am particularly interested in and to see how other photographers have managed this in a creative and aesthetically pleasing manner is inspirational. However, do these images represent photographic art? The photographs of Daniel Beltra, discussed in my critical essay, occupy the same area of documentary / photojournalism. Beltra is a photojournalist (or so I’m told) and his work is commission- rather than concept-driven.  Nevertheless I would argue that he and many of the photographers whose works feature in this exhibition are artists and that their work holds far more relevance for us in our daily lives than does that of photographers whose work is entirely concept-driven.

Exhibition Visit: "Fresh-faced and Wild Eyed" (The Photographers' Gallery, London, 4 July 2015)

This exhibition, now in its 8^th year, presents the work of 25 recent graduates from photographic and visual arts courses across the UK, showcasing the best emerging artistic talent. The works were selected by a panel of judges. As such, it presents an overview of current practices and gives a boost to talented recent graduates at a critical time in their careers.

As a potential graduate from a visual arts course, the concepts and ideas behind emerging graduates’ work was of particular interest to me, as was the way in which these ideas had been exploited.

Looking round the exhibition, a few obvious themes emerged. Most of the works were (loosely) portrait based, with images of (male and female) naked bodies to the fore. Whilst the aesthetics and story lines behind the works were very varied, it seems that many students prefer to stick with the type of photography with which they are most familiar, namely taking photographs of themselves and others.

I was impressed with the globe-trotting capacities of the graduate photographers. Jonathon Simpson (“I am Fine”) spent time travelling between Bangladesh and Singapore delivering video messages of love and support between Bangladeshi workers in Singapore and their families, in order to investigate the exploitation of Singapore’s migrant workers. Betty Laura Zapata ("X-Ray, Inside Venezuelan Public Hospitals”) returned to her home country to work undercover to expose the appalling state of healthcare facilities in Venezuela. James Bell (“Beach Boys”) managed to wangle time in Barbados to portray members of the local community who are dependent on the tourist trade.

Intermingled with more hedonistic pursuits, one or two projects were of a distinctly personal nature. Sian Davey’s project, “Looking for Alice”, features her own young daughter, who was born with Down’s syndrome, and reflects on how Alice’s disability influences family relationships, whilst also examining prevailing attitudes in society towards “difference”. However, the work that had the greatest effect on me featured very little photography. Aida Silvestri’s work, “Even This Will Pass”, features a small number of portraits of Eritrean sitters, blurred to protect their identities, together with passages of text describing their dreadful and traumatic experiences on journeys to this country, as victims of human trafficking. At a time when many thousands of migrants are attempting to enter our country illegally, this project is a timely reminder of the other side of the story. We should also appreciate how lucky we are to live here, when we compare our lifestyles to those of others around the world. Silvestri was born in Eritrea. Her work reminds me that when a project revolves around a concept as powerful as this, photography becomes just a simple tool to assist the narrative.

Some of the projects were video-based. I was particularly impressed by the short film from Alexandra Vacaroiu’s project: “I Want to Remember Everyth”, in which she attempts to recreate memories that were never photographed. Her work concentrates on objects that trigger specific memories and its potential benefit for patients living with Alzheimer’s disease is explored. Here is a creative and imaginative project, with an aesthetically pleasing output and a worthy goal: what more could one ask for?

The creative energy and output of these graduates is to be admired. As expected, many of the works were of little interest to me in my perpetual search for ideas and inspiration. However, some of the works (in particular that by Aida Silvestri) were quite moving and demonstrate that sometimes the photographs themselves can play a relatively minor role as part of a bigger concept (a reminder of the work of Sophie Calle).

In looking to the future Sian Davey’s work reinforces my wish to develop a very personal photographic project relating to the relationship with my mother between 1995 (when my father died) and 2007, when my mother passed away.

The increasing use of video by the students encourages me to incorporate more video work into future projects, following its introductory use in my major project for this course.

On Influences and Inspiration, Part 2 (May 2015)

Incorporating reviews of the following exhibitions:

“Unofficial War Artist” (Peter Kennard, Imperial War Museum, London)

“Freedom of Assembly” (Theaster Gates, White Cube Gallery, London)

(Both visited on 16 May 2015)

In Part 1 I discussed how I derive inspiration for my photographic work from many different areas of the art world, how the paintings of Salvador Dali have influenced and inspired me far more than the work of any photographer, living or dead, and how the aesthetic appeal (a very subjective value) of any work of art plays a part in influencing my photographic output. I have always struggled to elucidate how the work of artists seen in exhibitions, books and films has influenced my own work or state of mind. This document provides a practical example, concerning a recent visit to two very different exhibitions on the same afternoon, which influenced my thinking and may provide me with material for future photographic work.

“Unofficial War Artist” (Peter Kennard)

Peter Kennard has, for nearly 40 years, been a strong and vocal pacifist voice. His work (Image 1 is a typical example) uses photomontage to denounce war and call for nuclear disarmament. His montages have appeared regularly on banners, fly posters and t-shirts at Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Amnesty International events. Student demonstrations have featured his work, as have many “left of centre” publications, including “The Guardian”.

