Chris Killip and Latoya Ruby Frazier: The Promise of a Class Aesthetic

Since the 1970's -- in effect, the rise of neoliberalism -- efforts by photographers to represent the working class have been accompanied by a substantial diminution in the power of that class and by efforts to redescribe its members in both individualizing and racialized terms. Focusing on work produced by the British photographer Chris Killip (in the late 70s and early 80s) and on work made by the American photographer, Latoya Ruby Frazier (some thirty years later), this presentation analyzes the way these photographers both acknowledge the decline in working class power while insisting on the continuing power of the idea of class conflict. Its concern is above all with the relations between photographer, subject, and audience and with the formal strategies deployed to insist on a certain structural antagonism between the photograph and its beholders.