Another month, another list of photography exhibitions in London. From historic shots from Cambodia and the Soviet Union, to odes to influential people (Martin Amis, Audrey Hepburn) and a spotlight on the currently so celebrated poets: a nice mix of things and hopefully something in there that suits you.

National Portrait Gallery
St. Martin’s Place, WC2 (www)

Martin Amis & Friends - until 5th July
This display of 25 previously unseen photographs marks the year in which Martin Amis celebrates his sixtieth birthday. These evocative black and white portraits taken by his friend, the photographer Angela Gorgas provide an intimate document of the literary and artistic circles in which they moved in the late 1970s.
Taken in London and Paris the photographs feature literary and social figures including Ian McEwan, Christopher Hitchens, Kingsley Amis, James Fenton, Pat Kavanagh and Candia McWilliam. These photographs have remained in the photographer’s private collection for almost 30 years and offer us a unique insight into Amis and his friends in the period when the writer was working on the novels Success, Other People and the screenplay for the film Saturn 3.

Face Of Poetry - until 21st June
This display reveals to the public for the first time 25 photographs of poets collected by the National Portrait Gallery over a number of years, and particularly centres on a group of newly acquired photographs by the Australian-born, London-based photographer Madeleine Waller. Waller places her literary subjects within environments that have informed and shaped their work, aiming to capture the face behind the words and the personality behind the poems.
Waller’s collection, which includes contemporary poets such us Jo Shapcott and Lemn Sissay, is complemented by the work of longer established photographers such as Dudley Reed and Arthur Tress who have contributed portraits of the iconic figures James Fenton and Thom Gunn respectively. Mark Gerson (b. 1921) is Britain’s best known literary photographer; who started his photographic career in 1947, and has specialised in literary portraits taken on location or at writers’ homes. Gerson is featured in the display with portraits of Seamus Heaney and Blake Morrison. Other photographers featured include Norman McBeath (b. 1952), who is represented here by his black and white studies of Douglas Dunn, Don Paterson and Tom Paulin. The Scottish-based McBeath also specialises in social documentary photography and is currently working on a book of portraits of poets.

Sprüth Magers
7a Grafton Street, W1 (www)

Cindy Sherman - until 27th May
The colour photographs assembled are selected from a new series which develops Sherman’s longstanding investigation into notions of gender, beauty and self-fashioning, and reveal a particular concern to probe experiences and representations of aging. Working as her own model for more than 30 years, Sherman has developed an extraordinary relationship with her camera, and her audience, capturing herself in a range of guises and personas which are by turn alarming and amusing, distasteful and poignant. A remarkable performer, subtle distortions of her face and body are captured on camera, leaving the artist unrecognizable as she deftly alters her features, and brazenly manipulates her surroundings.
To create her photographs, Sherman shoots alone in her studio, assuming multiple roles as author, director, make-up artist, hairstylist, wardrobe mistress, and of course, model. The idea and experience of getting dressed up and putting on a show is central to Sherman’s practice, yet Sherman is also careful to closely manage the detail of each performance. Every bulge of flesh, strand of hair, rouged cheek or wrinkled brow is deliberately orchestrated to construct a vividly real yet curiously inscrutable character. The tension between pathos and alienation which Sherman’s figures evoke in the viewer are heightened by the contexts in which they appear, always obviously staged and cleverly apposite. Her creations are photographed in front of a green screen, and then digitally inserted onto backgrounds which are shot and manipulated separately, scenarios which elaborate and complicate the narrative constructed by Sherman’s garb and gaze.
Each of the women who feature in Sherman’s new exhibition share an acute consciousness of glamour and social hierarchy, which is both disquietingly flagrant and sardonically relevant to contemporary obsessions with image and status. In one photograph the elegant and leisured affectation of a society dame poised in her cloistered manor is subtly undermined by the detail of Sherman’s performance; the stockinged feet wedged in to cheap plastic shoes do not speak of the same pride or superiority as her character’s haughty glare.
In another work from the series, a woman distinguished by the shimmering and infernal scarlet tones of her dress, lipstick and whites of her eyes stares out boldly, almost intrusively, at the viewer. Similarly installed against an aristocratic backdrop, the fearsome and ugly figure of one photo exemplifies the ambivalent amalgam of fragility, defiance and faded glamour which animates the scenes and personas created by Sherman in this new body of work. It is ultimately impossible to fix any stable narrative in these works; different levels of pretence and authenticity operate and interact to complicate any straightforward reading of Sherman’s characters, or the stories they might tell the viewer.

