Private view: 17 June, 7-9 pm at Atrium Gallery, The London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE
Collaboration with LSE Arts.
www.lse.ac.uk/collections/artsAndMusic/artProjectsAndExhibitions/Default.htm
LSE Arts is pleased to present the first public exhibition in the LSE’s newly refurbished Atrium space, renamed Atrium Gallery. Over the coming year, Atrium Gallery will host a wide-range of exhibitions showcasing high quality contemporary art and projects that have been specifically devised to explore relationships between art and the social sciences.
For its inaugural exhibition, LSE Arts (in collaboration with TAG Fine Arts) brings together two striking bodies of photographic portraiture by Kate Potter and James Tye. In Kate Potter’s large-scale portraits, domestic non-breed cats are depicted using a genre of photography commonly associated with the anthropological categorisation of the human subject. Following similar rules, Potter’s has her feline subjects stare directly at the camera to meet our gaze in a decidedly deadpan manner. These photographs are remarkable for both the intimate level of detail they reveal and also because they induce us to view them, as we may similar photographs of humans, not simply as generic types, but more so as individuals with different personas.
James Tye’s ongoing series of portraits, Still Standing comprise portraits of boxers, created by way of a temporary photographic studio set up in a boxing club. Following their training sessions and fights, boxers would, on their way to the changing rooms, be invited by Tye to pose briefly for a photograph. Without the familiar tropes associated with the spectacle of boxing, these images provide an alternative, but equally fascinating, insight into the world of the pugilist. The qualities of power, control and visceral energy here make way for a certain sense of exposure as if the subjects have been caught, as it were, between a moment of adrenalin rush and exhaustion.
Through their respective approaches, Potter and Tye capture both the particular and the unexpected characteristics of their sitters. For Potter this manifests itself by way of her subjects assured gaze and uncanny persona, whereas in Tye’s images, notions of vigour and bravado, make way for a moment of vulnerability. Despite their apparent differences, together Potter and Tye’s photographs also explore the ambivalent nature of photography itself, in terms of its power to capture real or imagined identity.
Southpaw is organised by LSE Arts in collaboration with TAG Fine Arts.
The exhibition has also been supported by Metro Imaging and Kay Mounting.
To RSVP for the reception or for information on the exhibition please contact:
Richard Hylton, Arts Co-ordinator, T: 44 (0)20 852 3793
or [email protected]
Photographs by James Tye from his 2007 Still Standing Series recently published in Portfolio Magazine (ed. 47) will be included in the exhibition.
Listings Information
Artists: Kate Potter and James Tye
Exhibition Title: Southpaw: New and recent photography by Kate Potter & James Tye
Reception: Tuesday 17 June 2008 7-9pm
Exhibition Dates: Monday 16 June - Friday 18 July 2008
Opening Times: Monday - Friday 10 - 6pm
