Barbican Exhibition Summer 2018
Two female photographers from different eras, both working on long term politically motivated documentary projects, and achieving their aims through a series of situational portraits. Downstairs, Dorothea Lange’s “Politics of Seeing”; upstairs Vanessa Winship’s “And Time Folds.”
Dorothea Lange is one of the most important photographers in the history of the art, if only for her Migrant Mother image, which became an icon of the American Depression in the 1930’s and remains one of the most recognizable photographs of all time. Although “The Politics of Seeing” exhibition has one section entirely devoted to the Migrant Mother series, and another to the depression era images for which she is best known, it aims to give a much broader view of her work over her entire lifetime. Arranged chronologically, it covers her early work as a portrait photographer to the rich and famous in San Francisco; her work documenting the internment of Japanese American citizens during WWII; and various projects after the war associated with civil rights and environmental concerns.
Vanessa Winship is a contemporary photographer from the north of England who rose to fame in 2011 as the first woman to win the Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson award. The award enabled her to travel across the USA and create her most notable work to date, “She Dances on Jackson”, which documents the lives of the invisible middle American working class. Like Lange, much of her work is politically motivated and seeks to raise awareness of dispossessed and marginalized communities. Her exhibition “And Time Folds” is again organised chronologically with her early work made in Eastern Europe, including the Balkans and Turkey, telling the story of today’s desperate populations. Then, closer to home, her minimalist landscapes show the harsh bleakness of the north of England.
My objective with this post is to encourage anybody who hasn’t been, to go. Barbican exhibitions tend to be for quite short periods, so be quick!
If you’ve been and disagree with me, I would love to hear from you, either through the comments box below or through the social media channel of you choice right.