The Photographers’ Gallery
16-18 Ramillies Street, W1 (www)

The Photographic Object - until 14th June
The internationally renowned photographers in this exhibition use stitching, cutting, piercing, punching and moulding, to explore the potential for photographs to exist as an object between two and three dimensions.In this digital age, The Photographic Object reflects a renewed interest in the physical and tactile qualities of photography.
Painter Gerhard Richter (Germany, b.1932) has always worked closely with photography. His Overpainted photographs use thick paint to add further narrative to found holiday snaps and family photos.
Andy Warhol’s (USA, 1928 – 1987) stitched photographs are unique, fetishistic objects that subvert the objective aims of photography.
In his Lighter series Wolfgang Tillmans (Germany, b.1968) physically intervenes with the works and folds, creases and punches large colour field photographs into sculptural shapes against the wall.
In Catherine Yass’ (UK, b.1963) ongoing series Damage (2005 –), the artist drowns, burns and scrapes colour transparencies of urban scenes, these acts echoing the subject matter.
Walead Beshty (UK, b.1976) explores the separation between the physical and image world. Using photograms, Beshty folds, creases and rolls the photographic paper through a variety of processes, creating images that are both abstract and material.
By stitching intricate patterns onto old discarded family portraits, Maurizio Anzeri (Italy, b.1969) creates dark, psychological collages.
Annette Kelm denies photography its traditional role by reducing the image to a flat surface, creating near identical works or close-ups of textiles.

Atlas Gallery
49 Dorset Street, W1 (www)

Mario Giacomelli: Puglia - until 16th May
Widely regarded as the greatest Italian photographer of the twentieth century, Mario Giacomelli was born in Senigallia, Italy, in 1925. Following a poor formal education, he began his working life as a jobbing printer, before training as a typographer and did not fully embrace photography until he was 30 years old.
Above all, Giacomelli saw himself as a poet with a camera. “Photography is not difficult, as long as you have something to say”. Giacomelli’s famous statement underlines his casual disregard for the technical intricacies of the photographic process. This rawness of approach is a key characteristic of his work and his obliviousness to accepted dark-room practices resulted in the creation of works which were completely unique in style.
Giacomelli’s work in Puglia in 1957 is one of his most celebrated series. The photographs depict an almost idealistic fantasy of how we today imagine the Italian village to look. The prints themselves display Giacomelli’s characteristic use of strong contrast and striking use of form and texture. All the prints in this exhibition come directly from his estate in Sassoferrato, Italy, and were made by the photographer in his dark room.

Proud Galleries - Central
32 John Adam Street, WC2 (www)

Audrey & Marilyn - until 5th July
In celebration of Audrey Hepburn’s 80th birthday this exhibition shows the Sam Shaw collection, a definitive look at the 20th Century’s foremost female icons – Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. Showing the most iconic photographs alongside never before seen shots, this exhibition will celebrate Hollywood’s leading ladies in a way rarely seen. Known as one of Hollywood’s greatest photographers the late Sam Shaw is much revered for his iconic works, which include the famous Marilyn over the Subway grate shot.

Proud Galleries - Camden
The Horse Hospital, Chalk Farm Road, N1 (www)

AC/DC: Let There Be Rock - until 31st May
A photographic portrait of a band so prolific their sales figures rank second only to the Beatles. This exhibition will take place to coincide with the UK culmination of the arena tour, and marks the anniversary of the original singer Bon Scott’s untimely death.
In reaction to the reception AC/DC have received throughout their career, this exhibition will look not at the musical super power as they are today, but instead at a young AC/DC, a band who themselves could not have predicted the phenomenal worldwide success they were to achieve.
Shot through the lens of celebrated rock photographer Philip Morris, this collection shines new light on members of the original line-up, including unseen images of the late Bon Scott alongside his iconic band mates. In his career as a rock photographer Morris has amassed an unrivalled archive of Australian rock photography, this will be the first time these images are showcased in the UK and includes images not previously seen anywhere in the world.

