We Could Be Heroes, Photographers' Gallery

It smells like teen spirit at the Photographers’ Gallery, London as the Photographers’ Gallery exhibition 2015, We Could Be Heroes, exposes youth culture over the last century. This group exhibition is the inaugural show at the Photographers’ Gallery London Print Sales Gallery.
Photographers' Gallery London exhibitions 2015
A raw and unmediated insight into teenage life and our bittersweet rites of passage, the photos in We Could Be Heroes capture the rebellious bravado of carefree youth culture. Picking up from the era of post-war optimism – when the term ‘teenager’ was first coined – the images follow adolescent Europeans and Americans as they seize the opportunity to turn their backs on tradition, declare new attitudes and assert new subcultures.
We Could Be Heroes exhibition highlights
Highlights at our favourite London photography gallery include the work of photographer Chris Steele-Perkins and Ed van der Elsken. There is also an opportunity to see images by legendary Magnum photographer, Bruce Davidson. In 1959, Davidson became part of the Brooklyn-based teenage gang, the Jokers, for eleven months. The result was Brooklyn Gang, one of the first full-immersion photo essays ever produced on the subject of American youth subculture. Photographing these teenagers, Davidson featured everything from drinking in back alleys and back-of-car make-out sessions, to liaisons under the Coney Island boardwalk.
Back on this side of the Atlantic, look out for photographs of London’s West End punk scene by Karen Knorr and Olivier Richon, with posed portraits taken in Roxy Club and Global Village in 1977. Featured alongside is the Roger Mayne W10 series (1956 – 1961) of the first generation to be identified as ‘teenagers’. Mayne’s street photographs contrast the exuberance and enthusiasm of young people in west London with the derelict urban environment that surrounded them.
We Could Be Heroes is a must-see of the photography exhibitions London this spring. And if you fancy taking home a souvenir, the 20+ images on display are all for sale!