There is still a month left to see the stunning new exhibition at the Barbican Gallery that we were so fortunate to catch on a recent trip to London.  Another Kind of Life follows the lives of individuals and communities operating on the fringes of society :  a subject dear to our hearts. 

Touching on themes of countercultures, subcultures and minorities of all kinds, the show features the work of 20 photographers from the 1950s to the present day.  The exhibition reflects a more diverse, complex view of the world, as captured and recorded by photographers. Driven by personal and political motivations, many of the photographers sought to provide an authentic representation of the disenfranchised communities with whom they spent months, years or even decades with, often conspiring with them to construct their own identity through the camera lens.

Featuring communities of sexual experimenters, romantic rebels, outlaws, survivalists, the economically dispossessed and those who openly flout social convention, the works present the outsider as an agent of change.

Our two favorite sections were of the studies by Magnum photographer Chris Steele Perkins of handsome rogueish Teddy Boys.  This was a British subculture that started in the 1950’s with young men wearing clothes that were partly inspired by the styles worn by dandies in the Edwardian period, which Savile Row tailors had attempted to re-introduce in Britain after the Second World War.

The second section was the extraordinary images from Casa Susanna which was a popular weekend destination in Hunter, NY for transgender women in the early 1960s. The bungalow camp was run by Susanna Valenti and her wife Marie, who also ran a wig store in town. The negatives of all these long forgotten photographs were found by Robert Swope at a Flea Market in the mid-2000’s and he published them into a book with his partner Michel Hurst

This excellent must-see show also includes work from Diane Arbus, Paz Errazuriz, Pieter Hugo, Mary Ellen Mark and Dayanita Singh.  Book ahead to be sure of getting in .

 

                           Another Kind of Life Photography on the Margins 

                28 Feb—27 May 2018, Barbican Art Gallery   https://www.barbican.org.uk/