Ways of Seeing

Last Thursday, I went to the Private View of Nine Point Perspective; Ways of Seeing, at Hotshoe Gallery. The exhibition is a group show of photographers who form part of the Tri-pod group, set up by Hotshoe Deputy Editor Miranda Gavin, and photographer Wendy Pye. The group was conceived as a support network for "emerging and established artists and photographers to create a personal project in the context of a closed research and development group." The work made in the first year is shown in this exhibition.

Curating a show of nine photographers with such diverse work is always tricky, but curators Miranda Gavin and Sacha Lehrfreund have used the space to the full, creating separate spaces for each photographer's work, but succeeding in creating a flow. Every part of the gallery is used; including the glass front of the office, where Natasha Caruana has installed her piece Fairytale for Sale. This work is a collection of wedding photographs, with the bride and groom's faces blanked out in a variety of ways; using photoshop, black pen, blue tac or even bits of tissue paper. The effect is eerie, and it's only on reading the emails that are interspersed with the images that the viewer understands these pictures have come from a website where brides are selling their wedding dresses. For me, this project questions the act of marriage, reducing it to something farcical; all the effort which goes into buying the perfect dress is so easily frittered away when a little bit of cash is needed.

©Natasha Caruana

A far cry from Natasha's collection of digital images from the Internet is Dean Hollowood's project The Chase, which takes us back to the origins of photographic printing. His colour photographs of china animals are layered with test strips from the darkroom, with their different hues and tones, and including Dean's notes of exposure times. The visual effect is quite beautiful, and questions our "ways of seeing". And we get it; we've had experience in the colour darkroom and the work brings back all those agonising hours of trying to get the right colour. Most younger people, however, won't. The Chase is a project about photography, it's history and how it's changed.

© Dean Hollowood

In between these two bodies of work are seven other very strong examples of contemporary photography. Far too many for me to outline here... you best go and see for yourself. The exhibition runs until 30 August.

Last Chance to see...

Friday sees the last day of AMPS/10, the Annual Members Show at Photofusion in Brixton. I'm sad to see it come down... over the last few months I have nurtured and created this, from selecting the work and working with the photographers to produce the work, to curating and hanging the work. It has been a very successful exhibition, and I'm really pleased to have been working closely with Miranda Gavin from Hotshoe. She judged the inaugural Hotshoe/Photofusion award (which went to Odette England for her project As Above, So Below) and she ran an event with our members about furthering their career in this world of photography.

Throughout the exhibition we have encouraged the public to vote for their favourite photographer; and last night I announced the winner: Vikram Kushwah. I am not surprised he captured the public's imagination... his images are reminiscent of fairytales and the world of Alice in Wonderland, and successfully combine the genres of fashion and fine art photography. Definately one to watch...

Having a LAF

Terrible title... couldn't resist though...

Last night I went to visit the London Art Fair. Based in the Business Design Centre in Islington, it is a chance for contemporary art galleries to show off their wares, many of which I found uninspiring. I found the people more interesting than the art; gallerists are a strange breed, and many of the punters were those sort who have too much money to know what to with, and think they are cool by investing it in art.

And I couldn't help noticing a curious lack of photography features in this type of gallery. Is the art vs photography question still burning? Do photographs have a place in a fine art gallery? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I can speculate... I think that, due to the ubiquity of photography in our day to day lives, people are so familiar with the medium that they find it difficult to place a value on it. Add to this the fact that we are not sure how the new digital papers are going to stand the test of time, and the fact that photographs can be reproduced over and over, thus giving the photographer the possibility to re-print and make more money at any time, de-valuing the work in question, and we have many reasons why collectors are dubious. It seems that it is only the Gurskys and the Shermans of this world who will ever sell. And yet photographers are asking more and more for their work.

©Aliki Braine

But there is a kind of counter attack occuring in the shape of online print sales, which was outlined by Miranda Gavin in the current edition of BJP. It seems that, over the last few years, it is online galleries which are selling photographs, and at really reasonable prices. Troika Editions (who represent Aliki Braine, above) and Contact Editions in the UK for example. And it was nice to see Troika present at the fair, making their mark amongst the over-priced, almost corporate world of contemporary art.

In addition to all this commercialism was an excellent curated exhibition called Photo50. It brought together many famous photographers, including the wonderful Helen Chadwick. The highlight for me, however was a photographer who I had never heard of before...Scarlett Hooft Graafland. Her images are humorous, surreal and beautiful...

"A very jolly show" as my friend Leila put it... and she was right. It's not often that's the case these days...