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Episode 3 | 6 Places to see Photography in London 2023
73 Plays1 year ago
In this episode Vyki and Catherine share their six favourite places to see photography in London 2023.
Discover the largest space dedicated permanently to photography in the UK. Hear where Vyki set off the alarms and both of us took an interactive step too far. Find out how many Camera Obscuras in London the Catherine failed to see. See photography displayed outside in Soho’s Photography Quarter. Where did a load of rubbish remind us of the beauty of the universe. Meet African Royalty and hear why we think all exhibitions should end with sofas.
Mentioned in this Episode:
· V&A Photography Centre website
· Centre for British Photography website
· The Photographers’ Gallery website
· Carrie Mae Weems: Reflections for Now at the Barbican website
· A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography at Tate Modern website
· Civilization: The Way We Live Now at the Saatchi Gallery website
· Art Fund membership website
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Podcast:
Music:
· Positive Hip-Hop by MaxKoMusic from Chosic
Resources:
· Subscribe to the Exhibitionists
Websites:
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Theme
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to the Exhibitionists podcast. I'm Catherine from Cultural Wednesday. And I'm Vicky from Museum Mum. Together, we're your co-hosts on this friendly Insider's Guide to the best exhibitions, museums, historic places to visit in London and beyond. Between us, we visit hundreds of cultural places a year. We're here to share what we've seen so you know what's worth the travel. Get ready to fuel your curiosity and wanderlust with the Exhibitionists.
00:00:32
Speaker
This week we're talking about six photography exhibitions you need to see in London.
Memorable Cultural Experiences
00:00:37
Speaker
First Vicky, how are you? Had a very special moment actually this week. I went to the launch of Heritage Open Days and I had somebody write me a poem.
00:00:49
Speaker
Oh, how marvellous! Nobody has ever written me a poem. Nobody has for me either. They're called the Poetry Takeaway and you sit down with a poet and they ask you lots of questions for about five, ten minutes and then you come back in about 20 minutes and they've handwritten you a unique poem. And I was, I'm not going to say skeptical, but I thought, oh well, that'd be nice. But actually when they read it to me, it made me cry and it's now one of my most treasured possessions. So
00:01:18
Speaker
How about you, what have you been up to? I've been up onto the top of Temple Tube Station which used to be quite desolate and now it's called the Artist Garden and it's filled with artworks, a changing router of artworks and the newest one, latest one, it's called Slackwater by Holly Hendry.
00:01:43
Speaker
And she's taken her inspiration from the moment where the tide changes. So the point where the tide is no longer coming in or going out and the water is still, and then it all starts to churn around and it's a lot of metal pipes. I've seen Holly's work before and I love it. So I'm going to have to come and see that one. So thank you for letting me know that was on. So let's get on with the show.
Exploring London's Photography Venues
00:02:08
Speaker
Which exhibition or space would you like to suggest first that people should visit?
00:02:13
Speaker
I think we should start with the biggest space for showing photography in the UK, which is the Victoria and Albert Museum. They have a special photography centre and they've been collecting photography since the moment it was invented. I went to see this I think last week and I absolutely loved it. I thought they've just reopened it. It's extended
00:02:37
Speaker
It used to be a couple of rooms and now I think it's seven and it's just so beautiful. They've taken these arched vaulted ceiling rooms with painted frescoes and which were before apparently behind the scenes and now opened them up and it was just such a fantastic space I thought. And it's got a library.
00:02:59
Speaker
was part of it because of course photography quite a lot of it is published in books, photography books, and so you can sit and leaf through in comfy chairs. And that was really nice. They put this copper raised mezzanine level in there which was circular and reflected the arch spaces. I just thought it was so stunning and it felt quite cosy considering it was in the middle of a national museum. Yeah no absolutely very very welcoming.
00:03:27
Speaker
And the collection, I mean, it's got from Fox Tolbert, Julia Margaret Cameron. It really was a who's who, wasn't it? Photography. I think you've got any interest in the history of photography you should go. Like you said, the V&A have been collecting since the very beginning. I think one of the first photographs I saw was the curator of photography in the 1850s had taught workmen
00:03:54
Speaker
who are building the museum how to take pictures and so you have these pictures of these workmen even in the earlier incarnations of the vna which kind of blew my mind a little bit how connected they've been and also what i found really interesting was how the technology has changed and continues to change so they showed
00:04:16
Speaker
different types of cameras and kind of what came out of them and some of them were I've never seen before and for example the floppy disk camera I can't remember that ever seen that on the shelves many of those made I love that display it was you look through and like you could see my my grandmother's camera
00:04:37
Speaker
And then it was the first camera that I owned at sort of a 110, I think the film was called. Oh wow, that must have really took you back. And then they had the camera obscure as well. Did you get to try that out?
