The National Gallery seems to have turned to the ‘dark side’ for its choice of present exhibitions. Whilst haunting religious Spanish painting and sculpture is on display in its Sainsbury Wing, ‘The Hoerengracht’ occupies its Sunley Room.

Nancy and Ed Kienholz have achieved notoriety in the art world for their controversial installations. Made in the couple’s Berlin studio, ‘The Hoerengracht’ (‘Whore’s Canal’) is a life-size walk in installation of a stretch of Amsterdam’s infamous Red Light District, as it appeared in the 1980s.

In and amongst narrowly spaced brick walls, eleven mannequin prostitutes are presented in garishly glowing windows and doorways that we are invited to peer into. Having taken around 5 years to create, the installation doesn’t fail on details. The spaces are filled with objects that convey the reality of the grim prostitution trade. Bicycles are parked in bicycle racks before the main passageway and curtains are drawn in some windows. Resin has been extensively and thickly applied on the mannequins’ faces and bodies, and it has formed a thick dribbling that runs down windowpanes and doorways. This resin, says Nancy, connects the things on display and makes them cohesive; to me, the resin evokes gunge, the unnerving image of tears, or indeed an altogether more unsavoury substance, gushing down the prostitutes’ faces.

The installation seemingly explores the sex-trade that in contemporary times has become synonymous with Amsterdam’s canal-side streets, but this theme in the history of art is not a new one. Albeit in a less upfront manner, a number of paintings by the Dutch masters in the 17th century present women who are ‘pictoral cousins’ of the mannequins. Further, the tradition of visually structuring paintings using framing archways, doorways and windows has arguably been an established artistic technique since the discovery of perspective. So perhaps, it is not as bizarre as first thought to have an exhibition like ‘The Hoerengracht’ in a gallery that houses paintings that date back to the 13th century.

One of the more notable aspect

s of the installation is the use of old cookie boxes that frame the faces of all the mannequins. Supposedly the idea behind this was that the women could close themselves off. To me, this conflicts with the very business they are a part of. Though perhaps we can also interpret the cookie-box frames as having a humanizing effect by making the women seem imprisoned. Either way, I feel that these are an unnecessary extra. It’s not clear to me what the motive was for this installation, but I would say its intrigue certainly stems, at least in part, from the way viewer is put in the place of voyeur. Without the cookie boxes, there would be nothing separating us from the melancholy gazes of the mannequins; the discomfort we feel looking into their own personal window spaces – that uneasiness of being on the outside looking in – might be heightened.

On his investigative work for this piece, Ed Kienholz insisted that what interested him the most was the light that pervaded the apertures and spilled into Amsterdam’s streets, illuminating the spaces in a way that rendered them comparable to ‘little paintings’ that he found beautiful. I don’t know if I agree wholly with this, but nonetheless this installation is ambitious and worth a quick visit if only to say that you visited Amsterdam’s Red Light District on wholly innocent grounds.

Three stars.

‘Kienholz: The Hoerengracht’ is on in the Sunley Room in the National Gallery, London until 21st February.

Admission is (perhaps ironically) free.

Photo: Edward and Nancy Reddin Kienholz – ‘The Hoerengracht (detail)’ (1983-8). © Kienholz estate, courtesy of L.A. Louver, Venice, CA.

An Olympic cyclist, a Rwandan genocide victim, a care worker, migrant workers, the winner of a prison beauty pageant in Brazil and a mortuary assistant are some of the many subjects of this year’s Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. Seven judges narrowed down over 6300 images submitted by 2451 photographers – emerging young photographers, established professionals, students and amateurs – to present sixty photos in this exhibition.

Sandy Nairne, the director of the National Portrait Gallery and one of the seven judges said of the judging process, ‘The pose, posture, expression, clothing or appearance of the subject may play a part, but whatever the photographic scenario or style, the most important consideration is the creative work of the photographer. The crucially inventive choices of lighting and camera position, the angle and orientation of the shot, and the saturation and colour range of the prints are all critical in determining which portraits stand out and catch the judges’ attention.’

The exhibition claims to present the very best in contemporary portrait photography and it certainly does a good job of meeting that claim. Images taken from the personal projects of their photographers hang alongside editorial and advertising images. You will be hard pressed to find a theme, style and approach to photographic portraiture that is not explored in the exhibition space and that doesn’t appeal to you. Some images capture your attention immediately, perhaps because of their use of lighting and colour, whilst others leave you with a strong sense of the setting in which the subject is placed, as well as a sense of the subject’s emotions too. We are drawn into people’s homes, their professions and their daily routines.

