Can't Smile Without You by Martin Andersen

Photographer and life-long Tottenham Hotspur fan, Martin Andersen has turned his camera on his fellow fans to create 'Can't Smile Without You', an intimate and often visceral collection of photographs taken at home, away, and across Europe from 2013 until 2017 with the last game played at the White Hart Lane stadium. Selected and edited from over one hundred different games, Andersen presents an authentic and unflinching documentation of the fans and their resultant relationships and community. His imagery depicts the drama, tensions, and raw emotions involved in such unwavering support of a football team that infiltrates every part of life.

Capturing a rapidly changing culture and a unique moment in Tottenham Hotspur's history following the demolition of the 118 year-old stadium at White Hart Lane at the end of the 2016/17 season, the monochrome images in 'Can't Smile Without You' have a timeless quality that transcends the recent era they were taken in. These could be images of any diehard football fans and of the associated rituals, pre and post match, that are an integral part of being one.

Tottenham Hotspur - Newcastle United (1-2), 26th Oct. 2014 © Martin Andersen

The 90 minute football game itself is only a small fraction of what it is to be a fan. In response to this, Andersen's focus lies mainly on the action taking place outside of the stadium, yet unsettlingly his powerful and graphic images never provide an answer as to how these actions conclude. As Joe Kerr writes in his foreword to 'Can't Smile Without You', I'm both fascinated and frightened by what these images imply, just as I was as a child by pictures of ships in a storm, and I'm just as happy now as then not to know what happens next.

In addition to the 119 photographs that were edited and graded by acclaimed photographer Kim Thue, 'Can't Smile Without You' features texts by lifelong Tottenham fans Felix Petty, Editor at i-D Magazine and Joe Kerr, a writer and bus driver at Tottenham Garage.

A selection of images from 'Can't Smile Without You' will be exhibited at Pocko from 6th March to 3rd April 2020.

Tottenham Hotspur - Liverpool (0-3), 31st Aug. 2014 © Martin Andersen

All about the exhibition
Pocko, 51A King Henry's Walk, Mildmay Ward, London N1 4NH
Private View and Book Signing: Thursday 5th March 6pm-9pm
Exhibition dates: 6th March - 3rd April 2020
www.pocko.com

All about Martin Andersen

Martin Andersen (b.1972, Denmark) is a photographer, art director and designer. His photography work has been published and exhibited internationally in China, France, Japan, Mexico, the UK, and the USA. Additionally Andersen has directed music videos for artists such as: The Breeders, Lush, Iceage, and Lowly and created films for Channel 4, Discovery Channel, and ITV.

Based in South London, he runs the creative studio Andersen M. His film work has won many international awards and both his design and photography has been exhibited internationally.

Andersen also lectures at Central Saint Martins, School of Fashion, London, University of Brighton and at Cambridge School of Visual & Performing Arts.

Tottenham Hotspur - Hull (2-0), 16th May 2015 © Martin Andersen

Borussia Dortmund - Tottenham Hotspur (3-0), 10th March 2016 © Martin Andersen

All about Martin Andersen

Virginia Hanusik: Into the Quiet and the Light

By Virginia Hanusik

Publisher : Columbia Books on Architecture and the City

2024 | 184 pages

In South Louisiana, where the Mississippi River meets the Gulf of Mexico, water―and the history of controlling it―is omnipresent. Into the Quiet and the Light: Water, Life, and Land Loss in South Louisiana glimpses the vulnerabilities and possibilities of living on the water during an ongoing climate catastrophe and the fallout of the fossil fuel industry―past, present, and future. The book sustains our physical, mental, and emotional connections to these landscapes through a collection of photographs by Virginia Hanusik. Framing the architecture and infrastructure of South Louisiana with both distance and intimacy, introspection and expansiveness, this work engages new memories, microhistories, anecdotes, and insights from scholars, artists, activists, and practitioners working in the region. Unfolding alongside and in dialogue with Hanusik’s photographs, these reflections soberly and hopefully populate images of South Louisiana’s built and natural environments, opening up multiple pathways that defy singularity and complicate the disaster-oriented imagery often associated with the region and its people. In staging these meditations on water, life, and land loss, this book invites readers to join both Hanusik and the contributors in reading multiplicity into South Louisiana’s water-ruled landscapes.

With texts from Richie Blink, Imani Jacqueline Brown, Jessica Dandridge, Rebecca Elliott, Michael Esealuka, T. Mayheart Dardar, Billy Fleming, Andy Horowitz, Arthur Johnson, Louis Michot, Nini Nguyen, Kate Orff, Jessi Parfait, Amy Stelly, Jonathan Tate, Aaron Turner, and John Verdin.

Rawsht Twana: Twana’s Box

By Rawsht Twana

Publisher : Fraglich Publishing

2024 | 252 pages

Twana’s Box' can be described in many ways: a journey through a photographer’s rare archive, documenting the Kurdistan region of Iraq from 1974–1992; a son’s quest to find his lost father, who was murdered by a military regime; a young man’s way to piece together the fragments of a scattered family in a scattered culture; the becoming of a photographer who, through the stories of others, starts to understand his own identity in times of war. 'Twana’s Box' is not only the photo book that holds a selection of Twana Abdullah’s archive; it is a unique insight into a time and place in a region that has since completely transformed. Rawsht has spent years piecing together his father’s negatives and stories. His archival work inspired him to become a photographer himself, working for Metrography – the first independent Iraqi photo agency – before immigrating to Europe. ills colour & bw, 21 x 27 cm, hb, Kurdish/Arabic/English

Akinbode Akinbiyi: Being, Seeing, Wandering

By Akinbode Akinbiyi

Publisher : Spector Books

2024 | 252 pages

Taken across Europe and Africa, Akinbiyi’s images of everyday city life muse on the sociopolitical labyrinths of urban society

Whether in Bamako, Berlin, London, Lagos or Durban, British photographer Akinbode Akinbiyi (born 1946) creates black-and-white street scenes that function as visual metaphors, ruminating on cultural change, social exclusion and colonialism’s effect on urban planning.

Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm

By Grace Wales Bonner

Publisher : The Museum of Modern Art, New York

2024 | 184 pages

A deeply personal meditation on and around modern Black expression, curated by the acclaimed London-based designer
This volume, Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm―Visions of Sound and Spirit in the MoMA Collection, is an artist’s book created by the acclaimed London-based designer Grace Wales Bonner as “an archive of soulful expression.” Through an extraordinary selection of nearly 80 works from The Museum of Modern Art’s collection and archives, this unique volume draws multisensory connections between pictures and poems, music and performance, hearing and touch, gestures and vibrations, and bodies in motion. Photographs, scores and films by artists such as Dawoud Bey, Mark Bradford, Roy DeCarava, Lee Friedlander, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon, Steve McQueen, Lorna Simpson and Ming Smith, among others, are juxtaposed with signal texts by Black authors spanning the past century, including Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Robin Coste Lewis, Ishmael Reed, Greg Tate, Jean Toomer, Quincy Troupe and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Artist’s Choice: Grace Wales Bonner―Spirit Movers, this resplendent publication is a deeply personal meditation on and around modern Black expression that echoes Wales Bonner’s own vibrant, virtuosic designs.

Can't Smile Without You by Martin Andersen

Martin Andersen's Website

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