PAUL REAS – DAY DREAMING ABOUT THE GOOD TIMES?
2013-12-18Paul Reas is part of the pioneering generation of photographers who revealed and critiqued British class and culture in the 1980s and 90s. Strongly influenced by his working class upbringing in Bradford, Reas used humour and sharp observation to comment on a new corporate and commercial world epitomised by heritage industry sites, retail parks, and supermarkets.
I Can Help (1988), Reas’ seminal body of work, explores the consumer boom of the eighties with its American-style out-of-town shopping malls. Depicting employees and shoppers of the new middle class, Reas offers an acerbic revisioning of Britishness to create a powerful portrayal of Thatcherite Britain. Flogging a Dead Horse (1993) presents a nationwide survey of the emergence of the ‘heritage industry’: museums and theme parks such as Beamish Open Air Museum that offered a nostalgic and often commercialised version of the past in the wake of the collapse of heavy manufacturing and industry.
Exhibition runs through to March 8th, 2014
Impressions Gallery
Centenary Square
Bradford
BD1 1SD
