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Art

London,

Andy Summers: I'll Be Watching You - The Police 1980-83

Description: A photographic record of the band on the road at the height of their international stardom.



Rating: 3 out of 5 Sue Steward's rating
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

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Jill George Gallery Lexington Street, W1F 0LL

Phone: 0207439 7319

Website: www.jillgeorgegallery.co.uk

Transport: Tube: Piccadilly Circus/Oxford Circus Transport for London

An insider's view

Sting
Vanity of youth: Sting gets a makeover in 1983

By Sue Steward
29 Aug 2007


Andy Summers, the elfin guitarist with The Police, has challenged the Eighties rock photographers who make a living reprinting images of his band by opening his own vast archive. Thankfully, he never followed rock photography's clichés nor restricted himself to his life in music, and is now established simply as a photographer who also plays in a band.

His large, black-andwhite prints fix the years 1980-83 when photographs of Sting, Stewart Copeland and Summers were teenage bedroom wallpaper, and Summers packed cameras, lenses and film with his guitars.

On the road, Summers nipped away with his Leica, and - influenced by Cartier Bresson - hunted out the "frozen" moments in ordinary lives: the security men and stage riggers, as well as dazed autograph-hunting girls.

He depicts The Police more candidly than commercial photographers because of his "access all areas" passes, though don't expect a rush of hedonistic sex, drugs and rock'n'roll secrets. A hotel maid offers room service and a naked woman arches her body on a hotel room carpet alongside a guitar (two classic rock cliché-props); Sting, with electrified hair, poses at a mixing desk.

In landscapes where the band become tourists, Sting's self-assured narcissism is a gift: stretching sensually in lapping Australian seawater, and sunworshipping with Copeland on Mexico's "Pyramid of the Sun" are collusions of pleasure.

Summers plays with paparazzi clichés in his shot of Toronto fans through his limo window: in "Lolita", he forces the viewer to face a young girl wearing a Police T-shirt and an ecstatic smile.

The sharp definition of these digitally produced prints is superb, and the show is more than enjoyable fan-porn. " Makeup, London, 83" - where Sting sits as a make-up artist hovers - preserves the vanity of youth but becomes a poignant reflection on change - for viewer, photographer and, surely, subject, too.

Until 10 September. 020 7439 7319, www. jillgeorgegallery.com.

Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.

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