Image 1: “Protect and Survive” (Peter Kennard)

Kennard’s work could not afford to be too subtle. It had to be consumed and understood by the general public, members of whom could then appreciate and use his art work to express their feelings. The work shown in Image 1 was produced shortly after the British Government’s public information booklet, “Protect and Survive” (1980), suggesting measures to be taken in the event of an imminent nuclear war, had been published. The meaning is obvious. Arguably Kennard’s most famous montage, a “reproduction” of Constable’s “The Hay Wain”, in which the hay has been replaced by cruise missiles (made at the time of the Greenham Common protests) is represented here. Another more recent “Photoshop” montage, in which Tony Blair is taking a “selfie” at the time of the Iraq War, with a background of oil well fireballs and explosions, is not here but can be seen in publicity material about the event. Amongst his most poignant material is the “Decoration” series of mixed media (a mixture of digital printing and oil paint) canvases displaying war medals with frayed ribbons, each “medal” displaying unpalatable aspects of the Iraq war such as the number of kills by an American sniper unit (see Image 2).

Image 2: “Decoration” (Peter Kennard)

I have long held a fascination for photomontage work and Kennard’s is some of the best. His motifs are hard-hitting and, in many cases, imbued with a pleasing aesthetic quality which somehow seems to contradict the dirty businesses of war and the nuclear arms race. Furthermore, he was doing this work long before the advent of digital made it that much easier to manipulate and falsify images. In the final room, Kennard pulls many of his works together with a series of numerical facts (e.g. the explosive power of the nuclear weapons carried on each of the four British Trident submarines is equal to 320 Hiroshima bombs). I congratulate the Imperial War Museum, of all places, on bravely putting on this exhibition of Pacifist art.

Influence and Inspiration

This exhibition was “right up my street” for three reasons. Firstly, I love the idea of producing photo-montage (and photo-collage) work that has intent and purpose. I’ve dabbled in this work in the past and it was a pleasure to see the work of a master craftsman of the genre. Perhaps the art of Peter Kennard will be a significant influence on my work in the future.

Secondly, Kennard’s use of statistics to back up his montages and further demonstrate the futility of war relates to my current major project work and the views I hold about how and why man is damaging the environment. Perhaps he is too forceful, perhaps he is preaching to the converted but the use of statistics to back up his arguments, whilst it may not be art, is certainly effective. The sad fact is that the vast majority of us will agree with his anti-war sentiments, but we can do nothing about it. The few politicians who do have the power to change things may well also agree in private with his sentiments but will also do nothing to change the current status quo, such as unilaterally getting rid of nuclear weapons. The same is true with my views about the environment, but I have a voice and Kennard shows me one way in which I can use it.

Thirdly, Kennard’s work is full of ideas and imagination. I was particularly impressed by his use of a magnifying glass to explore cause (the image in the glass) and effect (the linked image surrounding it) or, as in Image 3, to contrast wealth with poverty (“the richest 85 people in the world own the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of humanity, 3,500,000,000 people). Can I use this type of concept in my future work? I believe that I can.

Image 3 (Peter Kennard)

I found this exhibition to be both influential and inspirational. The very act of writing this review has further cemented the ideas contained within – I hope that I can return to those ideas in the future.

“Freedom of Assembly” (Theaster Gates)

Trained as a potter and an urban planner, Theaster Gates has been making a name for himself on the (poor) south side of Chicago by buying or otherwise procuring abandoned or run-down properties, renovating them and using them as community centres. He uses his art works to fund his projects and has established quite a reputation within the art world.

I was tempted to this exhibition by my partner, for whom Gates’ work holds greater resonance. The new work on display here features sculptures in various media, elements obtained from a hardware store, sections of flooring from a school gymnasium (with a series of markings depicting the various sports that were played on the floor) and a series of tar paintings, using materials that his father would have employed in his job as a roofer, before he retired and handed over his materials to Gates.

I found that Gates’ individual works generally lacked appeal and their combination was somewhat discordant. Some of the tar paintings provided a sombre atmosphere and the sections of gymnasium floor worked well as “discovered” abstract art objects, but the sculptures left me cold and uninterested. However, all was not lost. Unusually for an art exhibition, photography was allowed. Whilst the works themselves held little photographic interest I became fascinated by the way in which they interacted, both with their surroundings and with exhibition visitors, in the main gallery of the “White Cube”. I also photographed some close up details of the tar paintings, trying to create art from art.

Interaction between the Exhibits and the Gallery

Images 4 and 5 demonstrate aspects of the interaction between Gates’ exhibits and the gallery space. In Image 4 one of his tar paintings runs into the gallery wall, whilst in image 5 a sculpture and a tar painting are shown against the plain white background of the gallery walls and the gallery floor.

Image 4 (Theaster Gates / White Cube)

Image 5 (Theaster Gates / White Cube)

Interactions between the Exhibits and People

Images 6 and 7 are a couple of the many photographs that I took of the interactions of people with the exhibits. Here, the images are less “Deadpan” and more “Tableau” than Images 4 and 5. They could be left or added to in order to create a narrative.

