Caryatid (1995-8)
This was the major photographic project that I worked on through the 1990s and the one where I pushed site specific installation the furthest.
I began photographing caryatid figures at the start of the decade, but it was not until 1995 that I showed the work for the first time. The fact that this exhibition was in Greece made it particularly appropriate (if also problematic) .
Back in Britain, I was able in 1998-9 to show the project three times, in Cardiff and then twice in London, in three very different spaces each with its own physical characteristics and historical relevance.
The text below was written in 1998 for a brochure which accompanied the first of these showings at Oriel in Cardiff. Copies of this brochure can be obtained direct from this website – see details under ‘Contact’.
The ‘Caryatid Slideshow’ contains a mix of images, both individual photographs which were part of the show, and installation pictures showing how the caryatids were displayed in each of the four venues.
The document ‘Caryatid: Four Installations’ gives further details about the nature of each of those exhibitions.
Next is a review of the Pitzhanger Manor exhibition by Yves Abrioux, published in the Danish magazine Katalog, Spring 1999.
In 2019, I had the opportunity to revisit Caryatid with the exhibition Acropolis Redux in Athens. Further information and images can be found in the section on that exhibition.
This also gave me the chance to add another small slideshow, presenting a sequence of images taken in 1990 in the Louvre, Paris. It depicts the Salle des cariatides added to the royal palace in the 1550s by architect Pierre Lescot and sculptor Jean Goujon.