One Sunday at the Gallery

At first I thought I should just put the experience that was Portraits from Prime Time behind me, pretend it never happened like the time I smashed that huge bottle of olive oil in the middle of the supermarket but evidently, just like that frigging olive oil I just can’t hold onto this any more.  I really am a big believer in the 'if you haven't got anything nice to say, don't say it at all' mentality but this has just really been bothering me. I have recounted the tale to a couple of unsuspecting friends during the week who innocently asked what I did on the weekend, to which I replied ‘I went to the Portrait Gallery’.  Inevitably the next question is ‘oh, what did you see?’, and unfortunately this is where it gets ugly. Sorry in advance, National Portrait Gallery, I hope we can still be friends.
In brief, Portraits from Prime Time was shallow, vapid and downright depressing. In order to understand the context of this most epic let down I should probably set the scene here. For me, the most recent visit to my much-loved National Portrait Gallery was to see the Elvis at 21 Exhibition which was not longer than a month ago, and an exhibition which I still think about frequently due to it being pretty darn swell. What made this particular series of photographs so great was the depth that emerged from what was essentially a serendipitous  few days of observational photography. Unbeknownst to the photographer at the time, the significance of the series has understandably increased given the events of Elvis’ life and death.  What was a relatively short compilation of photographs articulated the beauty in observation, the wonderful stories to be told in showing the ‘just before...' and ‘just after...’ moments, with the added depth of what was a complicated time of change and revolution in both music and America’s social history.
Back to Portraits from Primetime, and I couldn’t help but feel a serious juxtaposition between these two exhibitions. A large number of the photographs from Portraits from Prime Time were in fact film stills, perfectly primped and placed not unlike their actor/singer/socialite subject matter, a number of which were from television series I didn’t consider particularly groundbreaking. Yes, I’m looking at you, Offspring. Alongside said film stills were information bubbles explaining how television stills photographers use a ‘blimp’ casing to ensure the actors don’t know they’re being photographed, which I could only interpret as somehow trying to convince the viewer that these photos essentially pulled straight from the television screen deserved some kind of artistic merit. For me, this was a losing battle.
For the non-film-still and film-still pieces alike, information bubbles - and I use the term bubbles as they were circular stickers on a wall with literally just dot points - detailed the most inane facts about said celebrities. ‘ABC Celebrity has 150 000 Instagram Followers - Is a Vegetarian - Daughter of XYZ - bought a car for $500 and drove it around the country’.
By trying to demonstrate an intimate insight into these celebrity characters the complete opposite has been achieved, whereby their worth is boiled down to trivial, insipid factoids.
These images were being displayed in the National Portrait Gallery, but I would go so far as to say many of them fell short of the criteria of a ‘portrait’. Many felt as though they’d been ripped straight from the pages of a glossy magazine, and consequently were far too easy to just walk right past.
Now, it’s not all bad. Fortunately, the day was redeemed by the second half of the tour being National Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition.  Each of portraits had a rich narrative and varying subject matter - for some of these, the image and the narrative clashed in positively thought-provoking way. Some portraits were political, some not. Some heartwarming, others brave, others shocking. After what felt like navigating a barren cultural desert that was Portraits from Prime Time I was glad we found ourselves in the relative oasis that was the National Photographic Portrait Prize, saved before I had lost all faith in the Gallery I love very much. NPG, you're forgiven, but please don't do something like this again.