Image 6 (Theaster Gates / White Cube)

Image 7 (Theaster Gates / White Cube)

Art Detail

Image 8 depicts a detail from one of Gates’ tar paintings

Image 8 (Theaster Gates / White Cube)

Influence and Inspiration

In this exhibition I was influenced not by the exhibits but by the way that they interacted with their surroundings. With its plain, bright, white rooms and lack of distracting décor, the White Cube is an excellent venue for displaying art, particularly when it is not just attached to the walls of the exhibition rooms. Here, the freedom to photograph anything and everything allowed me to experiment and create images with a range of styles: my favourites are the (to my eyes) interesting tableaux.

I am interested in (un-posed) street photography and the tableaux may inspire me to do some more work in this genre, perhaps concentrating on onlookers interacting with an outdoor statue or sculpture. If I can combine this work with on-going projects (such as “feeding the birds”, which is essentially street photography) then so much the better.

Is there a link between the two exhibitions?

In their own, very different ways both exhibitions provided me with ideas and inspiration which, by recording my critique of the work, I can recall and perhaps incorporate in my own work. Sometimes there is an obvious link between exhibitions of the work of different photographers, but here I struggle. Perhaps I could use a tableau such as Image 7 and, using “Photoshop”, replace the tar painting with a mirror or a window (related to the Kennard magnifying glass: see Image 3), with a view that connects in some way to the rest of the image. Alternatively I could create my own tableau, incorporating people, a white wall and a connected “exhibit” in the form of a picture, mirror or window.

Conclusions

Exhibitions, books, films and magazines all have an influence, to a greater or lesser extent, on my thought processes and on the art that I produce. Sometimes it is difficult to quantify that influence, as I have tried to do in this review. Inspiration largely depends on state of mind. Sitting at my computer I invariably struggle to find inspiration from any source. However vising an exhibition, in different and possibly new surroundings, can provide a setting from which ideas and inspiration can flow. If the featured art resonates with what I am trying to do in my own work it can have a significant influence. Memory then plays an important part, so by writing down my thoughts relating to the exhibition (or book, or magazine, or film) work, as I am doing here, I can return to sources of inspiration and use them again, at a time when they may be required.

Logbook Exhibition Visit: Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, 2015 (Photographers' Gallery, London, 18 April 2015)

The prestigious annual Deutsche Börse Photography Prize is awarded to a living photographer, of any nationality, for a specific body of published or exhibited work “that has significantly contributed to photography”, in this case between October 2013 and November 2014. The award contributes to photography what the Turner prize does for art: candidates with a conceptual and/or experimental approach to their work tend to be favoured and often their work crosses into other genres.

This year’s artists ranged from the unknown (Nikolai Bakharev) to the well-known (Viviane Sassen) and, as is usually the case, covered a wide range of styles and genres. What follows is a brief overview of the work of each of the four artists that was exhibited at the gallery, together with my thoughts about their work. I should stress that, as a relative newcomer to conceptual photographic art, my opinions are to some extent based on a naïve assessment of my enjoyment of each artist’s work.

Nikolai Bakharev (Image 1)

Image 1: Nikolai Bakharev

The Russian photographer Nikolai Bakharev was nominated for his work: “Relationship”, which was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2013. His well-composed monochrome portraits of couples, families, friends and lovers at leisure on or near Russian beaches are, taken at face value, disarmingly straightforward. Their significance is that they were taken at a time (the late 1980s and early 1990s) when only official state photographers were allowed to take photographs. At beach resorts families or individuals would queue to have their photographs taken in state booths, with formal poses. Bakharov’s photographs, taken clandestinely, provided a more intimate atmosphere for staged and informal portraits, giving a rare glimpse of the Russians genuinely at leisure.

The purpose of Bakharev’s work (to raise money in order to support his personal work) and the purpose of the exhibition (to provide rare insight into the way of life of Russians at leisure at a time when this type of photography was prohibited by the state) are both clear. Additionally, the informality of the photographs, which sometimes appear to be completely unposed, the settings and the compositions produce a feeling that the viewer is looking at film stills. I enjoyed viewing Bakharov’s work.

Zanele Muholi (Image 2)

Image 2: Zanele Muholi

South African photographer Zanele Muholi was nominated for her publication “Faces and Phases 2006-2014”. Her monochrome portraits of gay and lesbian black South Africans are, as with Bakharev’s work, straightforward yet connected by a dark undercurrent – in this case the persecution (often violent) and alienation of this section of society. Muholi, who describes herself as a “visual activist”, combines the images with the personal stories of her subjects. The result is a harrowing tale of homophobia, violence, “curative rape” and murder.

As is so often the case nowadays, the power of this portfolio comes not so much from the images themselves, but from the story line that links them. Histories of violence, “curative rape” and murder highlight the personal tales of the sitters, all of whom come from the Gay and Lesbian community in post-apartheid South Africa where, as in so many African countries, this group is still persecuted. Muholi is making a political statement, seeking to draw attention to an often hidden crime, through her photography. The portraits themselves are well executed and presented, mainly in low key (perhaps appropriate for the subject matter) and with strong contrast. Should the message be an important consideration when judging a body of photographic work, particularly when the message comes more from the text accompanying the images than from the images themselves? The judges will decide. I was informed by this work, but it was not the most striking from a photographic point of view.

