John Goto

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Goto (b. 1949, Stockport, England), a British artist best known for his photoshopped montage colour photography, notably coming to wider attention with the "High Summer" section of his Ukadia series of pictures.

He began using computers in his work in the early '90s with a series made in Russia entitled "The Commissar of Space" which dealt with the final years of the artist Kasimir Malevich’s life during the early Stalinist era.

Goto's debt to Fernando Pessoa’s idea of heteronymic authors is clear in his next exhibition, "The Framer’s Collection", which consists of a series of short stories attached to manipulated snapshots, paintings, and documentary photographs.

Political and social satire come to the fore in Goto’s "Ukadia" series, which charts life and culture in Britain during the New Labour years, when Tony Blair was Prime Minister. It comprises "Capital Arcade”, set in a fictional shopping mall; "High Summer”, which looks at our uncertain relationship with the countryside, and finally "Gilt City”, in which Goto explores the ever widening gap between the rich and the poor.

His account of the contemporary world continues with "John Goto’s New World Circus", a thinly veiled allegory of the occupation of Iraq set within a traveling circus. Most recently he has turned his attention to the issue of climate change with "Floodscapes".

In the late ‘sixties John Goto studied Fine Art at St. Martin’s School of Art, London, where an interest in the narrative forms of European cinema and literature led him towards the medium of photography. European history developed as a dominant theme in the work he made in "Paris" and "Prague" in the ‘seventies. The ‘eighties saw the commencement of his collection “Tales of the Twentieth Century”, beginning with "Terezin", which told the story of a Bauhaus trained artist interned in the Nazi transit camp. "The Atomic Yard" explored conflicting ideas of culture in nineteen fifties Britain and was set within the highly aestheticised domestic surroundings of Kettle's Yard house in Cambridge. His next exhibition, "The Scar", was made in response to the upheavals in Europe towards the end of 1989.

Goto has had solo London shows at Tate Britain, the National Portrait Gallery, and The Photographers' Gallery. He has exhibited his photo digital art widely in Europe. He currently works as Professor of Fine Art at the University of Derby, England.

[edit] External links

• Official site.
• John Goto's biography.
• Review of 'High Summer' by Elisabeth Mahoney
• Review of' Capital Arcade' and 'High Summer' by Robert Clark.
• Commentary on' Gilt City' by Mark Durden.
• Review of 'Ukadia' by Common Culture.
• Interview concerning 'The New World Circus' by Tim Teeman.

[edit] Chronology of works

• "Turkey 1971”
• "The Empire of Things 1972/6”
• "Paris 1977”
• "Prague 1978”
• "London 1979/80”
• "Oxford 1980/81”
• "Shotover 1982/83”
• "Goto/Eachus Panelworks 1983/4”
• "Goto/Eachus Landscapes 1984/5”
• "Albuferian Sketches 1985”
• "Goto/Eachus Animals 1985/6”
• "Terezin 1987”
• "The Atomic Yard 1888/9”
• "The Scar 1990/1”
• "The Commissar of Space 1992/4”
• "Promised Land 1992/2001”
• "The Framer’s Collection 1995/6”
• "Capital Arcade 1997/9”
• "Pirandello commission, 1999”
• "National Portrait Gallery Residence, Architecture 1999/2000”
• "National Portrait Gallery Residence, Portraits 1999/2000”
• "High Summer 2000/1”
• "Portrait of the Vice-Presidents of The British Academy commission 2001”
• "Loss of Face 2002”
• "Portrait of Dr. Donald Meltzer”
• "4th Triennale zur Fotografie commission, Graz, Austria 2002/3”
• "Carro Electrico 104 commission 2002/3”
• "Gilt City 2002/4”
• "John Goto’s New World Circus 2004/6”
• "Floodscapes commission 2005/6”
• "Lie of the Land 2007”
• "Dance to the Muzik of Time 2007/8"