You are invited to the opening of this show on Thursday 8 Oct, 6.30-8.30pm
Photographs by Paul Baldesare and Peter Marshall
Shoreditch Gallery
The Juggler, 5 Hoxton Market, London, N1 6HG
3 Oct- 31 Oct 2009, weekdays 8-6 : Sat10-4 : closed Sun
The show is a part of Photomonth 2009, the East London photography festival and the This Is Not A Gateway Festival 2009
Website: http://takeninlondon.co.uk/
London still has a claim to be the greatest city in the world and it is still the most photographed of all cities. The key area of all cities is the street, where people walk, congregate, shop and meet, and both Marshall and Baldesare come out of the tradition of street photography and concentrate on the life of ordinary people – who are often extraordinary on those streets.
For Baldesare, trade defines the city, and his work concentrates on the shopping streets – particularly Oxford St, the hub of consumerism – and markets. The people on whom he concentrates are very much surrounded by advertising hoardings, window displays and other blandishments of the consumer society. But it is the people themselves who remain important, retain their individuality and autonomy despite their sometimes overpowering surroundings. Their gestures, body language and expressions are the stuff of these images, which often show a surprising intimacy in these very public places.
Marshall‘s work looks at the city as an arena for politics, reflecting local, national or international issues on the streets of London. His ‘My London Diary’ from which these images are taken is a unique record, published on the Internet, a highly individual cross-section of political and cultural life across the capital. It is a work that owes its existence to the Internet, and an attempt to exploit some of the properties of the medium particularly in presenting the work back to those that he photographs. By May 2009 there were 40,000 images in this on-line archive.
Paul Baldesare: Woman with cigarette, Debenhams
Peter Marshall: March on the City, Oct 2008
