Paul Graham (photographer)
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Paul Graham (born UK, 1956) is an artist photographer whose work operates in the territory traditionally reserved for documentary photography but re-interprets and subverts that genre through exploring new visual approaches to photographic representation. His subjects have included the conflict in Northern Ireland, the shadow of history in Western Europe and Japan, and more recently the social fabric of the United States.
Graham was the first photographer to combine the sensibility of contemporary colour photography with classic British social documentary. In 1981/2 he made A1—The Great North Road, a book of 40 colour photographs taken along the length of the British A1 road, which had a transformative effect on the black and white tradition that had dominated British art photography till that point. This work, along with Graham's later photographs of the 1980s - the colour images of unemployment offices in Beyond Caring (1984-85), and the sectarian marked landscape of Northern Ireland Troubled Land (1984-86) - were pivotal in reinvigorating and expanding this area of photography, by both broadening it's visual language, and questioning our notions of what such photography could say, be, or look like. Photographers like Martin Parr made the switch to colour soon after, and a new school of British Photography evolved with the subsequent colour work of Richard Billingham, Tom Wood, Paul Seawright, Anna Fox, Nick Waplington, etc.
Since this work of the early 1980s, Graham has continued to work in the fertile territory where the documentary and artistic potential of photography coalesce, often tackling subject matter difficult for a medium that is firmly based in the observable world: New Europe (1988-1993) looked at the long shadow of history in Western Europe, and Empty Heaven (1989-1995) dealt with the relationship between historical trauma and the child-like fantasy world in Japan, themes that would later prove central to the "Superflat" movement of contemporary Japanese art. For the past decade his work has grown into an examination of what we expect from a photographic image, be it a portrait - as in the blurry and colour stained images of young people in End of an Age (1996-98), or openly questioning what actually registers in our vision (or on film) with American Night (1998-2003), which reflected the social fracture of American society through underexposed, near invisible white images. Most recently Graham completed a body of photographs that reflect everyday moments of American lives, whilst also examining photography's ability to compress or expand time, utilising flowing sequences of images. This was published as a 12 volume set of books: A Shimmer of Possibility (2004-2007).
Paul Graham has been a prolific and well published artist, including a dedicated Phaidon monograph, along with 10 other publications. His work has been exhibited extensively - notably a one person show at the Tate Gallery, London (1996), along with participating in the Italian Pavilion of the 49th Venice Biennale (2001), and the inaugural exhibition at Switzerland's national Fotomuseum Winterthur. He was one of only two British photographers included in the Tate Gallery's landmark "Cruel and Tender" survey exhibition of 20th century photography (2003). Graham is regarded as an artist-photographer, rather than working in the editorial or photojournalism context, so his work is normally found in galleries, museums and books, rather than magazines or photo agencies.
Graham resided in the UK for most of his life, though with sustained periods abroad, including Switzerland and Japan. He moved to New York City in 2002, where he is now a permanent resident.
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[edit] Books
A1—The Great North Road,' Grey Editions, 1983
Beyond Caring, Grey Editions, 1985
Troubled Land, Grey Editions, 1986
In Umbra Res, National Museum of Photography, Bradford, 1991
New Europe, Fotomuseum Winterthur, 1992
Empty Heaven, Scalo, 1995
End of An Age, Scalo, 1998
Paintings, Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York, 2000
American Night, SteidlMACK, 2003
A Shimmer of Possibility, SteidlMACK, 2007
[edit] Selected Exhibitions
- Paul Graham, La Fabrica, Madrid, Spain 2006
- Click Double Click, The Documentary Factor, Haus Der Kunst, Munich, Palais de Beaux Arts, Brussels.
- Paul Graham, Arles Rencontres, Arles, France 2006
- American Pictures, Whitney Museum of American Art, NY
- American Night, PS1, New York 2003
- American Night, Power House, Memphis, TN 2003
- American Night, Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London 2003
- End of an Age, Galerie Bob Van Orsouw, Zurich 1998
- End of an Age, Portfolio Gallery, Edinburgh 1998
- Hypermetropia, Tate Gallery, London 1996
- Empty Heaven, Kunstmuseum, Wolfburg 1995
- New Europe, Fotomuseum Winterthur 1993
[edit] Public Collections
- Arts Council of Great Britain, London
- British Council, London
- Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen
- European Parliament, Brussels
- Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur
- Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY
- Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, León
- The Museum of Modern Art, New York
- National Museum of Photography, Bradford
- The Saint Louis Art Museum, MO
- Tate Gallery, London
- Victoria & Albert Museum, London
- Winnipeg Art Museum, Winnipeg, Manitoba
- The Whitney Museum of Art, New York
