‘In the hierarchy of fine art, printmaking is usually associated with craft skills – with technique. And that gets in the way. My work was always about the ideas more than the medium‘.
Tim Mara
Alan’s Room, 1974. Courtesy of Alice & Emily Mara
Tim Mara (1948-1997) was a respected Professor of Printmaking at the Royal College of Art in London and was awarded with numerous prizes. His screenprints, which often took up to three months to complete, offer multiple colours over black and white collages.
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, usually on paper. It normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of an image. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable of producing multiples of the same piece, which is called a print. Printmaking is not chosen only for its ability to produce multiple copies, but rather for the unique qualities that each of the printmaking processes lends itself to.
Prints are created from a single original surface, known technically as a matrix. Common types of matrices include: plates of metal, usually copper or zinc for engraving or etching; stone, used for lithography; blocks of wood for woodcuts, linoleum for linocuts and fabric plates for screen-printing.
Tim Mara’s engagement as Professor coincided with important changes and developments in print technology, especially in computerised and digital processes. Tim Mara embraced these exciting advancements and instigated the fine art computer cluster into the department complete with inkjet printers, computers and scanning plus processing technologies.
He was wise enough to view these new technologies as an addition to the family of print mediums not a replacement for its existing processes. He continued to promote and encourage usage of the traditional means of expression alongside and often integrated with these new developments. Needless to say his perfectionism led him to process the prints himself.
Four Heads, 1980. Courtesy of Alice & Emily Mara
His work was often considered as ‘revisiting Pop Art’, indeed everyday life subjects were displayed in bright colours. However Tim stated he was particularly interested in showing still life: ‘I know that the pop thing was going on – screen printing was there, photography was there, the everyday objects were there – but I was much more interested pictorially in Velásquez and Vermeer. Those prints had much more to do with painting. Just because I was using imagery that was contemporary and easily read, because I was trying to speak to the person who was looking at the picture, didn’t mean that my prints were related to Richard Hamilton’s collages‘.
The early prints depict mostly interiors with elaborated composition and some narrative content. They are full of details and made of collaged black and white photographs and as many as fifty or sixty separately printed colours. Both great ability and patience were required. After he graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1973, his patterns became more simple with isolated objects, rather than arranged compositions featuring people and objects. He then achieved technical mastery and was able to reproduce the aspect of any material, from glass to steel. He was really interested in optical perception, rather than in demonstrating manual ability. He wanted to tell stories.
Picture Window, 1980. Courtesy of Alice & Emily Mara
‘I saw myself as a film maker who also made prints. I didn’t want to draw or make a piece of work which relied on manual skill. When you make a film, you prepare the shots, shoot them and edit them but you never touch them – even though you are very involved emotionally and intellectually. I wanted to make pictures in the same way.’
He was the author of many articles and essays on printmaking, and in 1978 he was commissioned to write The Thames and Hudson Manual of Screen Printing.
After his postgraduate degree, Mara joined Bagnigge Wells Stuidio in Kings Cross, and then set up Errol Street Studio with other printmaking graduates Chris Plowman, Tricia Stainton, Phil Griffin and David Jacobson. In 1989 he set up a larger more comprehensive workshop at Wildman Corner Studio in Walthamstow with two friends and ex-students Eric Great-Rex and Martin Barrett.
At the end of the 1980s, he started to juxtapose two pictures of everyday objects. Composition was less dense and narrative content was over. At the time, Tim Mara was trying to achieve a visual connection in his prints. He later continued by experiencing contrasting materials, for example cardboard and wired glass.
Reeded Glass and Shadow, 1997. Courtesy of Alice & Emily Mara
Born in Dublin, his family moved to England in 1953. He attended St. Joseph’s College, London, Wolverhampton Art College and the Royal College of Art, London, from he graduated with a Masters Degree.
He taught as part-time lecturer in printmaking at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, and Brighton Polytechnic before taking up the full-time post of principal lecturer in printmaking at Chelsea School of Art (1980-90). He was appointed Professor of printmaking at the Royal College of Art in 1990 and was head of the School of Fine Art between 1993 and 1995.
During his career, he participated in more than forty group exhibitions and had ten solo shows. He was also awarded with numerous prizes, including the Major Travelling Scholarship by the Royal College of Art (1976), the British International Print Biennale (1982 and 1984) among many others.
His work is represented in several public and private collections worldwide. Some of his work is part of the Victoria & Albert Museum collection.
CONVERSATION WITH ALICE MARA
While in London, I met Alice Mara, one of Tim Mara’s daughters. The meeting point was Walthamstow, North East London, where the Maras are established for several decades. We spent several hours talking, and I felt myself in a privileged position, being able to have a look at all the stored prints.
What do you remember of your father?
I remember I always used to go to his studio, I loved it, and he showed me how to make a positive and other things so I always worked alongside him from a very young age – 8 or something.
Then he decided to give up the studio and work from home. We had a shed in the garden so he built a studio in there. It was quite a big shed actually. He was always cleaning the pictures and silkscreens. He used to take photos of me, my sister and my mum in different outfits for his prints. He used family and friends basically.
I just remember he was always kind of sketching away, always thinking of new ideas. A couple of times, I went out with him to take photos in the street, it could be objects or anything else.
Also as he worked at the Royal College, we would go and visit him there. He was interested in everything that was around him you know: architecture, history, art, news. Near his most recent studio there was a shop called Wakefields. They sold metal buckets and objects that were depicted in the imagery. So my dad enjoyed going there a lot.
