The exhibition brought together works by Alexis Hunter (1948 – 2014) and Jo Spence (1934 – 1992), two pioneering artists whose radical work in the '70s and '80s brought new rigour to photographic portraiture. Using the camera as an instrument of democratic action and the body as an emphatically political site, both artists embraced role-play, storytelling, and re-enactment to scrutinise female subjectivity playfully — innovations that would decisively influence the artistic strategies of future generations.
Hunter displayed hand-coloured xeroxes from the late '60s and a very early instance of colour xerox, Perceptions in Times of Crisis (1977), depicting a woman in the act of suicide, which was originally shown the same year it was made at the ICA. Starting out as a painter and working across media — from 36 mm slide to colour xerox on a role of cartridge paper, for instance; or collaging, colouring and captioning newsprint — Hunter blurred distinctions, literally handling the photographic image as a way of exerting control of perceptions and critiquing gender stereotypes.
For Spence, photographic empowerment went further still, capable not only of affecting issues of class, power and gender, but even, poignantly, of health; from this perspective, she fought against all forms of domination. The exhibition presents a selection of her Phototherapy works, photographs that assumed an important aspect of her battle with breast cancer through the '80s. These images staged for the camera the personal trauma she was living through, offering a way to reframe memory and reclaim her body from the machinery of modern medicine. Spence called her work 'cultural sniping', revealing the broader reach of what at first seems unsettlingly private. Her photographs flew in the face of all the givens in art, utilising the aesthetic of the amateur snapshot, focusing on process rather than product and placing her own unconventional physique centre-stage. Their raw autobiographical reckoning and refusal to conceal weakness paved the way for works by Jenny Saville, Gillian Wearing and Tracy Emin over a decade later.
This was the first solo presentation of Hunter's works since her exhibition at Norwich Gallery in 2006 and follows Spence’s major retrospective at SPACE and Studio Voltaire in London in 2012. The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue designed by An Endless Supply with commissioned writing from Beth Bramich, Nina Wakeford and Louisa Lee that explores the influence of Alexis Hunter and Jo Spence on a current generation of artists, writers and academics.
Biographies:
Alexis Hunter (b. 1948-2014, Auckland, New Zealand) Recent important exhibitions include Taking Matters Into Our Own Hands, Richard Saltoun/Karsten Schubert Gallery, London (2013). Mujer / Woman, The Feminist Avant-Garde from the 1970s, Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid (2013), WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, MCA, Los Angeles and touring (2007–09) and will be included in The Weak Sex – How Art Pictures the New Male, Kunstmuseum Bern (2013–14).
Jo Spence (b. 1934–1992, London, UK) Recent solo exhibitions include Work (Part I & II), Studio Voltaire & SPACE, London, UK (2012), DOCUMENTA 12 (2007), Jo Spence — Beyond the Perfect Image, MACBA, Barcelona, Spain and touring to Camera Austria, Graz, Austria (2005–06). Upcoming solo exhibitions include White Columns, New York, USA (2013).
Location:
Richard Saltoun