Mick Hartley

Talking of North Korea (below), one of the finalists for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2007, now on show at the Photographers’ Gallery, Great Newport St, is Philippe Chancel, whose stunning photos of Pyongyang – like this one, right, of Reunification Avenue – are definitely worth checking out (entry’s free).

Looking at his book in the gallery’s bookstore only made me wish they’d shown more of his work. Unfortunately it’s a small gallery, and he’s only one of four finalists.

The others? Well, there’s Anders Petersen, with photos of what might be termed the fringes of society – in black and white, a “raw and intimate social portrait” – from a couple of towns in the South of France. Gritty, brutal…you know the kind of thing. The men are all hairy and covered in tattoos, and the women are all, well, um, hairy and covered in tattoos. Some genitalia are featured. Not the sort of pictures one would want one’s family or one’s servants to see, frankly. But, to be fair, well done if you like that kind of social realism.

Then there’s Fiona Tan.

Central to Fiona Tan’s work is the human subject. She questions and explores the complexities of culture and place, and how these elements come to shape our individual identity.

I’m sorry? Come again…

Fiona Tan’s works engage the traditional dialectic between the ethnographic claim to veritable objectivity of unprejudiced witness and the personal travelogue as the search for the subjective. She draws on photographic and filmic footage and combines the two in expanded film and video installations. Crossing the threshold of early 20th Century missionaries’ and travellers’ reportages, which served to reinforce the sense of ‘place’ of Africans and Asians in the colonial hierarchy of power, Tan interlinks personal and social formations of identity.

Oh good. So what have we got? Well, there are a couple of screens displaying photographs of Japanese schoolgirls from the 20s, and then a hundred-odd small postcard-sized, framed pictures selected from photo albums of Sydney residents. And that’s it. It’s one of those displays where we the viewers have to do all the work, because there’s nothing remotely attractive or noteworthy or interesting even about the photos on display to draw you in. Just keep telling yourself that it’s all about the traditional dialectic between the ethnographic claim to veritable objectivity of unprejudiced witnesses and the personal travelogue as the search for the subjective, and before you can say Judith Chalmers you’ll find yourself having a high old artistic experience. Indeed you may even find yourself questioning and exploring the complexities of culture and place, and how these elements come to shape our individual identity. Otherwise, like me, you’ll wonder at the sheer witless self-indulgence of it all.

And finally…Walid Raad.

The Atlas Group consists of documents and records including photographs, films and video that Walid Raad produces and then attributes to a number of imaginary characters.

Don’t ask.