The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2017

Disappointing exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery for the shortlisted nominations for this annual photographic prize.

I found most of this year’s shortlisted works slightly self-indulgent recording personal experiences rather than observing life. Awoiska van der Molen’s work was very tranquil and recorded her emotional response to various landscapes. I liked the fact she printed the work by herself so that she was part of the whole creative process but I found the work a bit cold and about her experience not mine.

Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs had recorded a road trip from Switzerland to Mongolia drawing on memory and imagination which was displayed as an installation. I wasn’t quite sure how it all hung together and what the narrative was.

Most self-indulgent but also oddly most fun was Sophie Calle’s work dealing with the deaths of her parents and cat and looking at the fragility of memory. Who can resist a picture of a cat in a coffin and a taxidermy giraffe head? I’m not so sure I understood the accompanying commentaries which again seemed to be more about the artist working though something than the effect on the viewer.

I liked Dana Lixenberg’s work creating a collaborative portrait of the people in the Imperial Courts housing project in Los Angeles  as a magazine assignment following the Rodney King riots. These were lovely large scale works presented like old masters with strong faces looking out inviting you to accept them on their own terms.

Closes on 11 June 2017.

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