Exhibition – Shot in Soho (The Photographers’ Gallery)

Exhibition – The Photographers’ Gallery, London, 18th October 2019 – 9th February 2020
Shot in Soho

(Header shot: The Colony Room Club, 1999-2000 © Clancy Gebler Davies, courtesy of the artist)

The corner of London’s west end filled by Soho has long been a colourful, creative and inclusive part of the capital. Sometimes painted as the seedier side of city life, Soho has remained a magnet for writers, actors and musicians and has welcomed in the LGBTQ+ community. The famous Berwick Street Market saw Marc Bolan working on his Mum’s stall in the 60s, became a haven for food lovers and record collectors and was the location for that cover from What’s the Story (Morning Glory). The writer Virginia Woolf described Soho as a space ‘filled with fierce light’ and ‘raw voices’. There are ongoing concerns about the redevelopment of the neighbourhood but, whatever happens, there will always be a vibrant history attached to the area and this has been channelled into a new exhibition, Shot in Soho, opening tomorrow.

Shoes Polisher, Rocky II, etc, Piccadilly, 1980 © William Klein, courtesy of the artist

Extracts from the press release:

‘Shot in Soho is an original exhibition presented at The Photographers’ Gallery celebrating Soho’s diverse culture, community and creativity at a time when the area is facing radical transformation. The imminent completion of Cross Rail (a major transport hub being built on Soho’s borders) in Autumn 2019, makes the area a prime target for development and threatens it existence as a place of unorthodoxy and independence…

From market-place to movie-set, sex shop to coffee bar, crime scene to cabaret, Soho has always been an unfolding and complex spectacle, central to the music, fashion, design, film and sex industries alongside being a vibrant hub for LGBTQ+ communities. It has also, across the centuries, been home to a variety of immigrant communities from the French Huguenots, through Italian, Maltese, Chinese, Hungarian, Jewish and Bengali cultures.

Shot in Soho offers a timely opportunity to see the area through the lens of renowned photographers, such as William Klein, through a rare presentation of his candid 1980s Sunday Times commissioned photo essay; Anders Petersen, through a selection of his 2011 Soho series, which capture the neighbourhood with his trademark lyrical melancholy; Corinne Day, whose images take us off the streets into her Brewer Street home where some of her most iconic editorial and personal work was shot; as well as work from less familiar figures such as Times photographer Kelvin Brodie’s night-time forays with police teams, John Goldblatt’s strip club dressing room scenes and Clancy Gebler Davies’s work in The Colony Room Club. The exhibition features a commission from artist, Daragh Soden who will present a new body of work focusing on Soho’s reputation as a place of connection, performance and the pursuit of love…’

Above: Untitled, from the series ‘The Undressing Room’, 1968 © John Goldblatt, courtesy of the artist’s estate

Below right: Men hiding their faces / 69 Sauna & Massage © William Klein, courtesy of the artist

Shot in Soho runs from 18th October 2019 – 9th February 2020

The Photographers’ Gallery
16-18 Ramillies Street, London W1F 7LW
Opening times: Mon – Sat 10 – 6, Thurs lates 5 – 8, Sun 11 – 6
Admission: £5 / £2.50, free after 5 daily, under 19s go free, members go free – please check the website for further details of this and other exhibitions before visiting