00:04:50
Speaker
No. Apparently it's an old cleaners room. So we'll have to go together, Catherine, because I tried it on myself and it doesn't work. You need two people, one to be the subject and one to look at the upside down image, which is then cast in the room next door. So we'll have to go to duo to look at it. No, absolutely. Because I had managed to completely not find two camera obscuras this week. So I'm doing really, really well.
00:05:17
Speaker
And I think that technology, it really showed how a lot of it was quite experimental. You know, you've got the early X-ray pictures of animals when it's first being adopted, but then also now you've got Jake Elwes's work on drag queens and kings. And what they've done is they've created these films using, well, it seems like a film, but when you get up closer, it's actually AI generated. So, and it really struggles, it's all pixelated, there's bits of,
00:05:45
Speaker
their hair jumping around. And it's to do with showing the limits of AI technology, especially when trying to represent the queer community. But that's a very joyous work, very noisy and lively. And I just thought it was just interesting how you can relate rapidly changing technology throughout the whole history of photography.
00:06:06
Speaker
Yeah, no, I really like that piece. In terms of the space, I love the historical parts. I just felt, for me, the more contemporary rooms that they had, maybe just lacked some of the impact compared to some of the shows that we've seen more recently. But that's going to change. It was very strong on international and women's photographers. So it'd be really interesting to see what they put in there next, I think. Yeah, and I think the displays are going to change. I think it will be interesting to see how it develops.
00:06:36
Speaker
And so that is free and it's open every day. The next one I'm going to take you to is also free.
Environmental Themes in Photography
00:06:44
Speaker
And this is, it's actually new, you know, new earlier this year, new. It's called the British Centre for Photography and it's in St James. So this one I've been to as well. This is quite interesting because it's, if I understand it right, it's from a private
00:07:01
Speaker
collector, the Heimans, and they've collected, is it over 3,000 photographs or something over the last almost 30 years? Over 30 years, but it's also, it's not a show of their collection. It's a parade of different exhibitions. So at the moment there are six exhibitions all related to the environment and the space is very much
00:07:29
Speaker
two top floors, it's balconies, so you can look, the spaces talk to each other, and so the exhibitions talk to each other as well. It's quite a clever way of doing it. Yeah, and the current show in the main foyer, that's a group show, that's an open submission, I think, and that's all about landscape and memory and how the landscape is shaped by humans and also given meaning by humans as well.
00:07:57
Speaker
I thought there were some really interesting works, but I did struggle a bit with the interpretation, by which I mean, I found the labels really hard. They were almost like catalog, exhibition catalog labels, sort of written on, typewritten on a sheet and put next to each work.
00:08:16
Speaker
If you had read them, you would have spent more time reading than looking at the images. So in that way, I did find that this is probably a photographer's gallery in many ways. If you're really into photography, you're going to love it. You're going to really love the work in it. The exhibition that I really love, though, is down in the basement. So it's actually not talking to the other exhibitions. And it's called Plastic Soup.
00:08:46
Speaker
and it is it's photographs of things that have been found in the ocean so it's bouquets of blue rubber gloves and sort of mosaics of brightly covered plastics and it's they are beautiful beautiful images
00:09:04
Speaker
until you realise that it's all rubbish that has been dredged out from the sea. Yeah, the way they're arranged, the colours and the shapes against these very dark black backgrounds, it's almost like a little picture of the universe or something like that. They're absolutely stunning. But like you said, it's all about polluting our planet. But the way it's done, it's a very clear message, but with beauty in it as well, if that makes sense.
00:09:32
Speaker
Yeah, no, absolutely. I found that to be a very moving and affecting expression. And I think that one would be a good one to take kids to, especially those who are interested in the environment. The British Centre for Photography is, it's in St James, it's open from Wednesday to Sunday and it is free. So that's worth having on your radar if you're in the area and you want to see some photography, just pop in and see what they've got on. Next one is, well,
00:10:00
Speaker
If you ever go shopping on in Oxford Street, then the photographer's gallery, you will have walked within meters of it. It's on a side road, sort of tucked away, sort of just up from the Marks and Spencer's Pantheon.
