Ken Grant

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Grant in 2014 Ken Grant (Bristol Photobook Festival, 2014).jpg
Grant in 2014

Ken Grant is a photographer who since the 1980s has concentrated on working class life in the Liverpool area. [1] He is a lecturer in the MFA photography course at the University of Ulster.

Contents

Life and career

Born in Liverpool in 1967, [2] [3] Grant worked as a carpenter in Liverpool after finishing school, [4] [5] even then taking photographs. [6] He later studied at the West Surrey College of Art and Design, [3] studying under Martin Parr and Paul Graham. [4]

Grant tends to work slowly, returning again and again to the same places and becoming a familiar sight to the people who gather there. [6]

The Close Season was published by Dewi Lewis over a decade after Grant had first met Lewis; the photographs in No Pain Whatsoever (whose title derives from a story by Richard Yates) were taken over a span of more than two decades. [6]

Writing in The Observer , Sean O'Hagan has described the No Pain Whatsoever series [n 1] as "from the same great British tradition as the work of Chris Killip and Graham Smith . . . a record of a time when working-class traditions were under threat from Thatcherism." [2] [n 2]

Writing in The Independent , Brian Viner said "The photographs . . . show Grant's wonderfully keen eye for the humdrum realities of everyday working-class – or more accurately, unemployed – existence in the 1980s and beyond . . . It is the instinct of the social documentarian, and Grant deserves to rank alongside the better-known Martin Parr as one of the best." [5] Diane Smyth, writing in the British Journal of Photography about Grant's book Flock said "Grant avoids making easy statements in favour of simple observation. Even so, by recording these everyday working lives, he's made a series that matters." [4]

As influences and inspirations, Grant has cited Raymond Carver, Fred Voss, Terence Davies, Christer Strömholm, Bruce Davidson, and Gil Scott-Heron. [6]

Grant was the course leader of the BA (Hons) Documentary Photography course at the University of Wales, Newport [4] [7] between 1998 and 2013, [8] when he became a lecturer in the MFA Photography course at the University of Ulster. [9] [10]

Collections

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Joint exhibitions

Exhibitions at festivals

Exhibitions as curator

Books

Five photobooks by Ken Grant; from left to right The Close Season, Flock, No Pain Whatsoever, A Topical Times for These Times, Benny Profane Five photobooks by Ken Grant.jpg
Five photobooks by Ken Grant; from left to right The Close Season, Flock, No Pain Whatsoever, A Topical Times for These Times, Benny Profane

Photobooks by Grant

Other publications

Notes

  1. The series is reproduced here within Grant's site.
  2. A link to the article here on Smith is in O'Hagan's article at theguardian.com; a link there to Killip's website is changed here to a link to the article here on Killip.
  3. Dewi Lewis's page about The Close Season is here.
  4. The series is reproduced here within Grant's site.
  5. Café Royal Books' page about Shankly One is here Archived 24 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine .
  6. Café Royal Books' page about Shankly Two is here.
  7. Café Royal Books' page about One Day in July near Cable Street Southport is here.
  8. Café Royal Books' page about From the Provy to the Derry is here.
  9. APB's page about Flock, as archived by the Wayback Machine on 8 April 2016, is here.
  10. For samples, see "When Saturday came: The city of Liverpool captured through its love of football – in pictures", The Guardian, 22 August 2016.
  11. RRB's sales page for A Topical Times for These Times is here.
  12. RRB's page about Benny Profane is here.

Related Research Articles

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References

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  2. 1 2 3 Sean O'Hagan, "Format international photography festival – review". The Observer, 10 March 2013. Accessed 15 April 2014.
  3. 1 2 Sarah Phillips, "Ken Grant's best photograph: A child on the Merseyside coast", The Guardian, 27 February 2013. Accessed 15 April 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Smyth, Diane (2014). "Flock: British photographer Ken Grant's latest book explores the UK's last weekly inner-city livestock market, writes Diane Smyth". British Journal of Photography. 161 (7826). Apptitude Media: 11.
  5. 1 2 Brian Viner, "Mersey beat: Ken Grant captured the spirit of Liverpool as it coped with two decades of distress", The Independent, 17 February 2013. Accessed 15 April 2014.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Benjamin Tree, "ASX interviews Ken Grant", ASX, March 2013. Accessed 16 April 2014.
  7. Staff profiles, Film, photography and digital media, University of South Wales. Accessed 14 April 2014.
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