At long last some thoughts on Dubai Photo.............
“As a monumental date to remember, I had a life before the 15th of August 2015. Since then I have been totally one hundred per cent in Dubai, mentally if not always physically.” Zelda Cheatle, UK’s foremost curator, told me this as we chatted about the enormity of bringing almost 900 photographs by 129 photographers from 23 countries, selected by 18 curators to the inaugural Dubai Photo.
The exhibition is housed in four purpose built ‘museums’, which fit between the buildings of the new design district, d3. Within the exhibition walls, I have been told, is hidden street furniture amongst other things and as you would expect it is perfectly formed.
“There was one day when I had slightly less than one hour’s sleep. And I have even been working in my sleep, waking myself up thinking of things that still need to be done.”
Takashi Arai - High School students on their way home, Haranomachi, Minamisoma, from the series "Here and There - Tomorrows' Islands", June 26, 2012 © Takashi Arai, courtesy of PGI
Cheatle’s tireless efforts in what I gather were a complicated process has paid off. Apart from the Australian and Egyptian entries, which sailed though the selection process, there was much toing and froing but over time the strict guidelines blurred and images not liked or accepted became understood.
“As this whole process has evolved, and people’s visual vocabulary develops, you discover the context of a photograph and it becomes something else. This was really nice”, Cheatle told me. “Seeing people’s hair stand up on the back of their neck, actually realizing what they are looking at. That’s made it all worthwhile.”
The exhibition is a kind of photographic version of a particularly delicious taster menu at a Michelin star restaurant and a glimpse into some of the world’s most interesting and important photographs. It’s an education for even the most seasoned photophile with works borrowed from museums globally. There’s a couple of August Sanders in the German Gallery as well as some ‘auto fictions’, including the ‘Drowned self-portrait’ of Hippolyte Baynard from 1940 which is a treat from France. Sudeks, Soths, Mondotti and conflict are even covered by images from Ishiuchi Mikako from her sensitive Hiroshima still life series and wonderful archival images of Dubai in the 1960’s by Oscar Mitri.
Ishiuchi Miyako / hiroshima #6 (Tanaka, H.), 2010 Courtesy of the artist and The Third Gallery Aya
I found the selection from India curated by the super smart Devita Singh, a curator from Cambridge University, very successful.
“I knew that many visitors to the exhibition would not know the artists so I felt it was important to have a larger installation of works by fewer artists”, Devita told me.
As well as some old favourites ‘Clearing a Space’ presents works by emerging artists and focuses on the importance of the home and family. There is an enormous installation of cleverly framed books by Dayanita Singh, ‘Museum of Chance’, 2014 and the young Magnum nominee Delhi based artist Sohrab Hura showing a series of powerful images taken between 2008 and 2014 of his mothers struggle with Alzheimer’s shows the family home decay around them. Both bodies of work, though presented very differently (Hura’s unframed images are pinned to the wall), give real insight and perspective to the artists’ practice.
For me the discovery of artist Neha Choski soft, seductive Palladium prints of houseplants was a revelation.
Neva Choksi - Like a Seer (Photosyntax series), 2007/12 Courtesy of the artist and Project 88, Mumbai
Generally the exhibition has an interesting flow; countries are not laid out geographically. Cheatle explains, “I talked to all the curators in a collaborative way, mixing and merging the works aesthetically and philosophically. Hungary does not geographically sit next to the USA, on the map.” She gave the curators Carte Blanche but chose people who would she hoped would think out of the box and less traditionally. To a point this has succeeded, the curations are extremely diverse and reveal a cultural identity and personality of their own.
Director of Stevenson, a Cape Town and Johannesburg gallery, Federica Angelucci, has chosen work that is relevant to the situation in South Africa politically. “I didn’t want to approach the exhibition in a direct narrative way”, she told me, “I wanted a more oblique point of entry to what it is. So I pitched a proposal about the land and territory and the extended notion of engagement with the land and questions about belonging.
The exhibition examines the South African identity though contemporary imagery that includes images from Pieter Hugo’s personal and intimate series Kin and an old friend from my Telegraph days the documentary photographer, Guy Tillem’s series of de-contextualized portraits which are photographed in beautiful natural light, photographed in Malawi on assignment for an NGO. “Challenge the subliminal space between the human presence in the detail.” Angelucci explains.
Santu Mofokeng - Ballito Beach after flood March 2007, Durban, Courtesy of Lunetta Bartz, Johannesburg
Two black photographers, Santu Mofokeng whose photographs show a scarred landscape traumatized by climate change or by human intervention, and Sabelon Mlangeni is included, which was important to Angelucci.
“I don’t like to think in this way but we are a complex country and it’s important to bear this in mind. I started to think about visual languages and I also ask myself the question, whom am I showing? Who we are as South Africans or adopted South Africans in my case.”
Images from Jo Ractliffe’s Angolan trilogy show the relocated homes of Angolan soldiers who could not return home. The scorching light in these images is almost painful to look at and you can imagine what it must be like to be under this sun. Angelucci describes these landscapes as, “feral”. They are harsh, ominous and un-peopled.
Li Lang - Father’s Handprints
The theme of intimacy continues with probably my greatest revelation of the exhibition, the intimate conceptual work of Li Lang who as a homage to his father has written each day of his father’s life, all “30219-Days’. Part of a much larger series, the large images show still life’s of a pile of his fathers shaved hair, and his hand and foot prints taken at the point of death.
Through the work of the fours artists on show the curator, Huang Yihuang is attempting to tell the story of contemporary photography in China. I was very pleased to meet ex doctor Yan Wang Preston, not from Shanghai but our very own Hebdon Bridge showing large landscapes from ‘Mother River’, which explores myths, mapping and landscape. Through photography, she taught herself 5x4, film and performance. It has taken her many miles from the UK photographing the whole of the Yangtze from its source.
Yan Wang Preston - Y6: 500km from the river source
The UK and Ireland also need a mention. Beautifully curated by the V and A’s Martin Barnes, it’s a testament to the sublime, is serious and very English. It includes three perfect Bill Brandts and it’s always a pleasure to see up close a selection of post-industrial landscapes by John Davies and two powerful images of the Merthyr Tydfl industrial furnaces by Northern Ireland’s Paul Seawright. The curation is simple and reverent and speaks to England’s industrial past and heritage. The scene is watched over by Sophy Rickett’s black and white wise old owl, the only face to be seen in the exhibition.
Soppy Rickett - Untitled (Nature Study) 5, 2009 © Sophy Rickett
Finally there were two standout images from a female Emirati photographer, Moza Al Falasi. Self taught, she describes photography as a journey of self-discovery and self-expression. She’s on horseback in one of the images; it took 3 months to learn to ride and take a photo at the same time; she had to sit on the reins. She found her voice through her work. It’s great that women in the Middle East are empowered by photography. Much was made of the role of women in photography including a heated debate on the issue.
The last word goes to Cheatle. “ Photography is an interpretation of life, as we know. It is all here to be seen.”
Dubai Photo was 16-19 March 2016
