Everything Was Moving: Photography from the 60s and the 70s, Barbican Art Gallery - review
In the decades covered by this superb exhibition, the world went through dramatic changes: young Americans and Europeans demonstrated against the Vietnam war and apartheid as the Soviet Union, China and South Africa censored photographers.
Defeating the censors, loopholes are apparent. Boris Mikhailov’s gorgeous Superimpositions conceal metaphoric images by layering transparencies; Chinese photo-journalist Li Zhensheng, imprisoned for documenting the Cultural Revolution, buried his negatives. From New York, Bruce Davidson immersed himself in the Deep South, portraying the black leaders, rallies and marches with typical sympathetic care, and like Mexican legend Graciela Iturbide, he shares a compassion for communities. In her case, her almost academic studies are of women in remote areas, possessed of mythic qualities and epitomised by Our Lady of the Iguanas.
Within South Africa, apartheid was the focus: the late Ernest Cole, like Li, emerged recently through his rediscovered archives. His close-up of two handcuffed men arrested for being in white areas combines artistry with compassion, and his work complements the more literal social documentaries by David Goldblatt which still make significant statements today. For Shomei Tomatsu, godfather of modern Japanese photography, the post-War American presence is illustrated through suggestion, metaphor and almost abstraction, and titles like Coca-cola.
Working in a different realm, American legend William Eggleston shifted from monochrome to colour film and began shooting mundane objects. A phase of incorporating bloody redness introduces a gravitas appropriate to his Southern home.
This is a refreshing contrast from the popular music retrospective over-load from similar decades.
Until January 13, barbican.org.uk (020 7638 4141)
