‘The Final Project’ is a great title, capturing the unsettling combination of humour and honesty with which photographer Jo Spence (1934–1992), with her long-term collaborator Terry Dennett, documented her death from leukemia over two years in 1991–92. As a selection now being shown at London's Richard Saltoun gallery demonstrates, the scope of the project was unflinching and ambitious – testament to an artist with nothing to lose.
‘The Final Project’ has a few different strands, which echo both the deterioration of Spence’s health and the stages of emotional trauma. An early part involved photographing comical assemblages in a graveyard, including joke-shop skeletons, flowers and bushy blond wigs, recalling the adage that sometimes the only response to tragedy one can muster is laughter.
In another equally mischievous, though more analytical series, the feminist Spence contrasted Western obsessions with beauty and youth with the celebration of death in Mexican and Egyptian traditions. And finally, as she grew weaker, Spence fell back on the prodigious archive of images she had amassed during her career, and created new works by overlaying them in a technique called ‘slide-sandwiching’.
These beautiful montages, with Spence’s body floating above a stream or a field, have a serene atmosphere of acceptance. Using older images of herself was also a way around what Spence called her ‘crisis of representation’, whereby she felt her emaciated body to be totally estranged from her spirit. Ultimately, though, she overcame this challenge as well. In a series of self-portraits from her deathbed, she manages with a peaceful stare to confound mortality itself.
‘The Final Project’ has a few different strands, which echo both the deterioration of Spence’s health and the stages of emotional trauma
An early part involved photographing comical assemblages in a graveyard, including joke-shop skeletons, flowers and bushy blond wigs
The selection demonstrates how unflinching and ambitious the scope of the project was – testament to an artist with nothing to lose
Spence fell back on the prodigious archive of images she had amassed during her career, and created new works by overlaying them in a technique called ‘slide-sandwiching’
In another equally mischievous series, Spence contrasts Western obsessions with beauty and youth with the celebration of death in Mexican and Egyptian traditions
In a series of self-portraits from her deathbed, she manages to confound mortality itself
Information
’The Final Project’ is on view until 25 March. For more information, visit Richard Saltoun gallery’s website
Copyright the Estate of Jo Spence. Courtesy Richard Saltoun Gallery
Address
Richard Saltoun
111 Great Titchfield Street
London, W1W 6RY
-
This remodelled San Francisco family home by MEMarchitecture and Studio Volpe is a masterpiece of soothing modernityA sensitive and coherent approach by the San Francisco-based architects and designers has resulted in a home of tactile beauty, character and comfort
-
Taste the trilogy of Moët & Chandon Grand Vintage ChampagnesMoët & Chandon presents ’A Tale of Sublimation’, a trilogy of Grand Vintage Champagnes which represents the journey of harvesting and growing of the grapes, and the declaration of vintage status
-
Exclusive first look: LightMass^ is a new independent lighting venture by London-based design studio Raw EdgesLightMass^ is the result of experiments in additive technology and bio-based filaments, combined with a drive to create lighting structures with imposing volumes but minimal weight and waste
-
Artist Jonathan Baldock plays hide and seek with the windows of Hermès' London flagshipA series of fantastical, brightly coloured hedges, dotted with peepholes, transform Hermès' New Bond Street store, offering an interactive experience for the passerby
-
Penny Slinger’s 1970s erotic Photo Romance asks: ‘Is this where my story begins?’Artist Penny Slinger’s seminal ‘An Exorcism’, gets an immersive outing
-
Please do touch the art: enter R.I.P. Germain’s underground world in LiverpoolR.I.P. Germain’s ‘After GOD, Dudus Comes Next!’ is an immersive installation at FACT Liverpool
-
‘Happy birthday Louise Parker II’: enter the world of Roe EthridgeRoe Ethridge speaks of his concurrent Gagosian exhibitions, in Gstaad and London, touching on his fugue approach to photography, fridge doors, and his longstanding collaborator Louise Parker
-
‘A gentleness in the hard truths’: behind the scenes at Slave PlaySlave Play, London is on at the Noël Coward theatre – Amah-Rose Abrams reports on a ‘hilarious, tender, confronting’ performance and its masterful mirrored set
-
‘Regeneration and repair is a really important part of how I work’: Bharti Kher at Yorkshire Sculpture ParkBharti Kher unveils the largest UK museum exhibition of her career at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
-
‘Mental health, motherhood and class’: Hannah Perry’s dynamic installation at BalticHannah Perry's exhibition ’Manual Labour’ is on show at Baltic in Gateshead, UK, a five-part installation drawing parallels between motherhood and factory work
-
Francis Alÿs plots child play around the world at the BarbicanIn Francis Alÿs' exhibition ‘Ricochets’ at London’s Barbican, the artist explores the universality of play, even in challenging situations