00:10:17
Speaker
best way of describing it, you go down steep steps and hey presto, there is the photographer's gallery. And this is, if you love photography, you're going to really like this place. It's not got a permanent display, it's got a rotor of changing exhibitions, but it really celebrates photography throughout the entire space.
00:10:39
Speaker
Yes, it's got, it's on five floors. Some of them, the floors are devoted to offices. But there are, you start at the top and wind your way down at the ground floor, given over to a cafe, which I think it's quite a good cafe, but you're not very impressed by its vegan offer.
00:10:58
Speaker
I'm now an annoying vegan who makes very snap decisions. It was a gorgeous space, the cafe. You've got these really large glass picture windows just overlooking this pedestrianised courtyard really now just tucked off Oxford Street and had a really good selection of teas from what I noticed.
00:11:20
Speaker
Yes, and also a good view that the outside, Romiles Street, I think it's called, is now being dubbed the Soho Photography Quarter, and the walls of the building opposite the photographer's gallery.
00:11:37
Speaker
have been turned into an outdoor exhibition space that changes. And at night, I'm told there's a screen that has moving images on it. But I've yet to walk down Romilla Street in the dark since this screen has been there. I really like that they're extending photography beyond the walls and thinking about what they can add to the area culturally. I think that's really interesting. Because I'm going to take you back up to the top.
00:12:05
Speaker
of the floor of the Photographers Gallery, where the current exhibition is Evelyn Hofer. She was born in Germany in 1922.
00:12:16
Speaker
left when she was 11, when her parents could see what was happening in Nazi Germany, went to, well first Switzerland and then to Spain, then left Spain in the wake of Franco and then on to Mexico and then sort of really a global life from there on. But I loved her photographs. She took a lot of photographs of ordinary people but they weren't
00:12:45
Speaker
snapped. They were posed. They were treated with enormous dignity, with the same dignity that you would treat a celebrity. They were proper posed photographs. They were really stunning and
00:13:02
Speaker
and quite varied. I mean you talked about her international life, that came through in a photograph. She did these photographic books which would study a city. She did them all over Europe and so you get this kind of body of works which are based in place and they were just beautiful. Seeing London in the 60s first of all, did you see how much it changed? But like you said, the intimacy
00:13:28
Speaker
You really feel that she's respecting her subjects and they're not kind of candid pictures of people snapped against their will. You can tell, they're almost like studio photographs that she's taken outside. There's a lot of thought and consideration and care and that warmth really comes through in the photos.
00:13:47
Speaker
There is also a camera obscura here, but I think it was through a room where a meeting was taking place, so I couldn't access it. Did you manage to find the camera obscura? I went looking for it extra hard after you told me that you hadn't seen it, and that one was different from the V&A. It was a giant lens, actually, with a mirror, and it reflected the street. Oh, like the one in Edinburgh. Yes, the street, upside down, onto a large sort of screen.
00:14:16
Speaker
And it was quite, because at first it doesn't look like much, and then you can see the movement of people outside. And again, it's that relationship between the space, the inside of the gallery and the outside. I think that's a really nice way of connecting the two. I need to go back to that. So that is, Photographers Gallery is, it's open every day and it costs £8 to get in or half price with your upfront card.
00:14:41
Speaker
And the Evenhofer runs until... September the 3rd, it runs until... Fantastic. I really loved that show. I thought there was just such beauty to it. She's described as the most famous photographer that nobody knows. And she's influenced so many people. This is the first retrospective, solo retrospective of her work in the UK.
00:15:00
Speaker
And if you're interested in photographic history or just in post-war Europe at all, I'd really urge you to go and see that one. And I'm now going to move on to another photographer who I had not heard of until I walked into the exhibition.
Photography and Social Identity
00:15:14
Speaker
This time I'm going to go to the Barbican and it is Carrie Mae Wien.
00:15:18
Speaker
I think you're excused for not knowing about Mae Weems because this is, again, her first UK retrospective. She's been working for over 40 years and although she's very well known in the States, just hasn't had the recognition here yet.