Power Cuts Imminent, 1975. Courtesy of Alice & Emily Mara
You told me he was sketching a lot. Did he also use photography?
He was not using photographs to prepare work, he would rather draw in a sketchbook. Some artists paint or do spectacular stuff in their sketchbook, he did not do that. It was more quite more technical in his case I think. He used photography as a separated element. For Power Cuts Imminent he would take pictures of my mum and the television set on the sofa so he sort of directed what he liked. In the late years, for the prints with the single objects, he took a few pictures of the objects he bought.
Tim Mara’s sketch. Picture by the author. Courtesy of Alice & Emily Mara
Tim Mara was also a reputed teacher.
Well, I never witnessed him teaching, that is a kind of aspect I never saw. I know he was friends with his students, and I always see people saying ‘I knew your Dad‘. So I rather know about their perspectives than his. I remember he was talking about his students quite often, he was also kind of proud of them as well, especially when he was teaching at The Royal College. They were really good students, pretty motivated. I remember actually, he worked in a place called Wigan, in the North. He was working with little kids. He did a residency there and he really enjoyed it. The kids were asking really funny questions about printmaking. It was the same with his students. I remember one day, I came home and there was about eight Valentine cards. I asked him if it was somehow related with some project with his students. He replied that he just got these on the morning. I think the students were quite devoted to him.
Mara + Mara
The Eagle Gallery, in association with Sarah Brundle at One Offs, is proud to present Mara + Mara, an exhibition of rare prints from the Tim Mara archive and ceramics by Alice Mara, which have been made in response to her father’s work.
Emma Hill Fine Art Eagle Gallery
159 Farrington Road London
13 May – 11 June 2010 http://www.emmahilleagle.com/
‘I have published this picture many times. I like it because it symbolises the worst about this country, social unequality.’
Tuca Vieira
His work is linked with cityscape, architecture and urbanism, more specifically in São Paulo, his hometown.
São Paulo is known for its helicopter fleet, a sea of traffic, architecture and a multitude of skyscrapers. It officially became a city in 1711 but had lacked any city plan before 1889, and no zoning law was passed until 1972. It is now the largest city in Brazil and the third in the world in number of buildings (more than 5000), losing only to Hong Kong and New York City.
Some describe Tuca Vieira as a urban landscape photographer. His São Paulo series, widely published, shows the gigantic city from different angles, quite often standing back from the urban bustle.
Maybe the urban landscape is the real subject of his work. We notice the photographs depict only a few characters, more often they are in the distance or pictured by a shadow. It seems they are swallowed up by the city’s thickness.
Architecture plays also a major role, with repetitive patterns such as floors or windows. In a way, they contribute to give the impression that the picture sometimes becomes some abstract geometrical canvas. Two pictures I have seen on his website are good examples of this. They were taken from above, one is showing people at a zebra crossing (Paulista Avenue) and the other one is an outdoor market with blue tarpaulins making some kind of mosaic (Concórdia Square).
Tuca’s photographic work embraces both colour and black & white. The shooting viewpoint is quite often in the distance and tends to picture the city as a sprawling entity, possibly scary. Center (see below) is a panoramic view of São Paulo from some building floor which illustrates perfectly this impression, it is as we would look at the metropolis through some skylight.
As a final word to this short introduction, I would like to add that Tuca Vieira is also a sky photographer. I just looked at the images published in this review, as well as the ones displayed in his website (http://www.fototucavieira.com.br/).
I was struck by the fact that the sky is definitely a key element in Tuca’s photography. Either he is pointing the lens of his camera at the sky (see below Washington). Or he is standing in high level when he is taking the shot. It contributes to give some dizzy or breathtaking feeling when we are facing the images, like with most of Andreas Gursky’s work. However the huge difference between them is that Tuca is not so distant with the subject of his photography.
Tell me about yourself.
I am from typical Brazilian, urban, middle-class family, descendant of European immigrants. There are many books trying to define the Brazilian identity, I fell myself somewhere between Bolivia and Italy, let’s say so..
What are you looking for when you process an image?
I am always trying to understand where I am, what things mean and the camera is a wonderful tool for this. Photography has something to do with possession. When I have a good picture of a place, it is like to have the place for myself, or even better, to understand the place. If I can communicate this feeling to another person, then I think I have a good picture.
Do you have criteria for choosing the composition?
After choosing an interesting subject, I try to find the best way to translate the feeling I have in front of this subject. It is a rational and slow process and it is a consequence that some of my pictures have a rigid composition. I try to find a balance, with a good framing everything is important and nothing is missing, every corner has its significance.
What is a typical day of work?
After some years in photojournalism, working on the streets every day, now I find myself most of the time working in office, editing, sending pictures, making computer work, dealing with bureaucracy, etc… I spend less than 30% of my time shooting. It looks boring, but I do think that the less I shoot, the better I shoot, especially in this moment of photography when images are everywhere.
What are your projects?
Now I am editing the pictures I‘ve made in Berlin last year during a three month artistic residency. I wish I could make a book! It was a deep, very intense experience that really changed the course of my photography.
Berlin, 2009. Courtesy of Tuca Vieira
How did you choose to work while in Berlin? Was your interest in the buildings somehow linked with the history of the city? (the Nazi era, the Wall era, the recent rebuidings etc.)
