Dear all
So should be doing work but back on track with the one a weeks for once woohoo. This week thanks to the lovely Emily I was organised enough to do something cultural on Friday evening after work which was very civilised indeed (for me) and meant that for once I didn’t have a mad rush on Sunday afternoon to find something close, cheap and not too intense to do on a hangover! Instead we went to the Tate Modern with the other cultural people who think to go to late opening and we even had drinks and olives on the terrace of the members bar yippee. One day I really must join the Tate rather than just using everyone else’s membership as the bar is almost worth the price of the annual ticket alone, well almost.
The exhibition we went to see was Exposed; Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera and it’s on til October if any of you want to see it. I had the joy (for me) of approaching this exhibition without a clue what it was about which is always fun. In fact, I didn’t event know what exhibition we were going to see until just before and haven’t been keeping in touch with what is currently on at the Tate, or anywhere, so this was all a total surprise for me which I think always adds somewhat to the ‘gallery experience’. Interestingly enough Emily is a fellow blogger and I imagine will be writing about this too so it’s almost as if we are voyeur-ing each other!! Am sure she will have much more interesting things to say – I will stick to a quick over view as haven’t got enough time to think of anything intelligent or thought provoking to say!!!
Now, let me preface with a slight, or massive actually, prejudice I have against photography exhibitions. Basically, I firmly believe that any bloody photograph when blown up and put in a nice frame (or preferably a light box) on a white gallery wall looks impressive. Any shit snap-shot I could take from this weekends barbecue would suddenly look a hell of a lot more impressive, meaningful and thoughtful if I paid to have it reproduced nicely and put in a museum space. This is why I am usually not that interested in photography exhibtions – because any moron can aim a camera at something and produce a half good image. Let’s not forget that photography was invented by a frustrated artist. This sounds like a massive diss, which it is, I just don’t think photographers are as talented as any other ‘artist’. Sorry!! However, that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy mightily a photography exhibition – especially ones with old-school images in like this.
So, this is what they have to say for themselves on the website:
“The UK is now the most surveyed country in the world. We have an obsession with voyeurism, privacy laws, freedom of media, and surveillance – images captured and relayed on camera phones, YouTube or reality TV.”
This may be a slightly obvious theme but I found it interesting none the less. I find everyone’s hatred of surveillance in this country deeply irritating because they complain and complain and complain about it yet when someone gets mugged/kidnapped/murdered or whatever it’s suddenly the best thing in the world and people just cant understand why that dark alley behind the back of Tesco wasn’t properly filmed – you can’t have it both ways idiots its either a nanny state with the benefits or not. I find it quite comforting to know that I am photographed every 20 seconds or whatever it is – at least if someone tried to kidnap me the police would know my movements and frankly I have been caught doing a fair amount of naughty things on CCTV and never been arrested etc so all good really. I did have an ongoing fantasy about throwing a brick through the window of my ex boyfriends brothers bedroom for a long time which was only stopped by the fact that they lived on a main road with loads of cameras up and down it – but that can only be a good thing surely???
So, the exhibition charted the use of photography as a ‘weapon’ of surveillance, control, knowledge, etc. They began in chronological sequence (sort of – if you ignore some of the REALLY awful pieces in the first room – a collection of ugly people photographed unawares in front of blacked out backgrounds – yeah great shakes rah rah rah). So, we had some nice pics from Walker Evans's Subway Passengers series which seem to get trotted out at almost any photography retrospective like, ever, but I haven’t got any problem with that as they are quite good.
So should be doing work but back on track with the one a weeks for once woohoo. This week thanks to the lovely Emily I was organised enough to do something cultural on Friday evening after work which was very civilised indeed (for me) and meant that for once I didn’t have a mad rush on Sunday afternoon to find something close, cheap and not too intense to do on a hangover! Instead we went to the Tate Modern with the other cultural people who think to go to late opening and we even had drinks and olives on the terrace of the members bar yippee. One day I really must join the Tate rather than just using everyone else’s membership as the bar is almost worth the price of the annual ticket alone, well almost.
The exhibition we went to see was Exposed; Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera and it’s on til October if any of you want to see it. I had the joy (for me) of approaching this exhibition without a clue what it was about which is always fun. In fact, I didn’t event know what exhibition we were going to see until just before and haven’t been keeping in touch with what is currently on at the Tate, or anywhere, so this was all a total surprise for me which I think always adds somewhat to the ‘gallery experience’. Interestingly enough Emily is a fellow blogger and I imagine will be writing about this too so it’s almost as if we are voyeur-ing each other!! Am sure she will have much more interesting things to say – I will stick to a quick over view as haven’t got enough time to think of anything intelligent or thought provoking to say!!!
Now, let me preface with a slight, or massive actually, prejudice I have against photography exhibitions. Basically, I firmly believe that any bloody photograph when blown up and put in a nice frame (or preferably a light box) on a white gallery wall looks impressive. Any shit snap-shot I could take from this weekends barbecue would suddenly look a hell of a lot more impressive, meaningful and thoughtful if I paid to have it reproduced nicely and put in a museum space. This is why I am usually not that interested in photography exhibtions – because any moron can aim a camera at something and produce a half good image. Let’s not forget that photography was invented by a frustrated artist. This sounds like a massive diss, which it is, I just don’t think photographers are as talented as any other ‘artist’. Sorry!! However, that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy mightily a photography exhibition – especially ones with old-school images in like this.
