Jo Longhurst is internationally recognised for her explorations of cultural ideas of perfection through photography, video, performance and installation. She is drawn to human systems and structures, interested in attempts to create order from disorder, and the many ways in which we try to make sense of our place in the universe. She often returns to the question of how we as individuals learn to be in the world: how we are judged, shaped, or affected by our social and political environment, and how we are expected to ‘fit in’ or conform.
The Refusal (2001 – ongoing) is a study of the competitive world of the British show dog. The eugenic obsession of breeders seeking to create the perfect dog, taps into contemporary concerns about genetic modification and cloning. While questioning conventions of portraiture, these multi-faceted works provide a serious contribution to the ongoing inquiry into human subjectivity through their systematic re-evaluation of our present engagement with the animal, and the resulting cross-species relationships in which power, control, love and desire are intertwined.
Other Spaces (2008 – ongoing), a parallel study of elite gymnasts in training and competition, explores what is required to produce a perfect performance, gently probing how ideas of perfection shape personal and national identities, as well as social and political systems.
Jo Longhurst graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2008. Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions and events, including Arche Noah. Über Tier und Mensch in der Kunst, Museum Ostwall in Dortmund; Sport, Sport, Sport, Transmission, Glasgow, & BIMI, London; Other Spaces, Mostyn, Wales; The Worldly House, Documenta (13), Kassel; On Perfection: an Artists’ Symposium, Whitechapel Gallery, London; Photography in Britain since 2000, Krakow Photomonth; Cocker Spaniel and Other Tools for International Understanding, Kunsthalle zu Kiel and Ursula Blickle Foundation; Becoming Animal, Becoming Human, Neue Gesellschaft fur Bildende Kunst/ New Society for Visual Arts, Berlin; New Works: Pavilion Commissions, National Media Museum, Bradford; New Contemporaries 2008, Liverpool Biennial; and The Refusal, Museum Folkwang, Essen. In 2012 she was awarded the Art Gallery of Ontario’s prestigious Grange Prize (now the AIMIA/ AGO Photography Prize).
She lives and works in London and Birmingham.
For additional information about this artist, visit Mutual Art
