Exhibition Review: Paul Graham, Whitechapel Gallery, London E1
Photo: Paul Graham; Burning fields, Melmerby, North Yorkshire, September 1981 from the series A1 – the Great North Road
The current exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in East London, Paul Graham: Photographs 1981-2006, presents over 25 years of work from the British photographer. The exhibition spans from Graham’s earliest works (the A1 – The Great North Road, where Graham exchanged the romanticised images of the great American road trip for the somewhat less romantic terrain of the A1 motorway), to his more recent works, where the artist has travelled across the United States on his very own photographic journey.
I find much of Graham’s work during the 1980’s of particular interest at the moment in light of current economic conditions, most notably the series Beyond Caring (1984-85). These images document the people and environments of dole offices across the country at a time when the previous Conservative government was picking apart British industry and consigning millions to unemployment. The photographs present us with the grim realities of this life.
Photo: Paul Graham; Man reading paper, Bloomsbury DHSS, Central London, 1985 from the series Beyond Caring
Take Man reading paper, Bloomsbury DHSS, Central London (1985) as an example. A dozen or so people sit in a waiting room, bored, tired, dejected. Next to the man reading a paper sits a woman, hand under her chin, elbow resting on her knee – staring blankly at the space in front of her. Two aristocratic figures are painted onto the wall behind her, peering over their glasses, with sneering smirks on their faces. The scene represents what is so powerful and enigmatic about much of Graham’s work; these scenes of bored, unemployed working class victims of Thatcherite Britain, caught in the grasp of government red tape and social despair, have not lost any of their power or the emotive anger of the photographer at the time.
Walking around the images in this series, it’s impossible not to feel this anger too. As a final year university student witnessing the systematic destruction of further and higher education and a child of a 1980s County Durham pit-village, the photographs strike at the feelings and rage being experienced and expressed by a whole new generation of working class people in this country.
After Beyond Caring came Graham’s exploration and account of the political situation in Northern Ireland (Troubled Land, 1984-86). This body of work represented a change in style for the photographer, as he turned his camera to the tiny details of everyday life. Graham set about capturing political posters, Union jacks stuck to trees, soldiers on residential streets – the small signs that conflict was embedded within every moment of the lives of the people who lived there.
Photo: Paul Graham; Atomic Cloud Photograph, Hiroshima & Cat Calendar, Tokyo 1990 from the series Empty Heaven
At the end of the 1980s and into the mid-1990s, Graham started to travel further abroad, and the series Empty Heaven (1989-95) documents his journeys through Japan. Of note within the exhibition is Atomic Cloud Photograph, Hiroshima & Cat Calendar, Tokyo 1990, where we are presented with the juxtaposition of four kittens on a bright calendar and four plumes of smoke in Hiroshima, assumedly taken at the end of the Second World War. The positioning of these two images next to each other causes the viewer to stop and take in both images, separate in time, place and meaning, yet joined through symmetry.
Paul Graham: Photographs 1981-2006 is on at the Whitechapel Gallery, London E1, 20 April – 19 June. Admission free.
A quick side note: On my way back from the Paul Graham exhibition today, I stopped off to see the Gabriel Orozco exhibition at the Tate Modern for a second time. I went after it just opened and it’s still as amazing now as it was then. It’s only on until the 25 April, so if you haven’t seen it yet, get to it!
A secondary side note: If you know of any other good exhibitions going on at the moment, let me know in the comments section below!
Sunday, Sunny Sunday
Well. This is my first blog post in some time, and the first chance I’ve actually had to sit down and put a bit of time towards doing one. It’s been a crazy couple of months. Disseration, final major project, a photographic residency (more on that soon!) and then last week, NUS conference. Between all that I’ve also been trying to work on my portfolio and towards my degree show. Oh well…
Today was a welcome break. I went to Greenwich with Suzi, just in time to have missed the crowds watching the marathon. We stopped off at the market and grabbed some food from a wicked little Vegetarian Ethiopian food stall we’ve been to a few times before.
Photo: Jonathan Dodds
We stuffed our faces whilst reading the paper in Greenwich Park (it’s definitely the beginning of the summer…). We then bought an absolutely amazing coconut milk ice cream from a guy with an old school Edwardian ice cream maker. It had a bunch of spices in there, with a lot of cinnamon, and tasted amazing. It went down pretty quick, but I managed to get a quick shot before we ate the lot.
Photo: Jonathan Dodds
We then headed back and made a fantastic Carrot and Corriander soup with a tasty Sea Salt & Olive Oil bread from Paul Rhodes, before getting through a couple of pastries the same place.
Photo: Jonathan Dodds
Photo: Jonathan Dodds
Oh yes. Sundays are back!
Found Photography, Memory and the Unknown
'The photographer with unknown woman by lake, at unknown place and date'. From the series The Photographer in the Unknown. Digital C-Type Print, 2010.
Photo: Jonathan Dodds
I’m currently undertaking an installation. Info here.
I feel I may be a terrible blogger…
It’s been a long time since I last updated my blog, but times have been extremely busy lately.
First with uni, my dissertation is due in two weeks and I’ve been getting a lot of research done for my final major project. It’s really starting to get stressful now, but it’s only a couple of months left until I graduate so a few months of hard work will be worth it.
I also put myself forward for President in the Students’ Union elections. Stressful isn’t the word here. After a week of running alongside my friend Nicole (who went for VP Welfare, and won!) the results for President have been suspended. Something about complaints around a text message – needless to say I wouldn’t mind it being over and done with. Hopefully we’ll find out by Monday though.
Anyway, this was just a quick update. Tomorrow as a way to say sorry for the lack of posts I’ll be uploading a chocolate-heavy recipe for the treat I just made Suzi (who’s currently away at her mothers house). Yes indeed.
Photo of the Day: 10 February 2011
Photo: BckWht
Reminds me a lot of Walker Evans’ Subway Portraits.
Tom Hunter
Woman reading a Possession Order. Photo: Tom Hunter
This image came up recently in a lecture and I thought I’d share it here, as it seems to have a special relevance to the current climate of cuts and attacks on the working class.
The image is titled Woman reading a Possession Order (inspired by Vermeer’s Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window), and was taken as part of Hunters Masters degree at the Royal College of Art, and in 1998 won him the John Kobal Photographic Portrait Award.
You can see more of his work at his website.
Ireland
Got some films developed which I took ages ago and lost to the mess and confusion that is my desk.
Photo: Jonathan Dodds
Photo: Jonathan Dodds
More to follow…
Photo of the Day: 09 February 2011
Photo: Ian Stanton
Photo of the Day: 06 February 2011
Photo: Yosigo
Photo of the Day: 05 February 2011
Photo: Jordan Small
