Sorry I skipped last week but I was travelling in Italy. In the meantime I have been thinking about finding an interesting book to choose for the latest review from the rather large number of new books delivered recently. Finally, after much thought, and given the current interest in her work, I settled on a very nice new retrospective book on Vanessa Winship published by Fundacion Mapfre in support of their exhibition of her work.

The fact that at the moment this book is only published in Spanish is a bit unfortunate for me as I can neither speak nor read the language and there are what looks like a series of very interesting essays on Winships’ development as a photographer in the first sections. It is this theme of Winships progression that I want to talk a little about here in addition to giving a taster on the book itself. What fascinates me personally about the book is that I feel that I can see Winship honing her skills over a period of time until she delivered last years outstanding ‘She Dances on Jackson’ which I think was easily one of the best books I have ever bought, and for me represents her very best work to date. There are a number of shots in this book from ‘Jackson’ however the print quality, while not too bad, falls way short of the exceptional quality achieved by Mack who published the ‘Jackson’ book and this is unfortunate as it fails to show these very beautiful images at their best. Its getting a little hard to find but I would strongly urge anyone who likes what they see here to try to get She Dances on Jackson, you won’t regret it.

The book on review here was published as part of a retrospective exhibition for Winship in Madrid and I believe it runs until the end of this month so if you are in that neck of the woods, get yourself along there. Back to the photographs and the stylistic progression that I wanted to touch on. What I am really struck with here can be divided into three phases for ease of comparison. Firstly, there is Winship the documentary photographer where she is detached from the subjects and outside of the situations being photographed.

These are top drawer for that particular genre and stand comparison with two other of my favourite photographers who have photographed in these regions; Jason Eskenazi and Nikos Economopoulos whose ‘Wonderland’ and ‘Balkanlarda’ respectively are two of the finest examples of interpretation of these people in documentary style that you can find. I think that several of Winship’s shots stand up very well in that company and you can see examples from this period in the first section of the book.

Then a distinct change begins to occur and the documentary style falls away to be replaced by photos like this which begin to appear in a direct change of approach where the subject is clearly engaged in the photographic process as opposed to being external. I was lucky enough to have attended a workshop with Anders Petersen recently and he showed a wonderful movie about Latvian photographer Inta Ruka who also shoots almost exclusively in this way where the subject is fully engaged with and aware of the photographer. Inta is clearly a master of this style and her life story is heart rending but I have to say that for my money Winship gets at something more in her subjects and creates a subtle depth of character that is quite exceptional. I think you can begin to see this in the example I have chosen here but it really comes home in her study of America in the Jackson book.

I think that these photos mark a hugely significant change in approach by Winship and you can read more about her thinking in recent online interviews in the BJP and lensculture which you can easily search out if you are interested. What I believe personally is that this is phase two in the progression and its about honing the approach and skill of reflecting her ideas in these portraits that was to deliver big time in She Dances on Jackson where the portraits have a relevance and subtlety that isn’t quite there in the slightly earlier work. Additionally at this phase we see the landscape and supporting scenes that are so important to her work being refined.

Then in the third phase it all comes together where the landscapes and revealing portraits blend beatifully into the highly accomplished She Dances on Jackson. The portraits of the American people that Winship has taken touch on almost every aspect of American society and culture and they are elegantly sequenced with the gorgeous land and city scape shots.

I also personally believe that Winship has created some of the most revealing contemporary portraits of Americans and their longings, fears and apprehensions. These portraits are for me totally iconic and will only improve with age. I am convinced that we will be looking back in twenty years time at this work as an absolute classic.

One of the lovely things about a retrospective like this is that the artists work is shown in a representative way and there are also two sections in here on Winships landscape only works, ‘Humber’ from 2010 and 2014’s ‘Almeria, Where Gold Was Found’. I have to say that these are very nice, thoughtful pieces of work with Humber being my personal favourite but in the absence of the subtle but powerful and insightful portraits I don’t think that they have the drive and creative completeness of the other works.

Finally, I want to bring this short review to a close with a return to the cover shot from this book which interestingly is the final portrait shot in ‘She Dances on Jackson’. This for me captures the current essence of America, the evolutionary emergence of a new American who has very different cultural aspirations but is somewhat apprehensive despite their youth, it seems to me like it could go either way.

In conclusion, a very nice introduction to Vanessa Winship’s gorgeous photography which, although a bit patchy by its very nature, largely achieves its objectives. I think if you have anything more than a passing interest in her work it would be better to buy the original books to see the complete sequences and structures. This is a little bit of a ‘greatest hits’ book and I am not sure that is always a good thing. All things considered though a very good value and interesting read.

Colin Steel 10th August 2014