Popped into the Michael Hoppen gallery today to see Tiina Itkonen's show Ultima Thule, a series of images made in Greenland.
As I have mentioned so many times here on the B Mode I get a bit tired and a little frustrated when an area of the planet becomes fashionable and bundles of photographers fall over themselves to go make beautiful images. At the moment the hot favorites are China and Greenland but before I cried out 'If I see one more photograph of a bloody Ice burg I'll go snow blind' I decided to see what was what at the 'oh so homely' MHG. After all the MHG is at the only gallery in London showing anything decent in photography as far as I am concerned and for that I have the greatest of respect.
My fears where realised when the first image I beheld at the show was a big fact lump of ice, in other words, an ice burg (see above). In all there fullness the images a quite beautiful and in a nice format, however I felt they where let down by the plexiglass/die bond framing which tends to make an image look cheap and makes a good mirror if the hanging space is over lit. Sadly though the images in the entire show fail to deliver simply because theres no impact. Compared to the work of say Otto Becker's 'Broken Line' Itkonen's work just looks bland. Harsh words perhaps, but I guess thats what you get if you choose such a popular subject thats being done by a vast number of photographers.
Despite all I have said I would gladly go to Greenland tomorrow, and would probably photograph Ice Burgs until the dam things melted..
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