The exhibition Chris Killip - Retrospective is a tribute to the legacy of Killip, a celebrated photographer who is still relatively unknown to the general public. With more than 100 works, this retrospective is the most comprehensive overview, including never-before-seen photos.
With his empathetic, but above all honest documentary view, Chris Killip (UK, 1946 – 2020) is seen as one of the most influential post-war British photographers. In the 1970s and 1980s he traveled to Northern England again and again with his camera. A turbulent period for this region, in which one large factory after another closed its doors.
High unemployment and poverty were the result. Killip knew better than anyone else how to capture the impact of the economic downturn and focused his camera and his heart on the working class, the people hit hardest by the economic earthquake.
Killip's working method is characterized by proximity and establishing long-term relationships with communities. He often lived for long periods of time with the people he photographed. With his sharp powers of observation, he captured the lives of ordinary people in an unsparing and at the same time sympathetic manner.
This way of working is clearly visible for the first time in his long-running series Isle of Man (1970 – 1973), for which he returned to his place of birth. Mercilessly and with tenderness he captures how the original islanders, mostly farmers and fishermen, feel threatened by newcomers who earn their money from financial institutions.
After moving to Newcastle in 1975 for a fellowship with British Gas, Killip continued to photograph in his spare time. Places like Skinningrove, Durham and Middlesbrough caught his eye. Against the backdrop of shipbuilding and coal mining, he saw the cohesion of communities and the industries that supported them, and stayed long enough to see this group rapidly lose everything to deindustrialization.
His work is considered one of the leading visual records of Britain in the '80s. Killip's photos tell the story of people to whom history happened: global developments that hit local communities hard and undermined their economic security.
Killip collected the work in the book In Flagrante, which was published in 1988. It is considered one of the most important photo books ever and has been a great source of inspiration for generations of photographers after Killip.
Chris Killip was born on the Isle of Man. His influential photo series focused on the north of England in the 1970s and 1980s. From 1991 to 2017 he was Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University. His work is included in the collections of major museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. He received the Henri Cartier-Bresson Award in 1989 and was nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Award in 2013.
The exhibition was accompanied by the publication CHRIS KILLIP 1946 – 2020 , featuring texts by Ken Grant, Gregory Halpern, Lynsey Hanley, Amanda Maddox and Brett Rogers.
Chris Killip - Retrospective
31 Aug 2024 - 5 Jan 2025
Fotomuseum Den Haag
