Portrait Award shortlist

The shortlist for this year's BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery has been announced:

Louis Smith, Holly,

Ian Cumberland, Just To Feel Normal

Sertan Saltan, Mrs Cerna

Wim Heldens, Distracted

See the National Portrait Gallery website for more details of artists and artworks.

The winner will be announced on the 14th June and the exhibition will open on the 16th June. Read comment by Jonathan Jones.

What is (proper) photography? (Discuss)

Thomas Demand, Heldenorgel, 2009

I am very used to endless debates about ‘what is art?’, and, of course, ‘can a photograph be art?’ However, one might have thought that the question ‘what is photography?’, being medium specific, would be more straightforward. However, with the opening of this year’s Deutsche-Börse photography prize exhibition there are hints that the matter is not so simple; or, at least, in the view of Sean O’Hagan writing in the Guardian, who asks: ‘When is contemporary photography not photography?’

The shortlisted photographers for the Deutsche-Börse are: Thomas Demand, Elad Lassry, Roe Ethridge, and Jim Goldberg (see above and below for examples of their work); the exhibition has now opened at Ambika P3, and will continue until 30^th April. The winner will be announced on 26^th April.

As noted previously, in relation to the announcement of the shortlist, there have been some rumblings of discontent both about the prize itself and The Photographers’ Gallery, which organises it. (This year’s exhibition is temporarily accommodated at Ambika P3 while the Photographers’ Gallery is being extended).

Sean O’Hagan’s article reprises an argument he raised a few months ago (Do the Deutsche Börse prize jury really get photography?) and cites complaints made by photographers Chris Steele-Perkins, Brian Griffin and Nick Turpin and critic Francis Hodgson. (See BJP interview with Photographers’ Gallery director Brett Rogers for more details and quotes.)

O’Hagan’s specific argument is, first, that the Photographers’ Gallery and the Deutsche-Börse prize are too narrow in their focus, and second, that, so-called, conceptual photography may be art, but it isn’t proper photography.

O’Hagan suggests that the Deutsche-Börse should be re-branded as a conceptual photography prize, and even that The Photographers’ Gallery itself should be renamed! (Perhaps as ‘The Artists Who Use Photography Gallery’?)

With respect to the first point there may well be a case to answer that the Photographers’ Gallery is guilty of a bias towards a certain sort of practice – no such institution can be wholly neutral or even handed.

O’Hagan describes three out of the four shortlisted photographers as conceptual artists who deploy photography as part of their practice. The complaint, as I understand it, is not so much against ‘conceptual photography’, per se, but that the prize and the Photographers’ Gallery favour such work at the expense of straight photography, street photography, reportage, documentary, portraiture … This is reminiscent of the perennial complaint that the Turner Prize routinely marginalises painting in favour of installation and multi-media work. However, recent shortlists have included: Donovan Wylie (2010), Paul Graham (2009), John Davies (2008), Luc Delahaye (2005) all of whom might be thought to represent straight photography, street photography, reportage, documentary.

With respect to the second point, while it is perfectly clear that the work of, eg, Thomas Demand and, say, Chris Steele-Perkins is very different, it seems to me a little unfortunate to pigeon-hole the former as ‘conceptual’ and the latter as, by implication not – ie lacking in ideas or thought? Perhaps I am being a little pedantic here? - I do understand that ‘conceptual’ is being used here to connote a practice which is ‘non-traditional’ in so far as it eschews the ‘straight’ approach; but it seems a very back-handed compliment to Steele-Perkins, Griffin, Turpin, et al to suggest that their work lacks a conceptual dimension.

Given the history of photography’s relation to ‘art’ this complaint seems both odd and not a little ironic. The relationship of photography and art has been fraught for much of the medium’s existence; however, the admission of the photographer to the Salon seems now to have been well and truly established. 