Viviane Sassen (Image 3)

Image 3 : Viviane Sassen

Dutch fashion photographer Viviane Sassen was nominated for her Rotterdam exhibition “Umbra”. As the title suggests, the work is all about shadows (both literal and metaphorical) and combines photography with installations, sound and video. This is by far the most experimental of the four works and, as such, is far less easy to interpret. Even within the photographic part of the work several genres are covered and there appears to be no obvious connecting link, other than “shadow”, between the many sections of this work.

In contrast to Muholi’s work, Sassen’s appears to be very much “art for art’s sake”. There seems to be little connection between the various exhibits, some of which (in particular the video of two floating arms with their projected shadows that accompanies a poem by Maria Barnas, apparently rendering the poem in sign language) I enjoyed. The work is full of originality (particularly in her use of mirrors), but it was too vague and too abstract for my own tastes. I therefore assume that this will be the winner!

Michael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse (Image 4)

Image 4: Michael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse

Subotzky and Waterhouse spent six years producing this monumental portrait of the huge, 54 storey Ponte City building in Johannesburg. Built to house aspiring middle class whites during the apartheid era, the building has undergone several changes. After a failed regeneration attempt it now houses locals and immigrant workers from across Africa. The work was published as a book (“Ponte City” – Steidl and Walther, 2014) and copies of the book were available here for perusal together with hundreds of photographs, many held in light box “towers”, representing views of and from every apartment in the building.

It is obvious that a huge amount of work went into this project, probably far more than for the other works combined. I enjoyed the two dimensional arrays of views from every apartment window and of every apartment interior, stacked in huge light boxes, which formed intricate patterns, as well as some of the more panoramic views taken from both within and outside the building (see for example Image 4). Photographs of found and/or discarded items from within (often abandoned) apartments add to the rich tapestry of a huge building that nevertheless remains a microcosm of South African life and society. If I have a criticism of this work it is that too much is packed into too small a space. Nevertheless the work combines some outstanding photography and clever, aesthetically pleasing display mechanisms with profound social documentary that is, however, never “in your face”. As such, this would definitely get my vote for the prize.

Final Thoughts

The Deutsche Börse award is not themed by purpose, genre or type. It must therefore be incredibly hard to select a winner. Sassen’s work undoubtedly would take the prize for photographic art, whilst Subotzky and Waterhouse would win for ambition, volume of work and the best individual photograph(s). Muholi’s work would win for documentary strength and impact (although the photographs only supplement the story), whilst Bakharev’s images are the most intimate and engaging. Overall, the themes of this year’s finalists were much easier to follow than is generally the case. I look forward to finding out who wins.

How did the exhibition inform my own work? With the exception of Sassen, the works were built around very clear documentary themes, something that appeals to me as a scientist turned photographer. I have discovered that it is very hard to construct a body of photographic work which does not have a clear goal in mind and the work also has to reflect my own personal interests, hopes and fears. The exhibits by Muholi, Subotzky and Waterhouse gave me insights into how to construct that body of work. However, the artistic freedom of Sassen’s work (in particular the use of video and mirrors) provided far more creative ideas. Would it be possible to harness some of this type of creativity and employ it in work having a strong personal, documentary theme? This must surely be my ultimate challenge!

Exhibition Visit: Sony World Photography Awards (Somerset House, London, 25 April and 6 May 2015)

This year the world’s largest photography competition attracted an amazing 173,000 entries from 171 countries. As in previous years the professional competition required photographers to submit up to ten images in one of thirteen categories, as a series that consistently and compellingly told a visual story, whilst the open competition required amateurs and professionals to submit single images in ten categories. National awards (awarded by 54 local juries) honoured the best single image taken by a photographer from each country that had been entered into the open competition. The Sony “Outstanding Contribution to Photography” award for 2015 was awarded to the veteran American photographer Elliott Erwitt and an exhibition of his work was on display.

The discerning eye may have noticed that this exhibition, which was housed in the East and West wings of Somerset House, was visited twice. This was not intentional, but reflects the fact that when we first visited the exhibition, on a Saturday, we had to queue for 75 minutes to gain access, which didn’t leave us enough time to visit both wings. Such a lengthy wait indicates two things: the exhibition was exceptionally popular and the venue is not large enough to house an exhibition of this type – Sony please note!

Professional Categories

The portfolios produced by the professional photographers were clearly of most relevance to my own portfolio work. What were the stories behind the portfolios and how effectively were they portrayed? The stories seemed largely to fall into two categories: original takes on world disasters and tragedies and intimate family stories. In the former category came the overall winner of the “Iris d’Or”, John Moore (USA) with his picture story of how Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, was overwhelmed by the Ebola epidemic. Moore almost takes on the identity of a war reporter, his photographs focusing on the trauma and grief of victims’ relatives as well as the breakdown of law and order within the city. I understand that Moore’s work, which is both intelligently composed and harrowing, was important in alerting the world to the unfolding tragedy in Liberia. As such, it had a purpose. Without this purpose I would have been inclined to criticise his output as voyeurism, taking advantage of others’ misery.

