In the Observer's photographic website Sean O'Hagan in his blog is bemoaning the fact that gritty social documentary photographer Chris Killip's latest exhibition appears to be shunned by British galleries and is instead to be displayed in, Essen Germany.
O'Hagan accuses the photographic/art powers to be in this counrty of deliberately turning their backs on Killip's work because it is overtly political chosing to depict the worst aspects of life in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher's "no such thing as society" doctrine. Killip's pictures so often portray working-class abandonment and despair brought on by unemployment which reached record highs during the Thatcher era. O'Hagan argues that it appears Killip's hard-hitting images do not fit into the artistic concept or ambitions of many of this country's leading galleries citing the Tate and the Hayward as examples.
Can Killip's work be considered artistic? Is photography losing it's way by trying two hard to be emulating art? Are galleries shying away from tough political messages? Watch this space - in the meantime consider one of Killip's most famous images from his "In flagrante" series.
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