Another London @ Tate Britain – London

Most galleries (the few ones not closing during summer) as well as the big Institutions have been preparing some Olympic or at least London-related exhibitions to get those always  needed extra-visitors during these well-attended weeks.

Tate Britain the most nationalistic museum of all had to join the trend for a 50-year photographic history trip compiling some of the most well-known photographers who visited the city at some point between 1930 and 1980.

Another London explores the distinctive ways in which Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, Dora Maar… saw and represented this unique location: 180 classic photographs that depict the city and its communities by photographers for whom London was a foreign city.

London is always busy, always noisy, always exciting and AL tries to reflect that showing the city as a dynamic metropolis, richly diverse and full of contrast. Emblems of London which would have been known to visitors, such as pearly kings, red buses, punks and bowler hats, are shown alongside iconic works that include Robert Frank’s London (Stock Exchange) 1951, Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photos of George VI’s Coronation, Elliott Erwitt’s image of a rainy London bus stop and Bruce Davidson’s photograph of a child with pigeons in Trafalgar Square.

Although it is the people that are the focus of this collection of photographs, there are particular reoccurring locations where the photographers chose to capture their subjects. Often these are not the tourist sites of Piccadilly or Trafalgar Square but the river Thames; local markets like Spitalfields, Billingsgate, Petticoat Lane; the parks, pubs … and many local places you should try to guess when visiting the exhibition.

You have a whole summer ahead of you… and maybe it’s worth waiting until the Olympics are over, but don’t forget to visit!