A city like Berlin has a kind of ‘collective memory’. The city means something for everybody, even if you have never been there. In Berlin it is hard to avoid the history behind every building, it is like a historical laboratory of the 20th century. I decided to shoot at night to create this ‘memory city’ but also to explore the new possibilities of color in digital photography. Before digital, we had to use daylight films to shoot at night and everything had a yellow/orange color. I ask myself many questions about digital but this is a good advantage.
How important is art in your life?
It is just like food, I can’t live without art.
Could you review your work in a critical way?
It’s difficult to me. I am a very critical person but I try not to criticize too much my own work. I am afraid that too much self-critic could block the creative process. But (so far) I think I have made a contribution to the photography of São Paulo.
What is your dream?
To create some beauty.
What do you see for yourself in ten years?
I hope I can make more of what I want than what people want me to do.
What epitaph on your grave?
“Diz que fui por aí” (the title of a brazilian song, something like ‘tell them I went for a walk‘).
Office, Rio de Janeiro. Courtesy of Tuca Vieira
Oscar Niemeyer is one of the persons I admire the most. Not only for his art, but also for his political views.
Viaduto Santa Ifigênia. Courtesy of Tuca Vieira
This is in São Paulo Center. To me, it’s like a metaphor of this city where some beauty is possible over the chaos and ugliness.
Baikonour, Kazakhstan. Courtesy of Tuca Vieira
I went to Kazakhstan to cover the story about the first Brazilian astronaut.
London, 2007. Courtesy of Tuca Vieira
Nothing against clichés…
Rio de Janeiro, 2006. Courtesy of Tuca Vieira
There is nothing like to walk in a city with a small camera. Images are everywhere. One of the things I like in photography is to create beauty from this kind of object.
Copan. Courtesy of Tuca Vieira
Copan is a 1954 building by the architect Oscar Niemeyer. It’s a landmark in the city, where 6000 people live, with they own postal code. I live one block from Copan, in São Paulo Center. This is the back facade, hard to see from the street level.
Centro. Courtesy of Tuca Vieira
From an apartment in Copan building.
São Paulo, 2008. Courtesy of Tuca Vieira
Sad and common scene in São Paulo. Sometimes a composition makes the difference.
Washington, 2004. Courtesy of Tuca Vieira
André Kertész, one of my favourite photographers used to say: ’simplify, simplify’.
Tuca Vieira
Born in 1974.
Lives and works in São Paulo.
Became professional photographer in 1991.
Studied Language and Literature at the University of São Paulo.
‘I always thought, that Manchester should have a museum of popular culture. I was going to donate all my memorabilia to it, have a Kevin Cummins room.’
from The Observer 20 September 2009
Factory club, 1979. Courtesy of Kevin Cummins
Manchester’s music scene in a few dates
1976: The Sex Pistols play at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Castelfield (inner city area of Manchester)
1978: Factory Records, the independent record label starts
1979: Factory Records releases Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures
1982: The nightclub The Haçienda opens and becomes the centre of the local acid house and rave scene
1990: The Happy Mondays release Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches and Manchester is dubbed Madchester
Kevin Cummins made his debut in the mid 1970s, when he documented the emerging punk and rock scene in Manchester with bands like the Buzzcocks or Joy Division. He has photographed all the major musicians since then, including Marc Bolan, David Bowie, The Smiths, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Patti Smith, R.E.M., Mick Jagger, Manic Street Preachers, Foo Fighters…
His work can be seen on many record sleeves and book jackets. It encompasses various collaborations, with press playing a major role. He was a founding contributor to The Face, a chief photographer for New Musical Express during ten years, and he has contributed to many major UK publications, such as The Times, The Guardian, The Observer, The Big Issue, Vogue, Mojo, Esquire, Sleaze Nation and Elle. He also played a major role in establishing City Life, Manchester’s what’s on guide.
In 1986 he was commissioned by Wigan Heritage Centre to photograph contemporary life in Wigan – an important period for the town due to the widespread closure of Britain’s coal mines.
He worked extensively with The Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester when it opened in the late 1970s. Later on, he collaborated with The Royal Opera House, The Royal Northern Ballet, The Liverpool Playhouse and The Oxford Playhouse. He is now commissioned by The National Theatre in London on a regular basis.
Being a good photographer is not just about taking good pictures. You also have to be inventive and take advantage of what could be a critical situation. What would you do if the band you are supposed to shoot outdoors does not show up until 6PM when the light is vanishing? In Spain for a NME session with the Happy Mondays, he actually did the shooting on the roof of the hotel, immortalising Shawn Ryder standing with the E letter (see below). This photograph became an iconic image for the Madchester era.
Kevin admits he never liked the studio shooting because it is not a natural environment for the people. He prefers to put them in a place they feel comfortable, a place they belong to. When he shot the famous picture of Joy Division on a snow-covered bridge in Manchester (see at the very end of the article), he wanted to frame them in their environment. He used a 20 mm lens to get the wide perspective, so it seems that they are standing further away. For Kevin, ‘That’s an architectural shot with a band in it.’
His most recent book Manchester: Looking for the Light through the Pouring Rain was released in 2009. It is a beautiful tribute to his home city of Manchester through its pop history and its bands. It also features essays written by the NME writers Paul Morley, Stuart Maconie, Gavin Martin and John Harris. The book has four main sections, corresponding to main musical moments: punk, indie, Madchester and Britpop.
