Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance & the Camera
Tate Modern
It’s always a challenge to formulate one distinct opinion of a blockbuster exhibition such as this. The sheer amount of work allows for highlights, and of course, slightly dimmer lights. So as not to overwhelm you with lists of photographs, I will speak only of the most memorable. Rather fittingly, the inaugural room of Exposed contained only Walker Evan’s Subway Passengers alongside Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s Heads. Both are of obvious relevance to the exhibition’s focus, voyeurism and surveillance. This room asks questions around the public’s right to their image, or rather their right to not be photographed unawares.
Always intriguing is Koshei Yoshiyuki’s series, The Park. Consisting of haunting images of Japanese nocturnal park-dwellers, these men spy on couples engaged in acts of intimacy. For their own amusement they attempt to get close enough to touch without being noticed. Yoshiyuki gives us the opportunity to view voyeurism within voyeurism in this spectacularly sordid interchange.
Another highlight is Nan Goldin’s slide show The Ballad of Sexual Dependency made up of hundreds of her photographs and accompanied by music. I felt blessed to have the opportunity to see so much of Goldin’s work in one sitting. These intimate photographs of friends, lovers and other interesting characters gives one a sense of death, love and sexual freedom unique to the New York of the eighties. Certain faces echo and in their repetition a type of voyeuristic relationship is built up with the viewer.
