Catalogue relating to an exhibition, 1999
Published by: The Photographers’ Gallery
Year published: 1999
Number of pages: 32
ISBN: 0907879551
Unpaginated.

Substantial hardback catalogue for Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize, 6 February - 3 April 1999, held at the Photographers’ Gallery, London. The exhibition featured photography-based work by Augusto Alves da Silva, Rineke Dijkstra, Alex Hartley, Yinka Shonibare and Paul M Smith.

The catalogue’s essay is “Subject seeks object”, by Michael Bracewell. Following Bracewell’s essay, Sue Hubbard provided concise summaries on each artist in their respective section. A novel dimension of the catalogue is the way in which each artist’s plates appear as mini pages, preceded by Hubbard’s commentary and followed by each artist’s checklist of work and edited CV. 

From Bracewell’s text: “A foppishly dressed black man takes his place among a group of white Victorian aristocrats; a photograph of a tower block is obscured beneath the glass of its casing; a self-conscious young woman in a bathing costume strains for the ease of self-assurance; a stretch of rural road appears to recede in either direction, but to lead nowhere; a squad of aggressive young men plays up their drunken hi-jinks for the camera, singularly featured in a collective of confrontational laddism.

This is a list of some of the subjects which the five artists and photographers shortlisted for the Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize 1999 have presented in their work. They have chosen to create these photographic images in a variety of formats, and can be seen to embrace, in some instances, both the use of self-portraiture as it might be found in performance art, and the ambient or sculptural effects of an installation.

Consequently, as you look at their work, it quickly becomes clear that the whole idea of photography has engaged with the blurring of artistic boundaries, of format, framing and context, in a way which enables the photographer to explore the potential of their medium. Thus they describe a new territory for our understanding of photography, which is founded as much on the way that we look at photographs, as on the way they are made and presented.”

Contents as follows:

Foreword, by Andrew Pinhorn, Vice-President, Citibank Private Bank, and Ian Dunlop, non-voting Chairman of the Jury

Essay, “Subject seeks object”, by Michael Bracewell

Artists’ sections

Acknowledgements.

This copy of the catalogue was formerly in the library of Surrey Institute of Art & Design and is marked ‘WITHDRAWN’