Hotel Subur Maritim, Stiges, Spain, 11 March 1990. Courtesy of Kevin Cummins
Kevin Cummins is a busy man. I had the chance to meet him in London. We discussed photography, his work and of course, Manchester.
Tell me about yourself
I went to a grammar school, and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I think that in England, if like me you go to an all boys Catholic grammar school, it’s a hot-house really to go to university, with very little thought about what you are going to do beyond that, purely to get you to carry on with an education. And I’d always been interested in photography, because my father and my mother’s father – my maternal grandfather - were both keen amateur photographers. So probably from the age of five I was processing; we had a dark room at home and I came to London on some holidays, and took some photographs, and I processed and printed them. I was about five years old and I suppose at that age, you are more interested in the image that comes up on the paper, and that was the excitement, rather than composition, it’s purely this act of magic almost. And then I was due to go to Warwick University to read English, and I met someone that Summer who suggested I should go to do a photography or art degree because that has always been my interest, so at the last minute I changed course and went to study photography, and that was it.
What are you looking for when you process an image?
I think it is different every time. When you work like I do, photographing people mainly, the most important thing for a portrait is to capture something of your sitter in the shot. And I think a lot of photographers tend to want to impose their values on that picture rather than the values of the subject. And so they develop a technique or something which is almost like a signature, that will identify that picture as that photographer’s picture. The subject matter can be anything, the subject is a vanity. But the way I prefer to work is to spend time with people if I can, so I get to know them. Or over the years you develop a working relationship with people so it is quite comfortable when you work, you are moving on a step further because there’s mutual trust there. I’ve worked with quite a lot of people now for thirty years or more, and I am still photographing people I was photographing in the mid-1970s. That is a testimony to the work I do.
But I think the most important thing when you see a photograph of somebody is it’s got to give you something back, it’s got to tell you about that person. You almost shouldn’t need a caption with a picture to tell you more than you thought it was telling you, you should be able to revisit it, and it tells that story.
Nigel, Neil, Simon, Paul and Dave at Prenton Park (Tranmere Rovers FC), 1985.
Courtesy of Kevin Cummins
The picture must tell more about the subject than the photographer.
Yeah there’s too many photographers who like to impose a grand style on it.
Do you have a criteria for choosing the composition?
I like to use architecture, I like to use the architecture of a city in pictures. When you photograph somebody and you are photographing them in their hometown or you’re photographing them in and around their work place, it is interesting to include that in the shot, because again that draws you into the picture.
I have a tendency I think, compositionally, because I am left handed, to always leave space on the left-hand side and draw people into the picture that way, so my subjects tend to be on the right-hand side of the shot. And also I think because I photographed a lot, I probably shot two hundred covers for the NME, and so automatically when I am looking at somebody to do a picture I think space for the logo, and I leave space and bring you into the picture. And sometimes I find I can’t get out of that, I’m locked into this way of composition and I can’t sometimes shift out of it. I think it’s because I’m left-handed…I find it quite awkward using a camera, because camera’s are for right-handed people, so the whole balance of the camera is the wrong way round for me, so it is something I had to fight against initially, to work with.
Mark E. Smith, 2005. Courtesy of Kevin Cummins
What is a typical day of work?
There isn’t one at all. Most people would say a typical day of work for me is spending the day talking to people generally, dealing with requests and the likeness.
When I was working on the board, I was spending a lot of time with the designer, backwards and forwards by email, nobody meets anybody any more so you just happen to sit on your own in a room and communicate via email or by phone or send a text message. A typical day for me is generally not meeting people, it is sitting on my own talking to people by other means. The kind of work I do, 90 per cent of it is dealing with all the periphery work, making sure the printer does what I need him to do the proper way, spending all my time doing my tax returns, and keeping receipts and all this stuff you weren’t trained to do.
In an ideal world you would just take photographs and let somebody else worry about that. We don’t have that luxury.
I sometimes do travel photographs for a travel guide, and that’s great because it means I can just go off for three weeks, I don’t deal with press offices and PRs or anything, it’s almost like a form of escapism, it is almost like a holiday, just photographing.
What about Manchester?
I went to Manchester city football, when the team were moving from their old ground, about five or six years ago, I went and saw them and asked if I could document it. I thought it was important for someone like me to document it. I asked the club if I could take pictures of the final season. I felt it was really important to do it, and they had the foresight to do it. They’d have moved to a new stadium, and it was a shame they wouldn’t have any pictures of the old one. So I offered to do it, and I spent a year with them and they were great to work with, really accommodating. Interestingly, obviously it’s a very closed world football, it’s not my discipline at all doing that kind of thing, but I thought it would be a challenge for me as well, and also to work exclusively with colour was important because what I wanted was to get this feeling you get as a small child going to your first football game and you see this huge expanse of green, it’s really heavily saturated with colour, and the sky’s blue and the grass is green, and the team are the same colour as the sky… and so I spent about two months experimenting towards the end of the previous season, taking pictures with every different film stock I could get, to see which film stock would give me that feeling. So interestingly I wanted it to be shot on film but I also wanted it to be shot on negative rather than color transparency, because I wanted that saturated colour, so eventually I found a Fuji film, Fuji press film that gave that red that would bleed and the green was bright, a unnatural green; it was great film, so I just bought stacks of that, and shot it on that over part of the season. After the initial period where the players were probably slightly suspicious of me being there, they got used to it and would ask me what I was doing and I’d take my own books every now and again and show them how we were progressing with it, so I included everybody. It was really important that they felt part of it, and half way through the season they were so used to me standing there…you know I wasn’t shooting action shots, I was shooting the ground and people who would go on to watch it, the players when they were training… I had to get everybody on my side really. And each week in the match magazine, we’d put a picture from the previous week, and then I’d talk about it, so then all the fans were aware of what I was doing, and quite a lot of City fans know me anyway, because of my music work, so they know who I am; and about halfway through the season people would come up to me and say, ‘there’s a really interesting looking bloke who sits over there, you should go and see him‘, so everybody was getting involved; it was a real community project in the end, it was great. I couldn’t do any music stuff at all that season, because I was so sated on this project. The only other work I did was I shot two or three footballers for interview features for a football magazine that I’d never worked for before. I couldn’t think of anything else. It was a real obsession for a year.
