My report on Photo London is a mash note. The fair was great, yeah, read about it elsewhere.
The Unseen Eye has fallen in love.
Not the tumultuous head over heels kind of love, but the more tentative, neurotic kind, tremulous, uncertain. He’s a guy, English, off beat I imagine – and hope – an artist named Tom Lovelace.
I tell would-be collectors to look at their feet then they’re at an art fair or museum or gallery. Your feet will walk you up to the stuff you like. It may not make any sense, but your unconscious knows and will deliver you to the work that you really really like. Trust me.
Over the course of several days at an art fair – Photo London in this case – you start making up lame excuses for why you keep coming back to a certain booth to then stand in front of a certain picture. You’re being friendly and all but the one to one between you and the object of your affection is unshakable. Chris Littlewood at Flowers is attractive even hot; he is sweet looking and charming, but I was coming back for the art, not the dealer.
So what was I looking at? A non-photo photo, a “readymade” photogram, because light had lightened the surface of a pinkish fabric covered bulletin board. It is a
You can see where the edges of posted bulletins had been. The series I loved
“Untitled Red 1, 2, & 3” are now framed and have UV protection on them so they won’t change any more … maybe.
I find myself increasingly drawn to the uncluttered, pure and minimal work like Clare Strand’s photo sculptures and Wolfgang Tillman’s monochromatic works which also behave like sculpture. A lifetime of looking seems to take one to a place where one craves simplicity. Leave me alone. You want to bring instinct and passion to looking without the intellectual overlay, a tabula rasa in search of the same. I have the intelligence and experience to fill the void. Robert Dosineau said, “You must let the person looking at the photograph go some of the way to finishing it. You should offer them a seed that will grow and open up their minds”. Like that.
faded bacheche from outside a theatre in Umbria. (Note to
artists and art lovers, carry a screw driver because you never know … .)
Mr. Lovelace has filled the Eye’s heart and mind and soul. Thank you. Good name, huh? Love – lace.
copyright W.M. Hunt 2016
