V&A Lunchtime Lecture on Paul Strand
Brilliant lecture yesterday, 'Respect and Curiosity; the life's work of Paul Strand, by Martin Barnes, V & A Senior Curator of Photographs.
This moving and sensitively curated exhibition weaves in audio recordings of some of the characters Strand photographed, traditional songs from some of the remotest parts of the globe that inspired him to travel, and respectfully displays Strand's work to poetically suspend the meditations on moment he mastered for generations of photographers to come.
The brilliant American photographer/film- maker Strand (1890–1976) led a long and accomplished life, leaving a body of work that had profound influence on a variety of other artists. His early photographs, nurtured by Lewis Hine and Alfred Stieglitz, epitomized the burgeoning modernist spirit then infusing the culture, and was coeval with both cubism and abstraction. He later moved on to social-realist filmmaking and photo-essay formats that approached the ethnographic while further exploring the arresting compositional and textural qualities at which he so excelled.
The exhibition is on till 3rd July. Book here and my advise is to make the most the world's most beautiful museum cafe.
The next FREE lunchtime lecture is not be missed Refugee Week, Wednesday 22nd June. Join Jade Amoli-Jackson from the Refugee Council as she relates her unique story through V&A objects. Growing up in rural Uganda, Jade’s life was turned upside down when the government was overthrown and brutal conflict and violence ensued. Jade provides an extraordinary insight into the process of seeking asylum in the UK, her painful readjustment to life as a refugee, and finally to the shaping of a new home and a new family.