And the pictures of the fans, with the tattoos?
People would email me, and say ‘my sister’s got a really good tattoo‘, or ‘my friend’s got this‘. So I didn’t have to look that far, people were telling me what they thought would be good, it was a nice project. It took me ages then once I’d done it to get it out of my system really, because that had been my world for a year. It’s very different to rock n’ roll, even though you’re working with another level of celebrity. They get up at ten o’clock in the morning and musicians don’t, so it was quite a difficult one really.
Hulme, 1981. Courtesy of Kevin Cummins
And the picture of Hulme Crescents…when I take pictures in Manchester I’m photographing in urban landscapes almost. I quite often shoot street scenes or bits of architecture or bits of new build, or bits of crumbling, just because I thought it was an interesting adjunct to what I was doing, and I felt it was important in a way. There’s a picture I shot on the bridge in Hulme of the road below, and people have said to me that’s their favorite Joy Division photograph, because the band aren’t in it but it’s a picture of the space they occupied, and I think that’s quite interesting.
What are your projects?
Various things actually. But I am always loath to talk about what I’ve got coming up in the future because people might jump in and try and do it instead…I have got a Joy Division book coming up which will be available worldwide, in fact they’re doing a French version. I did a very small edition two years ago, an edition of 200, just like a private press collector’s special. The idea is doing a wider more mainstream version, and I think they want me to put almost every shot in that, so it’s a complete edit of every picture I ever took. And they’ve got Sue Webster, she’s written an essay for it, just a personal piece about what Joy Division meant to her when she was growing up.
And I met Jay McInerney at a literary event in November, and he told me Joy Division is his favorite band so I said ‘why don’t you write the introduction?‘, so he’s writing that, and Bernard Sumner is writing the epilogue. Getting Bernard to do that almost validates it in a way for people who would buy it, it gives it his stamp of authorization on it. And I’m doing a show in Ventimiglia in northern Italy, that’ll be a major picture expo in May and June and that’s quite a nice thing to do. It’s second only to Arles in Europe, for photography. Again they saw the Manchester stuff and the theme this year is photography and the city, and obviously because Manchester is defined by its music they wanted that. That’ll be really nice.
And there are two other things I’m working on at the moment but I don’t really want to say too much about them.
How important is art in your life?
It is really important. I think culture is generally, because that’s the world I’ve worked in. I always complain about photographers but I think a lot of photographers do not look beyond what they are doing. You can look at art and the way other people work and you can look at Noble and Webster and you can look at Jeremy’s work (i.e. Jeremy Deller) and you can look at different ways people work within the art world, using that as a framework without being restricted. I think that’s really important. Photography imposes so many restrictions and I think quite a lot of the time you’re being commissioned by people with no art background whatsoever. Quite often at the NME or the music papers you are commissioned by writers and their idea of a photograph is a very literal interpretation of the read. Maybe occasionally you should do that but you should bring something of yourself, something that they themselves would never have thought of, because that’s our job, that’s where the creative process comes from. I think writers quite naturally do think in quite a literal way. Going back to your question about art, it’s really important, feeling and creativity is important, it takes people out of the mundane.
Liam Gallagher, 1994. Courtesy of Kevin Cummins
Could you review your work in a critical way?
I am quite critical when I choose stuff and quite often, when I revisit, I may think I could have take a better shot if I’d done various things. For example I did a shot of Michael Hutchence, and when I did the shot for the NME cover, he’d just had a hit in England with long wavy hair, and he had it cut just before my shot, so nobody would know him. I thought, and I asked him to write INXS in lipstick on his chest and it looked really great, he had this jacket. And about two months later I thought if I’d just got someone to do a kiss above the I of INXS it would have made the shot, and obviously I could just photoshop that on it but I think that’s dishonest. Every time I look at that shot I think I should have done it. Similarly, with the Joy Division pictures I think, I took those when I was still learning how to take pictures of musicians. So all I knew was I did not want to take a confrontational clichéd rock style picture, I wanted to do something very different from that. So I was restricted slightly by the equipment I was using, and I would maybe have taken those shots in a slightly different way now. It doesn’t matter. It’s a learning thing, you learn as you work and sometimes you can get very bogged down by being over-analytical of your own work. I think you should just take what you think is a natural shot because once you start over-analyzing your work you’re imposing too many restrictions on yourself, so I don’t know, I don’t know how much it matters, it’s up to other people to interpret it, and say what they think, because everybody gets something different from it, they’re not having my experience, and likewise I’m not looking at those photos afresh for the first time.
What is your dream?
