Exhibition title: It's a Crime to Take Photographs this Good.
Artist: Weegee.
Gallery: The Michael Hoppen Gallery London. Ends Saturday 9th January.
After spending much of the christmas break away from the London galleries I felt a rush of excitement when we scheduled the Weegee exhibition hosted at the Michall Hoppen Gallery this week. Taking his unique name from the dark arts of the 'Ouija' Board, Weegee's work is considered some of the finest and darkest photojournalism to grace the photographic practice. Though he never intended his work to be 'art' imagery, the spontaneity and careless nature of the images pull theses pictures into that exact category of artistic urban documentation. The mere fact that Weegee was commissioned to shoot the photography for Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strange Love 1964 shows just how much Weegee's unique uncanny image making transfers into one of the most successful and iconic films of all time.
I marveled for the best part of the show at the image above. A New York building on fire shot in the 1940's. Everything about the photograph is poetically eloquent, Weegee makes the fire dance and the act of distinguishing artistic, with a long exposure, Weegee captures the awkward movements of the burning heat. Movement, composition and light are the fundamental pieces that bond together to make this image a master class of what can only be said to be photography at it's very very best.
I looked into the distance of the image and saw the side street next to the building is lit so fantastically that in competes against the gradeur of the burning building itself. Just a tiny jewel inside a diamond stone. I never viewed Weegee's images in this way before as so often affiliated with his work are images of grotesque injury and death, the burning building seems to communicate a deep display of sensitivity, shot by a poet of light.
It's pure class.
A perfect introduction to the year