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- May 16, 2012
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This is so spot on from megan Nolan (from a piece on Ray's A Laugh in the FT)
I saw Billingham’s photographs and understood instantly the feeling that needed drawing: it was one of receding surroundings. The alcoholic’s world is slowly reduced from the moment they begin to need alcohol, and it continues to shrink as the need expands. Some alcoholics have the means to at least portray the idea of expansiveness. A wealthy drunk can more easily conceal their need, for a time, by shrouding it in the social frivolities in which drinking is normal and expected. They can go to restaurants and launches and drink beautiful ice-cold martinis. An impoverished drunk, on the other hand, lacks the artifice. They can only afford the units, not the pantomime of justification. In these cases, like that of my family member by the time I was aware of their addiction, the world becomes horribly whittled down to the small space in which they are drinking. I thought of this lately while taking care of a cat who doesn’t go outside. The cat is obsessed with food because food is the only narrative marker in its day. Time, for the alcoholic, is essentially formless except for the way that drink maps it.
www.ft.com
I saw Billingham’s photographs and understood instantly the feeling that needed drawing: it was one of receding surroundings. The alcoholic’s world is slowly reduced from the moment they begin to need alcohol, and it continues to shrink as the need expands. Some alcoholics have the means to at least portray the idea of expansiveness. A wealthy drunk can more easily conceal their need, for a time, by shrouding it in the social frivolities in which drinking is normal and expected. They can go to restaurants and launches and drink beautiful ice-cold martinis. An impoverished drunk, on the other hand, lacks the artifice. They can only afford the units, not the pantomime of justification. In these cases, like that of my family member by the time I was aware of their addiction, the world becomes horribly whittled down to the small space in which they are drinking. I thought of this lately while taking care of a cat who doesn’t go outside. The cat is obsessed with food because food is the only narrative marker in its day. Time, for the alcoholic, is essentially formless except for the way that drink maps it.
Richard Billingham’s photographs of his family caused controversy when they were first published three decades ago. What do they say now?
Newly reissued, Richard Billingham’s pictures of his alcoholic father Ray have lost none of their power to provoke strong emotions