I don’t know really. I think I’m going to sound really boring and say I don’t really have one. I think I’ve been, I continue to have, a fairly interesting life-style, somebody might phone me tomorrow and offer me a project to work on that I’d find really interesting, I don’t know. I don’t sit there thinking ‘Oh I wish I could do x‘. I’m able to do that to a degree. About five years ago I was asked to do a collaboration with Jeremy Deller, then the gallery funding was withdrawn or something happened to stop that happening. I like collaborating with other artists, I think it’s interesting, I like to see their interpretation of my work. Stella Vine did a painting from one of my pictures, Peter Blake did an Ian Curtis one, and George Shaw. So I have worked with other people, and I just say ‘well, you do what you want‘. I’m able to phone people to realise dreams sometimes, so that’s quite a fortunate position. In six months time something I’ve never dreamt would be offered to me or existed might be, so I’m too pragmatic to sit there dreaming.
Madonna, 1984. Courtesy of Kevin Cummins
What do you see for yourself in ten years?
I don’t know. Sadly I’ll probably still be photographing Johnny Marr or Morrissey or Bernard Sumner or I don’t know, who knows. I’m happy doing what I do, so I don’t see the need to want to change it, I don’t feel dissatisfied with what I’m doing.
What epitaph on your grave?
I don’t care. I’ll never see it.
Bez, 1990. Courtesy of Kevin Cummins
Kevin Cummins was born in 1953.
He lives in London.
books: The Smiths and Beyond, 2002 We’re Not Really Here: Manchester City’s Final Season at Maine Road, 2003 Juvenes, 2007 Manchester: Looking For the Light Through the Pouring Rain, 2009
The author would like to thank Erin Lawlor for her precious help
Joy Division, Hulme, Manchester, 6 January 1979. Courtesy of Kevin Cummins
Trained as a musician and composer, French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot creates works by drawing on the rythms of daily life to produce sound in unexpected ways. His installation for The Curve takes the form of a walkthrough aviary for a flock of zebra finches, furnished with electric guitars and other instruments and objects. As the birds go about their routine activities, perching on or feeding from the various pieces of equipment, they create a captivating, live soundscape.
Céleste Boursier-Mougenot
New Commission for The Curve
27 February 2010 – 23 May 2010
Barbican Art Gallery
Silk St
London EC2Y 8DS Free admission
Open daily 11am-8pm
Open late every Thu until 10pm
“J’appuie sur le déclic quand je suis à l’unisson avec ce que je vois.” Izis
Sans titre, 1945-1959
En 1951, Izis est l’un des cinq French Photographers exposés au Museum of Modern Art de New York avec Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau et Willy Ronis.
Israëlis Bidermanas nait en 1911 en Lituanie.
En 1930, fuyant les persécutions antisémites dont les Juifs sont victimes, il émigre à Paris, avec l’intention de devenir peintre. Trois ans plus tard, il dirige un studio de photographie traditionnelle dans le 13e arrondissement.
Sur les quais de la Seine, 1949
Pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Izis se réfugie dans le Limousin mais il sera cependant arrêté et torturé par les Nazis. La Résistance le libère, il rejoint le maquis et photographie ses compagnons. Sa première exposition a lieu en 1944 lorsqu’il présente les portraits des maquisards montrés délibéremment tels quels : devant un simple fond blanc, mal habillés, non rasés, hirsutes.
Il revient à Paris après la guerre et devient reporter pour Paris Match. Il réalise des portraits de Jean Cocteau, Grace Kelly, Orson Welles, Edith Piaf, Arman…
Travailler pour Paris Match lui permet de rencontrer de nombreux artistes ou poètes. Il se lie d’amitié avec Marc Chagall, qui l’accompagne souvent pour de longues promenades à pied dans Paris. Jacques Prévert devient également un ami proche, qui signe plusieurs textes pour les ouvrages du photographe. Ses sujets de prédilection : des amoureux, des enfants en train de jouer, des ouvriers, le monde du cirque.
Métro Mirabeau, 6 heures du matin, 1949
Il n’aime pas quitter Paris mais fait cependant deux exceptions : il se rend à plusieurs reprises en Israël entre 1952 et 1954. A la même époque, il effectue plusieurs allers et retours à Londres et publie un ouvrage Charmes de Londres.
Il meurt à Paris en 1980.
Visite de la reine d’Angleterre, 1957
Artiste, reporter, portraitiste et flâneur, l’exposition qui lui rend hommage actuellement à l’Hôtel de Ville rend compte de la diversité de son travail.
Izis, Paris des Rêves, du 20 janvier au 29 mai 2010
Exposition gratuite à l’Hôtel de Ville
5, rue Lobau
75004 Paris
tous les jours de 10 à 19h sauf dimanche et jours fériés
banner: a flag or other piece of cloth bearing a symbol, logo, slogan or other message.
May Day march, London, 2008. Courtesy of Ed Hall
In the past, banners have been mainly used for processions in a religious context. Nowadays as the banners usually hang on the walls of churches, religious processions tend to fade away. You can still find some revival in the French region of Brittany with the so-called pardon. This kind of pilgrimage has some celtic origin and happens on the occasion of main religious celebrations such as the Assumption on the 15th of August. On the same day the unconventional bikers pardon takes place in Porcaro. Established in 1979 by abbot Prévoteau -a biker himself- in order to celebrate Fatima and the bikers’ guild, this event is now gathering 20 000 people each year in the small village of Brittany. Although quite different from the current social parades, pardons are also events involving people sharing a mutual cause or celebration.
