Brian Griffin - Himmelstrasse

In this episode I talk to Brian Griffin about his book Himmelstrasse. I first met Brian when we were both guest panellists at Format Festival. A while later we had the pleasure of having Brian as our Curating Judge for Shotupnorth’s SUN Awards 27. Of course, Brian Griffin is one of Britain’s most influential portrait photographers… his style of transforming workplaces into stages and his subjects into actors, is one which acquired the name “Capitalist Realism”. That style propelled him into the music world too, where he photograph bands like The Jam, and Elvis Costello and others, who also chose to dress in suits and ties. His work has become iconic, and is held in prestigious collections like the National Portrait Gallery. So for the viewer, Himmelstrasse comes as a shocking departure. Himmelstrasse, Heaven Street, is the cynical name the Nazis gave to the railways that transported millions of Jews and others to the extermination camps. As we sat in his Rotherhithe home, with a pot of green tea, looking over the Thames, on a February afternoon… …I asked what had drawn him to the bleak forests of Poland, haunted by the traumas of the Holocaust? Brian also addressed an online audience for 'Shotupnorth @home' talking about Himmelstrasse https://youtu.be/U43cQLomloY Himmelstrasse is available from brownseditions.com shotupnorth.co.uk