LIMBO
KEVIN BROADBERY
for Arne Jensen
LIMBO A Life in Limbo I am sure that we are well aware of the numerous adverts enticing us to partake in weekend excursions to various cultural Mecca’s. The bags are packed, we jet off leaving the daily trivia and the related problems of living far behind us. They are replaced by a hectic program of hastily instigated cultural encounters. Museum visits, the cafe experience, visits to well known historical landmarks and wet towels dumped on the hotel bathroom floor. We then return home convinced that we have been to wherever it is and seen it, rather like the well known American idiom of ; “ We did Paris and then we did Berlin ”. This new series of photographs by Kevin Broadbery aptly titled Limbo spans twenty years of seeing and recording. I feel the need to place a great deal of emphasis on the word seeing, because it is through the eyes of Kevin Broadbery’s that we are given the opportunity to experience things as they are and which very few of us actually inclined to see. When viewing this series of photographs, the camera truly becomes a catalyst for the operative function of the eye. I state this with regard to my own intuitive response to an unhealthy portion of contemporary photography, where the presence of the camera is strongly felt as an exaggerated contributory tool used in capturing the image. Rather like a form of scenography, where the landscape becomes a concept, the portrait a refinement of a pursued technique, the still life a self conscious attempt to elevate the mundane, ( and in doing so surpassing such expectations so that objects become animated rather than just wonderfully ordinary .) In short, the vast majority of modern photography has become exceedingly self-conscious and burdened with the technical contribution taking centre stage which has resulted in a proliferation of rather introverted and technically overdressed imagery. The presence of the camera and the incumbent techniques are all too readily felt and experienced as the proxy vehicle of communicating, thus becoming the primary replacement of the eye and the genuine art of seeing.
This selected collection of photographs that make up the Limbo series resonate a theme of work that insists on illustrating a scent of life, that although ever present for our consumption, is not so readily seen. The images to hand talk to us of the human condition that is set the task of negotiating the daily existence, a `Purgatory of living´. The transient worker struggling to maintain a sustainable work in an attempt to build for the future. The images glance and record the isolation and exhaustion of old age. The poignant, as well as the stoic bleakness of the urban landscape and the chance reflection of the submissive yielding humdrum. Indeed, a life in Limbo. A resilient strength that Kevin Broadbery has is as a street photographer. An asset that he uses to great effect in this series as images are preserved and the presence of the camera is not felt. This allows for an empathic conveyance of the motive permitting us to be the silent voyeuristic observer. The images resonate a socialistic humility where one could draw parallels of listening to a musical tone that you can trust and feel reassured by. It needs to be stated that good photographers possess an innate ability to seize upon the ’accidental’ a valid issue one is required to touch upon when talking about Kevin Broadbery’s images that comprise the Limbo series. The painter Francis Bacon was brutally eloquent and enlightening when talking about the creative accident as a phenomena that you seized upon and used in the forming of the final image. His viewpoint being, that the vehicle for attaining this accidental state of the creative method was that by deliberation, you willed the accident to happen. The ability to conjure this state of inventive activity necessitated that the creator was in possession of an acquired intuition. Such an asset is amassed by cumulative years of dedication and working experience. The endless ‘playing out´, as it were that involves the seeing and the taking of thousands of photographic images. The `accident´is prevalent in the oeuvre of Kevin Broadbery and can be clearly seen in his use of reflections that are captured and configure within a number of photographs from this series. This ´ design of an accident´ is of relevance to the work of Kevin Broadbery and in particular this series. It is here in the Limbo series that we can see his use of the willed accident and of his ability to calculate a visual design which is the result of experience and intuitive cerebral contemplation. This is where we are truly fortunate insofar as that we are allowed to see that which he has seen. Galvin Harrison Copenhagen 2010
London
London
Paris
Paris
Berlin
Manhattan, New York
Manhattan, New York
Mexico
Manhattan, New York
Mexico City, Mexico
Bensonhurst, New York
Manhattan, New York
Prague, Czech Republic
Mayumi, Manhattan, New York
Prague, Czech Republic
New York
New York
New York
Coney Island, New York
Staten Island, New York
Manhattan, New York
Chetumal, Mexico
Merida, Mexico
Oaxaca, Mexico
Dingle, Ireland
Møn, Denmark
“People can change anything they want to and that means everything in the world. People are running about following their little tracks, I am one of them. But we’ve all got to stop just following our own little mouse-trail. People can do anything, this is something that I’m beginning to learn. People are out there doing bad things to each other, it’s because they’ve been dehumanized. It’s time to take the humanity back into the center of the ring and follow that for a time - greed, it aint going anywhere. They should have that in a big billboard across Times Square. Without people you’re nothing.That’s my spiel”. Joe Strummer 1952 - 2002 Self portrait, New York