Many of the photographs have an enduring intensity to them. One of my personal picks from the selection on display is ‘Arif ‘Tokai’ (Arif ‘the Collector’)’ by Amy Helene Johansson. It is a beautifully bleak portrait of a young Bangladeshi boy who makes money by collecting re-saleable rubbish. Johansson has tenderly captured him standing by the railway tracks of the station in a town called Tongi, awaiting custom for his business. The train tracks extend into a dizzying mist in the background, and far from this, alongside the presence of an old man and a dark tree detracting from Arif, the central subject, they add to the sorrowful atmosphere of the portrait.

Other personal choices of mine are Damián Ucieda Cortes’s beautifully composed black and white portrait of a girl gymnastically posed semi-nude in a woodland setting, and Michal Chelbin’s image of a young man in juvenile prison, which is full of awkward angles that effectively convey the awkwardness of photographing a convicted murderer.

Photography is a highly intriguing art form. To a certain degree, one must wonder where the balance lies between the subject matter and the photographer doing the ‘work’ for the photograph. Having said that, many of the photographs that capture the mundane and the everyday do stand shoulder to shoulder with far more intense images, such as a haunting one of a man born with birth defects as a direct result of the Vietnam war. Each photograph has its own specific allure.

I won’t pass judgement about whether or not the winners of the competition are deserved or not. I shall leave that to you. In my eyes this is more than a competition. It is a showcase and platform for the exciting work produced by working portrait photographers today. Centrally located in the capital and with free admission, the exhibition is well worth a visit for both Londoners and non-Londoners alike.

Four stars.

The ‘Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2009′ is on at the National Portrait Gallery, London until 14th February 2010.

Admission is free.

Photo: Sean Raggett – ‘Queen’s Wood’ © Sean Raggett.

It was not without some feeling of curiosity that I arrived at the drama studio of Methodist College Belfast last night, revisiting the haunts of my six-months-younger self. How would an evening of sixth form original drama compare after a term of watching the best (and worst) the Oxford stage had to offer? Two hours and three plays later, I still wasn’t sure how to answer my own question.

Devised drama must be the most challenging element of the A Level course. Any subject, any style and off you go – it’s compulsory Cuppers without any freedom in team formation or even an (official) after-party. Memories of my class’s efforts, and especially the excruciating opening dance sequence, came flooding back as I flicked through the programmes. No wonder these students’ choice of settings revolved around war-zones, prisons and mental institutions, I decided – it just sounded like an average day in an A Level drama class.

The first play of the night, Dear Sarah, dealt with the effects of an ill-fated World War II romance. The plot’s reliance on one major coincidence did not mar its enjoyability: this was a story which, while slightly predictable, had human interest and a unity of impression, unusual in a collaborative piece. Particularly successful moments included the opening ‘dance hall’ sequence and the scene between Piotrek Adamski (played by August Mazurek) and his father (Mark Mullan). If not bound by time constraints, the character of Sarah Nelson (Elizabeth Crooks) could have been developed further by more frequent changes between past and present, but the piece was slick, well-paced and executed with confidence.

‘A Level devised drama is compulsory Cuppers without any freedom in team formation or an after-party.’

This was followed by The Brothers’ Dilemma – a play about two brothers who decide to rob a bank. In contrast to the previous play, where plot (largely due to time and cast numbers) had to take precedence over characterisation, the protagonists (in particular Ryan Donaldson’s Dan and Rory Tinman’s Jack) had depth and psychological interest. Yet It was the story which didn’t quite match up. There were just too many elements to cram into a short piece; paternal abandonment, romantic jealousy, depression, delusion, death, betrayal and suicide all featured in quick succession, themes to which a five act tragedy might struggle to do justice. The group’s inventive incorporation of film clips, music and pre-recorded speeches, however, was very impressive, and they were used especially poignantly at the end of the piece.

Over the Rainbow – our last theatrical instalment for the evening – saw stock topics for A Level work (murder, madness, Vietnam) rolled out again, but with a refreshingly original twist. It’s 1969 and Dorothy (Aisling Esmonde) isn’t in Kansas anymore, but Fairview Mental Institution, surrounded by patients who, while telling their stories, start playing out the roles of the scarecrow, tinman and lion in carefully incorporated dialogue from the film. The effect was a warped and disturbing fairytale and the group displayed theatrical know-how in not overplaying the Oz elements. Morgan MacIntyre shone as ‘brainless’ Alice and the ‘exercise’ scene gave all the actors a chance to explore their characters’ phys

icality (an opportunity exploited particularly by Thomas Olver as Ryan).

Yet leaving school to return to the real world of reading lists and Cherwell deadlines, my overall impression was not of the individual plays’ strengths and weaknesses but of the admiration I had for their successful crea

tion as pieces of drama at all. The class’s first forays into collaborative drama prove two things for certain – that they are well-armed with the tools of drama and that, whichever universities they end up at (Oxford or elsewhere), they won’t remain too far from a student stage.