So, this is what they have to say for themselves on the website:
“The UK is now the most surveyed country in the world. We have an obsession with voyeurism, privacy laws, freedom of media, and surveillance – images captured and relayed on camera phones, YouTube or reality TV.”
This may be a slightly obvious theme but I found it interesting none the less. I find everyone’s hatred of surveillance in this country deeply irritating because they complain and complain and complain about it yet when someone gets mugged/kidnapped/murdered or whatever it’s suddenly the best thing in the world and people just cant understand why that dark alley behind the back of Tesco wasn’t properly filmed – you can’t have it both ways idiots its either a nanny state with the benefits or not. I find it quite comforting to know that I am photographed every 20 seconds or whatever it is – at least if someone tried to kidnap me the police would know my movements and frankly I have been caught doing a fair amount of naughty things on CCTV and never been arrested etc so all good really. I did have an ongoing fantasy about throwing a brick through the window of my ex boyfriends brothers bedroom for a long time which was only stopped by the fact that they lived on a main road with loads of cameras up and down it – but that can only be a good thing surely???
So, the exhibition charted the use of photography as a ‘weapon’ of surveillance, control, knowledge, etc. They began in chronological sequence (sort of – if you ignore some of the REALLY awful pieces in the first room – a collection of ugly people photographed unawares in front of blacked out backgrounds – yeah great shakes rah rah rah). So, we had some nice pics from Walker Evans's Subway Passengers series which seem to get trotted out at almost any photography retrospective like, ever, but I haven’t got any problem with that as they are quite good.
They also had some really cool examples of hidden or trick cameras which were really fascinating – cameras hidden in the heals of shoes or the top of walking sticks etc. Clearly the covert observational aspect of photography was realised pretty early on – most of these examples were from the 1890s/1900. The photographer Paul Strand used a special camera with a false lens at the front and a real one at the side to capture the poverty stricken of New York while off guard – which is mean; if you haven’t washed for 2 weeks it would be nice if someone asked your permission to preserve you in celluloid history for 100 years:
There seemed to be a hell of a lot of focus, especially at this point in the exhibition, on New York which I found interesting, I don’t really know why that was though!!
This was the part of this exhibition I personally found most interesting as, at this point, photography was relatively new still and it provided a totally revolutionary way of seeing the world – which I find interesting. Before this, if you think about it, EVERY image was highly curated in one way or another. This is the first time people were viewed unawares, out of their own control and in a spontaneous light. In short a totally different way of viewing people and the world. Somehow though these images are never viewed or discussed in terms of their intense smugness. I understand the photographers desire to shine a lens on the worlds inequalities and destitution, but to do so without the subjects permission almost feels as if it is the ethnographic, racist eye of the colonial conqueror – viewing these people as specimens from a different world who don’t have the right to control their own image, identity or voice. This is why I quite like the below work by Lee Friedlander for both it’s sinister appearance and focus on the more day-to day middle class domestic space – a preened modern women walking the streets of New York ‘alone’ rather than the destitute masses lining up for work. Again though – if this was in your photo album in colour rather than back or white you’d probably think it was bollocks.
The next couple of rooms dwelt on something I will forever find fascinating – the cult of celebrity and in this case how paparazzi, and non paparazzi photography helped to feed this. There was an AMAZING one of Degas coming out of a public toilet in the 1880s by Giuseppe Primoli hahahahahaha!!:
They had some pieces by the photographer Ron Galella who obsessively followed and photographed Jackie Onassis until she got a restraining order against him, the birth of the modern concept of celebrity hand in hand with the modern concept of ‘talent’ ego – although you do have to feel sorry for her she was the first of many! I could go on about paparazzi and celebrity for days I really could but don’t worry I wont I realise no one is as interested in this as me!There were several rooms about sex and voyeurism etc but to be honest I found this the most disappointing part of the exhibition – this is just too big a subject to fit into 2 rooms, it needed a whole separate exhibition to do it justice and I really can’t be bothered to go into this at all which in fairness is because I am lazy and have actually got to do other things today. I did find it amusing that all the little rooms where they screen films were empty apart from the one coming off this room which had a sign saying ‘over 18s only this film has extreme sexual content’, or something, and it was absolutely packed!! I couldn’t even get in there but I am pretty sure it was that series by Nan Golding to which I can only really say SNOAR. I found those images quite touching and interesting until the age of about 21 when I realised they were pointless and empty and she is beyond self involved – it’s just not funny. Maybe if my boyfriend beat me up and all my friends died of aids people would want to see my photos too but I hope to god I don’t find out. There were some great pics taken inside cinemas with people snogging which were great though:
For me one of the more interesting sections of the exhibition was that entitled Witnessing Violence about images which we as viewers feel that we should not really be witnessing, scenes that are too personal or that we are intruding on as outside spectators. This includes war photography as well as more personal stories such as a really harrowing series of images of potential suicide victims, crowds on the street below watching in morbid fascination to see them jump. There was a HORRIBLE set of 2 which unfortunately I can’t find images for with a man about to jump from the 8th floor of some building in Johannesburg, or somewhere. There are 2 shots – one of him looking back to camera from his perch absolutely terrified with mad eyes and the other of him jumping. Apparently crowds below were shouting ‘jump jump jump’ as someone was trying to talk him down – fucking chilling. Anyway I have to do some work but definitely a worthwhile exhibition to see! See ya later bitches x
