Andrew Bruce and Anna Fox. Spitting / Spitting Image

Fun display at the Centre for British Photography of photographs of Splitting Image puppets.

These works were commissioned by the Hyman collection which includes a number of the original puppets by Fluk and Law of Margaret Thatcher and her Cabinet Ministers and they asked  photographers Andrew Bruce and Anna Fox to respond the figures.

These were pictures of the puppets against bright backgrounds. In some cases they were taken almost like portraits yet they were missing legs and in some cases were only heads. In one image they were piled on top of each other. It made them look even more ominous than they originally did.

I attended the show with a young Swedish friend so it was funny to try to describe to them what Splitting Image was. They were so iconic to me but alien to them, even most of the politicians being lampooned were now unknown to them. It just shows how people and things get forgotten and in the case of many of these politicians that’s just as well! All things will pass.

Closes 23 April 2023

 

 

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