Two portfolios concentrate on another disaster, the collapse of the garment factory in Savar, Bangladesh, taking the lives of over 1,000 people. Rahul Talukder (Bangladesh; 1^st place in the “Conceptual” category) photographed posters of “the missing”, attached to a nearby wall. The posters had been degraded by exposure to the sun and rain. The faces of loved ones were slowly being eroded, just as hope for their survival was also fading (Image 1). I found this work quite moving; a final reminder that each face represented an individual, lost in the tragedy. The work of the Italian Annalisa Natali Murri (3^rd place “Contemporary Issues”), produced a year after the tragedy, superimposes the faces of survivors onto pictures of their surroundings in Savar. Whilst the resultant monochrome double exposures are eye-catching and clever I do wonder about the value of this work as a piece of investigative photo-journalism. The survivors talk about the profound effect that the disaster has had on their lives, but has talking about this and allowing themselves to be photographed been of any benefit to them, or does all the benefit lie with the photographer? Of course it is not the job of the Sony judges to review portfolios on the grounds of moral integrity. Nevertheless, this is one of several examples within the exhibition of work by foreign photojournalists producing features relating to war, disasters, poverty and crime in countries that are far less well off than their own. Should we commend them for their bravery in visiting potentially dangerous areas or criticise them for boosting their own credentials by capitalising on the unhappiness of others? I guess that, since they are professionals who may have had little or no choice in choosing their assignments, I should give them the benefit of the doubt.

Image 1 (Rahul Talukder)

To be honest, the “family stories” portfolios (such as Dovile Dagiene’s images of her children playing with sticks: 2^nd place, “Lifestyle”) left me cold. There were some fine individual images within the sets, but I took nothing from the portfolios themselves. However, I’m not a family man….

I was disappointed, but not surprised, to see very little work relating to the environment or the natural world. However our own Simon Norfolk’s work, illustrating the retreat of glaciers caused by global warming by inserting “fire lines” along their former fronts (Image 2), makes a powerful point simply and dramatically.

Image 2 (Simon Norfolk)

Finally, I must mention the beautifully simple concept that won Donald Weber (Canada) first prize in the “Still Life” category. The simple images of home-made Molotov Cocktails, produced by “EuroMaiden” protestors during the riots in Kiev, Ukraine, are set against an identical, plain background (Image 3) and tell a poignant story.

Image 3 (Donald Weber)

Open Competition

As always, the most imaginative and aesthetically pleasing images could be found in the Open Competition. Wilson Lee’s winning entry in the “Smile” competition (Image 4) is a typical example.

Image 4 (Wilson Lee)

Zoltan Toth’s futuristic composition (Image 5) won the Hungarian national prize and was shortlisted for the “Enhanced” competition, whilst Marcus Bayer’s shortlisted composition (Image 6) was one of several stunning photographs in the “Architecture” section.

Image 5 (Zoltan Toth)

Image 6 (Marcus Bayer)

This exhibition would benefit from being held in much less cramped and confined surroundings than the East and West Wings of Somerset House.

Now that I have spent almost a year putting together my Major Project portfolio of images, study of the professional competition entries certainly gave me further insight into how to create, design and produce a portfolio of images on a given theme - this may at least be of use for future work! In particular, the success of certain portfolios such as those produced by Rahul Talukder and Donald Weber (above) emphasises the importance of planning a portfolio around a simple but powerful concept or idea, a lesson that I have learnt over the last 18 months.

The winning and shortlisted images in the Open competition (the latter best viewed in the book of the exhibition) provided me with much pleasure and also suggested some ideas for future photographic work and study.

Exhibition Visit - Syngenta Photography Award: "Scarcity - Waste" (Somerset House, London, 14 March 2015)

The stated aim of the Syngenta Photography Award is to draw attention to and stimulate dialogue around key global challenges, such as food security. The first competition, held in 2013, took as its theme the tensions between urban and rural environments. This, the second competition, took on the twin themes of scarcity of resources such as land, food and water and the damage to the environment caused by the waste that we generate. The professional competition invited photographers to submit a themed portfolio of images, together with a proposal for a further project (to be funded for the winner by Syngenta to the tune of $25,000) related to the theme. The Open competition invited individual submissions from any photographer. With hefty prizes of up to $15,000, the competitions attracted more than 2,000 entries from around the world.

The professional competition was essentially aimed at photojournalists, with those interested in environmental issues starting with a clear advantage. The winner, Mustafah Abdulaziz, produced a portfolio of images (including Image 1, which shows women in Pakistan working together to draw brackish water from a well) on the scarcity of water. The importance of the subject matter is abundantly clear, although this could hardly be described as the sexiest subject in the world. Abdulaziz managed to produce aesthetically pleasing images that showed empathy with people across two continents whom he shadowed, without diminishing the importance of his subject matter.

