Stephen Gill (photographer)

Stephen Gill, 2014

Stephen Gill (born in Bristol, 1971) is a British experimental, conceptual and documentary photographer, and artist. He is known for his photographs of East London; his publication of his own books; and his attention to detail of his books as art objects in themselves. He works where he lives and includes this place in his books in novel ways other than just the photographic depiction. His 2005 book Hackney Wick received acclaim.

Life and work

Gill's father, a keen photographer, taught him to develop and print his own pictures in the darkroom in their attic. In 1985, while still at school, he went to work for a local, Bristol-based photography company, copying and restoring old photographs and helping to take family portraits. In 1992 he enrolled in the photography foundation course at Filton College in Bristol. Two years later, he began working full-time in a one-hour photography lab. He then went to work at the Magnum Photos agency in London, first as an intern and then full-time. In 1997 he left Magnum to become a freelance photographer, working on commissions to shoot portraits for newspaper supplements,[1][2] and editorial,[3] whilst continuing to make a variety of personal photographic series. He lived and worked in Hackney, East London, until 2014.[4]

In January 2003 Gill bought a basic 1960s box camera made by Coronet for 50 pence at Hackney Wick market, near where he lived. The camera had a plastic lens, and it lacked focus or exposure controls. The market was a large ad-hoc car boot sale on the site of the old Hackney Wick Stadium, a decommissioned dog racing track near Hackney Marshes. He used the camera to photograph people and the environment at the market over the next two years. As well as what, and how, Gill photographed, the pictures are also distinguished by the unpredictable and poorly rendered images from the camera. "In the late ’90s and early 2000s the idea of quality and technique became so important… and conversations around photography were often very much about dpi and megapixels. Part of me was letting go and rebelling against this stage that photography had reached" he has said.[5] These photographs provided the material for his book Hackney Wick. The area was redeveloped for the 2012 Summer Olympics and 2012 Summer Paralympics.[1][6]

Most of Gill's books until 2014 were shot and created in Hackney. His earliest work was in a straight documentary style. He has gone on to create documentary style photographs in which he alters the image in a variety of ways. Coming Up for Air, Coexistence and Best Before End share a theme of immersion in liquid.[4] Outside In and Talking to Ants use what he terms "in-camera photograms", his attempts to "evoke the spirit of a place";[4] items from the environment in which he is photographing are inserted into the camera itself and included in images in unpredictable ways.[7]

Books are central to Gill's practice with all of his projects conceived of as books.[4] He founded his own publishing imprint, Nobody Books, in 2005, "to exercise maximum control over the publication process of his books" and "to make the book the finished expression of the photographs, rather than just a shell to house them in".[8] He experiments with materials, and has a hands-on, tactile approach to maquette making. This tactile approach includes materials and techniques such as lino cut printing, letter press printing, mono prints, spray paint, and rubber stamps; and on occasion entire books are manufactured and assembled in his studio.[9] by himself and his assistant Richard, who also distribute the books.[4] All the books are designed by Melanie Mues, and are often clothbound hardbacks with bold, graphic covers.[4] Critic Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian in 2010, said "In Britain, Stephen Gill is perhaps the best-known contemporary self-published photographer".[10]

His portrait, editorial and self originated projects have appeared in The Guardian Weekend, Le Monde 2, Granta, The New York Times Magazine, Tank, The Telegraph Magazine, I-D magazine, The Observer, Blind Spot and Colors.[11]

Reviews of his work

Iain Sinclair:

Stephen Gill has learnt this: to haunt the places that haunt him. His photo-accumulations demonstrate a tender vision factored out of experience; alert, watchful, not overeager, wary of that mendacious conceit, ‘closure’. There is always flow, momentum, the sense of a man passing through a place that delights him. A sense of stepping down, immediate engagement, politic exchange. Then he remounts the bicycle and away. Loving retrievals, like a letter to a friend, never possession… What I like about Stephen Gill is that he has learnt to give us only as much as we need, the bones of the bones of the bones…

According to Martin Parr (writing in 2004):

Stephen Gill is emerging as a major force in British photography. His best work is a hybrid between documentary and conceptual work and for this international it is the repeated exploration of one idea, executed with the precision that makes these series so fascinating and illuminating. Gill brings a very British, understated irony into portrait and landscape photography.[12]

Jon Ronson, writing in 2004 about Field Studies, was reminded of the Observer's Books:

