Three from Britain

8 March - 31 May 2008

ROSEGALLERY is pleased to announce an exhibition of photographs by Chris KillipMartin Parr and Graham Smith taken in Great Britain from the late 1970s through the 1980s. This is the first presentation of works by documentary mavericks Chris Killip and Graham Smith to be shown in a commercial gallery within the United States. This exhibition will also mark the first time that the work of all three artists will be shown together since the landmark 1990 exhibition British Photography from the Thatcher Years at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s Britain saw a colossal transformation. The confluence of de-industrialization and the socially conservative policies of Prime Minister Thatcher further polarized an already stratified British society. This social terrain called for a new kind of document. A generation of photographers was ready to document these complex political and economic realities. Recognizing the need for a new kind of record, Chris Killip, Martin Parr and Graham Smith focused their perspectives on life in England, each providing a unique way to comprehend this era. The works produced during this period of upheaval offered a way of understanding the irony, pain, hopelessness and humor of a nation in flux.