Exhibition
London : Photography Past and Present
Jeff Wall, The Destroyed Room, 1978 printed 1987, Cibachrome transparency in fluorescent lightbox, 158.8 x 229 cm © National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Purchased 1988
Eugène Delacroix, Mort de Sardanapale, Salon de 1827, 3,92 x 4,96 m © 2010 Musée du Louvre - Angèle Dequier
Jorma Puranen, Shadows and Reflections (After Goya), 2011, C-type print mounted on Plexiglas, 98 x 78 cm © The Artist, courtesy Purdy Hicks Gallery, London
Richard Learoyd, Man with Octopus Tattoo II, 2011, Unique Ilfochrome photograph, 148.6 x 125.7 cm © Richard Learoyd, courtesy McKee Gallery New York
Ignace-Henri-Théodore Fantin-Latour, The Rosy Wealth of June, 1886, Oil on canvas, 70.5 x 61.6 cm © The National Gallery, London
Ori Gersht, Blow-Up Untitled 5, 2007, Lightjet print mounted on aluminium, 248 x 188 cm x 6 cm (framed) © Courtesy of the Artist and Mummery + Schnelle, London
Thomas Gainsborough, Mr and Mrs Andrews, about 1750 © The National Gallery, London
Martin Parr, Signs of the Times, England, 1991, C-type print, 51 x 61 cm © Martin Parr - Magnum Photos
Thomas Struth, The Lingwood and Hamlyn Family, London, 2001, C-type print on perspex support, 95.3 x 112.7 cm © Thomas Struth - Jane Hamlyn and James Lingwood, London
Unknown photographer, Family Portrait, Lübeck, Germany, about 1845, Daguerreotype, 9.2 x 13.3 cm © Wilson Centre for Photography
John Constable, The Cornfield, 1826 © The National Gallery, London
Richard Billingham, Hedgerow (New Forest), 2003, Lightjet print mounted on aluminium, 122 x 155 cm © The Artist, courtesy of the Anthony Reynolds Gallery London
Gustave le Gray, Seascape, The Steamer (Marine, Le Vapeur), about 1856, Gold-toned albumen print from collodion negative, 30.4 x 40.7 cm © Gregg Wilson, Wilson Centre for Photography
Maisie Maud Broadhead, Keep Them Sweet, 2010, C-type print, 145 x 106.5 cm © Maisie Broadhead
James Anderson (?), The Laocoön Group, about 1855–65, Gold-toned albumen print, 40.3 x 29.1 cm © Wilson Centre for Photography
Jeff Wall, The Destroyed Room, 1978 printed 1987, Cibachrome transparency in fluorescent lightbox, 158.8 x 229 cm © National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Purchased 1988
At first glance, we might think that contemporary photographers like Martin Parr, Rineke Dijkstra and Maisie Broadhead have nothing in common with classical painters like Thomas Gainsborough, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres or Simon Vouet. But the exhibition Seduced by art: Photography Past and Present shows how their reference remains one of the fundamental practices in the history of photography.
Organized by the National Gallery of London, this exhibition brings together more than 100 works of art: paintings from the museum’s collections, photographs from the Wilson Centre for Photography, the Tate, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Museum of Bradford and the Fundación La Caixa in Spain, plus a few videos.
What role has pictorial tradition played in photography since its creation to the advent of the digital era? An essential one, it would seem, when looking at the astonishing similarities in color and composition between Eugène Delacroix’s La mort de Sardanapale and Jeff Wall’s Destroyed Room. The same is true for other photographs which were clearly inspired by ancient paintings, creating a work that is a combination of “re-photography,” copying, and tribute, making itself into an equal of painting.
But the photographs are not merely referential. Each work is a recreation in itself, a subtle re-appropriation and transformation of the original image. It might be the creation of a mise-en-abyme, an image-within-an-image that some spectators view as a photograph while others view it as a painting. Perhaps the human figure disappears entirely in an image intended to evoke a historic battlefield, or maybe the image is a close-up of the chipped and peeling surface of an oil painting by Francisco de Goya, making the work unrecognizable.
Marine Cabos
Read the full text of this article in the French version of Le Journal.
Seduced by art : Photography Past and Present
From October 31st 2012 to January 20th, 2013
The National Gallery
Trafalgar Square
London WC2N 5DN
UK
Catalogue
Seduced by art : Photography Past and Present
Hope Kingsley, Christopher Riopelle
Editions National Gallery Company, 2012.
£19.95
Links
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/seduced-by-art-photography-past-and-present
Contributors