According to Dr Myna Trustram, organisations in the UK that have a marching tradition have made banners for centuries in order to identify themselves. This includes trade unions, friendly societies, temperance groups, co-operative societies, Orange orders, suffrage, women’s and peace organisations and political parties, but also non-political organisations like churches, chapels and Sunday schools. Mines, mills, factories or messages are part of the traditional iconography.
May Day march, London, 2008. Courtesy of Ed Hall
London, Thursday 21 January. It is almost 11:00 AM and I have an appointment with Ed Hall, the famous banner maker. He has been designed and created banners for more than twenty years for ‘organisations committed to social and political causes‘. Some of his work is now among the Folk Archive and part of the British Council collection. An important retrospective of his banners has been displayed on the occasion of From One Revolution To Another, the show curated by Jeremy Deller and collaborators at the Palais de Tokyo in 2008. Nearly 40 of them were hanging in the gallery.
A little early on the schedule, I watch with an amused eye a typical Trafalgar Square scene: tourists taking snapshots of themselves with the four lion statues guarding Nelson’s Column. As expected, Ed is on time.
The following conversation took place at Maison Bertaux, a famous tea house à la Française in the presence of two cups of tea, an apple crumble and a giant chocolate éclair.
Tell me about yourself
I started work as an Architect in 1968 and I became involved with trade union work when my Department was threatened with closure under Margaret Thatcher. I became a trade union official and began to make posters and banners. In the last three years I have been able to exhibit work in some beautiful venues, including the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
As an Architect I worked in the public sector, for Liverpool, Greenwich and Lambeth. My work was mainly housing, including at the old Tudor Dockyard in Woolwich and a large site of new houses in Brixton. I also designed a Health Centre and a small shopping mall.
What inspires you?
It started of with very basic trade union causes: people having proper conditions to work in, or political causes where people had been hurt by the police or forcedly imprisoned or have relatives who died in police custody. Although those causes have an impact on very few people, I think they are important causes. Anyone of us can get caught up in one of these incidents or trade union disputes.
How long does it take for you to make one banner?
The ones I am making at the moment which are combinations of sewing, appliqué work and painting are about a hundred hours for each banner. That does not mean to say working seven hours a day. I often start at seven and finish at eleven.
Procession, Deansgate’s Manchester, 5th July 2009.
Organised by Jeremy Deller for the Manchester International Festival
The Big Issue magazine is sold by homeless and vulnerably housed people to make them earn a legitimate income
What is a typical day of work?
I get up as early as I possibly can. The morning for me is the best moment. If I have to paint something or think hard about something, it is always in the morning. In the afternoon I try to do less demanding things like straightforward sewing, making the pose or sewing banners together but I think most people find that in the afternoon the motivation fails a little bit.
What are your projects?
Well I have been lucky in working on behalf of Jeremy Deller and other exhibition work. But my ordinary work is still producing trade union banners which I now have quite a backlog about two years! I am now trying to catch up with this backlog and complete the ones I have promised. And I have a long way behind.
The organisation called the British Council which has spent 75 years buying British artworks. The objective of the British Council is to spread British music, arts, culture in the wide world. They have a collection of paintings which they are showing at the Minsheng Art Gallery in Shanghai; I think as a fore runner to the forthcoming Expo 2010 taking place in Shanghai.
The British Council bought the Folk Archive which Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane have put together and which included some of my banners. And because it now belongs to the British Council, they are taking it to Shanghai. They have also asked me to provide other banners, about twenty of them which I believe will hang in an high space in the Minsheng Art Gallery.
How important is art in your life?
It is very important. I was an architect. I think the English are remarkably ignorant about design and the arts. I mean if you look at countries like France or Sweden where art seems to be part of their lives. In England it is completely separated, art is often ridiculed and people do not really value it very much. I think designing things and putting ideas into a visual form are very important.
Could you review your work in a critical way?
Some things I do were very successfully. There have been things I have done which have not worked very well. I admire painters like Diego Velázquez and Toulouse-Lautrec as they could draw hands, faces and hairstyle easily. I would just love to have that skill: drawing figures in an easy direct way. I would give anything to be able to have that skill!
What is your dream?
I have to say, I am in a very fortunate position. I love doing very prestigious things and that entrance banner on the Palais de Tokyo was a dream. How many people get the chance to have something they have made hanging in a big public gallery in Paris? If I can have any more of that kind of thing, that is my dream.
From One Revolution To Another, Palais de Tokyo, 26 Sept 2008 – 18 Jan 2009
Ana Lopez works with sex workers to demand trade union recognition and safety. This banner was used in Soho, Central London
Did you fulfill your childhood dreams?
The only way I can answer that is, if my life stops now I would be quite satisfied. I have no great unrealistic dreams. I am not gonna compose the Fifth Symphony or paint some day like Rembrandt. I think people must recognize their limitation and be realistic. I am not smug or self satisfied though. The last two or three years I have been extremely pleased about what was happening to me.
What do you see for yourself in ten years?
If people are working hard and producing things, well they like some recognition for working hard and the things they have made, that people can enjoy and look at. If some more of the recognition took place, I would be extremely happy.
What epitaph on your grave?
