Tom Jeffreys surveys an exhibition of work by emerging contemporary photographers.
The relationship between photography and time is a complex one. In one sense, the photograph halts the moment, takes it outside of time, immortalises it. But in another, it serves simply to emphasise the inexorability of time: a photograph is always of the moment, tied to it – instantly dated. Hence Roland Barthes' equation of photography with death. Hence the frequency with which photographers – especially ones aspiring to the level of fine art – deal with subjects marked by death and decay.
This preoccupation with time is certainly in evidence at Photo-Open Extra, an exhibition of work by emerging photographers taking place at Rich Mix as part of the sprawlingly brilliant Photomonth. The standard of work on show is high and suggests that London might be something of a breeding ground for exciting photographic talent. There's a good breadth of subject matter and styles, but one thread runs through much of the exhibition: not so much death, as decay.
Symptomatic of this direction are the works of Rishi Mullet-Sadones, Siobhan Doran and Vicky Martin. Mullet-Sadones depicts one of those grim beige residential blocks that photographers tend to be quite keen on – it's blank, grubby and depressing. Martin meanwhile shows a crumpled page from the Bible pinned up against drably peeling wallpaper. Symbolic? Probably. Doran's image is of the inside of some kind of studio. The floor's dirty, loose wires hang from the ceiling, ladders and sacks of bricks are propped about the place. Empty, it's charged with possibility. These three images demonstrate photography's propensity for elevating the mundane – through the eye of the lens, every forgotten detail gains significance.
The same could be said for Nicola Tree's image of what looks like a slightly older Kate Nash perched upon a bench in an anonymous launderette, as well as Marcus Bastel's shot of an articulated lorry overturned in a desert or scrubland wilderness. The title – Modern Decay – could almost serve to sum up the whole exhibition.
My favourite work however, and by some distance, is Lynne Collins' The Trespasser 1 [pictured above]. A background interior of ragged dereliction – sallow sagging wallpaper, detritus-strewn flooring – ties the image in with the others on show here. But there's more. In the foreground – overlaid I think in post-production – spreads a majestic still-life, evocative in tone and lighting of those seventeenth century Dutch masters like Jan Davidsz. de Heem. Grapes and apples spill from a bronze bowl, flowers erupt from a vase, transparent pink liquor stands in an elegant crystal decanter and goblet. Crisply in focus, it's – and this might sound silly – rather reminiscent of photorealist painters like Richard Estes, whilst the deliberately constructed composition reminds me of Noemie Goudal.
The startling contrast between these two styles of image sets up an opposition between the aspirations of traditional painting on the one hand, and the 'authenticity' of photography on the other. That these two styles co-exist within the same (photographic) image suggests perhaps the superiority of photography as a medium, or rather its all-conquering versatility. In On Photography, Susan Sontag wrote that, “Now all art aspires to the condition of photography.” Photomonth suggests this might be a good thing.
Photomonth - Photo-Open Extra is at Rich Mix until 12th December 2010.
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