00:15:37
Speaker
Yeah, which is a shame, although it's a joy to discover that she worked across all manners of photography, whether it's film, performance. She's also a bit of a dancer. It's all sorts. I found that the exhibition sort of went from performance
00:16:01
Speaker
to images that almost look like paintings. Yeah, and that was what surprised me when I first walked upstairs. So the first room you have to go up the stairs. And I saw these large images of what looked like abstract paintings. So I didn't know she was a painter. And I actually set the alarm off because I had to get my head so close to them to realise they were actually photographs.
00:16:26
Speaker
And what they were photographs of was in the wake of George Floyd's death, she photographed the boarded up shops and buildings in her home city where people had written messages about Black Lives Matter, or who knows, because then they'd been painted over by whatever color paint that people could find. And so she just cropped them so closely. They were almost like these abstract shapes.
00:16:56
Speaker
And they were very beautiful and textured, but also to do with the silencing of black voices. And that's definitely a theme that runs through her work. And I just found it very powerfully conveyed.
00:17:08
Speaker
Absolutely. I think that she conveyed a matter of factness and a quiet anger, the reality of living life as a black woman in the United States. Yes, she did. And it's quite interesting because a lot of her work is quite lyrical as well. You've got the kitchen table series where she has these imagined scenes
00:17:28
Speaker
that you can follow through about love and becoming a mother and friendship. But also then she has these texts which are about the inner world and how that feels and all of the tensions that go with that. And I think the word tension describes a lot of what's going on in her work.
00:17:51
Speaker
At one point there is there's a living room which has got magazines on the table, it's got sculptures, I mean it looks like somebody's front room and you are encouraged to sit in the chair and to pick up the viewing clicker but you click a lever on the side and it goes through a series of images. The trouble is that that's really all you're meant to touch and even at the press view there were
00:18:17
Speaker
the room attendants were telling people no you can't touch that you can't touch that so I really feel for them that they will be spending the whole time saying no don't touch. To be honest I was the same they were like oh you can click through one of these which doesn't work with glasses by the way and then when I tried to pick up the magazine which is in plastic they were like oh you can't touch that but it was
00:18:42
Speaker
I think seeing work in an installation, photographic work does give it another meaning. Downstairs, there's an installation of teddies and helium balloons and photographs, which is a memorial to those killed by police brutality. And I thought that had
00:18:59
Speaker
a lot of impact as well. The one thing I wish I'd done differently was just have a little bit more time there because there's this huge circular screen, which is showing quite recent work of hers in seven parts. And just because of the time I went after work, I couldn't watch all of it. So I'm going to have to go back to see that in full.
00:19:22
Speaker
Yes, I couldn't see or I didn't see all of it. I think you would need to allow at least 20 minutes just to see that one work, I think. Yes. So I will be back, but I thought it was a fantastic show. I'm really glad to have discovered her work and it was very powerful and will stay with me for quite some time, I think.
00:19:41
Speaker
Yes, so that's Carrie Mae Weems, Reflections for Now at Barbican and it's on until September the 3rd and it costs £16. And that one's also half price per art fund holders as well. So moving on, the one that I've seen today and it's still very fresh with me, but again, I think I'm not going to forget in a hurry, is a World in Common African photography today at Tate Modern.
00:20:09
Speaker
I saw that earlier this week. It's glorious, absolutely glorious. I mean, from the get-go, it is so powerful. So when you first walk in, you see these works by Giorgis Ozy, and it's Nigerian monarchs. And they're very posed, very bling portraits, many of them. Some are more humble of Nigerian monarchs, but they put it very quickly in this context of a country who had its
00:20:34
Speaker
It's royalty wiped out or controlled during the colonial period. And now these people are holders of their cultural traditions. And the whole way they put these works is just so thought provoking, I think. Yes, everybody's sitting on their thrones. And then moving on to the next ring, which was all about rituals and how, again, traditional rituals had been replaced
00:21:03
Speaker
with the Christian religion but how they
00:21:08
Speaker
They didn't disappear entirely. The two traditions became enmeshed, or not only Christianity, also Muslim, the Abrahamic religions, how the Abrahamic religions and the African traditions have merged and meshed. The whole show is looking at Africa, past, present and future, but it's really looking at it through African eyes. And that's Africa, not just people born and living there now, but people
00:21:37
Speaker
who were born elsewhere from an African background or who have moved there now. So it's very much turning the camera, which was used as a form of classification and sort of identifying Africans as certain types and used to almost justify empire. But instead what you get is a lot of
00:21:58
Speaker
joyful looks actually at what it means to be African in the past and today as well. Very, very affirming and just so colour saturated. It's very just, especially this, I loved the studio portraits. I think that's been a much maligned type of photography in the past that it's, you know, it's quite cheap. People can go and get their own portraits done and it's, you know, and
00:22:23
Speaker
it's quite recently it's had a bit of a revival and people starting to see not just the social history value in it but also the artistic value in it as well and so you have these portraits of bikers and female bikers in Morocco, sort of
00:22:39
Speaker
photographers today who are taking these very, like you say, colorful and joyful photos. There's also, there's a lot that goes into it. There's the interesting look at masks and what masks mean in the past, but what they mean now as well for somebody who's
00:22:59
Speaker
trying to reclaim parts of their past that have been taken away from them, and also a look at the environment and the future. But ultimately a hopeful exhibition, I thought. I thought so too. It really will stay with me.