Nadar, left: Photography Asking for Just a Little Place in the Exhibition of Fine Arts, From Petit Journal pour Rire, 1855; right: The Ingratitude of Painting, Refusing the Smallest Place in its Exhibition, to Photography to whom it Owes so Much, From Le Journal Amusant, 1857

(Why, the Tate has even appointed, in 2009, its first curator of photography: Simon Baker, albeit 70 (yes, 70!) years later than MoMA, NY, whose first curator, Beaumont Newhall, literally ‘wrote the book’ on photography: The History of Photography.) We have come a long way since 1982, when Alan Bowness, the then director of the Tate, explained to Colin Osman that the Tate did not collect the work of photographers but did collect the work of artists who used photography: you have to be an artist and not only a photographer to have your work in the Tate (Brittain, David ed. (1999) Creative Camera: Thirty Years of Writing, Manchester: Manchester Univ. Pr., pp66-72). What is ironic is that the ‘artists’ in question were ‘conceptual artists’, but their use of photography was arguably ‘straight’, to a fault – eg Richard Long, Hamish Fulton, John Hilliard, the Bechers,et al.  O’Hagan’s objection to Demand’s selection for the Deutsche-Börse seems to be that the amount of time and effort he expends in constructing the models he photographs, means that the process is all, and the end result simply a visual record of the end result. The implied conclusion being that while this may be art, it is not ‘proper photography’. In his earlier piece O’Hagan laments the Deutsche-Börse’s failure to find a place for photography without pretensions and wonders when photography will shed its postmodern pretensions. Perhaps when a new generation of curators replaces the current ones, many of whom seem to have been forcefed Baudrillard and the like at college and never quite recovered.

In taking this position he cites Paul Graham (Deutsche-Börse finalist, 2009) whose recent talk, “The Unreasonable Apple”, argued that:

there remains a sizeable part of the art world that simply does not get photography. They get artists who use photography to illustrate their ideas, installations, performances and concepts, who deploy the medium as one of a range of artistic strategies to complete their work. But photography for and of itself - photographs taken from the world as it is– are misunderstood as a collection of random observations and lucky moments, or muddled up with photojournalism, or tarred with a semi-derogatory ‘documentary’ tag.

But Graham’s argument, which does complain that ‘straight’ photographers

will almost never be considered for Documenta, or placed alongside other artists in a Biennale, or found for sale in major contemporary art galleries and art fairs, is, nevertheless,  more nuanced than O’Hagan’s: Graham makes it clear that he has ‘zero problems’ with the work of eg, Thomas Demand, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall, et al – his point is that there is a lack of critics, curators, writers, who are able to articulate and take seriously the nature and value of photographs taken from the world as it is

and who can

understand the nature of the creative act when you dance with life itself - when you form the meaningless world into photographs, then form those photographs into a meaningful world.

This it seems to me is a fair point – it is not the ‘pretensions’ of Demand, Lassry, Ethridge, etc at issue, it is the pretensions of the critical discourse which surrounds them and the sheer difficulty of writing about photography. While it is true that O’Hagan, too, insists that Demand is an interesting artist, his rhetorical insistence that he is not a photographer simply muddies the water.

Elad Lassry, Man 071, 2007

Roe Etheridge, Thanksgiving (Green Dress), 2009

Jim Goldberg, Democratic Republic of Congo, 2008. 'Tumusifou' is her name 

Exhibition Roundup - April 2011

An occasional, and highly selective, pick of current and forthcoming exhibitions.

 

Joan Mirό, A Star Caresses the Breast of a Negress (Painting Poem),1938

The big opening of the month is Mirό at Tate Modern, 14^th April – 7^th September. This is the first major retrospective of Joan Mirό in the UK for 50 years! Read Joan Mirό: A Life in Paintings, by Tim Adams. Links to reviews will be added later.

Antoine Watteau, Nude Man Kneeling, Holding some Fabrics in his Right Hand, c.1715-16

Two exhibitions are currently celebrating the sensuous and virtuoso drawings and paintings of Antoine Watteau: Esprit et Vérité: Watteau and His Circle is at the Wallace Collection until 5th June, and Watteau: The Drawings is at the Royal Academy also until 5th June. Read Laura Cumming's review.

