After the long summer holidays it was full steam ahead back into the world of photography. My first stop was to Flowers East Gallery to see Nadav Kandar‘s new exhibition ‘Dust’ (1) (www.flowersgallery.com) – which I had already seen a preview of at Arles Photo Festival in France this summer as part of the Prix Pictet exhibition. ‘Dust‘ is his most recent series which traces the Cold War through the radioactive ruins of secret cities on the border between Kazakhstan and Russia.
I am a big fan of Nadav (2) and he is one of the only photographers I know who has successfully traversed the worlds of both commercial and fine art photography. Every commercial photographer wants to be a fine art photographer, and every fine art photographer wants to be a commercial photographer! Nadav has done this picking up many awards along the way including the prestigious Prix Pictet Award. The new series ‘Dust’ (3) continues from his award-winning Yangtze series with its similar stunning sweeping large landscapes. As well as telling a good narrative the individual photographs, with their muted colours, are very beautiful and you can certainly imagine them hanging on the walls of many fine houses around the world. He is certainly one to collect. There is also a lovely book of the series published by Hatje Cantz.
Next up was my very own show-stopping exhibition GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! at The Little Black Gallery (www.thelittleblackgallery.com). To coincide with the end of London Fashion Week we had a great party to launch the new show which was our busiest ever (4), supported by Vashi Diamonds (a girls best friend!). After the summer holidays it seems the fashionistas, including cobbler Patrick Cox (5), were keen to party (6) – especially when we enticed them with pictures of sexy girls! We had some of the most gorgeous girls in the world on the wall including Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Jerry Hall, Shalom Harlow, Eva Herzigova, Kate Moss, Claudia Schiffer, Stephanie Seymour, Dita Von Teese, and Christy Turlington to name but a few. How could anyone resist?! Of course all shot by some of the world’s greatest photographers such as Bruno Bisang, Bob Carlos Clarke, Marco Glaviano, Patrick Lichfield, Roxanne Lowit, and Norman Parkinson. The night was a great success with many sales and much prosecco consumed – except for me as I wasn’t drinking as I am 7 weeks away from giving birth to my first baby boy!
Then it was over to East London for Daniel Blau’s ‘Other Portraits’ show (www.danielblau.com) in the achingly trendy Hoxton Square. The exhibition comprises of many unseen and unusual portraits and self-portraits by twenty-two of the most important and celebrated photographers in the twentieth century including Margaret Bourke-White, Cecil Beaton, Walter Evans, Nobuyoshi Araki, Tina Modotti and Arnold Newman. The photographs present a strong dialogue between the person behind and the person in front of the camera: with many of the iconic personalities of the twentieth century from Mao Tse Tung, to Gandhi, to Diego Rivera (7), to Franklin Roosevelt & Winston Churchill (8). My favourite was the Andy Warhol by the uber-English lensman Cecil Beaton (9). Daniel Blau is fast becoming one of my favourite London galleries with a strong and unpretentious roster of well-curated and unusual shows.
Being asked to appear promptly at 9am on a Monday morning is no mean feat for me. However when my gallant gallerist friend Tim Jefferies, of Hamiltons Gallery, asks I can just about get it together (10). A Private tour at the V&A (www.vam.ac.uk) for the spanking new Horst show (www.vam.ac.uk until 4 January 2015) is a treat for anyone, let alone with it’s curator Susanna Brown. We all snuck through a side door and into the magical museum. The show is split into his early fashion work (11), the black and white iconic images (including ‘Mainbocher’ (12)), his travel works, architecture, his magnificent colour work, and finally nudes. All beautifully presented and framed magnificently by John Jones (who do all our framing). The colour room really stands out as it is ablaze with colour and includes a cabinet down the centre with all his Vogue covers (94 in total I believe – quite a magnificent feat)(13&14). I had never seen Horst’s male nudes (15&16)so was intrigued by them, noticing that they were all on loan from The Elton John Photography Collection. I must admit that having Susanna walk us through her vision and endless research was a fascinating hour. Incredible anecdotes about how Horst refused to charge Coco Chanel for any sessions and how she in turn sent him beautiful furniture. I also loved the silver lighter in one of the showcases. She had been playing with putty creating her costume jewels when Horst had picked a piece up himself and played with it whilst chatting. She quietly had the putty cast in silver as a lighter as a gift and presented to him. The sort of stories dreams are made of. I can’t scream loudly enough for you to make the time to go. The best photography show in London by far.
I managed to catch the end of the Bob Willoughby exhibition at Beetles & Huxley (www.beetlesandhuxley.com)(17) as I am huge fan of Hollywood and B&W photography. Willoughby was employed by the studios in Hollywood to document the making of many films in the 50s and 60s. I was therefore expecting iconic images of the Rat Pack and the Hollywood stars and starlets from the golden era but was disappointed that none of the images were particularly amazing. Yes there were images of Audrey Hepburn (18), Frank Sinatra, James Dean (19), Chet Baker (20), and The Rat Pack (21) but I didn’t want any of them. Terry O’Neill does it so much better. I don’t know whether this was poor choice of images or if there just aren’t any? Overall a major disappointment.
Finally I was going to go and see Jimmy Nelson’s exhibition ‘Before They Pass Away’ (22) which has just opened at Atlas Gallery (www.atlasgallery.com) but was enlightened about the controversy surrounding the show by my business partner Ghislain Pascal, and decided to stay away. Ghislain has been heavily involved with Survival International (www.survivalinternational.org), the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights, for more than 25 years, having studied anthropology at the London School of Economics and travelled and worked with many tribal peoples. Survival International has criticised Nelson for giving a false and misleading image of tribal peoples. Nelson has been accused of dressing people up in some of the photographs (23), to make them look more exotic, and of ignoring the peoples cultural and spiritual taboos in pursuit of his forged images. Most importantly for me the images have been attacked by the indigenous peoples themselves who have criticised the work for its message which is counter to the reality. Tribal peoples say they are not passing away but are under threat from mining companies, loggers, cattle ranchers, and governments – none of which Nelson cares to mention. Nelson presents the series as ethnographic but sadly there is very little reality or truth in the pictures. Dressing people up in Vanuatu in ceremonial clothes and pretending that is how they look today, or calling the people of Papua New Guinea ‘dangerous’ and ‘cannibals’ is not fact, but fantasy. They are a negative portrayal of the very peoples it is alleging to help. It is very sad as when I first saw the pictures I thought they were beautiful. Now I just feel they are very exploitative – something I wish the photography world would now highlight. It has been left to Survival International and Amazon Indian Nixiwaka Yawanawa to protest (24).
Tamara Beckwith is the co-founder of The Little Black Gallery London.