00:23:17
Speaker
All the emotions I felt in there and it was it was just great. There was a lots of photographers I've never seen their work before and No, it's really introduced me to a lot of people and I also quite like that when you when you go out that there were a lot of leather it was like walking into a large living room really a lot of a lot of low sofas and some dining room tables and some plants and it's
00:23:46
Speaker
It's actually an installation, but it's a place which you can sit and you're encouraged to go and sit. You don't actually have to go and see the exhibition. It's all part and parcel of space, which I really like. I think it's called the reflection space. And the idea is that the exhibition deals with some very difficult and heavy topics and that you can go out afterwards and take them in. And there's books you can pick up and obviously talk to other people. Actually, I think most exhibitions should have this sort of space because
00:24:15
Speaker
No, I would very much like to see that space can continue afterwards. After the exhibition, it was a really, really good addition to the tater. When does this exhibition go on until? It goes on until January, January the 24th, 2024. I think it costs £17. And again, that's half price for National Art Pass holders. I urge everyone to see this one.
00:24:40
Speaker
No, really, really good. There's one that I haven't seen yet that you would like to recommend as well.
Global Perspectives in Photography
00:24:47
Speaker
Yes, civilisation. It is...
00:24:51
Speaker
It's at the Saatchi Gallery and it is, it's more than 300 images by about 140, 150 photographers. So there's sort of the cream of the crop of current photographers from all around the world and it is, it's about
00:25:15
Speaker
people, how they interact with each other and how they interact with their environment around them. It sounds pretty epic. It is absolutely epic. You would need to allow at least a couple of hours to see it. It is absolutely vast. It fills the Saatchi Gallery, which is
00:25:38
Speaker
huge. And the canvases or the prints themselves are absolutely enormous. An airplane graveyard in the middle of the American desert. And it just goes on for just a mile. You realise how big an airplane is and how many there are. And suddenly you realise just how much rubbish there is.
00:26:07
Speaker
Will they ever, what will happen to it? Will it become sort of, will it get covered over and be discovered in sort of archeologists of the future? Well, I'm going to add that one to my wish list. And when does that go on till, hopefully I can catch it when the kids go back to school? It goes on until the 17th of September, so you'll have to be quite quick. And it is, I think it's 16 pounds or 17 pounds. Well, that's a treat for me, hopefully, when I get the kids back to school.
00:26:35
Speaker
There are all sorts of, photography is obviously the way to go that the new National Portrait Gallery's got a couple of photography exhibitions as well that I've seen once Yvonne, a female photographer, which I have seen and again is beautifully colour saturated, Paul McCartney, which I haven't seen. Yeah, there is definitely a lot to see.
Conclusion and Engagement
00:26:59
Speaker
So there you have it, the six photography shows and displays to see in London.
00:27:04
Speaker
We hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Exhibitionists. If you've enjoyed the show, please hit the subscribe button and leave us a review. We've really loved sharing our thoughts with you. Thanks so much for listening. You can find us on Instagram, at The Exhibitionists Pod. Or me, Vicki, at Museum Mum. Or me, Catherine, at Cultural Wednesday. The music is positive hip-hop by Maxco Music from Tuzik. Catch you next time on The Exhibitionists. Until then, stay curious and enjoy your cultural adventures.