About Love, Gay Block

'Through photography, I have learned about love.' The words that open this anthology of Gay Block's work, and give it its title, really are the best possible introduction to her warm and sympathetic photographs. Photography as a way, almost an excuse, to connect with others and as, fundamentally, an empathic medium - these are the principles that shape this collection of portraits.

Intertwined with these concerns, and essential to the structure of About Love, is Block's own biography – born and raised in a wealthy, Reform Jewish community in Houston, Block followed what she felt to be the typical 'plan,' leaving college when she was 19 to marry and raise a family. She discovered photography later in life, having returned to college at the age of 31 after the death of her father. In the coming years she also, this book suggests, discovered herself, eventually entering a long-term relationship with her current life-partner, Malka Drucker. This story emerges only gradually, through the extended texts that Block appends to each 'chapter' of About Love, and would not be afforded so much importance in this review were it not for the fact that the core themes of Block's 'story' – of curiosity, self-education and discovery – are reflected so strongly in the construction of the book and its content. Photography was, as Block herself states, her 'vehicle to consciousness.'

Arranged chronologically, in loose chapters that are more like families of related works than formal 'series,' the photographs presented here (and the films included on two attached DVDs) relate Block's exposure to ever-widening circles of society and acquaintance – from her own family in Houston, through Jewish pensioners in South Beach, Miami, touching on her record of Holocaust Rescuers (exhibited in MoMA in 1992) and on to her studies of America's female spiritual leaders and Santa Fe's lesbian nightclubs. Her personal and creative development is perhaps best illustrated by comparing the two chapters titled 'Early Portraits' and 'Late Portraits.' The first of these largely consists of portraits taken within the Jewish community of Houston – these appear slightly limited, in both content and technique, compared to the later works, in which a much wider variety of styles and sitters appear. In the later collection, Block's eye hones in on signs of difference (as perhaps is to be expected from journalistic commissions) and on the trappings of style and lifestyle, as well as on the physical markers of age. A number of photographs here depict scars and Block's use of colour highlights the varieties of 'costume' on show among her subjects.

However, Block's work is never detached or disdainful and the abiding quality of her photographs – their empathy – can be traced back to the earliest, and most substantial, body of work in this book. Yes, the world of her early subjects in Houston is strictly delimited and David Chickey's thoughtful book design, with a great deal of bright white space surrounding smallish frames (Block also credits David Skolkin for his design input in this regard) emphasizes both the claustrophobic, suburban atmosphere of these shots, as well as our sense that we are only 'glimpsing' a world set apart. Block often accentuates the careful choreography of this social milieu through artfully arranged shots in which family members postures echo either each other or the objets d'art in their homes. However, at the same time, these photos often feel convivial, with Block taking photographs from across a table or a couch, in an intimate fashion. Their subjects are individuated and gaze straight into the camera, frank, so that the images carry no formal atmosphere of pretence or hypocrisy. Here, as throughout this book, hands are important – people hold or gesture towards the people and objects they hold dear, in a physical, visual expression of inner feeling. The experience of reading these pictures seems to echo the process Block describes of taking them; of being puzzled, curious and then increasingly sympathetic as her knowledge of these subjects deepened. It is no wonder that Block felt a twinge of frustration in her 'Camp Girls' series when, on returning to her subjects after 25 years, she felt unable to get beyond their polished appearances and homes to see 'what life might have in store for them.'

The autobiographical, personality-centered approach of this photography, and this book, has its limitations. A grid of colour photographs of 'People I'm Close To' feels uninformative and a little self-indulgent. Similarly, none of these photographs are accompanied, on page, by captions; they are arranged, not in strictly chronological order, within chapters corresponding to periods of Block's life, rather than within clearly described projects. The approach can feel a little unclear and scatter-shot. Still, the work at its best is dense and powerful and feels like a coherent, humane vision – no doubt down to its clear-sighted, humane author.

This review was originally published in photo-eye Magazine, 1st December 2011, and can be viewed in its original form here. All photographs are from About Love by Janelle Lynch, published by Radius Books, 2011.

