Publications > Scream City > Scream City Issue #1 > Kevin Cummins 'Arca' by John Cooper

Renowned Mancunian photographer Kevin Cummins is exhibiting his "First XI" of photographs that he took of Joy Division and Manchester in 1979. The exhibition, entitled 'Arca' is at Paul Stolper in Shoreditch, London and runs from 9 February to 11 March 2006.

After the preview Kevin spoke to Scream City's John Cooper about industrial landscape, the grey overcoat brigade. Manchester City and, erm, Chris Evert.

JC: Welcome Kevin to your new exclusive exhibition, Arca. Would you like to explain the background to how it all came about?

KC: That's my picture of East Germany, where we took all the Joy Division photographs. Paul Stolper asked me about 18 months ago if I'd like to do some Joy Division pictures with him. We sorted it out over quite some time and eventually whittled it down to a selection of eleven pictures. So it was a really tight edit.

JC: You mentioned earlier that this was the first time you had seen many if not all of the photographs printed at such a large size (40.6 x 50.8cm)

KC: They've always been printed for reproduction, so they've always been ten by eight. I've never needed to print at this size. And when you see them this size and this quality you see details in them that I don't remember at the time. There's a shot where there's a picture of a tennis player hanging on the wall and I don't remember. And I used to go there quite a lot so I don't remember where that came from! Also, in one of the shots there are sofas in the background and you can see people's legs and I don't know who they were. I thought I was the privileged one but then I find out that half of Manchester was in the shot in the background!

JC: There was a rumour of book of Joy Division photographs a while ago. Does the exhibition mean that this is finally going to come out?

KC: I'm not going to do it. Once the original publisher went bust I didn't like the next couple of offers I was given, not financially, but I didn't like what they wanted to do and I wanted it to be right. I've had the pictures for a long time so I can wait for them. It doesn't make any difference really.

I'm working on a book about Manchester music from 1976 - 2006 for publication by Faber and Faber in September 2007. I'll obviously include some of the pictures from this.

What I like about this picture is that all of the band are looking mean and moody but Steve Morris has a grin on his face Steve's often like that though I think with New Order, Steve is often quite self-conscious and also Hooky is probably saying something disgusting to try and make him laugh. Ian's the rock star and the other three are trying to make each other laugh. A typical band really.

JC: Here is the very famous one of Ian Curtis smoking.

KC: That photo was originally shot for an NME cover. Ian slopes to that side [the right in the shot] and there's a space here [top left] for the title. The NME didn't have the courage to put it on the cover at the time. They used a similar shot but had three bands on the cover to hedge their bets. They couldn't work out who they wanted. It's probably been on 7 or 8 covers since and the NME missed out even though it was shot for them.

JC: And here we have the one featuring the famous tennis player...

KC: Chris Evert (or whoever it was. A Macfisheries carrier bag hanging on the ceiling, some people in the background, presumably some of the crew. This guy is Matthew Higgs who is a British artist who was a young fan at the time who just used to turn up and listen to Joy Division rehearsing.

Note Peter Hook's bass guitar position in that. That was in the day before he could afford guitar straps to slightly below his knees.

JC: Was this one backstage or still in the rehearsal rooms?

This one was also shot in rehearsal. I put the overcoat on the hook and shot because the press was always talking about "grey overcoat music" and I thought it would be a nice visual pun.

I liked to get some definite posed shots rather than them just sitting around talking. I was making sure I got some stuff with Ian somewhat looking into camera. He just drifts off into his own world really. Which he quite often did for pictures.

JC: Here we have the classic picture of Princess Parkway in Hulme [not shown]

KC: That's looking into Manchester where it looks like Leipzig or somewhere. That's 3 o'clock Saturday afternoon in Manchester in 1979. Not a car on the street. I don't know why but everyone had basically got out of town or something.

JC: Were all of these part of the same basic session?

KC: The pictures in the rehearsal room were taken on different days but the pictures in the snow were on the same day. The pictures in the snow wouldn't have happened if Man City had played that day and our third round cup tie hadn't been postponed because of the weather as many were that day. Normally I would have gone to the match and we would've done the pictures another day. So they wouldn't have existed if Barnsley and Rotherham had managed to play their second round replay on the right day!

JC: This one of Ian Curtis was taken at the Leigh Festival (FAC 15) in August 1979 where Joy Division played alongside Echo and the Bunnymen and A Certain Ratio and others. Was that a strange day?

KC: The Leigh Festival's been well documented. It was a bank holiday Monday and hardly anyone went until the evening. I shot it for the three music weeklies Sounds, NME, Melody Maker. Because there was hardly anyone there at the start, Mick Middles and I drove our cars within 30 yards of the stage and sat in them most of the day - like a drive-in movie gig.

JC: Would you care to explain the editions that are available of Arca?

KC: When I published my Man City book we tried to make the limited editions as simple to understand as possible. To this day nobody understands it. The publication of the Joy Division photos really isn't complicated.

There are 75 copies of each photo available for sale - they are numbered 1-75. There are a further 10 artist proofs. These are numbered in roman numerals - 1- 10. (or rather I - X).

This makes a total of 85 copies of each photo. No further prints will be made for sale from these images.

You can buy them individually or you can buy the complete set in a specially designed box (Arca).

That's all there is to it.

JC: Why Arca?

KC: Well the exhibition features pictures from my archive. Arca is Latin for box. Er, that's it! I'm a Catholic Grammar school boy who studied Latin – can't get it out of my system!

JC: Will the exhibition be making it to Manchester?

KC: I hope so and Paul Stolper is looking for the best option there.

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I concur on that final point. It would be great to see Arca transfer to Manchester. Thanks very much for Kevin for being so forthcoming in his recollections of these photo sessions which evocatively capture the spirit of Joy Division in 1979.

Restricting the scope of the exhibition to just eleven photographs has meant the images can be exhibited alone or in small groups and a clear focus is retained by essentially dealing with just the rehearsal studio and the Manchester cityscape.

A final word is also due for the quality of the reproduction and printing of the photographs themselves. The large format makes the already amazing shots simply stunning. And as Kevin says, it draws out details that simply weren't there before. The photos are available both as artist portfolio sets (x10) and individually (x75 of each)

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All photographs © Kevin Cummins

Kevin Cummins Arca

A portfolio of 11 Gelatin-silver prints Paper size: 20" x 16"

Each in an edition of 75, 10 APs signed and numbered by Kevin Cummins
Published by Paul Stolper
9 February - 11 March 2006
Paul Stolper Gallery 78 Luke Street London EC2A 4PY
www.paulstolper.com info@paulstolper.com tel: +44 (0)20 7739 6504

JC note 2019: I think it goes without saying that the prints from the exhibition are no longer on sale.