Stephen's photos have all the naive gusto of the Observer series of old [. . .] Mercifully lacking in malevolence, they are also wise and modern and beautifully laden with tiny, understated details about the way we live today. [. . .] When you look at a Martin Parr photograph, everything about it says, instantly, Martin Parr. Stephen's photographs, however, are so subtle, so seemingly un-authored, it's only when you stare at them en masse and one after the other, you realise that they can only have been taken by Stephen Gill. There is a tremendous, quiet, respectful, cumulative power to his work.[13]

Books

Books edited by Gill

Selected solo exhibitions

  • 2003: Hackney Wick, Photographers' Gallery, London.
  • 2004: Field Studies, Rencontres d’Arles, Arles, France.[3]
  • 2004: Field Studies, The State Centre of Architecture, Moscow.
  • 2005: Stephen Gill Photographs, Architectural Association School of Architecture, London.[14]
  • 2005: Invisible and Lost, PHotoEspaña, Real Jardín Botánico.
  • 2006: Toronto Photography Festival, Canada.
  • 2007: Anonymous Origami and Buried, Leighton House Museum, London.
  • 2008: A Series of Disappointments, Gungallery, Stockholm.[15]
  • 2009: Hackney Flowers, G/P Gallery, Tokyo.
  • 2010: Coming up for Air, G/P Gallery, Tokyo.
  • 2011: Outside In, Gungallery, Stockholm.[16]
  • 2011: Outside In, G/P Gallery, Tokyo.
  • 2012: Coexistence, CNA, Luxembourg.[17]
  • 2013: Best Before End, Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, Amsterdam. Exhibition of his London series made between 2000 and 2013.[18]
  • 2014: Talking to Ants, Shoot Gallery, Oslo.[19]
  • 2014: Buried flowers coexist with disappointed ants, Christophe Guye Galerie, Zurich.[20]
  • 2016: Stephen Gill's fatigue laboratory, Christophe Guye Galerie, Zurich.[21]

Awards

References

  1. 1 2 Blanchard, Tamsin (14 June 2010). "Photographer Stephen Gill: the devil in the detail". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
  2. ↑ "Stephen Gill", Brighton Photo Biennial.
  3. 1 2 "Stephen Gill, Field Studies". Rencontres d’Arles. 28 April 2005. Retrieved 14 June 2014. Gill is a prolific photographer who also enjoys a successful career as an editorial photographer, and many of his self originated projects have been widely published.
  4. ↑ Lane, Guy (2 July 2008). "Archaeology in Reverse". Foto8. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  5. ↑ Sinclair, Iain (18 March 2006). "Lost treasure". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
  6. ↑ Gill, Stephen. "Outside In". LensCulture. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  7. ↑ O'Hagan, Sean (14 April 2013). "How photographers joined the self-publishing revolution". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
  8. ↑ "Portfolio", Stephen Gill.
  9. ↑ O'Hagan, Sean (4 June 2010). "Self-publish or be damned: why photographers are going it alone". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 June 2014.
  10. ↑ The Photographers' Gallery
  11. ↑ Announcement of "Field Studies" exhibition at the Schusev State Museum of Architecture, 2004.
  12. ↑ Ronson, Jon (15 May 2004). "Attention to detail". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  13. 1 2 "Behind the scenes". Design Week. 28 April 2005. Retrieved 11 June 2014. His father is also an enthusiastic photographer, and taught the young Gill vital technical skills that enabled him to win the Kodak pet portrait award at the tender age of 15. [. . .] Stephen Gill, 29 April to 27 May, at the Architectural Association School of Architecture
  14. ↑ "A Series of Disappointments", GunGallery.
  15. ↑ "Outside In", GunGallery.
  16. ↑ "Stephen Gill : COEXISTENCE", Le Centre national de l’audiovisuel (CNA).
  17. ↑ "Stephen Gill - Best Before End", Foam.
  18. ↑ "Stephen Gill", Shoot Gallery.
  19. ↑ "", Christophe Guye Galerie.
  20. ↑ "", Christophe Guye Galerie.
  21. ↑ "The John Kobal Book Award 2003-2005", John Kobal Foundation.
  22. ↑ "Vic Odden Award", Royal Photographic Society.
  23. ↑ "PHE announces the winners of the Best Photography Book of the Year Award in the city of Alcalá", PHotoEspaña.

External links

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