John Goto - Lovers' Rock

Publisher: Autograph

Year: 2013

Format: Hardcover with foil and jacket

Edition: 1st Edition

Condition: New

Pages: 120

Size: 22 x 23.2cm

Lovers' Rock is a series of portraits, taken in 1977 at Lewisham Youth Centre, representing a crucial moment of affirmation, celebrating black British youth on the move. The series was unseen for more than 35 years and has gone on to influence both photography and fashion.

At the time, John Goto taught evening classes in photography and film for two years at Lewisham Youth Centre, where this series was taken. Since then, the negatives have lain dormant in his studio. The unselfconscious engagement of the subjects in front of the camera can be, in part, explained by their familiarity with the photographer, who was not much older than the sitters. The series is entitled Lovers' Rock after a musical sub-genre that grew out of the South London reggae scene in the mid-1970s. In 1975, the singer Louisa Mark cut the first Lovers' Rock hit with Caught You in a Lie.

The gentle intimacy of the portraits sit in stark contrast to the political upheaval taking place on the streets outside the Youth Centre. In the mid-1970s, the Lewisham and New Cross areas of south London became the focus of intense political activity by extreme right-wing groups. In Professor Paul Gilroy’s words “Racism always denies individuality to those it subordinates…Here in these images, the photographer…has allowed, even encouraged, his sitters to cultivate the dimensions of individual subjectivity that racism simply cannot accommodate.” ⁠