Derek Ridgers Photography

Really nice write-up of our current exhibition ‘Un/Seen’ by Derek Ridgers.   Show is up for the rest of the month, you should come-by and see it.

His straight-up photographic style pinned those clubbing butterflies like curios into the display case labelled Swinging 80s. They trigger the involuntary remembrance of the texture of an era as readily as cake did for Marcel Proust: each image has the potential to become the “vase filled with perfumes, sounds, places and climates”.

Throughout April and May we may relish the Ridgers back catalogue in a new exhibition titled Unseen at Soho’s Society Club. The selection documents celebrities and street stylists from 35 years of commissions by music mags and national press. Here is an engaging mix of concert shots and powerfully intimate portraits in which eye-contact is key: Nick Cave, David Lynch, J G Ballard, Boy George, Leigh Bowery, Tom Waits, The Cramps, Mick Jagger, plus the image of Keith Richards which is currently touring in the Sunday Times Magazine 50th anniversary show.

Fox or Dog

The one and only Ian Bruce drew this lovely portrait of new staff member Foxy today in the shop.

How can you write beautifully about a world from which all beauty has been stripped?

In ‘The Road,’ Cormack McCarthy writes of a father and son who must walk across a dead America, a land that can no longer support life, carrying their only possessions in a shaky cart, along with the fierce hope that their fight for survival might mean something.

As ash rains down from burnt trees and the few remaining humans scavenge for sustenance, their reliance on each other is played out in stark contrast against the desolated country.

McCarthy came up with the idea for his book late one night, standing at a hotel window while his young son slept within. As he watched the empty streets he wondered how much they stood to lose, and what was really worth clinging on to.
What he came up with in the weeks that followed is an unflinching warning, but also a surprisingly moving and intimate look at how much we humans should mean to each other. Rarely have I read something so simple and credible that has carried such profound weight.
…And it’s also just a great story, so compulsive that many readers finish it in one go.

“A work of such beauty that you will struggle to look away. It will knock the breath from your lungs.” Tom Getti, The Times.
(Copies in store today. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this book.)