Streetlife in Paris and London
Down and out and about in Paris, London and beyond. The latest exhibition in this intimate central space draws parallels between two photographers from each end of the 20th century: actor-turned-photographer Eugene Atget (1857-1927), who documented his country's capital entering a new age, and Richard Wentworth, whose Making Do And Getting By collection scours the contemporary streets of Chelsea and Islington to Calais and Istanbul.
The photographers are kept separate - Atget's images in the low-lit opening corridor, leading to Wentworth's brightly illuminated outsized snappy snaps. Mainly due to long exposure times, Atget rarely depicts people (he is sometimes glimpsed as a ghostly reflection); he records cabaret fronts, ragpickers' yards, studies of staircases from opulent and dilapidated homes, with extremely literal perspectives (Rue des Anglais, view taken from the top of number four from the boulevard Saint-Germain and the north, 1902).
Somehow, Wentworth's work seems more personable; at its most affecting, it's funny too: the exhorted slogans of discount stores, a tin of peas resourcefully used as a doorstop, a line-up of tanning products (San Francisco, 2001) with brands such as 'Hot Action Butter', clothing discarded on posts and railings.
An empathetic eye for detail and the residue of human life are common themes, but it's individual shots that impress, rather than some overall compare-and-contrast exercise.
Richard Wentworth and Eugene Atget: Faux Amis
Until Nov 18, The Photographers' Gallery, 5 Great Newport Street WC2, Mon to Sat 11am to 6pm, Sun noon to 6pm, free.
Tel: 020 7831 1772
www.photonet.org.uk
Tube: Leicester Square
