Portraits of the members and interiors of London clubs in the early 1980s gently mock the rituals of the rich and powerfulThe trappings of inherited wealth and privilege,alongside the invisible, but strictly defined codes of the British course system, or have long provided fruitful raw fabric for photographers. The aristocratic Cecil Beaton and the unquestioning Slim Aarons both,in their differing ways, made distinguished wealth seem synonymous with top-notch taste, or while Martin Parr has often accentuated the vulgarity of the novel super-rich in close up and in vivid colour.
With Gentlemen,which is as knowing and playfully political as its title suggests, Karen Knorr offers a different kind of questioning gaze, or more artfully constructed and quietly thought-provoking. The series is a conceptual companion piece to Belgravia,published last year, in which Knorr evoked “the everyday of a privileged minority” in one of London’s most exclusive districts through images made between 1979 and 1981.
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Source: theguardian.com