Gallery of Photography,
Dublin, 6 December 2003 to 31 January 2004
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David Noble:
BUTLINLAND SKEGNESS Night Scene; courtesy
the Gallery of Photography, copyright John Hinde
Ltd.
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This latest exhibition in the
Gallery of Photography shows work that is a curious
hybrid of social and cultural history, photographic
documentary, advertisting and popular culture. The photographs
on display were produced in the late 1960s and early
1970s for the John Hinde Photography studio in Dublin,
comprising part of a series of postcards to be sold
at Butlin's holiday camps throughout Britain and Ireland.
Shot with large-format cameras, and lit like a film
set, the production of these photographs was an extraordinary
undertaking: the pieces seen in the exhibition, mostly
only published as postcards, have been reproduced from
the original large-format Ektachromes for this show.
With innovative use of colour
and elaborate staging (the trademarks of a John Hinde
postcard), it has been observed how Hinde's meticulous
approach to structuring images was akin to the methods
and motives of the advertising profession who aimed
to play on the emotions of a mass audience (all of whom
were potential tourists with the arrival of such holiday
camps as Butlin's, the "proletariat paradise"1).
With the Hindesight exhibition at IMMA
in 1993, he began to be acknowledged as an important
figure in the social history of photography (this exhibition
showed his best-known work, the stereotypical images
of 1950s Ireland that are embedded in the public consciousness:
they aimed to evoke a collective nostalgia for an Ireland
that never fully existed anywhere other than the imagination.
Images of redhaired children with a turf-carrying donkey
and a six-legged currach walking down the beach are
two of the most emblematic of the Hinde house style,
and the work in this exhibition is a similar rendition
of such idealised dream worlds/tourist destinations).
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Elmar Ludwig:
BUTLIN'S MOSNEY The Indoor Heated Pool; Courtesy
the Gallery of Photography, copyright John Hinde
Ltd.
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It was the challenging job of
two German and one British photographer (Elmar Ludwig,
Edmund Nagele and David Noble) to execute the Butlin's
photographs to Hinde's rigorous formula and standards,
creating images that look casually taken but were actually
acutely observed and involved the orchestration of large
crowds, cameras and systems of lighting. The various
photographic contexts on display, from Mosney, Co. Meath,
to Skegness and Bognor Regis were all tightly controlled,
frequently using large casts of real-life holidaymakers
acting out their allocated roles. Narrative tableaux
are enacted in quiet lounges, busy cabarets, restaurants,
swimming pools and ballrooms, environments which are
as self-consciously constructed and decorated as the
images themselves.
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Edmund Nagele: BUTLIN'S BOGNOR REGIS A Corner
of the Beachcomber Bar; Courtesy the Gallery
of Photography, copyright John Hinde Ltd.
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Lush with detail and saturated
with colour and pattern, the photographs' surfaces are
as glossy and tempting as boiled sweets (with some of
the attendant connotations of sickliness that accompany
such visual excess). The lurid colour tends to emphasise
their fantastical nature. Laden with patterns, the over-decorated
and out-dated interiors and fashions make for seductively
ironic and easily consumable images: they are a feast
of kitsch to be gorged upon. One image, for example,
depicts the Beachcomber Bar: a waitress is dressed in
a grass skirt and lei and fake fishnets and starfish
adorn the ceiling - it is images like these that have
acquired a funny kind of cult status and illustrate
the simulational nature of tourism (prefiguring today's
safari parks and other 'themed' holiday and leisure
environments).
Anticipating the later success
of Disney and other recreational theme parks, Butlin's
was in its heyday at the time these images were taken,
its 'hi-de-hi' redcoat entertainment the epitome of
family holiday fun (and camp, though the latter in retrospect).
The Butlin's represented by these photographs is intricately
bound up with the history of mass tourism, mass consumerism
and popular culture in the British Isles: 'cheap and
cheerful' low-brow entertainment and affordable packages
attracted over a million people for a week's holiday
each year from the 1950s through the 1970s. As cultural
documents, these images portray the working classes/masses
on holiday, and in all the images the markers of class
and how it is inscribed on the body (clothes, hairstyles,
postures) are evident. The exhibition is itself all
to do with ideas of taste, both in terms of its content,
and the process of curatorship.
The images call to mind the
contemporary work of British photographer Martin Parr,
who curated the exhibition. He is well known for his
striking documentation of popular culture and the banality
of the everyday: one specific series he produced, entitled
New Brighton, portrayed the decline of the popular
holiday resort (and the working classes) in Thatcher's
England. He is also known for being a compulsive collector
of kitsch, including seaside and holiday postcards such
as Hinde's, and even his photographic style of saturating
the image with colour and so 'flattening' it (achieved
through use of strong flash) is reminiscent of the work
on show. The exhibition
can be seen as part of the current trend in contemporary
art that recognises the inherent subjectivity invested
in the role of curator and the interdisciplinary nature
of contemporary art practice (collaborations between
artists and curators, and the blurring of these distinctions,
are becoming increasingly common - artist Rirkrit Tiravanija
recently curated a section of the Venice Biennale, and
in Ireland artist Sarah Pierce has worked on the Metropolitan
Complex Project and as curatorial editor on the Sculptors'
Society's new publication, Printed Project).
One can thus envisage the exhibition as a segment not
just of a historical archive, but also a personal one;
an indicator of a particular eye and personal taste.
These images helped John Hinde
become one of the most successful postcard publishers
in the world, and seem to deftly encapsulate the look,
attitudes (possibly even values) of a particular time
in the evolution of cultural taste and consumerism.
Images of an idealised world apart, isolated from their
time and original commercial context, they are incredibly
striking and unexpectedly poignant.
1John
Kindness, Trick or Treat? Different perspectives
on Hindesight, the John Hinde exhibition at IMMA,
CIRCA 65, 1993, pp.45.
Sarah Browne is an artist
and writer currently based in Dublin.
OUR TRUE INTENT IS ALL FOR
YOUR DELIGHT, The John Hinde Butlin's Photographs,
Gallery of Photography, Dublin. December 6, 2003 - January
31, 2004. Curated by Martin Parr. Produced by Chris
Boot. In Association with Les Rencontres d'Arles.
Accompanying Book: OUR TRUE
INTENT IS ALL FOR YOUR DELIGHT, The John Hinde Butlin's
Photographs, introduced by Martin Parr, published
in UK/Europe by Chris Boot, May 2003. ISBN 0-9542813-0-6.
Price 39.95 euro.
