All cities, particularly great cities like London, are built upon a unique language of place. Call it city language. As a result, cities will tell us their special stories in special ways. To understand a city and most importantly for the artist – to capture it, we must understand its language. No one confronts this imperative more passionately, sometimes more hopelessly than the photographer. This is because city language and photography are both grounded in the instant and at the same time in the backward glance of memory.
Gary Alexander is intimate with the language of his city – London. Each image he has collected in Pavemental embodies a piece of London’s instantaneous reality and, at the same time, its lingering sense of self. Whenever he shoots, he confronts London’s seductive passions. He submits to London’s city language and masters it. In Pavemental we see Gary channeling London’s small rituals: alienation, boredom, routine, destitution, disruption and isolation. In these rituals, he shows us visceral necessities that echo London’s visual memory. And it becomes clear to us that London in turn shapes Gary to its unique visual tessitura and its narcissistic needs.
All languages have rhythm and Gary has London’s in the soles of his feet; as he moves, he speaks its truth with grace and fluency. Like a wizard, he passes through its light to create compelling visual spells and incantations. For example: in one image, the sun creates a smiling starlet and her admirer; she seems pleasantly surprised midst her Bette Davis shoulders and her royal hands, while he hides his hands to protect her innocence. In another, an abandoned pair of stolid heels is inspected by a shadow and we suspect that textured yellow may be this season’s new shade of surrender.
So Pavemental comprises Gary Alexander’s authoritative lexicon of London’s city language and its shadow forms. Pavemental speaks out of the corners of London with sideward glances and oblique references to record the between-the-lines of Gary’s London life. Pavemental speaks with the quiet assurance of a native. The images Gary has collected here speak London’s city language eloquently and tell us its secrets.
Gary’s enigmatic photo includes Richard Serra’s sculpture near London’s Liverpool Station which is “much favoured by commuters caught short at closing time.” See: Art Attacks: Don’t Handle with Care. Many thanks to Gary Alexander for the use of his work.
I originally wrote this item as the Introduction to Gary Alexander’s photobook, Pavemental.
Return to Photodocs home page.
