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Kevin Cummins’ exhibition of iconic Manchester music photography, titled, with grim aptness, Looking for the Light Through The Pouring Rain
Outside it's a characteristic Manchester scene. The rain is lashing down, propelled into our faces by a wind which howls out of the relentlessly grey skies. As uncomfortable as it is, it's still somehow appropriate weather to view Kevin Cummins' exhibition of iconic Manchester music photography, titled, with grim aptness, Looking for the Light Through The Pouring Rain.
Iconic is a word which gets bandied about a little recklessly, but it's far from inappropriate here. As a newly graduated photography student Cummins was present at the inception of the Manchester scene, and walking around the gallery is an exercise in quiet astonishment as one definitive picture follows another. The Stone Roses spattered in paint was the work of Cummins, the blue paint mischievously supplied by Man City supporting photographer to spatter the United fan Roses. Across the way is a silhouetted but still unmistakable Morrissey, bequiffed against an industrial background. Elsewhere there's Ian Curtis sat brooding in a black-walled dressing room; the Happy Mondays, scallies abroad, lairily indifferent to the New York skyline behind them; and a youthful Liam Gallagher laying into Noel, long-suffering even then, as a kickabout descends into fraternal horseplay outside Maine Road.
It's difficult to imagine going wrong with subjects like Morrissey or John Cooper Clarke, but as charismatic as the cast list is, it's Cummins' eye which captures the mood and the moment, crystallizing the iconography for all time. The exhibition supplies compelling evidence for the role that a good photographer can play in the evolution of a band. Consider how the image of Joy Division has been sculpted into the cultural consciousness by Cummins' black and white shot of the band stood morosely against the snow draped Manchester background. The photos are a joy for the eye, but you also can't help but marvel at the repeated musical gifts that the city has supplied us with.
It's an exhibition which leads the viewer to celebrate both its subject matter and its chronicler. Outstanding.
Richard Goodall Gallery, Northern Quarter, Manchester
Until September 26
Tags: kevin cummins photography richard goodall gallery music manchester
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