Nuggets

Around this time of year the papers tend to be filled with lists of the ten best films, the thirty best TV shows… Not to be outdone I asked a few photography tutors what had caught their attention. Not a list. Certainly no rankings. Just a few ‘nuggets’
Keith Roberts:
Exhibition – Double Take @ Walker Art Gallery – Images from the Keith Medley Archive (Curators Mark Durden & Ken Grant)
“Keith Medley was a press and commercial photographer working on Merseyside from for most of his career. Mark Durden and Ken Grant have selected and printed a series of portraits from Medley’s archive of around 30,000 images, held within Liverpool John Moores University. The passport and studio portraits selected were made between 1964 and 1968, a poignant time in the region’s history. By exposing half of the glass plate at a time, Medley would often get two portraits from each negative. By printing these glass plates full frame, Durden and Grant allow us to see how sitters perform their poses to camera.”
Unfortunately the book to support the exhibition is no longer available.
Publication – David Brittain & Clinton Cahill – Inside Photography (Ten Interviews with Editors) Dewi Lewis Publishing – ISBN: 978-1-907893-46-9
‘Inside Photography’, a collaboration between the writer/editor, David Brittain and graphic artist, Clinton Cahill, is a book of interviews that sheds light on the art photography magazine. Inciteful and often irreverent, the book demonstrates how this critically overlooked type of publication can be an invaluable resource for creative and historical investigations.
Practice – Peter Bennett – Going Away
Going Away explores the coast as a “remembered place” that triggers notions of escape and imaginative departure into past time. The photographs that make up this selection of work were taken along several distinct stretches of the Cumbrian coast in England. This bleak and beautiful coastline, which has been home to industries as diverse as shipbuilding and nuclear power, is often overlooked by the floods of tourists who head for the scenic inland vistas of the Lake District National Park. At low tide, the shoreline reveals vast uninhabitable spaces, inviting exploration on foot and the possibility of literally walking out to sea. The tranquil appearance unveiled by the sea’s absence belies the hidden quicksand and perilous tides ready to claim the lives of those who are lured too far from the safety of land.
Sharon Boothroyd:
Exhibition – The exhibition I loved the most this year was Dayanita Singh, Go away closer.
I was worried that the hype was going to dampen my reaction so went prepared. However I think she is doing something amazing with photography and the Open narrative and is the most interesting example of this I have seen since Sophie Calle’s Take Care of Yourself. One of the most inspiring and mind expanding shows I have engaged with for a long time – she is really pushing photography beyond it’s comfort zone and it’s all the better for it. I particularly enjoyed being drawn into the installation in a very physical and inquisitive way by the way the ‘museums’ were curated.
Dayanita Singh’s website
Jesse Alexander:
Exhibition – I think the work that has stayed with me the most this year was Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Revolution which I saw at Arles in September. I’m not sure actually that it was the work that I found all that interesting, but its installation, and how the space was transformed was very effective indeed. It seemed as if everyone in there was struck by the same sense of decorum that a sacred space impells. It has taken me a while to get my head around (no pun intended) Sugimoto’s amazingly simple ‘canvas rotation’, through 90 degrees, and to be honest, I’m still not entirely sure what it’s all about. But I think the strategy touched upon the disjointed nature of the photographic way of seeing and our own, and Sugimoto contextualizes the work in relation to an “out of body experience”. There was a kind of perversion in the presentation as well, whereby it was actually the white mounts that surrounded the large monochrome prints that, in the installation, were more prominent than the pictures themselves. Again, I haven’t really figured out what all this means; but I want to, and I guess that’s why the project is successful for me.
Russel Squires:
Exhibition and Book – I was totally captivated with the series ‘Genesis‘ by Sebastião Salgado. The images were stunning, such beauty and quality. What really interested me was how the work was produced, which fueled my investigation into the analogue/digital debate.
Kit – Just as I think about sticking with film and ditching digital, Nikon bring out the Df, which is an attractive looking camera. Yet with lower specs than other FX-DSLR and a heavier price tag, perhaps the 5″x4″ field camera still has a home.
As for my personal choices
Book and Exhibition – This has to be The Garden by Alessandro Imbriaco. Objectively, the world inhabited by Piero, Luba and Angela leaves a lot to be desired – a swamp on the margins of Rome. Old school social documentary would illustrate would illustrate the distance between their lives and comfort and security. Imbriaco’s twilight photographs leave more room for the imagination and left me wondering what was lost as well as what was gained when housing becomes available. And not entirely surprised when I learned that Piero had rejected it in favour of a return to the swamp.
Novel – I’ve yet to read it, but my Kindle is loaded with Michel Houellbecq’s The Map and the Territory. Any novel which starts with a description of the challenges of getting a joint portrait of Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst has got to be worth a few hours of my time:
‘He had photographs of Koons on his own, in the company of Roman Abramovich, Madonna, Barack Obama, Bono, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates… Not one of them managed to express anything of the personality of Koons, to go beyond the appearance of a Chevrolet convertible salesman that he had decided to display to the world, and this was exasperating. In fact, for a long time photographers had exasperated Jed, especially the great photographers, with their claim to reveal in their snapshots the truth of their models. They didn’t reveal anything at all, just placed themselves in front of you and switched on the motor of their camera to take hundreds of random snapshots while chuckling, and later chose the least bad of the lot; that’s how they proceeded, without exception, all those so-called great photographers. Jed knew some of them personally and had nothing but contempt for them…’
So what are your highlights? And more importantly, why?
[Image credit: Californian Gold Miners]