Text for the Sovereign European Art Prize
For a number of years now Jo Longhurst has been photographing Whippets. Drawn in by the eugenic obsession of the breeders seeking to create the perfect dog, there is a sinister edge to how these dogs have been ‘made’ which taps into contemporary concerns about genetic modification and cloning. Longhurst’s practice, although innately intertwined with the dog-breeding world, is also concerned with portrait photography. In previous work the dogs were shown almost like mugshots looking out to the camera with doleful and soul-searching eyes. We can see in these the photographer turned anthropologist, reminiscent of earlier work such as August Sanders seminal series Family of man. In this new work Longhurst has made a more poetic and whimsical study of her subjects. She moves from a full frontal portrait with a pale background to an image set against a dark background in a circular format. There is an air of Victoriana about this new construction of the portrait that seems to be more like a keepsake of a loved one made perhaps for a locket. The image here is an ambiguous one showing parts of the dog with its eyes open and it appears that the dog is tumbling out towards us. The image is disorientating and has a dreamlike quality, as we cannot quite work out what we are looking at. Yet the dog seems to be depicted in motion, or perhaps some form of suspended animation, as though we are looking at a film still from the dog’s own dream. As with previous work we cannot but admire the dog’s sleek coat and appearance as Longhurst captures the allure of the dogs and their serene beauty.
Canmilla Brown, Senior Curator, The Photographers Gallery, 2008