 

Oscar Wilde, photographed by Napoleon Sarony,1882

The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900 is at the V&A until 17th July. The exhibition examines the romantic and bohemian world associated with the Pre-Raphaelites and the ideals of 'art for art's sake' and examines a wide range of media in both the fine arts and the decorative arts. Read The Aesthetic Movement by Fiona MacCarthy, and Beautiful Rebels: the Daring art of the Aesthetic Movement, by Jonathan Jones.

Paul Graham, from A1- The Great North Road, 1981-82

Paul Graham: Photographs, 1981-2006 will be at the Whitechapel Gallery from 20th April - 19th June. Paul Graham was one of the 'new generation' of British photographers of the 1980s whose adoption of colour photography arguably transformed the documentary tradition. Read interviews with, and articles by, Graham at American Suburb X and Paul Graham Archive, and an interview with Sean O'Hagan in The Guardian.

 

Brian Griffin, Trotters Reaching Out, from "The Black Country"

Brian Griffin, a near contemporary of Paul Graham, is showing photographs of "The Black Country" at The New Art Gallery, Walsall, until 18th June.

Roman Ondák, Time Capsule, 2011 (preliminary documentary photograph for installation)

Time Capsule, work by Roman Ondák,is at Modern Art Oxford, until 20th May.This is the first major British showing of this Slovakian artist. The gallery website describes the exhibition as follows:

Ondák’s work has a conceptual and performative focus and at its core, an interest in transferring real life experiences into the context of art… Time Capsule, makes direct reference to the incident at the San José mine in Chile in 2010, in which 33 miners were trapped for 69 days.… Stampede, reflects on the movement of people through spaces. For this work, Ondák will stage a performance involving a large crowd of people prior to the exhibition, the traces of which will be left evident in the Gallery.

Alfred Wallis, Schooner Approaching the Harbour, c.1930 

Compton Verney is showing Alfred Wallis and Ben Nicholson, until 5th June. Nicholson (with Christopher Wood) famously ‘discovered’ Alfred Wallis the retired seaman in St Ives. Following the death of his wife, Wallis took up painting ‘for company’. Using scraps of of drift wood and cardboard his untutored representations of ships and the St Ives struck the sophisticated Nicholson as the ‘real thing’ and influenced his own work. 

E.H. Dixon, The Great Dust Heap at King's Cross, 1837 

The Wellcome Collection has been responsible for a fascinating series of exhibitions drawing on its resources in the history of medicine. Recent examples have included Skin, Madness and Modernity, and Exquisite Bodies - an examination of the anatomical model. The current exhibition promises to be equally engaging: Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life is on until 31st August. Read review by Laura Cumming.

 

Official poster for the First International Hygiene Exhibition staged in Dresden, Germany, during 1911

Liz Taylor (1932 - 2011)

Elizabeth (Liz) Taylor died on 23rd March 2011. I am not sure that I have ever actually seen a Liz Taylor film! However, I do know her as the star of many Andy Warhol pictures. So, here, in memoriam, is a selection of those pictures.

From top: Silver Liz, 1963; Ten Lizes, 1963; Silver Liz with Blank, 1963; Liz, 1963.

See Elizabeth Taylor obituary and appreciation by David Thomson.

Prix Pictet - photography awards

Mitch Epstein, BP Carson Refinery, 2007

The winner of the third Prix Pictet photography award is Mitch Epstein and the recipient of the Prix Pictet Commission is Chris Jordan.
The competition is described on their website as follows: 

Launched in 2008 by the Geneva-based private bank Pictet & Cie, the Prix Pictet has rapidly established itself as the world’s leading prize in photography and sustainability. It has a unique mandate – to use the power of photography to communicate vital messages to a global audience. The goal is to uncover art of the highest order, applied to confront the pressing social and environmental challenges of the new millennium.

The theme of this year’s competition was Growth (the theme of the first was Water and the second, Earth.)

