Photographing the Margins

Thursday and a trip to Barbican Gallery - ANOTHER KIND OF LIFE was a great chance to see some striking photographs of people operating outside the mainstream.

Another Kind of Life  in Photograph  and a... 

A roll call of Photographers

A lift from the exhibition 

The selected works were almost anthropological in their nature highlights for me included works of Russian 'Hippies' on archaeological digs (photographer- Igor Palmin), also saw work from Japanese photographers Daido Moriyama  and Seiji Kurata (who follows in his footsteps in style but also draws on the operating manner of  U.S. news photographer Weegee).

Lots of the Photographers were new to me, like survivalist sympathiser Alec Soth but included was the great Diane Arbus.

visitors to the show 

Barbican's a nice place to visit, good café and bars too

The Sad Story of 'Boom for Real' Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

A Ticket to see

I think I've seen some of Jean-Michel Basquiat's work at the Saatchi Gallery before and certainly heard his name mentioned by others so decided to visit exhibition of his work at the Barbican Gallery.

It's a big exhibition with a lot to see including a full length film that he was in (it includes Debbie Harry too) - so if you're going allow enough time.

No longer with us

Basquiat was part of the flowering of an American/New York  rebirth in the late 70's/80's where Keith Haring Fab 5 Freddy and others started to bring work from the street to the attention of galleries and collectors (as well as Andy Warhol).

Early recognition of his gifts meant that he was able to pursue his own passions and he was the epitome of (and listed as in Wikipedia list!) an Auto-Didact.

What came out of the exhibition though for me was something of a rather confused body of work - so sad that Jean- Michel's life was not longer and he was unable to fully realise his early potential and  promise.

UK TV and US Consolidation 

Changes in the US TV market as customers increasingly 'cut their cords' means that Discovery TV has been able to  complete an agreement for merger with Scripps Network.

Discovery TV which has one of the highest paid bosses in the world has performed poorly over recent years and failed to make the strategic changes needed as it is outmanoeuvred by new players like Netflix and Amazon TV.

The repercussions are likely to be felt at UK TV where the BBC's commercial arm mulls over taking full control of UK TV (where Scripps was a major shareholder) - this though is small fry in the mega business that TV has now become. 

UK TV is one of a number of 'second level' TV operations reliant for audiences  on BBC TV re-runs.

It would indeed be sad if Publicly owned  TV was so far weakened that all commercial TV needed to care about was the bottom line - it is (I still think) more important than that -time will tell

Photo's at the Barbican and Red 198

Last week at the Martin Parr curated photographic exhibition 'Strange and Familiar' - he's a big figure in taking pictures and his selection of Photo's of the UK by 'foreigners' is stimulating and wide ranging...

A smashing venue

2 for 1 (almost)

I don't often go to the Barbican but it's a smashing location - felt slightly decadent and privileged to spend time there.


The exhibition was across two floors and there were a lot of pictures which justified the cost (£12 or £13 if you take the option of a ticket to see Parr's own exhibition at London's Guildhall).

I looked at the pictures with a companion which perhaps makes the experience more worthwhile in that there's an ongoing discussion - also surprised (perhaps shouldn't be) to see someone from The Design Museum also visiting.

A nice Barbican café too

Too many notable photographers with  so many interpretations of the UK from these non-native photographers to mention them all - but here's a couple of pointers -  - Hans Eijkelboom  who took a series of pictures in Birmingham's Bullring springs to mind , also very good were some extreme  close-ups by the US picture taker Bruce Gilden


Of course it was possible to make reference to Henri Cartier-Bresson, a key figure in photography  who as a non UK picture grabber was also included as one of the photographers selected by Parr.

Red 198

And talking of photographs ..

A pair -discarded