Withnail And Me - until 7th June
Marking a return to the film’s spiritual Camden home, this exhibition will present the most recognisable images alongside those that have never been seen before and will be the very first show of its kind in the world. Shot through the lens of legendary film photographer Murray Close, this exhibition will expose the immense talent of both those behind the camera and those in front of it, painting a telling portrait of the most iconic movie in cult British cinema.

Hoopers Gallery
15 Clerkenwell Close, EC1 (www)

John Swannell: Landscapes - until 8th May
John Swannell was born in 1946. After leaving school at 16, he worked first as an assistant at Vogue Studios and then assisted David Bailey for four years before setting up his own studio.
Various exhibitions of his work in London and Europe confirmed his growing reputation as a photographer. In 1989 he had a one-man show at the Royal Academy in Edinburgh, followed in 1990 by an exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. In July of the same year, the Royal Photographic Society held a retrospective of his fashion work.
On the landscapes in this exhibition, John comments: “This is the first time I’ve exhibited my landscape pictures in London. Some of them go back twenty years and most of them confirm my love of the countryside over the city. On my travels, whether on holiday or shooting a fashion story in some far flung place like Bhutan, I like to have a day off to explore the country and take a few snaps – I find it quite liberating.
Standing on the edge of a mountain, looking down at the ancient city of Machu Picchu when the sun comes up at six o’clock in the morning, I feel very privileged just to be there with my camera – no models or make-up artists, just me and the real thing, rather than this wonderful sight on a postcard somewhere.”

Camille Seaman: The Last Iceberg - from 15th May
Camille Seaman is an award winning American photographer best known for her evocative Polar images. Capturing the essence of awe and beauty of indigenous cultures and environments, in a sophisticated documentary/fine art tradition is her trademark.

Magnum Photos Print Room
63 Gee Street, EC1 (www)

The Reluctant Photojournalist - until 15th May
The 16th May 2009 marks fifty-five years since Werner Bischof’s untimely death. An important early member of the Magnum Photos agency, Bischof’s roots were not in the photojournalistic tradition. Born in Switzerland in 1916, he studied photography with Hans Finsler, a proponent of the modernist tradition and a key figure in the “Neue Sachlichkeit” (New Realism). Bischof then went on to build his career in studio photography before documenting Europe in the aftermath of World War II. He went on to join Magnum Photos in 1949 and continued to think of himself as an artist for the rest of his life.
The exhibition features a variety of vintage and modern prints from Bischof’s well know humanitarian photography including the Bihar famine, Europe post WWII and the South Korean war. Alongside these sit Bischof’s equally beautiful but perhaps lessor known early experiments with abstracts and nudes.

Host Gallery
1 Honduras Street, EC1 (www)

Aaron Schuman: Once Upon A Time In The West - until 9th May
The photos in this exhibition were made on the eroding sets and locations of Sergio Leone’s celebrated 1960s ’spaghetti Westerns’ deep in the Almerian deserts of southern Spain. For several years, Aaron Schuman has pursued work concerned with the propagation of American myths abroad, as well as notions of how the “American vision” has been applied to landscapes and cultures throughout the world. He is particularly interested in trying to discover what these set - flimsy, worn, and weathered, but still standing forty years on - might insinuate about the state of America, its ideals, reputation, ambitions, visions, and illusions today.

