Antony CairnsCTY LDN3LDN4LPTOSCTate ModernSimon Baker6Drowned CityRuined CityAbstract CityEndless CityJ.G.JG BallardWilliam GibsonHP LovecraftBenjamin PretSF

CTY brings together a large selection of Antony Cairns oeuvre from his various cities/projects in London, Las Vegas, Tokyo and Osaka, (including LDN3, LDN4, LPT and OSC), interspersed with 6 texts by Simon Baker (senior curator of photography, TATE). Each text takes a quote as starting point from authors including JG Ballard, William Gibson, HP Lovecraft and Benjamin Pret to introduce themes of urban life and urbanisation, including Drowned City, Ruined City, Abstract City and Endless City. Antony Cairns (b.1980) has used the city and urban development as an ostensible subject and engages deeply with the history of the photographic medium, experimenting printing methods and the aesthetics of abstraction. He has evolved a unique and distinctive oeuvre that reanimates historical processes and repurposes old technologies in new and unexpected ways, always through a keen focus on urban topographies and unrelenting built-up environments that visually recall the dystopian worlds of science-fiction.

by Tate