After being on view for almost 50 years, London’s Science Museum’s legendary collection of model ships was basically “deep-sixed” in 2012, de-commissioned and taken out of view, ostensibly for conservation and storage. Voyages, from the creative team of Anderson and Low – Jonathan Anderson & Edwin Low – is a very beautiful and thoughtful salvage job in photographs. It is lyrical and poetic.
Voyages seems to be seen through the wondering eye of a child, able to find romance and adventure on seas that may be stormy or calm. For the moment, the viewer becomes the Captains Jack or Blood (Errol Flynn) or Hornblower on the high seas. This illusion from A & L is their discovery of the dazzling trick of ambient light playing through the translucent plastic covering the storage cases housing the models. The works have a J.M.W. Turner-esque palette shrouded in a mist-like veil of pixelated light.
The Media Space itself looks majestic, divided down the middle with a wide aisle with a majestic ships’ bow and stern at the respective ends, flanked by a flotilla of maritime adventures of individual ships. At the entrance, there is a text panel of a Marcel Proust quote that reads, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes”. It has been expertly chosen.
A & L have been collaborating since 1990, and they are industrious and prolific. The Unseen Eye first spied them on the horizon with “The Athlete” in 1998. They then sailed in with The Contenders, Gymnasts and Athletes as well as Athlete/Warrior (2001), with its heroic figure studies of military cadets – some sailors – in the US.
A sea of past projects include Abstractions, Chrysalis, Circus, and Champions and more recent photographs of the James Bond film Spectre and Star Wars: The Force Awakens and longer, often personal projects, like City of Mines, Black Sand – Surfers in Taiwan, The Queen’s Backyard, Endure – An Intimate Journey with the Chinese Gymnasts, Road to 2012, and Manga Dreams.
All hands on deck from now until the end of June.
W.M. Hunt
W.M Hunt is a photography collector, curator and consultant who lives and works in New York. He is a professor at School of Visual Arts and is on the Board of Directors of the W. Eugene Memorial Smith Found. His book entitled The Unseen Eye (published by Aperture) and focusing on his personal collection is one of the most intriguing compilations of photographs.
Anderson & Low, Voyages
March 13 to June 25, 2017
Science Museum
Exhibition Rd, Kensington
London SW7 2DD
United Kingdom
