Shooting, but not to kill

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Rosalind Ormiston takes aim at ‘Shoot! Existential Photography’ at London’s Photographers’ Gallery

Since the Photographers’ Gallery re-opened in May 2012, a series of high-quality photography exhibitions has grabbed public attention. The latest, ‘Shoot! Existential Photography’ (until 6 January 2013) moves its aim higher, with the installation of a photo-shooting gallery focusing on the curious global phenomenon, which appeared after the First World War, of taking and keeping a picture of oneself using a gun. The installation is part of a creative showcase, which explores how it worked and why it was popular; and to study the analogy between taking photographs and the act of shooting.

The exhibition opens with photographs taken from the 1920s to the 1970s. Here one can study the facial expressions and poses of anonymous shooters, and the mixed reactions of the crowds around them. The shooting gallery involved a gun, a bullseye and a self-triggered camera; when the gun shooter hit the bullseye, it triggered the camera, which took a picture of the shooter shooting themselves. Curious, but incredibly popular. One series of 60 self-portraits of a Dutch lady, Ria van Dijk, were taken over an 80-year period.

Celebrities ‘shot’ themselves too; on display are vintage photographs, including the existentialist French philosophers Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul-Sartre in Photo-shot, fairground at Porte d’Orleans, Paris, June 1929, which is also part of a slide show, ‘Celebrity Cabinet’ (1929–55), with Man Ray, Henri-Cartier Bresson and Brassaȉ amongst the group of portraits. The Photographers’ Gallery’s own working model is proving popular now; and each ‘shooter’ (over 18 years old) can take home the self-portrait he/she has shot.

The exhibition is much more than an exploration of an old fairground attraction. It moves on to explore the work of a new generation of photographers working with photography and film, all fascinated with shooting. Sylvia Ballhouse’s multimedia installation Shooting Himself  (2008), features a series of found shooting portraits of an anonymous man. Steven Pippin includes two photographs from his current series ‘ANon Event’ (2010). Selected works by Christian Marclay, Jean-François Lecourt and Niki de Saint Phalle, Rudolf Steiner and Agnes Geoffray are amongst others on show. For sustained action, see how long you can last inside the box-room showing Christian Marclay’s four-screen audio-visual installationCrossfire (2007) (shown courtesy of the artist and White Cube gallery), with a different film extract on each wall, all the gunmen are shooting at you. The film is loud, repetitive and eight minutes long. Quite a shock to view, but oddly, it’s intriguing at the same time.

The Photographers’ Gallery www.thephotographersgallery.org.uk is holding a curator-led exhibition tour on 15 December at 3 p.m. (Free with price of admission).