Galleries - November 2012

13. GALLERIES NOVEMBER 12 TELLING STORIES Exploring photography shows in London this autumn still taboo, like taking pictures of women in Saudi Arabia. Yet these circumstances make for a start- lingly experimental show. Take Rahimi’s sepia-like images of a destroyed Kabul post-2001 or Teh- ran’s Amirali Ghasemi’s party people with their bodies blanked out with dazzling light. For a softer Middle East vision, Hamiltons Gallery is showing the allegorical landscapes of UK based, Tel Aviv born, Kobi Israel (from 9 November). Urban life on the streets of New York, Rome, Paris and even Tokyo by William Klein and Daido Mori- yama provide a gritty contrast at Tate Modern . Klein’s ground- breaking blurry, in-your-face shots still unsettle – and overawe the dark and shadowy images of the same streets by Daido Moriyama. More lighthearted is ex-James Bond villain Steven Berkoff’s affectionate take on London’s bustling East End in the 1960s and 70s at the Cass Gallery. Finally, Lucas Foglia eschews street photography for his new show at Michael Hoppen Cont- emporary (from 9 November) pre- ferring to document self-sufficient farming communities. Ironically they are based in today’s Ameri- can Deep South – showing a diff- erent place to the violent, racially torn Tennessee, Kentucky and other States depicted by Davidson and William Eggleston in the Barbican show. Melanie Abrams London is challenging the photo- graphic supremacy of New York and Paris this autumn with a slew of exhibitions in public and private galleries. Even The National Gall- ery has succumbed with its first major photographic exhibition juxtaposing the aesthetics of early and contemporary photos with famous paintings, such as a stark Martin Parr interior with Gains- borough’s Mr and Mrs Andrews , or the re-interpretive work of Maisie Broadhead, who also en- joys a solo show this month at Sarah Myerscough . Whilst London was swinging in the 1960s, elsewhere it was a different story. In the States, vio- lence beset the Civil Rights Move- ment, Russia was in the grip of the KGB and war ravaged Vietnam. At the Barbican 12 photographers including Bruce Davidson and Larry Burrows show their varied responses to these cataclysmic events and others. As we use photographs everyday on face- book, pinterest or iphone, the searing images in this show re- affirm the raw, visceral power of photography. We instinctively wince at Ernest Cole’s unforgiving close-ups of the daily humiliations suffered by his fellow black South Africans during Apartheid. In some countries, photographs are a luxury. Photography was banned in Afghanistan under the Taliban between 1996 and 2001, says Atiq Rahimi, one of the 30 artists in the first Middle East photography show at the Victoria & Albert Museum . Elsewhere, it is From top: ‘The Imaginary Return’ from Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A. W illiam Klein 'Piazza di Spagna, Rome 1960' at Tate Modern. © Lucas Foglia ‘David in his Wigwam, Kevin’s Land, Virginia’ 2010 at Michael Hoppen Contemporary. Steven Berkoff ‘East End Photographs’ at Cass Gallery