In a photograph (possibly) taken by Claude Cahun in 1936, the artist Sheila Legge appears as a 鈥淪urrealist phantom鈥 in Trafalgar Square, her head encased in flowers. Pigeons clamour along her outstretched arms. The wings of one bird are in rapid motion, blurring into a background that鈥檚 obscured by the photo鈥檚 shallow depth of field. Legge appears statuesque, and the world moves around her. The bouquet is a dark bloom, rendering her faceless and timeless. The image is arresting, but, as too often with Surrealist pictures, risks meaningless 鈥渨hat-about-if鈥-erry on one hand, and theoretical, Bourgeoise disconnectedness on the other.
Whether intentionally or not, the first photograph in Side Gallery鈥檚 Youth Rising in the UK, 1981-2021 (Paul Alexander Knox鈥檚 2019 portrait of Michael, a young man from South Shields with a history of homelessness) recalls this picture of Legge. Michael鈥檚 head is entirely shrouded in a solid-seeming plume from his vape-pen. Traffic blurs like pigeons in the black-and-white surroundings. He鈥檚 anonymous, but extremely present. There鈥檚 no disappearing into clouds of theory, here. Knox鈥檚 photo, by covering Michael鈥檚 face, makes us take notice of him, remember him.
The exhibition follows the UK鈥檚 contemporary youth through trials of labour, alienation, and racial and social oppression, allowing human selves to emerge from hardship. The show explores what Cahun鈥檚 picture of Legge does not: that photographs make material the passing moments of history. These are not spaces for rarefied thought, but microzones in which people and time become tangible. Each of the nine photographers capture the lived reality of unprecedented times, whether it鈥檚 Tom Sussex鈥檚 portraits of Londoners involved in the Black Lives Matter protests, Chris Killip鈥檚 narrative of life and death in a remote fishing village, or Maryam Wahid using her mother鈥檚 traditional Pakistani wedding dress to explore 35 years of immigrant identity in Birmingham.
Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen鈥檚 images of intimacy on bleak and beautiful shores reassert her status as a documenter of human complexity almost in the league of Don McCullin. Alys Tomlinson鈥檚 portraits of sixth-formers dressed up for a prom they鈥檒l never attend due to coronavirus are beautifully arranged, the light in the pictures appearing to emanate from the sitters themselves.
There鈥檚 a chance, here, of being a shade too saccharine, speaking in a register that鈥檚 a little 鈥渙n-the-nose.鈥 However, this is an occupational hazard of socially minded art, and, for the most part, Liz Hingley鈥檚 skilful curation swerves it (not least because the exhibition practices what it preaches by promoting student photographers from Sunderland and Bristol in a small bonus room).
One of Killip鈥檚 Skinningrove photos shows a queue outside a chip shop, an old woman leading two girls through the door, two cheeky boys in the window, one of them looking directly at us through two frames. Lines intersect beautifully, including the reflection of cables on a pylon at the top-right of the shop-front. And then you notice, on the glass, the mark left by someone wiping away condensation. As though clearing away the obfuscation of 20th century art photography, this photograph (and this exhibition) is an act of making visible, discovering the human, the un-surreal, in bizarre times. It acknowledges the contemporary screens which exist between us, but has faith that photos can ensure these screens are, at least, clear. We can see one another through them.
Side Gallery, Newcastle 17 July – 3 October
Words: Adam Heardman
Images:
1. Precious from the series Lost Summer, 2020) 漏 Alys Tomlinson/HackelBury Fine Art
2. Emmaus Companion, Michael, 2019 漏 Paul Alexander Knox Commissioned by AmberSide and the Virgin Money Foundation
3. 漏 Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, courtesy AmberSide / L Parker Stephenson Photographs, NY
4. USA EMBASSY from the series Solidarity, May 2020 漏 Tommy Sussex