Image 1; Mustafah Abdulaziz

Other topics predictably included environmental pollution (aka smog) in China, huge landfill sites and piles of tyres and electrical waste. Even Greenland is not immune from abandoned waste, as Camille Michel’s photograph (Image 2) demonstrates. All these subjects allowed the photographers to present the subject matter in a visually appealing manner, even if the ethereal beauty of the dim shapes of Chinese city buildings almost hidden by smog is of little consolation to those who have to live and work there. The success of the winning portfolios was presumably dependent on their ability to engage with and provoke empathy (rather than apathy!) from the judges, so human subjects were very much to the fore. Bénédicte Desrus’ highly commended images of obese people in Mexico and the USA were a good example of this. On the other hand Marcus Doyle’s soft palette Californian beach sunset, with abandoned chair and other beach detritus carefully positioned in the foreground, was outstanding in my personal “beauty in waste” category.

Image 2 (Camille Michel)

Throughout the exhibition, statements placed on walls rammed home the message that, unless something changes, the planet is heading for disaster…….and it’s all because of how we live our lives. One example: “four billion trees are cut down each year around the world and paper recycling only accounts for 43% of all paper used”. I suspect that the organisers are preaching to the converted but, with nature and the environment lagging well behind the main issues taxing the minds of our politicians, journalists and electorate in the run up to the (May 2015) UK general election, the point is well worth making yet again. Furthermore, in the final section (“shaping our future”), some possible solutions to the planet’s problems are represented, with Jamey Stillings’ monochrome images of huge, desert-sited solar arrays standing out.

Several international photo-journalists have risen to the challenge of producing engaging and aesthetically pleasing photographic portfolios featuring what, on the face of it, are rather dry topics. I found the exhibition fascinating and rewarding. The empathy that the portfolios show for their subject matter was one reason for their success and is a learning point that I can take for my own portfolio work, now and in the future. The ability of some of the finalists to make even the driest subject matter visually appealing is another key learning point. Whilst some of the individual images in the “open” competition held even more aesthetic appeal it was the ways in which the portfolios in the professional competition had been constructed that proved to be of more value to me. 

Exhibition Visit: "Guy Bourdin: Image Maker" (Somerset House, London, 14 February 2015)

A protégé of the surrealist Man Ray, Guy Bourdin (1928-91) rose to fame in the 1970s as a fashion photographer, working for Vogue magazine (Paris) and Charles Jourdin, manufacturer of high class women’s shoes (and in particular stiletto heels). Bourdin used his surrealist training, combined with a vivid imagination and a head full of ideas, to overturn convention in the world of fashion and advertising. He was a supreme innovator: where others used monochrome, he used vivid colour. Where others concentrated their efforts on the model and the product that (normally) she was wearing, he concentrated on the space surrounding her or did away with the model completely, creating mysterious, surreal tableaux around the product. Bourdin was also a perfectionist, planning his shoots in great detail in the form of working drawings, paintings and even Polaroid prints before producing his final work. Perhaps surprisingly he was also a very private person, refusing all interviews and never selling his work, despite receiving many generous offers. This exhibition, featuring over 100 of his works, including movies, notebooks and working drawings (many previously unseen), is the most comprehensive exhibition of Bourdin’s work to date.

Image 1 (Guy Bourdin for Charles Jourdin)

Image 1 (above), which was used extensively to advertise this exhibition, is typical of Bourdin’s work. Used as part of a Charles Jourdin advertising campaign, the shoes are stylish and clearly visible but only form a very small, if important part of the tableau. The eyes of the viewer (voyeur?) are drawn to the model’s body; her legs and backside, as we ask the question: what is she doing? Is there a gap between the red floor and the yellow wall if, indeed, these are floor and wall? In the absence of the model we would have been unaware of the three dimensionality of this image, but even in her presence we can’t be sure how Bourdin created his set and of what it consisted. Today we are used to seeing digitally altered images and (in particular) video in which the aesthetics of the advertising, rather than its bland details, attract us to a particular product. In Bourdin’s time this concept was revolutionary. My feminist companion was somewhat offended by Image 1 and some other images in the exhibition and there is indeed a feeling that the advertised clothes and accessories are deliberately made to play “second fiddle” to an erotic, titillating vision that prompts desire, for different reasons, in both men and women. However, in the 1960s and 1970s a new Jourdan advertising campaign was awaited with much anticipation.

The exhibition opens with several prints from Bourdin’s “Walking Legs” series, produced on a road trip round the UK in 1979. These photographs, again for the benefit of Charles Jourdin, do away with the use of models. Instead, several pairs of mannequin lower legs accompanied the heels, Bourdin, his partner, his son and an assistant on their journey. Giving free rein to his imagination and surrealist roots, Bourdin produced a collection of wild, fantastical images which explored the British culture (Image 2 is a good example). I have to say that I admired the richness and diversity of Bourdin’s work in the exhibition, his provocative use of eroticism and his daring (particularly for that era) in relegating the product, in many cases, to a minor role in the photograph. Whilst his portraits for Vogue were more “mainstream” than his Jourdin adverts they were still full of creativity in the way that he used his models and the props that often accompanied them.