The Book

This is a slightly off-piste post: partly, I cannot lie, it is a way of apologising to readers for the shocking lack of other posts recently! 'PLATE' is not dead and there are items on the way, but, in the meantime, I'm just posting a link to layouts from issue 2 of The Book, a free culture magazine for London founded and published by my friend Kohinoor Sahota. The magazine is bi-monthly (this issue is for Dec/ Jan) and features reviews of forthcoming events and releases in film, theatre, technology, art and more, alongside regular features, interviews and 'issue' pieces. If you're reading this in England, think of it as Time Out-slash-the culture section from your favourite paper (as long as your favourite paper isn't the Socialist Worker - the theme for this issue is 'shopping'). This issue's 'headline act' is Emeli Sandé.


Anyway, I'm responsible for the art pages of the magazine  - not much chance to review or feature photography yet but I'm hoping to get some more photo-writing into forthcoming issues. If you know of a show in a London venue that you'd like to see featured in the Feb/ March pages, just drop me a line and I will take a look. In the meantime, enjoy the magazine itself - you can read online or pick up an issue at Bloomsbury theatre, Oval theatre, Shakespeare's Globe, Young Vic, The Book Club, Queen of Hoxton, Whitechapel Gallery, Proud Camden, Old Truman Brewery, and more exciting locations!

New Gallery!

Gustave Le Gray. The Brig, 1856

Well, I say 'New Gallery!' - I actually mean 'expansion and re-launch of a previously-existing gallery/ collection!', but it's not really as snappy... I'm referring, of course, to the opening of the Victoria & Albert Museum's new Photographs Gallery, a permanent space for the display of the V&A's massive photography collection, now half a million items strong. Yep, you heard me - half a million items. The V&A was the first museum to collect and display photography as an artform (or documentary tool, or scientific/ technological marvel – I don't think the Victorians had really decided) in its own right and now has one of the oldest, most significant and most wide-ranging collections in the world.

According to my (not nerdy) V&A magazine, by the time the museum opened in 1857, the director, Henry Cole, had already amassed quite a collection of photographs.  Some of these early works were donated by Prince Albert himself and others were acquired by Cole on studio visits to new practitioners; I love the idea of this – an English civil servant, whose picture probably appears next to 'Victorian' in the dictionary, going on studio visits to see the innovators of the new art form.. Anyway, in the years since, the collection has grown and grown, keeping pace with developments in the medium so that now, not only does the museum have a remarkable record of the very first developments in photography, but these works exist alongside recent acquisitions by contemporary artists - both established 'names' and up-and-coming practitioners. I love the V&A.

Curtis Moffat, Dragonfly, c. 1930

Anyway, history lectures aside, I have always loved going to see the photography displays at the V&A, been totally amazed by the range of work on display and the thoughtful way it is arranged, and always been slightly disappointed that this gorgeous collection (and its skilled curators) are relegated to a tiny room, off a dark corridor, behind the bookshop. Now, however (as of 24th October 2011), that space is to be joined by a large, renovated gallery. Two floors up, the new gallery will be dedicated to the existing, historical collection, with temporary displays of contemporary work to be shown in the ground-floor space. Several major newspapers have reported on this opening – which opens with a 'historical sweep' of the collection, including a special focus on the figures of Julia Margaret Cameron and Henri Cartier-Bresson – and the curators/ arts editors/ V&A press representatives have chosen to emphasize many of the collection's earliest works in this coverage. I, for one, was pleased to revisit (and discover) some of the works posted here - cigar-chompin' Brunel features in one of my favourite photos ever..

Robert Howlett, Isambard Kingdom Brunel..., 1857

I am massively excited about going to see the new display and will aim to report back as soon as I've seen it. I'm looking out for the pics above especially, as well as some more recent work that I've never seen in the flesh, including Ed Ruscha's Every Building On The Sunset Strip and some Ansel Adams landscapes. Get in touch if  you've seen it and have any favourite works!

