Paul Graham - Whitechapel Gallery

Photographs 1981-2006

I went to the OCA’s visit to The Whitechapel Gallery to see Paul Graham’s exhibition on 21 May. 

Graham is one of the leading photographers working in fine art photography and has played a strong role in the development of photography.  He constantly challenged and reinvented the medium and its presentation. 

His approach centres on remixing the rich history and traditional genres of photography allowing him to create his unique visual language.

The main themes that run through his work in this collection is political and social issues, history, society and trauma.  He also works on the themes of denial and concealment which is particularly strong is Empty Heaven. The viewer cannot instantly see the significance of the images in this collection.  He reflects Japan’s investment in surface appearances and suppressed memories of the past.

Television Portraits is a series of images taken of people while they watched television.  In his interview which was being played at the gallery, he referred to having his subjects completely engrossed in something else while he was capturing them as ‘every photographer’s wet dream.’

This type of work was less about portraiture and more about observation.

His early British colour work can be seen in A1: The Great North Road, 1981-82 which is his version of the American road trip only in this case the trip starts in London and moves up north to Edinburgh charting the stark contrast between the north and the south along the way. 

His use of colour for this type of social documentary work was revolutionary at the time when black and white photography was seen as the only medium for this type of photography.

Beyond Caring is a series of work shot in dole offices around the country creating a unique view of unemployment in the mid-eighties. This work was shot mainly with his camera on his knee which gives rise to the unusual angles at play.  

Being Irish I found Troubled Land particularly interesting. Here Graham is working in Northern Ireland during the Troubles fusing traditional landscape photography with war reportage.  Each image contains a discreet signifier such as a Union Jack flag in the distance on a tree or a landscape setting with trees with political posters on them, which reveals the struggle over the land. 

This is also a series that explores the use of colour.  The colours of the Union Jack make the image which would not have been possible to do in black and white.

We discussed presentation for this collection as other students had seen these images in books but as they were so small the discreet signifiers could not be seen.  This has given me some food for thought about how presentation can enhance your work and how you should think about how your work is presented. 

Leaving the social and political themes behind, Graham’s work in the late 80s and into the 90s began to focus on history, society and the psychological effect of trauma on individuals and nations. This can be seen in New Europe where he journeyed across nine European countries to show the traces of European history at a moment of great political upheaval.   The most striking image of this collection is of a man looking onto blocks of flats in Germany.  He has no shirt on and he only has one arm. We are left to wonder about how he lost his arm and how the future looks for this country.

Ceasefire is an abstracted representation of the political.  It shows a temporary halt to hostilities in Northern Ireland 6-8 April 1994 through a series of cloudy skies taken above scenes of sectarian violence like Bogside, Omagh and Shankill. 

End of an Age is a series of portraits of young people across Europe on the cusp of adulthood.  Graham uses the combination of flash photography and the atmospheric lights of night clubs in this series.  The blurry shots with the ambient light depict those that are drunk and not wanting to be aware of the changes they are going through.  The flash photography produces a clearer more unforgiving image.

American Nights uses deliberately overexposed images leaving the viewer to search out the content and meaning alongside hyper-real colour images to emphasise the discrepancies of wealth in North America.

Moving the US in 2002, Graham’s work focuses on capturing moments as he sees them.  A shimmer of possibility records his journeys across America where he finds beauty in everyday events as they unfold in front of his camera.  

I found the themes and how Graham uses the photographic medium to depict them very interesting.  I think some of his work is very clever and I enjoyed having to look at an image for some time before I finally discovered its meaning. I had never real thought too much about how you can use colour so effectively especially given today’s obsession with black and white images.   

Paul Graham’s images can be viewed at http://paulgrahamarchive.com/index.html

As added bonus to this study day, Magnum photographer Ian Berry's exhibition This is Whitechapel was on too.  This work was commissioned in the 70s when Whitechapel was in a period of change as the established Jewish community was moving away and making room for the Asian population to take its place. 

The exhibition consists of a series of 30 black and white images which would have been the norm for social documentary at that time.  It was interesting to compare his work with that of Graham's use of colour in his documentary work. 

On the whole I feel Graham's work was more powerful and had more of an affect on me.  I think the sheer size of his images and the presentation of his work was more interesting than Berry.  I also liked the use of colour which is a little weird seeing as I always felt before that B&W images had more punch.  Graham has certainly made me think more about the colours I see and how they can play an important part in my work.