cefvigo gallery

The main characteristic of social documentarism, present right from the beginning with Riis and Hine, was that the cameras were directly aimed at the victims of social injustice. In the last two decades, however, some photographers have reacted against the idea of turning the sufferers into objects to be contemplated, as they considered that there was a high degree of victimism in this attitude. One of the first and most important photographers to take this stance was Karen Knorr. Published twenty years ago, her work Belgravia does not photograph the oppressed but rather those who benefit from the oppression, the members of the English high class; she shows their tastes, feelings, thoughts and views of life in a work charged with irony, the hallmark of all of her production.

Like all her later work, Belgravia is structured as a series. There are a number of fixed variables (lighting, objective, camera position…) which are used to define a specific context, something that would be impossible to do with just one image. The fact that it is a series serves to highlight the ironic content.

In contrast with the usually transparent quality of photographs, these images show how image and text together, even if neither of them is an illustration of the other, are able to achieve a narrative whole which acquires a new dimension, totally different from that which would have been achieved by either image or text separately. It is also important to stress that the interpretation will vary depending on the onlooker’s standpoint. This is precisely the strength of the ironic component: texts which were written or said in all innocence can be changed into highly critical comments on that same social context.

Theory is of the utmost importance for Karen Knorr. Thus, she prepares for each new project with thorough research and analysis, a system of work which is radically different from that of other social documentarists. She incorporates theatrical techniques, pays a great deal of attention to setting and borrows some resources from publicity in order to question traditional forms of representation; she confronts the heavily realistic character of social documentarism with the reality effect. Painting plays an important role in this series, in the same way as all historical artistic forms of representation are important in all her work. Yet her point of view is very different from that of traditional portrait artists, so concerned with personality cult. She does not portray particular individuals; her subjects are mere representatives of a social class; in this way her portraits are an open parody of her subjects’ social values, becoming in fact a subversion of the genre.

Ten tears ago we became aware of Karen Knorr’s importance and set up an exhibition of her work; ten years later her relevance is fully established; her work is just as valid and innovative today as it then was.

Manuel Sendón
Xosé Luis Suárez Canal