The OCA kindly organised a study visit to LOOK/13, the Liverpool International Photography Festival. The theme for this year’s festival was “identity, subjectivity and the self”, summed up in the festival brochure as “who do you think you are?” This was reflected in the large number of portraits on display.
The bright and sunny day started early, with an convenient photography exhibition at Piccadilly station. These featured some very picturesque landscapes and were all related in some way to the railways.
Upon arriving in Liverpool, I found a military parade outside the station, where I took some photographs, while waiting for it to go by.
Finally, I arrived at the Open Eye Gallery for the start of a very packed study visit
The Open Eye Gallery
The downstairs of the Open Eye gallery was devoted to different selections of work by Charles Fréger, all around the theme of exploring the self. I didn’t have time to look at it all in much detail and I think knowing some of the background – what the artist was trying to achieve would have helped, as would knowing more about portraiture in general.
I particularly liked the set called ‘Légionnaires’. These were photographs taken of members of the French Foreign Legion and contrasted bearded, uniformed soldiers with bare-chested and clean-shaven soldiers. They challenged the preconceptions of age and experience, with the former looking tired and older in their grand uniforms, and the latter looking younger and more inexperienced.
The photographs of Sumo wrestlers, titled ‘Rikishi’, caught my eye as well. Like the Foreign Legion images, these alternated people in traditional sumo outfits, with more Western, and seemingly more dignified, uniforms. Fréger’s other wrestling photographs, ‘2Nelson’, were also interesting and reminded me of Muybridge. They seemed to be part art and part documentary.
Image (c) Eva Stenram
From the exhibition ‘Drape’
Upstairs in the Open Eye, was the exhibition called ‘Drape’ by Eva Stenram and described as “highlighting the friction that exists between the self and its representation”.
Created from found photographs and with careful digital manipulation, Sternram produced images having a strange optical illusion, seeming both real and unreal. In each case, the model’s identity was completely obscured. To me it was reminiscent of fashion models whose identities are removed or ignored in favour of displaying the correct commercial image. Without the Escher-like quality of the manipulation, it would have been difficult or impossible to see where the original image stopped and the manipulation started.
The Bluecoat Gallery
“In the Shadow of the Pyramids” by Laura El-Tantawy
This was the stand-out exhibit of the day for me. In a small, darkened room, with deep terracotta walls was a series of images taken in Tahir Square, Cairo during the 2005 pro-democracy demonstrations. Scattered around the room, each picture was a close-up of a person displaying intense emotion. The natural light, streaming down through the crowds was used to emphasise different features and emotions: mouths shouting, desperate eyes, a tear-drop on a cheek..
The photographs had been processed with the desaturated, contrast-y look that is currently popular in photojournalism. Some of the images were slightly out of focus and there was some debate as to whether they should have been left in.
The shadowy room, with bright spotlights and sounds from Tahir Square provided an immersive experience. The still images allowed the viewer to pause and consider/contemplate the events in the way that the moving image would not. The photographs were different sizes and placed in different locations around the room, so it was necessary to move around to see all the images.
A reoccurring problem it seems with exhibitions, is the placement of reflective glass over images. This invariably catches some window or spotlight and makes it harder to view the picture. This was particularly evident here, where it was almost impossible to view one of the photographs.
Image (c) Adam Lee
From the exhibition ‘Identity Documents’
All photographs can be seen on El-Tantawy’s website.
Other artists that caught my eye included George Awde, with some amazing quality prints, where lighting was used to create a three-dimensional effect. And Larissa Sansour, with her merging of modern and old in ‘Nation State’. Huge, unreal and futuristic images, hinting at what is wanted or feared might happen.
Displayed upstairs in the Bluecoat were photographs by August Sander and Arthur Fellig (Weegee). I’d heard of neither of these photographers before, but I’m really glad I had the opportunity to see their work from the early 20th century. It would have been easy to spend a lot more time here, going through the images in more detail, but sadly we had to move on.
Unfortunately, I missed the exhibit by Adam Lee, called ‘Identity Documents’. This was the only set of photographs that wasn’t straight portraiture, in that they featured bookcases rather than people. I really wish I had seen it, as it sounds very interesting, although the images are available to view online.
A quick break for lunch and it was onto the afternoon’s galleries..
Images posted, with the exception of my own, are used with the kind permission of Look/13.
Lucy's OCA Learning Log 
[…] The first post about this study visit can be found here. […]
I looked up Adam Lee as this fits in with my fascination with books and how they express people’s personalities. It seems to be an ongoing collaborative project and all I need is to collect even more books to reach the needed 5 thousand or so; when there I was trying to get rid of some!
The presentation of the Laura El-Tantawy work sounds so apt for the images.