V&A: Photographic Fictions, Making It Up

A smaller show than I expected with one photograph from each artist on display. The curation was fantastic, the deep blue walls allowed for the images to really stand out alongside the different framing and mounting for the work. The various sizing of the works allowed for visual interest to be maintained which worked in the small space they were contained in. Gregory Crewdson’s image was particularly eye catching, as always with his works they are very strong in narrative and I am very aware that each element within the image contributes to the mood and suggestiveness of the scene. The image below was the one in the exhibition, it was beautifully framed and the large print size (roughly 2 metres wide) allowed for the small details to be visible and for me it felt like the woman in the garage was perhaps covering up a murder. Strange how much you can read into an image that has no story in text with it.

Gregory Crewdson, Untitled (Temple Street), 'Beneath the Roses', 2006 I was also looking forward to seeing Duane Michals’ work, as a long time admirer of his photographs I was slightly disappointed to only see one small series of his. It was 'Chance Meeting', 1972 where two men pass in an alleyway without incident, but the encounter seems loaded with significance. The photographs are framed consistently, and the figures move in and out of the shot, as in a film. It’s one of his less visually interesting works but is one of his most well known, I would have liked to have seen his sequence ‘Christ in New York’, but seeing his work up close was still a great experience. Oliver Boberg was interesting, he photographs real life areas and then models them in his studio and photographs the model. (image below)