BEAT STREULI: Elite Runners, South Shields 07

About

ALTIC presents the work of photographer and film-maker Beat Streuli, as part of the Great North Run Cultural Programme. His work documents the mundane, transient, pedestrian activity of urban life through photography and film. Beat visited the 2007 BUPA Great North Run weekend to create portraits of runners and spectators at the event. Capturing people in their natural state, often unawares, he used a long lens camera to create uncontrived images, free from artifice. As well as capturing these unique images of the public, his work for the Cultural Programme is also a response to the more usual and well publicised photos taken at the event, which are often staged with specially selected photogenic or quirky subjects. Streuli has exhibited across the world, including at the 1998 Sydney Biennial and the 1997 Johannesburg Biennial, as well as solo shows at Tate as part of the Art: Now series and at Palais do Tokyo, this will be the first time that Streuli's work has been created and exhibited in the North East.