Four photographers, four very different points of view. Diversity of subject and approach are particularly evident in the four photographers selected for the prestigious Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, worth a handsome £30,000. The prize is aimed at a living photographer of any nationality who is deemed to have made a significant contribution to photography in Europe, usually in the form of a major exhibition, so it is the personal voice, the idiosyncratic view and the sharp observer who has to catch and hold our attention.
If there is a broad theme it is one of documenting the familiar, highlighting its subtle difference, causing us to ponder what we see. This is certainly the case with the American Zoe Leonard, who chronicles the neglected and overlooked, recording the urban landscape to create an inventory of shops that form a powerful part of street culture. The shop – Century Photo Centre – is painted appropriately a rich Kodak yellow, but the decrepit building looks closed and forlorn, a visual reminder of the way digital technology has put traditional photo shops out of business. More colourful is a fabric shop, the window filled with rolls of brightly coloured material, a treasure house for the odd and unusual.
Donavan Wylie, born and brought up in Belfast, takes a more sombre approach to documenting aspects of the post-conflict in Northern Ireland. Systematically, Wylie has recorded the fabric and physical structure of the notorious Maze Prison – an institution that was seen as a symbol of the conflict between loyalists and nationalist. In the series Deconstruction of the Maze Prison, Wylie pictures the gradual dismantling of the wire fence around the buildings – a metaphor for the way that, gradually, differences are being resolved and defences can be lowered. The subdued, muted greys and sombre skies suggest caution rather than celebration.
Equally sombre is the work of the French artist Sophie Ristelhueber, who investigates the impact of human conflict on architecture and landscape. Travelling to countries such as Bosnia, Iraq, Lebanon and Kuwait, she pictures the resulting aftermath of war and conflict. In Eleven Blowups #5, a thick black, ominous plume of smoke snakes out from the side of a deserted road, the surface of which is scarred and marked. An atmosphere of threat hangs in the air.
Drawing on the work of photographers such as Diane Arbus, British photographer Anna Fox highlights the weird, mundane and bizarre in British life. With a combination of acute social observation and personal diary projects, Fox stalks parks and streets for the quirky and eccentric. Hampshire Pram Race shows two girls in athletic vests wearing grinning full-face masks. Like some freak show, the leering masks conceal their identity beneath what are humorous coverings,
but which are as disturbing as they are entertaining. More personal is Gifts from the Cats, an image of a dead bird deposited on a carpet. The uneaten corpse is a trophy for the cat, a tragedy for wildlife.
For me, the lucky winner lies between the power of the political images of Donovan Wylie, with their combination of the sober, serious and celebration, which remains in the mind, or the quirky, surreal and slightly sinister work of Anna Fox that combines the everyday with the unusual. Both deserve recognition. l
Deutsche Börse Photography Prize continues until April 18