Los Jardines de México, Janelle Lynch

Photographs by Janelle Lynch. Published by Radius Books, Santa Fe, 2011.

Los Jardines de México is a meticulously crafted book, with every aspect of its production – from the choice of paper stock through to the finishing on the page and the choice of image printed on its endpapers – calculated to facilitate and enhance your experience of the work contained within. This care over the details of the bookmaking is particularly fitting, as Janelle Lynch uses photography to conjure up a very particular and rarefied world – she cultivates an atmosphere that you can’t help but think would suffer in less sympathetic conditions.

The particular quality of Lynch's work can be felt most intensely in the fourth and final series presented in this book: La Fosa Común. Here, 11 full-page images are arranged, one per spread, on large, glossy leaves of paper, beginning with Untitled 8 – a photograph of one, spreading, moss-encrusted tree, whose branches reach round and through each other and out of the frame into the surrounding foliage. Like all of the images in this series, the photograph is visually complex, the frame crammed with textural information, and, as with all of the works in the series, the subject is plant life, to the exclusion of all else - no animals, humans or signs of human civilization intrude upon the tangle of bushes, grasses and trees. The effect is claustrophobic and not a little repetitive, but also decidedly, intensely, eerie and otherworldly. The combination of abundant foliage with a lack of any other visual reference – even the sky is obscured – and Lynch's frequent use of soft, misty lighting conditions gives you the impression of stepping into a science fiction novel in which humans have receded and plants reclaimed the surface of the earth.

This sense of animism and almost threatening fecundity is picked up by author and architect José Antonio Aldrete Haas in his essay for Los Jardines. He argues that Lynch's photography is informed by the notion that life and death are not separate but continuous and 'of the same reality,' and points to another series – there are four presented in this book, made by Lynch between 2002 and 2007 – to illustrate his point. Akna (translated by Aldrete-Haas from the Mayan as 'mother') is a series of portraits of individual tree stumps. These remains – dead or decaying matter appears throughout the book - are in fact now burgeoning with life, each of them sustaining communities of smaller plants and grasses. They are even given names by the photographer, 'Vladimir' and 'Albertina,' to go with the focused, individualizing portrait style of her photography in the work.

Loss, through violence or through simple neglect and decay, is another theme of the book, drawn out by author Mario Bellatín in the fictional element he contributes. The fact that Bellatín's short story deals with the death of a child gives Lynch's work in the series El Jardín de Juegos added resonance, as it is the abandoned pieces of playground furniture in the overgrown parks photographed here that give them their special sense of stillness and absence. Again, this lack of human presence is made conspicuous by the way Lynch arranges her photographs, emphasizing the anthropomorphic qualities of slides, climbing frames and basketball hoops to somehow evoke the playfulness and liveliness that is now only present in this space as a kind of haunting.

All of the above-mentioned elements are bound together in this book in a tightly-structured narrative, so that one has the impression of wandering from series to series like the last human survivor exploring a post-apocalyptic world. This idea is even made explicit through the foot's-eye view of photos in the Donde Andaba set, which show fragments of green foliage as they appear through the cracks in buildings and sidewalks in an urban setting. These images even seem to have been treated differently in production, so that they have a grainy, gritty texture subtly evocative of the dusty streets they depict. The overall effect is of moving through a world carefully constructed by the photographer, as if it were a stage-set.

It can sometimes feel, moving through Lynch's world, like a too seamless experience. The claustrophobia I mentioned earlier slips into tedium occasionally, and the book itself could feel a little overcooked for some readers. Why is it necessary for the cover of this book to be a close-up of the grass shown in countless photos within? Why use the same image again as a graphic theme within – monochrome and negativised, so that the washed-out feel of neglected spaces is stated yet again? These details can feel a little forced rather than poignant, as is perhaps intended. However, this is not to detract from the work within, which is a rigorous, yet affecting, statement on the natural world and its ambivalent beauty.

This review was originally published in photo-eye Magazine, 17th October 2011, and can be viewed in its original form here. All photographs are from Los Jardines de México by Janelle Lynch, published by Radius Books, 2011.