Tom Hunter: From Squat to Saatchi
VICTORIA KINGHAM
Hackney in East London (nowadays a boho-arty des-res area, affordable only to higher-paid professionals) had a bad reputation in 1997. A number of its 1960s-built tower blocks were structurally unsound, in addition to the associated widespread socio-economic issues in the area.
Greg, Powdermill Photo Print
I first saw Tom Hunter’s work in about 1998 when a couple of tower blocks in Holly Street (off the Queensbridge Road, and quite incidentally, the childhood home of Idris Elba) were due for demolition. As the residents were moved out or moved on, the units were closed and barred with thick metal prison-type doors, and the blocks eventually demolished in 2001. His exhibition was held in one of these derelict units on the 19th floor: brilliant photographs of departing residents in situ, six feet high, were placed all around the walls, and the dilapidated bath was filled with bottles of Beck’s.
The work was telling, powerful, and familiar to any long-term resident of the area. I felt at the time how significant it was – I suppose the Beck’s helped a bit – and it does seem to me now to have taken place at a kind of sociological turning point, of which it formed a part. Charles Saatchi bought all of it. Subsequently Hunter posed people from his squatters’ community as echoes of old Masters, and his work Woman Reading a Possession Order, composed after a Vermeer painting, brought him national and international acclaim.
This September, seven years after his last visit, he is coming here under the auspices of PhotoHastings. Most of his show is currently under wraps, but one will be Tom Hunter – A Dialogue. This will consist of responses to his large piece, Greg: Powdermill, which was created in reference to a Victorian work in the Hastings Museum and Art Gallery Collection, Harmony Cattle Watering, Pevensey, East Sussex by Sidney Dennant Moss. Dr Hunter will give a talk about his work, chaired by photographer Alexander Brattell, and will also review the resulting exhibition.
The talk will be held at Electro Studios Seaside Road St Leonards Saturday on the 24 October. For full details check photohastings.com.
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