Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Men Tish Murtha’s Youth Unemployment Series, he shot Newcastle between 1979 and 1981, young men tremble and smile, cigarettes dangling from their hands as they read cards or share unique jokes. Alongside Murtha’s photographs in the exhibition, documentary filmmaker Kuba Ryniewicz finds people living in Newcastle today and asks them what makes them happy today. These topics are about the sun, breakfast, connecting with friends and family. The answers are almost universal, and you can imagine the subjects of Murtha’s photos answering the same.
Although for more than 40 years they have been dividing these tasks, both appeal to the human search for happiness, regardless of circumstances, and the desire to be comforted by others. Both Ryniewicz and Murtha celebrate taking over their territories. Their ability to shoot raw, real, unmoving moments comes from the fact that they were there, living among them. It’s this same approach – and the fact that they both photograph people living in Newcastle – that has brought them together for an exhibition in the Baltics called Close to Home.
Murtha is best known today for his powerful images of the city in the 1970s and 80s, when things were changing dramatically, industry was shrinking and unemployment was rising. His dramatic portraits of working-class life are honest and powerful; focuses on individuals and details the resilience of human connections in the face of external challenges. Murtha died in 2013, and Close to Home has four of his most important projects – Elswick Kids, Save Scotswood Works, Youth Unemployment and Elswick Revisited – showing them together in the North East for the first time.
Rather than being displayed in neat rows, Murtha’s paintings are displayed in different styles hung together like a salon, with each series featuring a larger picture that covers almost an entire wall. Such hanging is interesting and interesting, allowing us to see the whole list in one glance. In Elswick Kids, girls in paisley prints jump over a roped-off road, a child climbs off the roof of a burnt-out car, several children stand by a broken window, boys lean against a brick wall with the words “Robbers’ Corner” scrawled on it.
For Save Scotswood Works, campaign information, documents and letters are interspersed with photographs, highlighting the importance of the protests and Murtha’s writings. Parts from Tish by Paul Sng play alongside the Save Scotswood Works and Youth Unemployment groups, capturing Murtha’s views on what he does and his disgust with the failure of government policy. When you listen to his talk on Youth Unemployment in the West End of Newcastle and look at the boys staring blankly at the broom handles or looking dejected outside the Careers Centre, you can feel that he is having trouble capturing these images.
Surrounding Murtha’s work, we find Ryniewicz’s photographs – his Polaroids and multi-colored prints dance around the room, appearing among Murtha’s collection, attached to the wall without frames. Born in Poland, Ryniewicz moved to Newcastle in 2004 to study photography and for Close to Home he presents new work alongside a range of photographs from three collections: Everyday Weeding, Corner Study and Good Eggs – all shot in the last six years.
Ryniewicz’s stunning paintings burst with life. They are beautiful, beautiful and cheeky, full of body and shape and hope. He paints grass, bushes, and children’s hives, and shadows in rural areas – ordinary, everyday life transforms into a magical utopia under his eyes. A cow stands under the office; the yellow, faded bruise around the eye goes well with the white hair; A sunburned boy glistens on the grass near us, his sign of “the stars can’t shine without darkness” gives us hope.
The problem with Close to Home is that each “home” and how you occupy it is very different from Murtha and Ryniewicz. This makes the larger story impossible to establish. For example, on one wall we see a group of people from Newcastle city center protesting against the closure of Scotswood Works, and on another wall a man’s woolly chest is penetrated. Meanwhile, Murtha’s brother is removing beer bottles from the kitchen sink in front of a graphic image of a pregnant woman hitting a flower pot. It’s hard to join the dots.
Even when there is a momentary noise – as in Ryniewicz’s film and the Unemployed Youth series – one cannot escape the dark forces that dwell at the edges of Murtha’s images and this contradicts the playfulness of Ryniewicz’s images. You can’t associate a woman pushing her temples, or a boy looking out of an abandoned house with someone discussing the joys of painting or hugging trees.
The text on the wall won’t help anything. While Murtha’s paintings are discussed in more detail, the historical context, Ryniewicz’s is more detailed, focusing on his technique and his economy. Murtha’s works are shown in the collections themselves and Ryniewicz’s are only shown in random order. Murtha shoots off-the-cuff, Ryniewicz’s photos are often posted. The list could go on.
One gets the feeling that Ryniewicz had to twist his routine around Murtha’s history – and he has. He has placed his images around him, so despite the equal billing, it is Murtha’s work that has set the tone with Ryniewicz that must continue.
It’s a good job, looking for a modern discussion of Murtha’s work, but Close to Home feels too far away. That Murtha and Ryniewicz are famous artists; that they communicate effectively in this show is not convincing.