The award winners were selected from an impressive shortlist of twelve, namely: Christian Als, Edward Burtynsky, Stéphane Couturier, Mitch Epstein, Chris Jordan, Yeondoo Jung, Vera Lutter, Nyaba Leon Ouedraogo, Taryn Simon, Thomas Struth, Guy Tillim and Michael Wolf. 

Selected images from some of the shortlist appear below. (See the Prix Pictet website for more).

Edward Burtynsky, Breezewood, Pennsylvania, 2009

 Chris Jordan, Midway, CF000228, 2009

Vera Lutter, Holzmarktstrasse, Berlin, VIII: September 1, 2003

Nyaba Leon Ouedraogo, The Hell of Copper (L'Enfer du Cuivre), Accra, Ghana , 2008

Taryn Simon, Exploding Warhead, Test Area C-80C, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, 2007

Guy Tillim, Daison Luke and Faness Bisamoro. Petros Village, Malawi, 2006

Michael Wolf, aod [Architecture of Density] 116, Hong Kong, 2009

Working Against the System - Gallery North

Working Against the System, at Gallery North in Newcastle upon Tyne offers a perspective on the current state of British abstract painting. The gallery publicity states that the exhibition draws together eight artists using and abusing the recognised practices in painting. The artists are: Jo Bruton, Debbie Bell, Noel Forster, Yvonne Hindle, Jenny Jennings, Paul Peden, Katie Pratt and DJ Simpson - examples of work by all these artist appear below.

The exhibition continues until 8th April with an Artist Symposium on Thursday 31 March.

Jo Bruton, Sheri Champagne and Gypsy Rose Lee, 2007


Debbie Bell, Midnight Dancer, 2009-10

 
Noel Forster,Untitled, 2006

Yvonne Hindle, The Sky Terrafied,2007

Jenny Jennings, Exotic, 2009

 
Paul Peden, Head On, nd

Katie Pratt, Sascheckewan, 2007

 
D. J. Simpson, Pulse All Over, 2008

"Horses, horses, horses..." - Summerfield Gallery

horses, horses, horses, horses
coming in in all directions
white shining silver studs with their nose in flames,
He saw horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses 

Do you know how to pony like bony maroney...
(Patti Smith: "Land", from Horses, 1975)

Fine Form: The Horse in Art, Installation shot, Summerfield Gallery: foreground, Andrew Logan, Life, Birth and Death,2006-8; back, left, Elisabeth Frink, Horse and Rider (Robed), 1985; back, right, Mark Wallinger, Half-Brother (Exit to Nowhere - Machiavellian), 1994-5

Fine Form: The Horse in Art is an exhibition marking the centenary of the Cheltenham Festival (15th - 18th March): it will be in the Summerfield Gallery, Pittville Studios and the Centaur at Cheltenham Racecourse until 30th April. The exhibition draws on the collections of the Tate, the Arts Council and Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum.

The glittery-winged forms of Andrew Logan's Pegasuses, Life, Birth and Death, dominate the installation in Summerfield Gallery (see above) but are in fine company, notably works by Mark Wallinger, Tania Kovats, Elisabeth Frink, William Tucker and Christopher Le Brun, amongst others.

Wallinger's Half-Brother (Exit to Nowhere - Machiavellian), 1994-5, is a life-size portrait of a horse comprised of separate forequarter and hindquarter, in explicit acknowledgement of the place of pedigree in the thoroughbred.

Mark Wallinger, Half-Brother (Exit to Nowhere - Machiavellian), 1994-5 (Tate Collection)

From the sublime to the ridiculous, Wallinger also shows A Real Work of Art, 1994, a tiny, diecast model of horse and rider, the jockey painted in the suffragette colours of green, violet and white in a reference to Emily Davison who threw herself under the King's horse at Epsom Derby in 1913.

Mark Wallinger, A Real Work of Art, 1994 (Arts Council Collection)
The work also refers to one of Wallinger's more ambitious and conceptual works wherein he bought (through a syndicate) a real racehorse which he named A Real Work of Art.

