We chat to documentary photographer Mark Neville about his new show

Date
24 November 2014

There are equal doses of pleasure and frustration to be had in stumbling across the work of a photographer you’ve never seen before. It’s classic FOMO on a macro scale, coupled with joy at the prospect of showing off the treasure you’ve found. At least that’s what I felt when I discovered that photographer Mark Neville was to be showing two of his photo-series alongside one another in a new show entitled London/Pittsburgh at London’s Alan Cristea Gallery.

The documentary photographer has an incomparable list of projects to his name, from documenting the hardship of Scotland’s post-industrial decline (which he then printed in a book and gifted for free to members of the community) to serving as the UK’s official war artist, shooting the British army in the Afghan province of Helmand over the course of a three month residency in 2011. The projects that we were most interested in, however, were those which take prime position in his new exhibition London/Pittburgh at the Alan Cristea Gallery.

Mark shot two projects in London and Pittsburgh over a relatively short period of time, documenting the class divides in London alongside the racial tensions which govern neighbouring areas of Pittburgh in the USA, and soon came to realise that, exhibited alongside one another, these two collections could serve as poignant comparisons to each other. We caught with Mark to discuss these comparisons, and the various ways he aims to empower his subjects through photographing them.

Above

Mark Neville: London Metal Exchange, 2012. Courtesy of the artist and Alan Cristea Gallery

How did you first start taking photographs?

I owned a 35mm Pentax SLR as an art student, but I only really used it to document my sculptures and installations. It was only when I began The Port Glasgow Book Project, about ten years ago, that I started seriously making photographs and thinking about all the issues surrounding documentary practice.

By pairing your projects Here is London and Braddock/Sewickley you invite comparison between British and American society. What first gave you the idea to place these two cultures side by side?

The pairing of British and American society you see in my book and exhibition at the Alan Cristea Gallery came about because, although each project was separate originally, there were also so many intriguing similarities between them. Between late 2011 and summer 2012 I changed the direction of my practice in order to realise these two commissions, both originating from America. The first of these came from The New York Times Magazine, and involved making work in London over six weeks (this resulted in Here Is London), and the second was an invitation from the Andy Warhol Museum to realise a project in Pittsburgh over a three month period (this became the slideshow installation Braddock/Sewickley).

I had never worked for a publication before, nor had I ever produced work for immediate exhibition in an American museum. I had also never worked so quickly; the normal duration for my projects being a year or two. With a gap in production of around five weeks between one project ending and the next beginning, these two separate bodies of work became implicated with one another. Each provided me with an insight into race and class issues in the respective countries, contrasts between rich and poor, black and white, working and upper class, which is made explicit in the work. When I met with the Alan Cristea Gallery we saw quickly the similar themes and visual approach, and realised that the bringing together of two bodies of work made in different locations can generate new insights and reflections upon social divisions in each.

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Mark Neville: Bankers at Boujis Nightclub, 2011. Courtesy of the artist and Alan Cristea Gallery

Can you tell me a bit about your experiences photographing in Pittsburgh?

In Pittsburgh I stayed and worked in two very different areas, Sewickley and Braddock. Much of the wealth generated by the steel industry is still very evident in Sewickley, visible in the glorious houses found in the Heights, in the village shops, and the local country clubs. While a few homes were being built in the late 1890s, Sewickley really took off after 1902 when the Allegheny Country Club relocated there, accelerating the settlement of the area as a haven for wealthy Pittsburgh residents. These social clubs used to be, and still are, an important connection in these circles.

By contrast Braddock is home to the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, the first steel mill in America to use the Bessemer process, which now operates as a part of the United States Steel Corporation. Braddock lost its importance with the collapse of the steel industry in the US in the 1970s and 1980s. This coincided with the crack cocaine epidemic of the early 1980s, and the combination of the two woes nearly destroyed the community.

What interested you about the disparity of culture between Braddock and Sewickley?

Well, it was my first experience living in the States. I’d visited New York and elsewhere briefly as a tourist, but four months in Pittsburgh was obviously different. The demographics of these two Pittsburgh communities, Braddock and Sewickley, seemed to be to be divided along racial lines. I’d just returned from the shoot in London, where division of wealth seemed to be still more about the class system than anything else. This was a shock to me. I was also surprised by people’s incredible openness and generosity in both communities, despite this division.

Your work is described as sitting “at the intersection of art and documentary.” How do you feel these two work together?

This quote says it all for me: “With the people struggling and changing reality before our eyes, we must not cling to “tried” rules of narrative, venerable literary models, eternal aesthetic laws. We must not derive realism as such from particular existing works, but we shall use every means, old and new, tried and untried, derived from art and derived from other sources, to render reality to men in a form they can master … Our concept of realism must be wide and political, sovereign over all conventions.” – Bertholt Brecht, Popularity and Realism 1938.

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Mark Neville: Boston Arms (Rockabilly Nightclub) 2012. Courtesy of the artist and Alan Cristea gallery

You’ve been described as choosing to echo the style of photographers who documented the boom and bust of the 70s and 80s. Was this a very conscious decision? What influenced you in this choice?

This indeed was my visual strategy for both Here Is London and Braddock/Sewickley. The plan was to echo the visual style of iconic photographers of the 1970s and 1980s who also looked at an America or Britain undergoing recession, in order to suggest that the same economic and social forces present forty years ago are still strongly at play now. In fact, things aren’t just the same now, they are actually much worse! Britain and America are in the top five countries in terms of wealth inequality. It’s as bad as it’s been since the 1920s. If you are born into poverty it’s becoming increasingly difficult to break out of it. This was the context in which I shot London and Pittsburgh. I explored themes of race, education, leisure, tradition, class and ritual, and worked to make the images look timeless or historically indeterminate. I had viewed both London and Pittsburgh through a prism mixed with Charles Dickens and Norman Rockwell. My photographic references were people like Mitch Epstein and Gary Winogrand.

How do you seek to empower the subject through photographing them?

Gosh, that is a big question because I have tried to do this in so many different ways over the past ten years. You can look at my website and read the processes and projects, which have become as important as the photographs themselves as artefacts. With London/Pittsburgh I have been very fortunate to work with the Alan Cristea Gallery who right from the start understood and supported the ethics and messages of my work. As well as the exhibition itself which is already provoking much debate, in January we are realising a symposium at the London School of Economics called ‘Picturing Inequality’ with speakers who did research into the London riots. We have also arranged a special bus trip visit to the gallery for kids who attend Somerford Grove Adventure Playground. They were so involved in both making, and featuring in, the photographs in the Here is London series.

Who is your favourite subject you’ve ever photographed? Why?

My favourite subject was a farmer in her 60s, Annie MacDougall, on the Isle of Bute. She used to let her animals, including her goats, into the kitchen, and we had fun. She “adopted” me during my time working on Fancy Pictures, and introduced me to everyone on the Isle. In between shoots she would feed me homemade shortbread and lamb cutlets, and sometimes make vulgar jokes. When the Scottish Parliament acquired a photograph featuring her, I put in the contract that they had to send a chauffeur driven Jaguar to pick her up and bring her to Edinburgh for the launch! It was the first time in 50 years she had visited Edinburgh.

London/Pittburgh runs until 25 January at London’s Alan Cristea Gallery.

Above

Mark Neville: St Patrick’s Day 2012. Courtesy of the artist and Alan Cristea gallery

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About the Author

Maisie Skidmore

Maisie joined It’s Nice That fresh out of university in the summer of 2013 as an intern before joining full time as an Assistant Editor. Maisie left It’s Nice That in July 2015.

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