| Founded in a converted Lyons tea bar on the edge of Covent Garden in 1971, the Photographers' Gallery has, for over 40 years, been a major London venue - a place that has put on shows of grisly Mexican reportage featuring everything from earthquakes to arson; displayed the strange and astonishing archives of the London fire brigade; and mounted work by a few of the world's most famous exponents of the medium. The photographer in a fishing vest, Hasselblad in hand, is fast becoming extinct. With its cutaway black rendering, stretches of the original, late-Victorian patterned brickwork and a wraparound ground-floor window, not to mention floor-to-ceiling windows on the upper storeys that stop you thinking you're standing in a box, the £9. The gallery closed for refurbishment two years ago - and reopens on Saturday. It was a dismal corner, an area of blank walls and unloved pavements that did not appear a step up in the world. The ground-floor glass is being referred to as "the Edward Hopper window", after the American's 1942 painting Nighthawks, a depiction of a desultory late-night diner. But by doubling the gallery space with a two-storey extension, Irish architects O'Donnell and Tuomey have done a terrific job. Everyone is a photographer now, but photography means many things. A digital wall, presently showing artworks based on antediluvian 1987 GIF image file technology, reminds us how much photography has changed and goes on changing. Just as darkrooms close and film becomes unavailable, photography itself has become the most ubiquitous and democratic medium of all. Late-night dive or not, the gallery still has a cafe fixation. Two new layers of high-ceilinged galleries have been added, meaning photography, film, video and digital imagery, along with works that demand controlled humidity and light levels, can finally be shown in the right conditions. The building is elegant, airy, and lets you focus on the work. As it races on, the new gallery is trying to keep up. |
Friday, 18 May 2012
The Photographers' Gallery
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