Dick Jewell

Dick’s work as an artist started from being a photographer interested in how photography influences and informs society, from family albums, magazines, newspapers and within both editorial and advertising contexts. These contexts in turn influenced the print mediums he would utilise and also migrated to include film.

The main subjects of his work have been studies of poses and trends within contemporary portrait photography, along with people’s attitudes towards photographs and being photographed. These are often exemplified via photomontage or animation, to illustrate the repetition of their occurrence. Found Photos, 1980, is devoted entirely to the study of discarded photobooth pictures, many that he found having to be reassembled before publishing. Attitudism, 1983–7 is a montage of portraits of 20 artists, each asked to enact the main facial expressions, happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, anger, disgust and interest for his camera. More recently his work has been concerning the use of digital photography: 750 Mug Shots (A Portrait of the Nation), 2006, reproduces 750 digital images of mugs that were online, on one day, in the endeavour of their owners to sell the mugs depicted on eBay. It represents not only a social and economic portrait, through the collectible aspects of a tea-drinking nation, but is also a visual statement on the subject of appropriation of digital imagery; this physical reproduction existing beyond the digital originals now extant. More recently he has published his third book ‘four thousand threads’ 2015. The concept of the book is that the threads between the four thousand images, which he has researched from the internet, emphasise not only the memetic spread of digital imagery online but also their consequential effect upon influencing worldwide changes in culture.

Dick’s films include The Jazz Room (40 mins), 1985, about the development of jazz dance at The Electric Ballroom, Camden. At the start of each night, the ‘film so far’ was projected above the dance floor, before continuing to shoot more material to incorporate into the film. This created an interaction between the dancers and the film that informed the development of the dance style. By the time he commenced documenting the nightclub Kinky Gerlinky, this method of creating an ongoing dialogue with the subject to produce a living document became more intimate. Having moved onto Video8 and later Hi-8 as a medium, by editing each night onto VHS, which was made available at ticket outlets, it allowed the protagonists to view the previous event in their homes whilst preparing to go to the next one. It was via this process, in the early 1990s, that 200 hours of Kinky Gerlinky were recorded to produce 21 episodes, which Jewell has now further digitally edited to release as one document, Kinky Gerlinky (101 mins), 2004.

Other documentaries include: Headcases (66 mins), 1988, featuring two dozen streetwise Londoners including Kathy Acker, John Maybury, Mark Lebon, etc.; The Rise of Neneh Cherry (63 mins), 1989; and What’s Your Reaction To The Show? (40 mins), 1990, about people’s reaction to viewing art, specifically the Leigh Bowery at the Anthony d’Offay Gallery. This was the first time Leigh had exhibited in an art gallery, and so with no prior reviews the reaction of the people would be their own, rather than what they were supposed to think. As with his work on paper, his most recent films have also concerned digital media. Jewell (125mins), April–August 2009, encompasses not only photography but also video and audio material bearing the artist’s surname, gathered from the Internet. The material is titled, presented in alphabetical order and imitates the aspect of multitasking on a computer screen.