David Dunnico ….. artist …. photographer …. author…. and all round good chap

I was saddened today to receive the news that David Dunnico had died.

I first met David back in 2019 when his exhibition, “Flag of Convivence” was about to open in Stockport, and our last encounter was just over a year and a bit ago at a talk on “Unlocking Our Sound” which is a project about using sound as a way of understanding the past.

And that pretty much capture’s David’s work and interests that I knew.  

He described himself as “a documentary photographer and writer from Manchester”, which is only part of the man.

His exhibitions were witty and thoughtful as they were eye catching.

Our conversations ranged over heaps of different subjects but often returned to history, and especially many of the events we lived through.

We also enjoyed the odd silly exchange on Facebook and looking back at the personal messages we swopped I have been reminded just how busy he was.

His wife Sara writes that he “had been ill for many years with cancer” but even at our last meeting he didn’t dwell on it.  As it was, we swapped our cancer stories and then got on with listening to the talk.

I am guessing we will all remember David in different ways

 For me it will be that mixture of irreverence, and close eye to detail that is captured by his picture of two people on a roundabout. and that Brexit march.

And I will also cherish the bits of promotional material that he would send over as an appetizer to his next project.

David’s funeral will be on March 28th at 11.30 at Manchester Crematorium.

* David Dunnico, https://daviddunnico.wordpress.com/

How we used to play ........... part 1 the roundabout ........

Now I have never been a fan of roundabouts.

So despite them making me feel ill, so many people like them that a new series has been born.

At first I was going to limit it to roundabouts, but I rather think it will be about all playground features, from the seesaw to the rocking horse and on to  the slide and the swing.

All were popular in the 1950s and into the 60s.

This is one of those very simple roundabouts which were still there in the 1984 in Longford Park.

The photograph was taken by David Dunnico and I like it, not least because it offers up that promise that playgrounds and the apparatus are not just for the young.

So, if there are people with pictures, or stories of the Corporation Rec and the things they played on .... just post them over.
You can see more of David's work at https://daviddunnico.wordpress.com/

Location; Longford Park

Picture; merry go round, Longford Park, 1984, from the collection of David Dunnico, https://daviddunnico.wordpress.com/

‘War Works’ an exhibition of art by David Dunnico … December 6th and into the new year

So in these uncertain times I was pleased that David Dunico’s new exhibition was going ahead  on November 5th at the AIR Gallery, The Warehouse, 30 Grosvenor Road, Altrincham.

But of course we are now about to enter the November lockdown, with David emailing me "Not surprisingly my exhibition has been postponed because of the lockdown – Assuming it ends on 2nd December, the exhibition will open on Saturday 5th December. 

It will run into January – I haven’t got any more information on exact dates yet".

So in anticipation of the event,  here I shall just lift the exhibition notes which say it better than I could.

“The Cenotaph features in a new art exhibition about remembrance, which appropriately and not without coincidence, opens the week the Whitehall war memorial reaches its Centenary.

Manchester artist David Dunnico’s exhibition is called ‘War Works’ and runs from 5th to 28th November at Air Gallery in Altrincham. It includes prints, video and installations, which take a critical look at how the First World War was memorialised and how this affects the way we look at later conflicts including the ‘war on terror’. 

In 1919, architect Edwin Lutyens was commissioned to design a monument for the route of the Allied Victory Parade which was to march through London. He quickly produced the deceptively simple cenotaph, which was made of wood and plaster and only intended to be in place for a few weeks. 

However, it immediately became the focus for the Nation’s mourning and was replaced in 1920 with the present permanent structure of Portland stone. 100 years on, it is still the most important and well known of an estimated 100,000 war memorials in the UK. 

In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, there was a craze for collecting ‘Crested Ware’ – small, white porcelain ornaments, decorated with the heraldic crest of a town or city. These were made in simple shapes of familiar objects. During the First World War designs included tanks, battleships and artillery, after the War, the Cenotaph was a popular subject. 

The different towns and cities displayed on these mementos reflects the fact that there was barely anywhere in the country that was not mourning local people who had been killed or injured in the war. 

Dunnico has used over 75 examples amassed from eBay in one installation. They are laid out in the shape of Britain and make a comment about the place war memorialisation has in this country. 

The Cenotaph also features in a large print called ‘Empty Tomb’ the literal translation of the word from the Greek. Other pieces include a video of the Two Minute Silence – which makes you realise how the city is never silent, especially when the gun signaling the start of the Silence sets off car alarms near and far. 

A couple of the exhibits were shown in Dunnico’s ‘Flag of Convenience’ photography exhibition held 

last year at Stockport War Memorial Art Gallery, being shown for the first time is ‘A War Imagined’ – What seem to be granite memorial plaques carved with the names of war dead, which on closer viewing turn out to be acrylic sheets, engraved with the cast lists of British films about the Second World War. Dunnico said: “The Second World War seems central to the English national identity, but people’s understanding of it largely comes from half-remembered movie dramas. History is understood literally and figuratively in black and white”. 

