Organised by The Photographers' Gallery
A new course led by David Bate that looks at recent tendencies in photographic practice, tracing a line to the work of earlier photographers and artists
Course overview
From portraiture to landscape, still life and framed pictures hung in a line, photography has long borrowed heavily from painting. Mixing it up: plural photography explores a new tendency across contemporary photographic practices that rejects the old unified genres and styles of traditional photography.
Whereas conventional, modern practice was rooted in showing singular control over the medium, new photography celebrates multiplicity, plurality and diversity. It is now quite normal for a photographic project to use multiple formats of photograph, mixing for example, a snapshot styled image with a large-scale, studio-format portrait photograph.
Photographers discussed include: Ansel Adams, Claude Cahun, Sophie Calle, Andreas Gursky, Hannah Höch, Deana Lawson, El Lissitzky, Lee Miller, Lázló Moholy-Nagy, Zanele Muholi, Man Ray, Cindy Sherman, Alec Soth, Jeff Wall and Alberta Whittle.
David Bate introduces these exciting new tendencies and explores their historical links to avant-garde art. Mixing it up: plural photography asks why these practices have become more central. What do they say about us today?
Course format
Each week gives focus to an area of photography where this new pluralism is evident and discusses its features. David Bate introduces the session with a talk showing different practices and gives time for discussion afterwards.
Who is this for?
Open to all – no special prior knowledge of photography is required. Also suited to anyone interested in finding out more about how pictures work at a deeper level and to look at a wide spectrum of contemporary photography.
Schedule
23 Jan: Introduction – a short history of the new plural formats: genres and mixing (El Lissitzky, Hannah Höch, Deana Lawson)
30 Jan: Assemblages – the unities of difference – complication communication? (Dora Marr, Alberta Whittle)
6 Feb: Identities – bodies, faces and poses – who are we? (Claude Cahun, Zanele Muholi)
13 Feb: Spaces and non-places – shattered attitudes to contemporary life? (Lázló Moholy-Nagy, Alec Soth)
20 Feb: Things – objects and cultural presence – where are they? (Man Ray, Ansel Adams)
27 Feb: Stories – documenting, staging, doing - short memories? (Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall)
Biography
David Bate is an artist and Professor of Photography at University of Westminster. He is widely known internationally as a key scholar on photography and the visual arts. He is also co-editor of the international photography theory journal Photographies published by Routledge, and author of Photography: The Key Concepts (Routledge, 2019, 2nd edition); Photography as Critical Practice: Notes on Otherness (Intellect, 2020); and Photography after Postmodernism: Barthes, Stieglitz and the Art of Memory (Routledge, 2022). He received the prestigious Education Award from the Royal Photographic Society in 2018.
Ticketing
Two bursary places for UK-based individuals facing barriers to participation are available on a first come, first served basis. Please apply by emailing projects@tpg.org.uk by noon on Thursday 1 September, briefly stating your reason for applying for a bursary place. All information will be kept confidential and anonymous, and destroyed after processing within GDPR guidelines. Please note: If you have taken up the offer of a bursary place for one of our activities, kindly wait 12 months before applying again in order to leave places available for others.
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