Review: A Positive View - Landmark Photographic Exhibition in support of Crisis

Yesterday on a bright and breezy afternoon, I drifted into Somerset House, as you do, to discover this amiable exhibition in support of Crisis. That's the nice thing about free exhibitions in elegant small spaces (ICA please take note).

The exhibition/auction (the third in a series) was launched a few weeks ago amid front page news stories of Prince William taking photographs of Jeff Hubbard (who was homeless) and vice versa, under the supervising eye of Rankin.
Under the curation of Nadim Samman, works have been donated, chosen and divided into thematic sections. Nothing too challenging here in terms of curatorial discourse, what a welcome change. What is so nice is that this emergent process of selection has resulted in some interesting juxtapositions, classic work which is not often displayed and a range of provenance that one would not usually experience. Horst P. Horst sits alongside Corinne Day alongside the eye catching warts-and-all compositions of Paul Kelly, currently taking a degree in photography with the support of Crisis.

It was wonderful to be given the opportunity to see a print of Tessa Traeger’s Garlic (1996) – one of her earthy studies of hands holding a large bulb of the stuff. So too the dark technicolour of Robert Polidori’s 1401 Pressburg Street, New Orleans 2006, the opulent decay of which is so characteristic of him. I also enjoyed Angela Williams' 1964 portrait of Audrey Hepburn, her attention caught elsewhere and glimpsed through a soft cotton wool foreground of blur. In a lovely dark area of the exhibition with a soft black carpet which invited me to go barefoot, I came across Mike Hoban’s atmospheric and many layered Asylum Number 1, 2009, a corridored interior trapped behind Perspex which gets my vote as the most intriguing experience of this well mannered exhibition.

At the exhibition desk, put in a paper bid for the work you like best for the Christie’s Auction on 15th April; the proceeds go to Crisis. How remarkably civilized.