I Am Not An Art Critic

Having remembered last week how calming I find galleries, and being much in need of soothing, this lunchtime I popped into The Photographers Gallery. I wasn’t really bothered what was showing, I just hoped the white walls would give me solace and space to relax. But it turned out to be pretty good.

The exhibition was of work by Keith Arnatt entitled ‘I am a Real Photographer’. Arnatt used to be an artist but back in the seventies decided to concentrate on photography. The title of the exhibition comes from an earlier work of his, where he was photographed holding a plaque proclaiming ‘I am a Real Artist’.

I know very little about art (as it is probably painfully apparent) but it seems to me that art is frequently described as humorous or playful, and usually I just can’t see it. But in this case I could see it plainly, particularly in his series of photographs of notes left for him by his wife. I wondered though whether they were real and if so, how did his wife feel about them being exhibited for all and sundry to question their relationship?

Another set was of owners and their dogs, with a description about how both may look equally attentive, but the dogs were only responding to his presence or calls of their name, rather than being aware of him as a photographer. All very interesting, but really I liked this set just because I like dogs!

There were other photographs of rubbish, discarded items, old cans, but photographed to bring out a hidden beauty – which would assert for me that he is indeed an artist as none of my photographs of random debris looks so good.