27/08/13
Alexis Hunter & Jo Spence
Richard Saltoun
22 August – 27 September 2013
“We need to use our cameras, tape
recorders, diaries, poems, videos – whatever cultural resources we have – to
witness our own histories, to learn to protest and share, and to learn to
nurture ourselves.”*
When Jo Spence (1934-1992) and Alexis Hunter (born 1948) exhibited together in the
1970s, feminist art was in its heyday and both artists had recently begun to
use photography as a means to explore identity, comment upon and criticise
society, and bring about change. Spence, herself from a working class
background, was particularly interested in exploring cultural and class
stereotypes, whilst Hunter immersed herself fully in the women’s movement and
produced works questioning gender roles. Inevitably, however, Spence’s work has
also been seen, much discussed, and academically pontificated upon from this
angle. Both artists use portraiture and self-representation playfully and
unsettlingly to tell stories, create narratives, make their viewers cringe,
feel shame, feel guilt, and relate – at the level of the id, there is something
in each of these artist’s strips of snapshot-style photographs or basic contact
sheets where any and every woman can find herself.
