VIEWFINDING #22
Zanele Muholi / Elaine Constantine / Chris Killip & Graham Smith: 20/20
Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama – Hail the Dark Lioness (Vol. II)
The second instalment in photo-sensation Zanele Muholi’s self-portrait series, which follows their award-winning first volume of 2018.
In the words of publisher Aperture, ‘In Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness, Volume II, Zanele Muholi explores and expands upon new personas and poetic interpretations of personhood, queerness, Blackness, and the possibilities of self. Drawing on material props found in each environment, Muholi boldly explores their own image and innate possibilities as a Black individual in today’s global society, and—most important—speaks emphatically in response to contemporary and historical racisms.’
Curator and historian Renée Mussai brings together written contributions from over ten curators, poets, and authors, to build a poetic framework that ‘extends the idea of speculative futures and the potentiality of multivalent selves.’
Powerfully arresting, this collection further amplifies Muholi’s expressive and radical manifesto. As they state in the first volume, ‘My practice as a visual activist looks at Black resistance—existence as well as insistence.’ Zanele Muholi
Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama – Hail the Dark Lioness (Volume II) is available from Setanta Books for UK delivery in May, and can be pre-ordered here.
Images © Zanele Muholi, courtesy Aperture
Elaine Constantine: I’m Com’un Home in the Morn’un
Photographer and filmmaker Elaine Constantine has been documenting and making portraits of British youth for over three decades now. Her personal love of northern soul music and the scene that surrounds it led to her acclaimed debut feature film, Northern Soul, in 2014.
I’m Com’un Home in the Morn’un is Constantine’s forthcoming exhibition of stills at Martin Parr Foundation, Bristol, and features images she took in nightclubs and northern soul dances through the 1990s at venues including Manchester’s Ritz and London’s 100 Club. An RRB Photobook will accompany the show, of which the publisher says, ‘Elaine Constantine presents her dynamic and full-colour images that capture the northern soul scene of the 1990s, depicting the extreme aerobics and the unstoppable energy of twenty and thirty-somethings.’
‘I remember going down those stairs into that dark basement and seeing those shadowy figures moving energetically in sync with each other; it all came back to me in an instant and made me slightly hesitant… It was obvious the scene had gone further underground, the crowd older, little new blood, the records more obscure and the attitude on the dancefloor as fierce as ever. Could I really take pictures in this place? As I suspected it would, the blast from my first flash altered the atmosphere. I braved it to shoot a few more from different angles but things felt worse with each blinding shot. The relief I felt when I heard the familiar opening bars of ‘This Won’t Change’ by Lester Tipton, a fast, raw, jerky yet tender sound. I pushed the camera bag under a chair and got lost dancing in the shadows until morning. The feeling of being some kind of culture vulture left me gradually with each record.’ Elaine Constantine
Elain Constantine: I’m Com’un Home in the Morn’un will be on display at Martin Parr Foundation from 11th July to 22nd September, and signed copies of the photobook are available to pre-order from RRB Photobooks at a discounted rate here. There is also a special edition (of 100) that comes with a signed 10 x 8 in. print of Steve in the Kitchen (above), also currently at an introductory price, more details here.
All images © Elaine Constantine, courtesy of RRB Photobooks
Chris Killip / Graham Smith: 20/20
First published to accompany the original exhibition at Augusta Edwards Fine Art in 2022, Chris Killip / Graham Smith: 20/20 is now reprinted to accompany the current show of the works at the Martin Parr Foundation, Bristol.
Killip and Smith each chose twenty monochrome images for the exhibition and book, hence the title. These show the North East of England; starting in 1975 when the area’s heavy industry was still thriving, then the slide into decline, and by 1987 the societal devastation in the region under the policies of Thatcherism.
In the words of Augusta Edwards, ‘Killip and Smith first met in the summer of 1975 when their paths converged through Amber Films, a film and photography collective in Newcastle upon Tyne. A close and lifelong friendship followed and in 1985 they created their seminal exhibition, ‘Another Country’. In 1991, their works were shown alongside three other photographers at MoMA, New York, under the controversial title ‘British Photography from the Thatcher Years’. Following a backlash from some UK newspapers and the effect it had on individuals and their community portrayed in Smith’s images, he stepped back from the public arena of photography. As a consequence, Smith’s work is not as widely known as it merits. Killip, who was teaching at Harvard University in this period, went on to exhibit widely.’
Chris Killip / Graham Smith: 20/20 is available from Martin Parr Foundation here.
Chris Killip: Skinningrove, as featured in VIEWFINDING #12, will be published by STANLEY /BARKER next week and can be pre-ordered here.
Images © Chris Killip Photography Trust / Magnum Photos, courtesy Augusta Edwards Fine Art / © Graham Smith, courtesy Augusta Edwards Fine Art
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