The Late Estate of Broomberg & Chanarin

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About The Late Estate of Broomberg & Chanarin

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin have been collaborating for over a decade. Rebelling against the twenty-first century culture of “shock-value” photojournalism, the artists Chanarin have chosen instead to approach photography as a form of conceptual ethnography.

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin have been collaborating for over a decade. Rebelling against the twenty-first century culture of “shock-value” photojournalism, the artists Chanarin have chosen instead to approach photography as a form of conceptual ethnography. Much of their work has been concerned with the gathering of visual data relating to matters of human behaviour, often in places of political tension. Stylistically, they avoid the overtly creative, opting instead for a pared down, formal approach bordering on neutrality. They have no 'signature style'. For them the world is a set of highly coded surfaces or stages of action. The camera is used to isolate these things, to cut them out for interpretation and reflection. Their camera usually looks at the subject head-on and centre frame, raising the promise of immediacy or 'plain speaking'. Indeed photographically their images tell us quite a lot about what things look like. However the directness of their photographs is offset by the indirect and uncertain status of what it is they select and present to us.

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