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In January (13.01.09 – 31.01.09), Michael Hoppen Contemporary, London, shows photographs by John Davies, an English photographer known for his narrative shots of British landscape. “His black and white photographs show the vast, complex and majestic scenery of industrial and post industrial Britain. He establishes classical geometries within his unique vision that take on a mystical appeal. His works are coolly detached and seductive, showing moments of calm and quiet amidst the inevitable change of the modern landscape.” (quote by MH Contemporary)

House 1 1993 © John Davies courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery Silver Gelatin Print 30 x 42 inches

In 1993, Davies made a series of 9 photographs which portray “House”, a public scultpure by Rachel Whiteread, winner of the renowned Turner Prize in 1993 and the first woman to be awarded.

Whiteread is best known for her sculptures  which are actually casts: “In the late 1980s, Rachel Whiteread began casting the ‘negative spaces’ inside and underneath domestic objects and soon moved on to architectural features and entire rooms.” (quote by MH Contemporary)

John Davies: House 8 1993 © John Davies courtesy of Michael Hoppen Contemporary Silver Gelatin Print 30 x 42 inches

House (1993), perhaps Whiteread’s best known work (according to wikipedia.com), was a concrete cast of the inside of an entire Victorian terraced house completed in autumn 1993, exhibited at the location of the original house — 193 Grove Road — in East London (all the houses in the street had earlier been knocked down by the council).

“Whiteread created the work by spraying liquid concrete into the building’s empty shell before its walls were removed. The work became a temporary monument to lost communities and a focus for public debate before it was demolished in January 1994. It stood alone as a symbol of survival, as all the other houses in Grove Road had already been knocked down to make way for redevelopment.”

“The House project was commissioned by the public works organisation Artangel. Whiteread asked Artangel to commission Davies to make some pictures for a limited edition book to record what was her largest and most ambitious work to date.” (quote by MH Contemporary)

Davies photographs are all that remains of house, site and sculpture. His photographs document the site of the condemned building, documenting the scaffolding going up, the cement ‘ghost’ of the building, and finally, the empty space the structure occupied.

John Davies Rachel Whiteread HOUSE

13.01.09 – 31.01.09

Michael Hoppen Gallery
3 Jubilee Place,
London SW3 3TD