Photofusion
17a Electric Lane, SW9 (www)

Facing Death: Portraits From Cambodia’s Killing Fields - until 26th June
In 1953 Cambodia gained independence from almost 100 years of French colonial rule. In the 1960s the population of about 7 million, almost all Buddhists, was under the rule of a monarch, Prince Sihanouk.
The Khmer Rouge were a group of communist rebels that launched a civil war across Cambodia in the late 1960s. This coincided with the American air force’s carpet-bombing campaign on Cambodia during the American war in Vietnam (although Cambodia was a neutral country). The resulting civilian casualties were a catalyst for an enraged population to support the Khmer Rouge who until then had received little popular support.
On April 17th 1975 the Khmer Rouge captured Cambodia’s capital and what followed was a four-year reign of genocide on their own people as they returned the country to Year Zero. They abolished religion, schools and currency in a bid to create agrarian utopia. This reign of terror came to an end in 1979 when the Vietnamese Army invaded Phnom Penh. It is estimated that some 2 million Cambodians, a quarter of the population, died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge who were led by Brother Number 1, the infamous Pol Pot.
During this murderous period a secret torture and interrogation prison, codenamed S-21, was operating from a former school, Tuol Sleng, in the south of the capital. The focus of S-21 was on Khmer Rouge cadres thought not to be sufficiently dedicated to the cause. Prisoners were tortured until they confessed to whatever crimes their captors charged them with, photographed and then executed. The prisoners’ photographs and confessions formed dossiers that were submitted to Khmer Rouge authorities as ‘proof’ that the ‘traitors’ had been eliminated. Of the 14,200 known people who were imprisoned at S-21, less than 20 are believed to have survived.
The exhibition comprises one hundred ID portraits loaned from The Photo Archive Group, a Los Angeles based non-profit organisation founded by photojournalists Chris Riley and Doug Niven who discovered, cleaned, catalogued and saved the negatives found at S-21, now known as The Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide.

Michael Hoppen Gallery
3 Jubilee Place, SW3 (www)

Boris Savelev: 31 Years - until 30th May
An exhibition of work by Boris Savelev, one of Russia’s most important and renowned photographers. It will be the first time his work will be shown in the UK. 31 Years is a series of photographs created by Savelev from 1976 to 2006. It documents not only his changing sensibilities and aesthetic concerns; light and form, flashes of colour, moments created by the interaction of individuals within their urban landscape, but also his experimentation with both kallitype over silver gelatin and meticulously multi layered pigment prints, which feed and inform the resulting images.
In 1986, the economic freedoms instituted by Gorbachev under perestroika and the problems caused by these reforms arguably helped to begin the unraveling of Soviet society and hastened the end of the Soviet Union. Savelev was one of a generation of artists who emerged from within the former USSR, and his photographs of ordinary urban life in this period were the first of their kind to be seen in the west, with the publication of Secret City by Thames and Hudson in 1988.
Boris Savelev’s background was in aeronautics. Having earned a degree from Moscow’s Aviation Institute in 1972, he pursued a career as an engineer in his chosen field for a decade thereafter. But within two years of his graduation, he had also begun working free-lance in photography, which he had been interested in since he was a teenager and to which he switched permanently in 1983. He has been exhibiting and publishing pictures made over the last thirty years not only in Russia or the Ukraine, but in intensive projects he has undertaken in London, Rome, Berlin and Madrdid. Yet, despite all this cosmopolitan activity, his photographic vision has remained extraordinarily consistent and true to its origins.
At first, Boris’s images seem to have a melancholy that can be seen as a reflection of a specifically Russian sensibility. On deeper reflection it is their humour and playfulness, their delight in moments that occur momentarily that characterise his images; odd details of human life in its urban setting are presented in a highly deliberate but off hand way. His use of colour and light is masterful: each photograph functions as a powerful abstract statement as well as a fragment of reality.

AOP Gallery
81 Leonard Street, EC2 (www)

AOP Photographer Awards 2009: Part Two - until 22th May
The AOP Photographers Awards are the professional photographic awards for members of the Association of Photographers. They are regarded as THE awards for professional photographers and being selected for entry into the book and accompanying exhibition is considered one of the highest accolades for professional photographers around the world.
Part Two consists of photos in the categories Still Life, Fashion, Personal Project and Interiors & Architecture.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 8:37 pm and is filed under Events & Exhibitions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.