20/20 brings together work by British photographers Chris Killip (1946-2020) and Graham Smith (1947) for a reconceived telling of their seminal show, Another Country, originally exhibited at the Serpentine Gallery, London, in 1985. Through snapshots and ephemera, the show also recognises their lifelong friendship with one another.
Killip and Smith first met in 1975 through Amber, a film and photography collective in Newcastle upon Tyne. They both photographed in North East England during a period when heavy industry was still thriving, followed by an unforeseen and devastating collapse. The photographers documented the individuals and communities whose lives depended on these industries, people who were facing a politically forced change to the landscape and their ways of life that had been settled for generations.
The idea for 20/20 was conceived by Augusta Edwards in 2019 and at that time Killip and Smith each selected 20 images taken between 1975 and 1987 for the exhibition. In the same powerful way as Another Country, the work by Killip and Smith is shown anonymously together on the walls in 20/20.
20/20 was first shown at Augusta Edwards Fine Art, London, in 2022.
Chris Killip / Graham Smith
11 April 2024 – 30 June 2024
Martin Parr Foundation
316 Paintworks
Bristol BS4 3AR
https://www.martinparrfoundation.org
left / Another Country exhibition poster, Serpentine Gallery, 1985 right / Graham (left) and Chris (right), Wallsend, North Tyneside, 1976 © Markéta Luskačová
Rocker and Rosie going home, Lynemouth, Northumberland, 1984 © Chris Killip Photography Trust / Magnum Photos, courtesy Augusta Edwards Fine Art
Sandy and his Aunty Elsie, Early Doors in the Commercial, South Bank, Middlesbrough, 1983 © Graham Smith, courtesy Augusta Edwards Fine Art
Bennetts Corner (Giro Corner), South Bank, Middlesbrough, 1982 © Graham Smith, courtesy Augusta Edwards Fine Art
Coal mine and housing, Castleford, Yorkshire, 1976 © Chris Killip Photography Trust / Magnum Photos, courtesy Augusta Edwards Fine Art
