Outsider's insight
Andy Warhol is remembered for many talents and eccentric qualities, but not always listed among the greats of photography. This noteworthy exhibition is a chance to rectify that.
Two hundred small black-and-white prints, artfully arranged in blocks, form an intriguing documentary of Warhol's latter phase, from 1976 until 1987, the year he died.
Warhol was, of course, a Master of the Mundane, immortalised through soup cans and Brillo pads, and these images extend that fixation into the photographic realm.
Always carrying a small camera on strolls through Manhattan and other cities, into country locations and indoor events, his off-the-cuff sprees are a record of his private gaze. They reveal a sophisticated sense of design and composition.
Warhol creates a visual serialism from patterns created by stacked fruit, hanging frying-pans and trays of teacups, and presents still-lifes - a dead pigeon, abandoned shoe, chunk of cake - against "found" backdrops, including a grey sky, white tablecloth, spattered Tarmac.
Pandering to his legendary collecting bug, he relished the close-up visual chaos of fleamarket displays. These shots of everyday objects link him to today's vogue for elevating the ordinary.
Most surprising for someone so studiously deadpan, there is also lyricism here - in the old lady feeding birds, the prone homeless man, and ballet pumps lined against a wall. But the pervasive impression is of a melancholy eye silently focusing on his surroundings: the clichéd image of Warhol as outsider.
Until 29 Feb. Information: 020 7409 3344, www.timothytaylorgallery.com.
Andy Warhol: Portraits And Landscapes
Timothy Taylor Gallery, Carlos Place
Carlos Place, W1K 2EY