‘War Works’ an exhibition of art by David Dunnico

December 6th 2020- January  2021

AIR Gallery

The Warehouse

30 Grosvenor Road

Altrincham

WA14 1LD

0161 941 1129

info.airgallery@gmail.com

https://www.airgallery.space/

Opening times: Wednesday – Friday: 11am – 6pm 

Saturday: 12noon – 5pm. Free

Because of the COVID restrictions people are asked to book the day before visiting the exhibition through Eventbrite:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/126246112521

“Flag of Convenience" ............ David Dunico's exhibition ....... today at Stockport War Memorial Art Gallery

Now I am back with that exhibition by David Dunico.

It is entitled “Flag of Convenience" and has been running since mid May.

And today is a special day because “David’s exhibition ‘Flag of Convenience’ get’s its ‘official’ opening on at 2pm at Stockport War Memorial Art Gallery, when David gives a tour of the show , although you can have a preview from 25th May.

Although he works mainly in documentary photography, Dunnico will often include objects and ephemera to put the photographs in a social and historical context. 

As well as 40 photographs, there are over 60 postcards from his own collection, these mainly date from the decade around the First World War – and, given the title of the exhibition, there are more than a few flags featured.

Dunnico has grouped some of these together to comment on issues such as nationality, which are inextricably linked to flags. One such set is of 18 cards, from around 1910. 

Woman wearing a draped flag as a dress

These feature exactly the same photograph of a woman wearing a draped flag as a dress.  The dress has been retouched to represent a different flag on each card. 

Dunnico has collectively titled them ‘Any Country You Like’ and mounted them with old maps which show countries and Empires that no longer exist – making the point that none of us picked where we were born and the nation we live in can change with the stroke of a pen if a treaty is signed or lines on a map redrawn.  

There’s also an imposter among the cards – One version of the woman is dressed in a red flag, which Dunnico coloured in himself."

Believe in Me, Brexit protester outside Parliament,  London March 2019

The exhibition is fee, and is at Stockport War Memorial Art Gallery, Wellington Road South, Stockport, SK3 8AB, 0161 474 4453, stockport.artgallery@stockport.gov.uk 

Opening Times
Tuesday to Friday 1pm – 5pm
Saturday: 10am – 5pm
Sunday: 11am – 5pm
Monday: Closed except for Bank Holidays 11am – 5pm

Flying the Flag, Manchester and Salford Whit Walk, May 2018. "The Union Jack being used in its formal role as flag of our country and as a fashion design".

For more information, photographs, interviews you can contact David at,  david@dunni.co.uk 0161 445 1893 / 07533 141331

Or read his blog at David Dunnico, https://daviddunnico.wordpress.com/pop-art/

* Believe in Me. Brexit protester outside Parliament, London, March 2019, "A man all ‘Union-Jacked up’ at the continuous pro and anti-Brexit protest outside Parliament"

‘Flag of Convenience’…….. A new exhibition of photography and artworks by Manchester documentary photographer David Dunnico

Now I am very excited about the forthcoming exhibition by David Dunnico at Stockport War Memorial Art Gallery from Saturday May 25th

The exhibition according to David "looks at how the Union Jack Flag went from being a banner of Empire to a symbol of ‘Mod’ – How it shook off an association with racism and football hooliganism and was rehabilitated with Cool Britannia, Brit Pop and the London Olympics. 

But after Brexit, and a resurgence of nationalism here and the election of Donald Trump in the USA, what does the Union Jack symbolise now? 

Flags are just pieces of coloured cloth, but people turn them into powerful symbols by giving them their own, sometimes contradictory meanings. 

This timely exhibition uses humour and biting social comment to unpick the many tangled threads of patriotism, nationalism and branding which hold the Union Jack together (and make it such an iconic graphic design).

Together, the forty photographs record the ‘interesting times’ we are living in. They range from German supermarket (Aldi) advertising their “Championing of Great British Quality” to the Orange Order’s annual seaside outing to Southport. 
From rainbow coloured Union Jacks on gay pride parades, to dystopian shots of CCTV cameras watching flags fluttering in a cold breeze. 

Flying the Flag, Manchester & Salford Whit Walks, May 2018*

Brexit is of course featured. my honeymoon was spent in Yorkshire searching for and eventually findin) Nigel Farage’s 'Brexit Betrayal' bus".

So there you have it, a thought provoking exhibition which contains some stunning photographs.

The exhibition runs from Saturday 25 May to Friday 28 June 2019.

You can met David on Saturday June 1 from  2pm to 4pm, when he will be giving a tour of the exhibition on.

The exhibition Is fee, Is at Stockport War Memorial Art Gallery, Wellington Road South, Stockport, SK3 8AB, 0161 474 4453, stockport.artgallery@stockport.gov.uk 

Opening Times
Tuesday to Friday 1pm – 5pm
Saturday: 10am – 5pm
Sunday: 11am – 5pm
Monday: Closed except for Bank Holidays 11am – 5pm

*Flying the Flag, Manchester and Salford Whit Walk, May 2018. "The Union Jack being used in its formal role as flag of our country and as a fashion design".

For more information, photographs, interviews you can contact David at,  david@dunni.co.uk 0161 445 1893 / 07533 141331

Or read his blog at David Dunnico, https://daviddunnico.wordpress.com/pop-art/