Cathy's Art Diary

Excellent exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum highlighting Sir Elton John and David Furnish’s photographic collection. I’d seen highlights of the collection before at Tate Modern but it was good to see a more comprehensive show. It was gently themed starting with fashion, moving through celebrity, the male form, documentary photography and ending with abstract pieces. It did feel like the more popular work came first but that might just be my taste. The pictures and rooms were well described and I found lots of stories to follow up. The emphasis was very much on the works not the collectors. I was quite pleased with how many photographers I recognised from other shows. I think my favourite picture was this one by Hiro (Yasuhiro Wakabayashi) of Shinjuku Station in Tokyo and I was surprised to find it had been taken in 1963 as it felt very contemporary. Closes 5 January 2025 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard    

Wonderful exhibition at Tate Modern looking at modernist photography in the first half of the 20th century. The show was fascination as it gave a good overview of photography in this period when artists were transforming how photography could be used. It picked good clear themes to look at such as portraits, the start of documentary photography and abstraction. There were some amazing pictures such as a wall of portraits by Irving Penn taken in a wedge shaped set which gave a sense of confinement. I loved the one of Duke Ellington. A very art deco photo by Rudolf Koppitz of three women in long black outfits with a naked woman in front creating a wonderful contrast against the black. I liked the section on how taking a different view on a real object can create an abstract image such as Emmanuel Sougez picture of half a cabbage and Aleksandr Rodchenko’s picture up a transmission tower. As interesting as the individual works was to look at the pictures as a collect...