There should be no sentimentality about people dying. When they are gone, they are gone, you know. Very few people in the world have never die because they left something so important that you could not say ‘Oscar Wilde is dead’ or ‘Toulouse-Lautrec is dead’ because they live on through their work. I think there must come a point when the last banner I made gets parade in public – and it might be hundred of years after I died! – but when the last banner is used in the street or whatever, then I will take this as the epitaph. (laughs)
Jeremy Deller & Alan Kane, Folk Archive: Contemporary Popular Art from the UK, Book Works, 2005, 3rd edition, 2008
ABOUT BANNERS:
Books:
Hazel Edwards, Follow the Banner: An Illustrated Catalogue of the Northumberland Miners’ Banners, Carcanet Press, 1997
John Gorman, Banner Bright: an Illustrated History of Trade Union Banners, Penguin Books Ltd, 1986
‘To draw someone we do not know, who might be someone special is my interest‘
Yuko Nasu
Imaginary Portrait Series, 2006, oil on paper, 18 pieces (50 x 40 cm each). Courtesy of Yuko Nasu
Born in Hiroshima, Japan.
Lives and works in London.
She studied visual design at Kyoto City University of Art until 1997. She used to work as a graphic designer but soon realised that she wanted to do more physical work than being in front of a computer all day long.
She eventually relocated to London in 2005 to study fine art at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.
Yuko Nasu makes portraits. It includes mostly oil painting but sometimes it can also be water colour.
She uses wild brushstrokes and unique colour combinations work to create a camouflage that reveals its subject. Her technique and its effects may remind Edward Munch’s The Scream where the brushstrokes are sweeping and becoming broader. The features of the face are almost removed, what is left is a trace of a mouth or an eye. We cannot say the works look ‘unfinished‘ though, it is rather that Yuko sees only the essential. We are not quite sure if some erasing is in process.
She had her first UK solo show Imaginary Portraits at Zizi Gallery in 2007. Last year she gained some media attention with a portrait of Kate Moss (KM2), although she stated to be ‘unfamiliar with the cultural references or celebrities in contemporary British media stories‘.
She was exhibiting at Art Projects during the last London Art Fair (13-17 January 2010).
Imaginary Portrait Series, KM2, 2009, oil on paper, 50 x 40 cm. Courtesy of Yuko Nasu
I was in London some time ago and I met Yuko on this occasion. The following discussion took place at her studio.
Tell me about yourself
I graduated in visual design at University. I was making posters, advertisements etc. Then I got a job at a TV game company in Japan, I was a 3D, computer graphic designer. I worked there during five years, but I was really bored, working with computers and digital things you know. I was thinking, ‘I would like to do something different, and use my hands to produce something more organic‘. So I quitted the company and I decided to come to the UK. I applied to Saint Martins College. I managed to get in and I studied for one year. Then I took a one-year class at Chelsea College of Art and Design as an international postgraduate. I finished in 2007 and I became an independent artist.
When did you start being interested in painting?
I already liked painting when I was a kid but I was not really serious about it, it was just for fun. I really started to think about painting when I was working for the TV game company. From that time I got interested in arts in general.
What inspires you?
It depends. Basically all that is energetic: it can be music for instance.
How long does it take for you to make one painting?
Sometimes it takes me a month or even more. But I can also make one painting in about fifteen minutes or less. I would say it depends on if I’m lucky or not!
Do you sometimes get back to your work to modify something -a detail?
Once it is done, I do not get back to it. Otherwise I could ruin the painting.
Imaginary Portrait Series, Y, 2007, oil on paper, 50 x 40 cm. Courtesy of Yuko Nasu
What is a typical day of work?
I have a part time job, three days a week, so I am able to dedicate to my work on the evening sometimes. I have a studio so I spend basically the whole day painting when I am not working. I would come in the morning and I would stay until 8:00 PM. Then I go back home. But there is no rule.
What are your projects?
I just exhibited at London Art Fair. Right now I would like to experiment something different, I have been painting the same way for quite some time. I think it is time for a change. For the past year I have been painting in a different way, more abstract. It does not have a title yet.
How important is art in your life?
We cannot live without art, can we? (laughs).
More seriously I am happy when I am painting.
Could you review your work in a critical way?
That is a difficult question… Looking at my work in an objective way is something I am not sure to be able of doing. Maybe I would say my work is getting more sophisticated. And at the same time it is loosing some primitive expression I suppose. As I am becoming better at painting, I have to be cautious not to loose the primitive energy. Otherwise my work could become boring.
1108b, 2009, oil on paper. Courtesy of Yuko Nasu
What is your dream?
I would like to retire in Hawaii when I turn sixty or seventy! Why not?
More seriously, my current dream would be to become a successful artist.
Did you fulfill your childhood dreams?
Growing up I wanted to be a lawyer. I found myself being fascinated with people working in politics or business, all the executive people you know. But I doubt I will fulfill that dream and I like this idea somehow. I prefer to be a painter, working with colours and canvases.
What do you see for yourself in ten years?
I have no idea. I cannot tell exactly what I will be doing in ten years. I wish I could stay in London or at least in Europe. Japanese and European cultures are totally different. There are so many ways of thinking here. But I think I will eventually go back to Japan someday.
What epitaph on your grave?
Rest In Peace? (laughs). We do not have this tradition in Japan. There are no inscription on the grave. We keep ashes in graves, in the past we buried dead bodies but nowadays we do not. I do not want to have my grave and I want my ashes to be thrown in the air or in the ocean. I wanna be nothing after death. It might be a sad thing to my parents because keeping ashes and having a grave is a traditional way for any family in Japan.
