On the 20th of February we went to the Hayward Gallery to see the Diane Arbus and Kader Attia exhibitions.

Diane Arbus’ exhibition explored the first seven years of her career which began in 1956 until 1962. Some of the photos included had never been seen in an exhibition before. All the photos that were in the featured were gelatin silver prints which were made by Arbus herself. She took most of her photos in New York City, and often took photos of 'female impersonators', children and circus performers which were all included in her exhibition. I did like most of Arbus' work as I feel that photographers back in that era would not have been taking images similar to hers, making her work very unique. Although, there were a few images which I didn't like to look at, for example, there was an image of a corpse, which didn't really fit in with the images and was just disturbing. 

The exhibition itself had a very unique layout, the images were displayed on multiple white columns, a photograph was placed on each side of the columns. I liked the way they displayed her work as it made it easy to walk through and to view all the images in your own time. 

Attias exhibition displayed his work over the past two decades. Over the past twenty years Kader Attia set out to create art that engages our capacity for thinking as well as feeling which he calls a ‘real, fundamental dialogue’ about the world in which we live. His exhibition included sculptures, videos, collages, photos and installations. 

There were many different rooms within the exhibition. The first room, looked into 'inhuman modernism' of post war housing estates.

In the second room Attia had taken a series of portraits of Algerian transgender sex workers who lived and worked in Paris. The images were splayed randomly on a wall which I thought was an interesting way to display them. 

The next room had two very random installations, they looked like they didn't fit in with the rest of his work. 

Room four showed his art that explores the politics of Western museums, 'The Scream' and 'Mirrors and Masks' were displayed in this room.

Room five had most if his work displayed, the installation took over the entirety of the room, included were African masks, photographs, books, newspapers, and a series of devotional objects constructed by soldiers in the First World War. Next to these were sculptures of faces of soldiers from the First World War with severe facial injuries, in the slideshow showing his artwork, the sculptures were paired next to images of the soldiers who suffered these injuries, he did this to show juxtapositions that challenge our ideas about wholeness and beauty. 

The final room consisted of the video installation 'Shifting Borders', the video was split into 3 parts and shown on different screens. The video explored personal and collective trauma. One of the main events that was greatly spoken about in his work was the 1980 Gwangju Uprising in South Korea, in which more than 600 people, mainly students were killed by government troops. Around the room were also prosthetic legs to show the phantom limbs.