Jim Goldberg - Open See
Tis the season to think of others - and this exhibition encourages us to remember how lucky we are.
Jim Goldberg’s first UK solo show is an unsparingly bleak depiction of the realities of life for the world’s many refugees. This dynamic range of images and stories capture the devastation, exploitation and often shattered dreams of immigrants from war torn lands who, against all odds, muster the courage and determination to seek a better life in Europe.
Approaching the second floor of The Photographers’ Gallery, the first thing you are aware of is the sound of children singing – the language is foreign and indeterminable, but the emotions are unmistakably joyous. Entering the gallery, it is therefore shocking to be confronted with images that portray unspeakable suffering.
The space is divided into four areas. The first three focus on refugees from India and Bangladesh, Liberia, Senegal and The Democratic Republic of the Congo and The Ukraine. The final section contains images from Greece, a land that many of these people have fled to in an effort to find a modicum of stability and safety.
Goldberg’s use of both imagery and text is remarkably innovative and multi-faceted. Polaroids sit alongside written text, ephemera, a video installation and larger scale colour photographs. There is a real intimacy to the work, with motivations behind migration and personal dreams being at the forefront of the photographer’s agenda.
Simple polaroids depict the individuals Goldberg has encountered on his travels. His subjects have been the victims of appalling violence, prostitution and trafficking and their forlorn, downcast faces only hint at the horrors they have witnessed and endured.
The images have been defaced by the subjects themselves – faces have been blotted out with Tipp-Ex or marker pen and alongside their tortured bodies they have encapsulated their feelings and experiences in simple, broken English. Reverberating with despair, loneliness and heartache, their statements are overwhelmingly moving and humbling.
Many of these pictures make for uncomfortable, even distressing viewing – diseases and scars are unashamedly on display. An amputee from Liberia has drawn a machine gun with bullets aiming at his lost leg onto his portrait, while a woman named Maria who tried to find sanctuary in Greece has daubed the words: “Maria Always Alone Hurt Heart” next to a picture of her skeletal, broken body clutching a packet of cigarettes. The pained, tender silence resonant in these words is heart-rending.
The show is testament to the seemingly infinite cruelty and brutality of our modern world, but also to the indomitable strength of the human spirit. By inviting these individuals to mark their images in some way, to alter their features and to even scratch out their faces, Goldberg is paradoxically offering them the one thing they have been denied for so long – an opportunity to reveal and exult in their true identities. Despite the oppression, poverty and heinous crimes they have endured they still have the power and resolve to tell their personal histories with a tenacity that is impossible to ignore.
The Photographers’ Gallery, 18-19 Ramillies Street, London, until 21 January 2010.
