понедельник, 15 сентября 2008 г.

tom hunter

Couple of years ago during my short stay in London I traditionally visited the National Gallery. Wondering through big halls I entered one exhibition room, where I was struck by large beautiful contemporary paintings, or rather they looked like paintings to me at the first glance. When my first impression wore off and I came closer, I discovered to my surprise that there were immaculately staged photographs by Londoner Tom Hunter in front of me.
Inspired by master art of past centuries and everyday life in his local community in Hackney, with the use of powerful compositions and lighting of the master paintings he created masterpieces of his own.


“Woman reading a possession order” (left) is a straightforward allusion to “A girl reading a letter by an open window” by Vermeer (right).
Like Vermeer’s masterpieces Hunter’s photograph tells a story about its own time and place. It is clear from the title that young mother is going to be thrown out. This photograph is not particularized or personal, but it is a mirror image of the constrained class that was translated from 17th century to nowadays. This is a picture from series titled “Person Unknown”, although the woman, trapped in stillness of what appears to be personal moment, is remarkably familiar to everyone. This photograph has a propinquity that strangely echoes our collective experience of feelings of loneliness and unimportance, worries, fears, needs, hopes and wishes.



“Living in hell and other stories” is a series of photographs based on horrifying ghastly headlines of local newspaper the Hackney Gazette. This picture “Living in hell” (above) was addressed to “Four figures at a table” (below) by Le Nain brothers. The photograph tells a story of social abandonment and complete neglect, showing the old woman surviving in a filthy mucky apartment surrounded by scraps of decomposing food and cockroaches. She is confined to her couch let down by family and left in her own struggle for survival. The woman at “Four figures at a table” is facing us with dignity despite of her indigence. She has her family to support her, unlike the woman at Hunter’s photograph, where dignified poverty of 17th century happens to be humiliating, shameful and degrading.

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