Stuart Bailes’ Ruin Value carries a heavy weight. Not unlike Nietzsche’s heaviest weight it will either transform the viewer or crush them; as Bailes himself remarks, “It’s about deciding to understand or not to understand”. To understand what though? To understand infers a finitude, an end to a thought -an end of an idea. Indeed, perhaps the word ‘understand’ is not quite right, or perhaps it needs to be preceded by words such as ‘endeavouring to’: It’s about endeavouring to understand or not to understand. We arrive then at an act of sorts, something that does not have an end as such. Again, like Nietzsche’s burden, we are compelled to return eternally to the image, to the question it poses, never understanding, but forever lingering in its indeterminate proposition. (more)
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In a soon to be published interview, I asked the question: ‘Is the role of the photographer changing from the maker of images to the person who makes sense of them?’ The question was asked in relation to the ever expanding photographic archive humanity has been contributing too since the mid 19th century. Ruff is one of those artists who, I think, finds this snowballing archive of humanity more affecting than that of his ‘own’ photographs. (more)
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In Edel Assanti’s current exhibition Immortal Nature, the esoteric architecture of the gallery space plays host to three mythological realms. The exhibition’s pre-occupation is one of tension with the natural world. Three humanly constructed territories; the Underworld, Earth and the Afterlife, show us glimpses of civilisation’s ever-present and ever-changing relationship with the earth we inhabit. (more)
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It is not a new thing; indeed at the present it seems a positively over-done thing. Appropriation of Internet photography -specifically from Google street-view or Google maps- is acutely prevalent in current photographic and art practice. It may be said that there is far too much imagery littering both our virtual and actual environments already, and to react to this by producing yet more images only adds to the glut of imagery that is being critiqued in the first place. However this seeming contradiction of agendas can be beneficial to the work of a few. In order to make work that critiques the very thing that it eventually embellishes, the work must conceal its agenda behind deliberate layers of intersecting imagery and absolute conceptual rigour. The work must have entire conviction that it is not just another Google project. (more)
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Between two arid Sicilian hillsides -one black and white, the other in colour- we are encouraged down a photographic valley to a crumbling headstone. Jeff Wall’s new exhibition at the White Cube Gallery begins with a room of only three images all made in Sicily in 2007. This is as close as you will ever come to a series of pictures made by Jeff Wall. The photographer who famously excels in singular tableaux narrative images, now brings three pictures together to work in an almost installation like manner. And it works convincingly. One has the feeling that the abrupt earth of the hillsides is too barren and unforgiving to breach, and so you must flow down this vale to the inevitability of death. And in this case a forgotten death; a single headstone sits on an unkempt rust coloured floor, a row of tiles appear uprooted by indiscriminate weeds that gradually make their way towards a concrete slab that marks the resting place of an unidentified person. Wall’s voyage into ‘series’ leaves the viewer with an irrational, but entirely human melancholic feeling deep in their conscience. (more)
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It is Viviane Sassen’s images in Hotshoe Gallery’s latest exhibition Other I that emanate from the wall with such effervescence and sincerity one is almost blinded to the work of WassinkLundgren and Alec Soth that also adorn the walls of the gallery. (more)
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Whilst in conversation with a friend on the new Gerhard Richter exhibition at Tate Modern, he commentated that he believed Gerhard Richter to be the greatest living painter. Without hesitation and before I myself knew what I was saying, I began to correct him; surely he meant the greatest living artist. (more)
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© Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco Walking into an exhibition of work by one photographer, and thinking of another is seen by most as a cynical thing, however to walk into a Lee Friedlander exhibition and immediately think of Gary Winogrand’s picture Utah, 1964 seems entirely natural and relevant. (more)
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David Bate in his brilliantly concise book Photography- The Key Concepts allows the idea of ‘Postmodernism’ little more than 15 lines of text. Seemingly fed up with the cyclical debate around the troubled movement, Bate sums it up as the application of codes and conventions of commercial photography to current art photography. This combined with an influx of female artists opposing male domination within the arts at the end of the 1970’s seems to be enough for Bate to draw a line under this unending debate. However Bate is just one person, and there are vastly differing views on this dense and convoluted subject1. (more)
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A woman silhouetted in black and framed by an inferno of orange leaps from a second story window towards the arms of waiting riot police. As I write, this image adorns the pages of our British press. In print and on screen, this soon to be iconic image -like the scene it depicts- is burning itself into our collective memory. (more)
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In the retrospective of Thomas Struth currently on at the Whitechapel Gallery, his first solo show in Britain for almost 20 years, the viewer is repeatedly plunged into a state of hypnotic fixation whilst attempting to absorb his relentlessly detailed images. A common theme prevails throughout Struth’s career and this exhibition: human achievement and human endeavour provide a loose parameter for his eclectic mix of subject matter. From works of art, space shuttles and progressive technologies to the simplicity of a family portrait, Struth’s pictures examine what is possible within the confines of humanity. (more)
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My commute to work is a six-mile cycle from southeast London to the centre of the city. Typically everything stays the same with only the weather seeming to alter. On my trip I may pass 15 or even 20 billboards, each trying to sell something, each littering the air with their contrived glossy advertising imagery. I’m so accustomed to ignoring this type of photography that a couple of days ago I nearly missed the vast, fresh looking triptych that appeared overnight on one of the billboards directly beneath London Bridge. (more)
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Gravity in art is a theme frequently employed but seldom acknowledged; it is often overlooked because even though we are consistently benefited by its presence, it tends not to intrude on our day-to-day life. Unlike some of the principal issues tackled in art gravity simply goes about its duty and rarely if ever digresses from its purpose. However despite its apparent ‘background’ nature, gravity has played a significant role throughout the history of art and can still be seen in works of contemporary art today. (more)
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The extent of information in Taryn Simon’s new solo show at Tate Modern is nothing less than staggering. As soon as you step into the gallery you are confronted by portrait after portrait, devoid of context and photographed in a manner so monotonous that each image begins to mold into the next leaving only a distant idea of what each person may look like. Typically in an exhibition of photography this is the opposite effect one would want to give, however in this show it seems to add to Simon’s overall ambition. (more)
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I’m happy to introduce an addition to Conscientious, a new column called A Letter from London, written by Christopher Thomas. A photographer himself, Christopher studied for three years at the Documentary Photography BA course at University of Wales, Newport (UK). During that time he became very involved in photographic theory and history, in particular photography’s place within art history and contemporary society. In September this year, he will begin his studies for a Masters in Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths University of London. For A Letter from London, Christopher will contribute reviews of photography exhibitions in (and around) London (and possibly more).
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