STREET AND STUDIO: AN URBAN HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY AT THE TATE MODERN, LONDON
Street and Studio: An Urban History of Photography at the Tate Modern, South Bank, London
Street and Studio seems to be a roundup of all the greatest photography of the late 19th and 20 centuries. Obviously the exhibition attempts to make a contrast between impromptu camerawork and studio photography, yet it’s hard to make sense of what exactly is being done here. For all that, the exhibition is patently very enjoyable so long as you’ve seen the photos already, know the great names and their significances, but if not then it does seem a mite confusing. That hardly matters though for there’s so much on offer here it’s hard to know where to begin to describe it all. Work by Lee Miller, Robert Mapplethorpe, Diane Arbus contrasts effectively with the work of more conventional or more established photographers such as Cecil Beaton and Henri Cartier-Bresson. However, the exhibition often tries to do too much, leaving the spectator waiting to fill in the dotted lines between each photo. The exhibition sweeps the spectator onwards anyway. Is this a roundup of what’s best in photography, an attempt at an overview however sweeping, or a definite or definitive contrast?
The exhibition left the viewer with few enough ways to begin thinking about the art of photography. I mean that it didn’t make itself interesting, advertise itself as such or provide a legitimate commentary that could enable a viewer to begin to think about the issues, practical and theoretical, presented in each photo. Well, there was some of this, but there could have been so much more. But then exhibitions are hardly organised for but largely against the viewer. Exhibitions usually don’t want viewers to go away, grab a pinhole or throwaway camera and begin to make their own photos, understanding that art is only the initiatives that we freely make rather than something remote, lofty and impossible.
Paul Murphy, London
Street and Studio seems to be a roundup of all the greatest photography of the late 19th and 20 centuries. Obviously the exhibition attempts to make a contrast between impromptu camerawork and studio photography, yet it’s hard to make sense of what exactly is being done here. For all that, the exhibition is patently very enjoyable so long as you’ve seen the photos already, know the great names and their significances, but if not then it does seem a mite confusing. That hardly matters though for there’s so much on offer here it’s hard to know where to begin to describe it all. Work by Lee Miller, Robert Mapplethorpe, Diane Arbus contrasts effectively with the work of more conventional or more established photographers such as Cecil Beaton and Henri Cartier-Bresson. However, the exhibition often tries to do too much, leaving the spectator waiting to fill in the dotted lines between each photo. The exhibition sweeps the spectator onwards anyway. Is this a roundup of what’s best in photography, an attempt at an overview however sweeping, or a definite or definitive contrast?
The exhibition left the viewer with few enough ways to begin thinking about the art of photography. I mean that it didn’t make itself interesting, advertise itself as such or provide a legitimate commentary that could enable a viewer to begin to think about the issues, practical and theoretical, presented in each photo. Well, there was some of this, but there could have been so much more. But then exhibitions are hardly organised for but largely against the viewer. Exhibitions usually don’t want viewers to go away, grab a pinhole or throwaway camera and begin to make their own photos, understanding that art is only the initiatives that we freely make rather than something remote, lofty and impossible.
Paul Murphy, London
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