Image 2 (Guy Bourdin for Charles Jourdin)

I thoroughly enjoyed this exhibition. Bourdin was many years ahead of his time: much of his work would still have been lauded if it had been produced today. In particular, his photographs for Charles Jourdin are not only innovatory and aesthetically pleasing; they also present tableaux that require the viewer to explore and interpret the image and to tease out the significance of the story portrayed. Furthermore, they do this without ever forgetting that they are advertising a particular product (for a final example of this, see Image 3).

Image 3 (Guy Bourdin for Charles Jourdin)

Bourdin’s creations were not produced overnight. A lot of planning went into his work and each tableau was probably prepared for several weeks prior to the final shoot. I can consider using some of his ideas (which include the example of holding a Polaroid print depicting a scene in the foreground of a modified version of the same scene: many fine art photographers have subsequently “stolen” this device), but the most important learning point that I can take from the exhibition is that success and recognition in photographic art come from a combination of imagination, planning and the drive to convert an idea into an end product.

Exhibition Visit: Hiroshi Sugimoto: "Still Life" (Pace Gallery, London, Visited 17 January 2015)

Hiroshi Sugimoto is a conceptual artist who works in many media. His major projects are conceived and executed over many years: key principles and themes behind his work involve preserving memory and time. “Still Life” is an exhibition of thirteen huge prints from the artist’s “Diorama” series, the earliest having been produced in 1976 (shortly after Sugimoto moved to the USA) and the latest in 2012.

Hiroshi Sugimoto

At first glance Sugimoto’s large scale monochrome prints appear to be perfect photographs of the natural world, featuring beautiful, evocative landscapes and key wildlife from around the world. Turtles and iguanas populate a Galapagos island, wolves roam the Alaskan wilderness, Californian condors soar above canyons and mountains, ostriches and warthogs populate an African savannah, penguins and skuas (above) occupy a pristine beach in South Georgia. In many ways these photographs appear to echo and perhaps improve upon Salgado’s wilderness masterpiece “Genesis”. There is an idealised, painterly feel to the landscapes that is reminiscent of the works of the great romantic French artist Poussin…..

The connection with Poussin is understandable, because the landscapes are, indeed, idealised (as were many of Poussin’s) and have been painted. The foreground animals are not real either: they are (taxidermy) models, placed in dioramas displayed in museums and galleries around the world. Sugimoto began his project after noting, when looking at dioramas, that: “I made a curious discovery: the stuffed animals positioned before painted backdrops looked utterly fake, yet by taking a quick peek with one eye closed, all perspective vanished, and suddenly they looked very real. I'd found a way to see the world as a camera does. However fake the subject, once photographed, it's as good as real".

Once the viewer realises that the photographed scenes are artificial, constructed for visitors to museums and galleries, the eye turns to study the quality of the enormous prints, which comprise sharp tones of black and white together with an apparently infinite number of shades of grey. These photographs are a beautiful but entirely artificial evocation of a magnificent but idealised world, a world that perhaps once existed but one which is now rapidly changing.

So what is the purpose of Sugimoto’s forty year project? The concepts of memory, preservation and time are key elements of his work, including this project. Using his large format camera, special lighting and long exposures, he has captured these diorama scenes in great detail and with the utmost accuracy. The resultant works are artificial representations of artificial scenes. They celebrate life, yet are devoid of it. They depict nature as it may once have been; they preserve a memory that, whilst accurate, was based on deception.

Conclusions and Learning Points

We spent around 40 minutes viewing this exhibition. In this time we were able to enjoy the very high quality of Sugimoto’s monochrome prints and appreciate the imagination and work of the artists and curators who had designed and produced the original dioramas. It would be easy to say that this work is based solely on the concept that the camera records a two dimensional image of a scene that the human eyes record in three dimensions; that it transforms an obviously lifeless scene into one that appears, at least initially, to be full of life. However, more importantly the project reinforces Sugimoto’s interest in the changes in the natural world wrought by historical events. As he writes: “all over the planet, nature is being transformed into un-nature at breakneck speed. My life is part of natural history. I long to know where that history came from and where it is going.”

I enjoyed this exhibition as much for the philosophy behind it as for the appreciation of the displayed prints. Like Sugimoto, I understand the beauty of the natural world and don’t want to see it vanish as man-made change accelerates the disappearance of nature’s diversity and our remaining wilderness areas. Whilst I prefer to photograph the reality of the natural world I do so in the knowledge that some of my photographs will quickly become just memories of scenes long gone and I will never be able to reproduce them. The exhibition reinforces both my wish to record nature and preserve the record for future memory and my drive to use photographs to demonstrate to others the damaging changes that we are forcing upon the natural world.

Exhibition Visit: "Conflict - Time - Photography" (Tate Modern, London)

(Viewed 13 December 2014)

“Conflict – Time – Photography” is a major group exhibition, marking the 100^th anniversary of the start of the First World War. Essentially, the exhibition deals with the role of the camera in documenting the aftermath of war, or at least the aftermath of conflict action, and the uses to which that documentation can be put. In many cases the chosen photographers visited sites of conflict after the conflict ended and used their cameras to make personal statements about the effects of war, to apportion blame, to express their own feelings on the subject of conflict or simply to document the destruction, to lives and human structures, caused by war and conflict.

