Siren City

Siren is a collection of black-and-white photographs taken by Johnnie Shand Kydd between 2000-2008 of Naples, seductively known as the Siren City. Though located in one of the most sublime settings in the world, it’s still a city that has been at worst abused and at best neglected over the years that followed the unification of Italy in 1860. There is much of beauty and Shand Kydd undoubtedly captures the light, vivacity and carnality of Naples as well as the darker side and paganism so inherent here. Every street and piazza is a stage. Soldiers strike a pose and old ladies reach for their fans with an odd mixture of pride and innocence. His photographs retain that 19th century whiff of the magical. It would be easy to paint too bleak an image of Naples but he captures much hilarity, expressing a unique coupling of grief and humor. The book is edited by Mark Holborn.
After working at a Bond Street Gallery selling 19th Century paintings for a number of years Shand Kydd began taking photographsof his artist friends and those in his social sphere. As a participant rather than solely an observer he captured the community of YBA's (Young British Artists) before they became household names. From March 1996 until July 1997 he photographed the contents of the book Spitfire (Violette, 1997). Crash (Damiani/2006) documents the aforementioned familiar faces and more, and shows the ways in which Shand Kydd has refined his straightforward and confident approach, in both theme and technique. He captures in strict black-and-white art luminaries like Gilbert & George, Sam Taylor-Wood, Richard Prince, Juergen Teller, Maurizion Cattelan, and Tracey Emin. His work is in various public collections including the National Portrait Gallery. He lives and works in London. The photographs of Naples will be showing at Madre, museum of Contemporary Art in Naples in December 2009.