Next up in the best book, pre-list categories is the best book that's an exhibition, or is it a book.
The first one is Eamonn Doyle's mad book, End. It's the last in his trilogy of Dublin street books and it's a kind of sketchbook for the show that wowed Arles this year and was made in collaboration with graphic designer Niall Sweeney and composer/sound artist David Donohoe.
It's something else, and like all of his work (except the backs - I love the backs) I can't decide how much substance it really has, but it's certainly an eye-catcher with it's mass of pull-outs, use of different materials and integration of graphics and cellophane into the mix.
But at Arles, Doyle went beyond eye-catching and proved he knows how to show the work, he knows how to use sound and music and walls and scale to bring the work up to a different level, how to affect people with his mixing of sound and space and image. And by doing that he gives it a whole bunch of substance. And because END was made in conjunction with the show, indeed was a kind of sketchbook of the show, that adds substance to the book. The one feeds forward and the other feedback and you're in a kind of feedback loop. Which is exactly what happens at the show (not that I was there mind).
A lot of Doyle's creativity comes directly from his career in music, a world where Doyle used to organise club nights where creative mixing were "what you do on a club night so we thought we'd give it a go in Arles" (I'm quoting from memory there). So in a very direct way, the show that made such an impression on Arles came from an intermingling of the bodily fluids of the worlds of music and photography. Above all else, it showed what a great curator Eamonn Doyle is.I'd love to see what he'd do with Robert Frank or Gary Winogrand - or both actually. So long may that intermingling continue, and long may there be more such interminglings. It makes us all culturally richer and stronger!
A few years back I met a guy who told me that he even though he didn't look like an artist, he was an artist.
Trouble was the guy had statement glasses, a black polo neck, and a designer chin. He didn't look like an artist in the same way that Danny Kaye doesn't look like a choreographer when he's doing the Choreography number in White Christmas.
Kaye (who was a choreographer in real life) looked like somebody pretending to be a choreographer, in the same way my guy looked like somebody pretending to be an artist.
Because really, what does an artist look like?
Does the British photographer Peter Mitchell look like an artist? He doesn't wear statement glasses or have an 'artist's' haircut, so maybe not (though he does wear DMs). What I do know is that he is one; through his work, through his life, through his persona. he's the living embodiment of an artist.
Last year his Scarecrow-centred biographical book, Some Thing Means Everything to Somebody came out. I was told he was on death's door, that he wasn't going to make it through the week, that this would be the only review that he would see of the book. So I wrote a very nice one. And it did the job. He's alive and kicking now, And he is very suddenly being recognised as an artist in his own right. And I guess it's all down to me for keeping him going with that review.
More than that, though, is the influence Peter has had on a generation of UK photographers. I wrote a chapter on British photography from 1970-2000 for the History of European Photography series recently.
It was really difficult to do. I had to narrow it down to about 25 photographers across all genres, and so as a result loads of great photographers and artists were missed out. No David Hockney for example! How can that be so?
There are so many great photographers from the 1970s in particular who I just couldn't include and it was a real shame. It made me sad.
What was interesting was that some key people who were working back in the day helped in my choice making. And there was one name that kept on coming up. And it was Peter Mitchell.
'Oh yes, you have to have Peter Mitchell.' He wasn't a big name, but in the small world of British photography he was huge.
The quality, the colour, the originality of his work are why he is so highly thought of. But there is also the thoroughness and the work ethic. The Scarecrow book highlights his individuality and unique way of thinking, but look at Memento Mori and you end up with quite a different persona.
This is a complete book, a beautifully researched book that ties in architecture, social history with
news reports, planning documents and archive pictures of all time.
The subject of the book are the Quarry Hill Flats, flats which, according to a newspaper report from 1939t were felt to have 'something immoral and disreputable' about them and 'were thought to be largely inhabited by actresses, Lords and foreigners.'
Memento Mori a reprint of the original 1990 version and is published by RRB which is run by Rudi Thoemmes, Peter Mitchell's biggest fan and the brains behind Photobook Bristol. The book is laid out in chronological form, starting with reports on the design and construction of the flats, the inspiration in the Karl Marx-Hof in Vienna, all the way through to their destruction and beyond.