Tania Kovats became fascinated by the Uffington White Horse while undertaking a residency in Oxford in 2006: her collection, Museum of the White Horse is the result and comprises both a collection of objects (books, stamps, models, etc) and a sequence of pencil drawing of objects from the collection. (See also, appendix, below.)

Tania Kovats, Museum of the White Horse: from top, Small Finds (detail), White Horses by Jacky, 45 rpm single, 2007, Books from the Museum of the White Horse Library, Non-Fiction, 2007 (all, Arts Council Collection).

Finally, one of the most striking images in the show is a photograph by Tim Flach: Windows - Chestnut, 2008.

Appendix
As it is not possible to read all the titles in the reproduction of Tania Kovats' drawing, Books from the Museum of the White Horse Library, Non-Fiction, 2007 (see above), and because I am an ex-librarian (see also, below) and a bibliographile(?), I have taken the liberty of compiling a bibliography for the drawing:
Tania Kovats: from the Museum of the White Horse Library, Non-Fiction, 2007, a bibliography. 
NB, while the authors and titles are accurate, the places and dates of publication may not necessarily match the actual editions drawn. Books are listed in the order that they appear in the drawing, left to right.

Miles, David et al (2004) Uffington White Horse and Its Landscape: Investigations at White Horse Hill Uffington, 1989-95 and Tower Hill Ashbury, 1993-4, (Thames Valley Landscape Monographs), Oxford: Oxford University School of Archaeology

Williams, Dorian (1975) Great Riding Schools of the World, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Cahill, Marie (1991) The Owner’s Comprehensive Guide to Training & Showing Your Horse, London: Bison Publishing

Tippett, Frank (1975) The First Horsemen (the Emergence of Man), New York: Time-Life Books

Lock, Gary et al (2005) Segsbury Camp: Excavations in 1996 and 1997 at an Iron Age Hillfort on the Oxfordshire Ridgeway (Oxford University School of Archaeology Monograph), Oxford: Oxford University School of Archaeology

Gianoli, Luigi (1969) Horses and Horsemanship through the Ages, New York: Crown

Ingrams, Richard (1988) The Ridgeway: Europe’s Oldest Road, London: Phaidon

Coatsworth, Elisabeth (1973) The White Horse of Morocco, London: Blackie

Lady Wentworth (1958) The World’s Best Horse, London: Allen & Unwin

Dames, Michael (1978) The Silbury Treasure: The Great Goddess Rediscovered, London: Thames & Hudson

Jankovich, Miklos and Dent, Anthony (1971) They Rode into Europe, London: Harrap

Communicationes Archaeologicae Hungariae, (1982), Budapest

Appleton, J. H. (1975) The Experience of Landscape, London: Wiley-Blackwell

Vansittart, Peter (1985) Paths from a White Horse: A Writer’s Memoir, London: Quartet

Summerhays, R. S. (1975) Summerhays' Encyclopaedia for Horsemen, London: Frederick Warne

Laming, Annette (1959) Lascaux, London: Penguin

Hanbury-Tenison, Robin (1985) White Horses over France: From the Carmargue to Cornwall, London: Grafton

Burridge, Richard (2004) The Grey Horse: The True Story of Desert Orchid, London: Aurum Press

Summerhays, R. S. (1963) The Observer’s Book of Horses and Ponies, London: F. Warne

[unidentified]

Hawkes, Jacquetta (1951) A Land, Cresset Press

Billington, Sandra and Green, Miranda eds. (1996) The Concept of the Goddess, London: Routledge

Coles, Alex ed. (2001) Archaeology: Mark Dion, London: Black Dog Publishing

Buchli, Victor and Lucas, Gavin (2001) Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past, London: Routledge

Arthus-Bertrand, Yann and Gourand, Jean-Louis (2007) Horses, London: Thames & Hudson

Deeping, George Warwick (1934) The Man on the White Horse, London: Cassell