Street & Studio
Tate Modern London
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Jeremy Marsh
Street & Studio: an urban history of photography
Tate Modern, 2008
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For an organisation that had nothing but disdain for photography until the 21st century the TATE doesn't seem to be able to get enough of it these days. This, Tate Modern's second ever attempt at a major photography retrospective, comes like Cruel and Tender (2003) from a German perspective. Curated by Ute Eskildsen assisted by Bettina Kaufmann and Florian Ebner this show concentrates on the urban portrait and suggests that a fundamental dialogue exists between location and studio based work. While this oddly painterly framework for increased understanding proves itself to be fairly inconsequential overall there is plenty here to make it worth forking out a tenner for.
A little perseverance is required to get past an opening salvo of some obligatory, dreary mid-19th century photographs to reach the first important 20th century works. Philip-Lorca diCorcia's massive prints of anonymous faces on the street, unselfconscious heads framed against black depths, contrast well with Walker Evans respectful small black and white Detroit series of full length figures from the 1940s. Whereas Evans used a standard lens and stood to one side to frame passers-by against a gray wall, side on, it's diCorcia's use of a long lens and a frontal viewpoint (and flash) that up the ante and dramatically articulate late urban neurosis.
In contrast Joel Sternfeld's nearby large format street portraiture work 'A Lawyer with Laundry' shows (as does much of that sub-par book 'Stranger Passing') that high powered studio equipment and photographing by agreement rather than surreptitiously doesn't necessarily prove to have the edge in making street portraits and perhaps the reverse.
Ed Van Der Elsken's stalker series from 60s Hong Kong highlights the issue of voyeurism that is a recurring theme across the show - and one which has yet again proved impossible to resolve satisfactorily.
Lewis Hine's persuasive voice for social reform still cries out across the century from within passionately observed images. Similarly, Manuel Alvarez Bravo's assassinated striker is deeply shocking.
The exhibition drifts along at times such as with Martin Chambi's 1930s studio work, Alvin Langdon Coburn's vortographs and Cecil Beaton's surrealist-inclined glamour shoots.
Bruno Serralongue's banal photo diary of a long running protest for legal recognition of immigrants in France (2001-03) harks back to an era in Britain when contemporary photography was only recognised institutionally when it addressed socio-political concerns.
Paul Graham's late 1990s 'American Night' project successfully expresses unequivocal moral indignation with visionary nerve. In particular here his massive colour print of a disabled figure, centred yet insignificantly small in the frame, within an environment of urban dereliction printed in a high key veil of milky whiteness is breathtaking at every level.
Boris Mikhailov engages (and exploits) the nightmare of economic hardship in his hometown of Kharkov, Russia (97-98) and fittingly he has used cheap photo lab prints pasted to thin sheets of paper in his indictment/study of impoverishment.
Richard Prince's 'The Same Man Looking in Different Directions' triptych (1978) of appropriated magazine ad shots is conceptually challenging and remains intellectually impressive in an altogether different way.
Francis Alys' Mexican work consists of 80 slides (99-06) 'Sleepers' (people and dogs lying on the pavement) taken with a camera at ground level subsequently projected at ground level. This is an unexpectedly rounded series never descending to being patronisingly didactic and as a result is far more precious.
Martin Parr's auto-portraits cleverly uses local studios around the world to show both differing cultural aspirations that become evident in the simple act of commercial portraiture.
Chris Killip's famous skinhead photograph is still an iconic image of recession from this country's not so distant past.
Garry Winogrand's massive contribution to street photography is less favourably treated. One of the strands of his prolific output were photographs of women he saw on the street and inexcusably it is only this work which is presented here and which now serves to undermine his reputation. His images are adjacent to the' sex-pest' series by Laurie Anderson, taken by her around the same time in New York in response to offensive male attention. (Adopting an unassailable ethical position she not only asked permission to take these pictures but has subsequently protected identities by obscuring faces in printing.)
That Winogrand's output has been narrowed down to a dubious footnote is an extreme judgment by the curators and perhaps it is as revealing that Lee Friedlander, Joel Meyerowitz and Stephen Shore are overlooked entirely. If a resistance to being overwhelmed by American culture is at work here it is admittedly restrained although there may be one other consequence which is some various unconvincing forays into wider internationalism - and weaker home-grown inclusions.
Ironically the crucial European influence on America photography is repeatedly evident and fortunately New Yorker Diane Arbus (tutored by Austrian Lisete Model) escapes the cut and included is her masterpiece 'A Crying Child'. Particularly in this picture it is revealing that Arbus took her Rolleiflex unexpectedly close and fired her powerful flashgun just inches from the child's face. The inconvenient realities of production often disappear beneath the achievement and yet, like her late career photographs of young adults with Down's Syndrome (not exhibited here) the result is a profound outcome.
Andres Serrano's NOMADS, 'Pete' (1990), in a ragged green jacket, explodes off the frame with sheer power of a measured encounter in an improvised studio in a NY subway. Like Hine, these portraits show profound respect for individuality within the context of social comment.
Swiss born Robert Frank's six shots from a bus (1958) were part of his re-defining what was acceptable as a modern photograph, radically aligning it to the snapshot aesthetic which had slowly materialised as ordinary people used ordinary cameras to record their lives.
Early Cindy Sherman self portrait work 'Bus Riders' (1976, printed 2000) shows her meticulously impersonating the people she observed on buses. This process of adopting personas often required her to not only dress down but sometimes black up her skin as well in her attempt to mimic or pastiche that particular class of people who were limited to public transport.
Helen Levitt's classic stoop photographs are magnificent. Irving Penn's Paris tradesmen portraits prints look remarkably untouched by time after half a century. Not something that can be said for many of the archive prints on show here, which have suffered from production failings that would have mattered little at the time.
David Goldblatt in mid 60s apartheid South Africa teases the imagination with the dreamed of racial integration right there in the intense sunlight and shadows of the crowded city streets of Johannesburg.
The final late 90's piece is a two-screen 26 min's long video work by Rikehe Dijkstra. Against a white backdrop at the Buzz Club in Liverpool and Mysteryworld in Zaandan, Netherlands young clubbers move to trance beats while chewing gum, smoking and drinking bottled beer. Oddly, a roomful of teenagers watching this found it amusing to gag at the 'minging' people exposed to the scrutiny of the camera in real time and re-located to this gallery context. Importantly this was not only a full-on performance work but clearly a gripping development in lens based urban portraiture. That this was also the final piece in the exhibition implies that the role of still photography going forward is seen as less well defined than ever before.
Street & Studio: 22 May – 31 August 2008
Your photos in print
Tate has partnered Flickr and Blurb to invite you to contribute your own urban portrait to a unique photo book. To submit your photograph, add it to the Street or Studio group on Flickr before 27 July 2008. All submissions will be posted on Tate Online and displayed on a screen in the gallery. After submissions close 100 photographs will be selected to form the book. The 100 will also form a slide show in the gallery and be archived on Tate Online as part of the exhibition's website.
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