Interspersed with the documents are Mitchell's own thoughts, tied in to the political events of the time (the three-day week of the 1970s makes everything seem like wartime). There are notes on the structural failings of the flats and vandalism in the area (one couple from Northern Ireland talk about wanting to move back to Belfast for a bit of peace and quiet).
So it's a superb book, a book that was originally published in 1990 but feels very contemporary with its use of multiple voices, a range of visual sources (including a range of archive and vernacular images) and a layered narrative that combines with Mitchell's personal vision.
Does it make him an artist? In terms of the quality of work, it does, in terms of the attention he has received for the book, I'm not so sure. Memento Mori was recognised by many as one of the great documentations of social housing, and it struck a chord in Leeds where it went way beyond the 1990 photobook ghetto. But in the wider world? I'm not sure.
As I mentioned earlier, Peter Mitchell has very suddenly got the attention of people in the UK, Europe and beyond in a way that he didn't have a couple of months ago let alone a couple of years ago.
But it's not because of any of the work that he has done, and not really directly due to the books that have been made.
What makes the difference? A show at Arles helps.
And an article on his scarecrows by Geoff Dyer in the New York Times. That really does the job.
So if you want to look, feel, and sound like an artist, forget the glasses and the polo neck and the mid-life crisis leather jacket and the Danny Kaye beret. Get an interview by Geoff Dyer for the New York Times. Then everyone will come running and you will be a real artist.
So I was writing about Clare Strand's Skirts series for the BJP (which I really like, especially after talking to her and seeing how they tie in to her other work and her particular way of working - which is organic and mysterious!) and somehow I started imagining that the skirts look like cupcakes and chocolates.
That got me thinking about chocolates and then I started singing Savoy Truffle by the Beatles - so I googled that and suddenly I'm into Good News chocolates, which my nan ( that's her above, second from the left, on a temperance March in Chorley ) n used to buy me when I was a kid because they weren't as pricey as Milk Tray and they came in smaller boxes. They were a kind of starter chocolates.
And they are also what Eric Clapton used to eat - that's what the song is about. That's why they have the bit about having teeth pulled out, something that resonates both with me and my nan, who had them all pulled out when she was 20, as you did.
So there you have it. From Clare Strand to Eric Clapton in 3, 4 easy steps with a bit of dental history along the way.
Crème tangerine and Montelimar A ginger sling with a pineapple heart A coffee dessert, yes, you know it's good news But you have to have them all pulled out After the Savoy truffle
Cool cherry cream, nice apple tart I feel your taste all the time we're apart Coconut fudge really blows down those blues But you'll have to have them all pulled out After the Savoy truffle
You might not feel it now When the pain cuts through You're going to know and how The sweat is going to fill your head
When it becomes too much You'll shout aloud
You'll have to have them all pulled out After the Savoy truffle
You know that what you eat you are But what is sweet now turns so sour We all know Ob-la-di-bla-da But can you show me where you are?
Crème tangerine and Montelimar A ginger sling with a pineapple heart A coffee dessert, yes, you know it's good news But you'll have to have them all pulled out After the Savoy truffle Yes, you'll have to have them all pulled out After the Savoy truffle
So the basic story of Alison Rossiter's Lament is they are a series of found and chemically created images made from old papers that Alison bought on ebay.
That is the basic story, but within that story there lies a social, cultural and economic history that has echoes of the technological and aesthetic developments of photography in the first half of the twentieth century.
The story of finding and buying the papers is also fascinating,the packages the papers are contained in so beautiful and evocative of a different time and approach to the production of the photographic print, one that is slower, more considered and in keeping with Alison's background in both conservation and the darkroom, part of a photographic subculture where material, chemistry and tonality take centre stage.
Alison's work will be on show in Arles. Below are some of the paper packages on their way to a show at Marian Goodman in Paris - absolutely beautiful and all bought from ebay.
