richard billingham is shortlisted for the turner prize 2001.....................................................................................................................................................
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richard billingham richard billingham is shortlisted for the turner prize 2001 for his solo exhibition at the ikon gallery in birmingham, and for his contributions to 'the sleep of reason' at the norwich gallery and to 'body beautifu'l at gale rie jennifer flay, nice, in which he showed the extension of his work in to video and a poignant return to places of childhood memory in his recent photographs. the turner prize is widely recognised as one of the most important and prestigious awards for the visual ar ts in europe. richard billingham's work is on show at tate britain, london 7/11/2001 - 20/1/2002. http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/turnerprize.htm --- richard billingham : 'my father raymond is a chronic alcoholic. he doesn't like going outside, my mother elizabeth hardly drinks, but she does smoke a lot. she likes pets and things that are decorative. they married in 1970 and I was born soon after. my younger brother jason was taken into care when he was 11, but now he is back with ray and liz again. recently he became a father. 'dad was some kind of mechanic, but he's always been an alcoholic. it has just got worse over the years. he gets drunk on cheap cider at the off license. he drinks a lot at nights now and gets up late. originally, our family lived in a terraced house, but they blew all the redundancy money and, in desperation, sold the house. then we moved to the council tower block, where ray just sits in and drinks. that's the thing about my dad, there's no subject he's interested in, except drink.' 'it's not my intention to shock, to offend, sensationalise, be political or whatever, only to make work that is as spiritually meaningful as I can make it - in all these photographs I never bothered with things like the negatives. some of them got marked and scratched. I just used the cheapest film and took them to be processed at the cheapest place. I was just trying to make order out of chaos.' --- short biography richard billingham was born in birmingham in 1970 and began taking photographs while studying fine arts at sunderland university. after college he returned to birmingham, and worked stacking shelves in qwik save, doing art by night. billingham began photographing his family as reference material for paintings. the subjects are his father ray, his obese and tattoed mother liz, his unruly younger brother jason, the dog's another character: caught flash-pupilled with the cat beside the fridge with the brown dribbles all down it; or thoroughly chewing its behind on the sofa. he took so many shots that the family stopped noticing and the result is that they are portraited without artefice. his photos were first shown in the barbican art gallery, london in 1994 entitled 'who's looking at the family'. two years later these selected images feature in billingham's book, 'ray's a laugh', published by scalo, 1996. after the overnight fame, he stopped taking still pictures, but moved on to hi-8 video footage, resulting in the 47minute TV film called 'fishtank', commissioned by artangel. first exhibited in 1995 at anthony reynolds gallery, london, the works have since received international acclaim. in 1997 he won the citibank private bank photography prize and his work was one of the talking points of 'sensation', the exhibition of contemporary british art from the saatchi collection, in london and berlin (1997), and new York (1998). the latest stills are depopulated landscapes: dead-end waste ground; patches of semi-rural / industrial dereliction behind red-brick walls; threadbare greens and eroded playgrounds between housing estates; a windblown spinney mirroring a painter's cloud-puffed sky... lives and works in stourbridge (uk). --- !! see the 2001 biennale snapshots !! http://www.designboom.com/snapshots/venezia/bill.html --- !! see the quick time clip by richard billingham !! http://www.designboom.com/snapshots/venezia/bill_mov.html --- richard billingham, 'ray's a laugh' scalo books 'ray’s a laugh' was a seminal influence on this development, with its radically honest, unadorned, and shocking photographs of billingham’s dysfunctional family ravaged by alcoholism and poverty. billingham documents their squalid surroundings and violent relations to each other with unflinching candor. billingham blasts the lid of one of the few remaining taboos. he shows both the desperation and affection of a lower-class family in birmingham, uk-confronting us with a way of life that is as frighteningly alien to most of us as its emotional intensity is harrowingly familiar to all of us. billingham has taken a long and hard look at his own family-pitilessly honest and loyally loving. http://www.scalo.com --- solo exhibitions contemporary art museum, nuoro, sardinia, italy 2000 ikon gallery, birmingham, uk, 2000 touring to: douglas hyde gallery, dublin; brno house of arts, brno; hasselbad centre, goteborg, danmark copenhagen contemporary art centre, copenhagen, danmark. galerie monica reitz, frankfurt am main, germany, 1999 galerie mot & van den boogaard, brussels, belgium, 1999 british school at rome, rome, italy, 1999 anthony reynolds gallery, london, 1996 +1998 national museum of film and photography, bradford, uk, 1996 portfolio gallery, edinburgh, scotland, 1996 luhring- augustine, new york, usa, 1997 regen projects, los angeles, usa, 1997 galerie jennifer flay, paris, france, 1997 galeria massimo de carlo, milan, italy, 1997 --- more on richard billingham http://www.artangel.org.uk http://www.hayward-gallery.org.uk http://www.eyestorm.com/saatchi/billingham.asp http://www.kunsthalle-wilhelmshaven.de/billing.html http://www.artseensoho.com/Art/LUHRING/billingham97/billingham1.html http://www.yvonneforceinc.com/yfinew/billing.htm http://www.netservices.se/hbc/english/exhib/billing/billing.html http://www.biennale24.com/richardbillingham.html http://www.ireland.com/dublin/entertainment/art/slobout.htm http://www.artnet.com/magazine/reviews/mccormick/mccormick3-6-97.asp --- ------- monthly designboom newsletter ------- ------- ? comments and contact us ? -------	'untitled', 1997© richard billingham courtesy anthony reynolds gallery, london 'liz smoking', 2000 © richard billingham courtesy anthony reynolds gallery, london 'untitled' / 'ray's a laugh', 1995 © richard billingham courtesy scalo books 'untitled' / 'ray's a laugh', 1995 © richard billingham courtesy scalo books 'untitled' (jig saw puzzle) / 'ray's a laugh', 1995 © richard billingham courtesy scalo books 'untitled' / 'ray's a laugh', 1995 © richard billingham courtesy scalo books 'untitled' (liz's kitchen) / 'ray's a laugh', 1995 © richard billingham courtesy scalo books 'untitled' 1994 © richard billingham 'untitled' (ray with the beer cup) / 'ray's a laugh', 1995 © richard billingham courtesy scalo books 'untitled', 1996 © richard billingham courtesy eyestorm.com