https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2016/Annie-Leibovitz-Women-31052016/i-p4zx37q
Opening this week in Kennedy Town is a ‘pop-up’ exhibition of Annie Leibovitz’s photos entitled WOMEN: New Portraits. Leibovitz’s emphasis in the title… Except they’re not really new portraits most have appeared in the media over the last couple of years.
The pop-up exhibition space is the whole floor of an un-renovated industrial building in Kennedy Town, yet the mostly A3 size photos (printed on an office printer) are crammed together in four tight rows. The bottom less than a foot off the floor, making reflective study and appreciation of the photos hard. Far more interesting are the original Women’s photos from 1999 exhibited as a slideshow on three big screens.
Leibovitz’s is in Hong Kong for three days courtesy of the exhibition’s Swiss bank sponsor and in person she’s engaging and has anecdotes about each photo. It was sad though to hear her talk of considering her legacy and how people and history will view her photography as her current reference frame as to which photos she’ll exhibit and who/what she’ll shoot.
As someone who claims each photo tells a story, the tale the exhibition tells is of Leibovitz in need of a pay-cheque. There’s nothing wrong with that, but few of the ‘new’ photos would merit a second look without Leibovitz’s name and the well known status of the subjects. Further exemplified with her newly released photos of the Queen in Vanity Fair. That said the exhibition’s free and the original Women’s series is worth enjoying again.
Annie Leibovitz – WOMEN: New Portraits
Date: 10am-6pm, 3-26 June, 2016
Venue: 3/F, Cheung Hing Industrial Building, 12P Smithfield, Kennedy Town
Tickets: Free
Photography: Jayne Russell
https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2016/Annie-Leibovitz-Women-31052016/i-M7Mz84m