The exhibition deals with conflict from the time of the Crimean War (with photographs by Roger Fenton, who is widely regarded as being the first war photo-journalist) to the present day (Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan). However, its unique curatorial selling point is that the exhibits are ordered not by date, but by the amount of time that elapsed between the occurrence of the conflict or skirmish and the recording of each photograph. Toshio Fukada’s images of the mushroom cloud, taken less than twenty minutes after the explosion of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima, are therefore in the first gallery, whilst Chloe Dewe Mathews’ photographs of execution sites of World War 1 deserters, taken almost 100 years after the executions (about which more later), occupy the final gallery.

 Don McCullin’s famous photograph of a shell-shocked US marine, taken moments after he had been involved in battle during the “Tet Offensive” in Vietnam, hints in the first gallery of a photo-journalistic element to the exhibition. However this memorable image, still powerful today, proves to be a diversion. For the most part the exhibition features fields, buildings or the remains of buildings in the aftermath of war. Sometimes, particularly in the later galleries, there is little or no evidence from the images that conflict has occurred: it is necessary to peruse the accompanying text to understand the significance of the photographs. People are largely absent, even in the immediate aftermath of conflict (such as in Luc Delahaye’s memorable photograph of an Iraqi street in Ramadi moments after the explosion of an “improvised explosive device”, where a dust cloud all but obscures the shell of a crippled armoured car). Richard Peter’s starkly beautiful reminder of the horrific damage to the city of Dresden caused by Allied bombing (Image 1) also features no people: only a statue presides over the ruins of a once great city.

Image 1 (Richard Peter)

Peter’s photograph is a brilliant example of how a single image can arouse horror and outrage about the brutality of war. Likewise, Shomei Tomatsu’s simple photograph of a watch recovered from the ruins of Nagasaki, showing the exact moment of the explosion (11.02 am on 9 August 1945; Image 2), together with the image of a military helmet with a fragment of bone fused inside and many photographs of scarred survivors (all featuring in a book published 21 years after the explosion), are just part of a large section of the exhibition devoted to how Japanese citizens and photographers coped, or failed to cope with the horrific aftermath of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Image 2 (Shomei Tomatsu)

These examples demonstrate the power of the photograph, both as a documentary tool and as a vehicle to stir emotions; to learn lessons and to appreciate the vulgarity, brutality and pointlessness of conflict. However, as the exhibition progresses and the distance in time from the conflict increases, the impact becomes more muted. Straight documentary and direct propaganda are replaced by conceptual works, such as Taryn Simon’s attempts to document the living descendants of Hans Frank, Hitler’s personal legal adviser (not surprisingly, many of these descendants refused to have anything to do with her project, which therefore included many blank frames in addition to a handful of photographs of living descendants or items of clothing sent by those who co-operated but did not wish to be photographed). Frank was executed following the Nuremberg war trials in 1946. It is estimated that he contributed to the deaths of over five million people, but I fail to see the point of involving people, who simply had the misfortune to be born into Frank’s family, in this work. Stephen Shore, well known for his “ordinary” photographs, travelled to Ukraine in 2012-13 to photograph the last remaining Ukrainian holocaust survivors, their everyday surroundings and belongings. Three million Ukrainians were killed by the Nazis during the Second World War: Shore's photographs, whilst mainly featuring everyday details of the survivors’ lives, do at least transport us to a different world. However, a group of photographs alone cannot explain to us the horrors that were endured by these proud, elderly people.

The final room of the exhibition contains a series of (mainly) landscape photographs by Chloe Dewe Mathews, entitled “Shot at Dawn”. In 2013, 99 years after the commencement of the First World War, Mathews was commissioned to find and photograph the sites where British, French and Belgian soldiers were executed for cowardice and desertion on the Western Front. Rarely can such an emotionally-charged subject have produced such a bland and forgettable series of images! The sites were photographed at dawn, the time when the soldiers would have been shot. We see uninteresting fragments of woods, picnic sites and pancake-flat never-ending fields and ditches (for example, see Image 3). Whether the deserters’ relatives benefit today from knowing where their loved ones were shot is open to question. Could the fields and ditches be haunted with the memories of the dead soldiers? I doubt it. My belief is that Mathews was on to an artistic “loser” when she took on this project and her photographs represent a rather limp end to the exhibition. However, there is no excuse for offering a book of her photographs, complete with many blank pages, for £45 in the exhibition shop!

Image 3 (Chloe Dewe Mathews)

Overall, this is an interesting and contemplative exhibition, dealing with the aftermath of conflict. The power of the photograph to demonstrate the destruction caused by conflict is amply demonstrated, even though the documentation of battle is largely avoided. The different ways in which the aftermath of war has been documented and then used to create photographic art by conceptual photographic artists provide an interesting, if uneven counterpoint to the exhibition. Perhaps time really does heal wounds, both physically and metaphorically, because the works in the later exhibition rooms generally lack the impact of the earlier works. Maybe we should act in the immediate aftermath of war to stop it happening in future: if we wait too long memories will fade, the impact of war will become muted and the mistakes that bring war upon us will happen all over again.