Art hits the high street

A young homeless man lies practically comatose on a dirty pavement in a London street. Behind him, a young woman in a shop window advert soaks up the tropical heat under a cloudless blue sky.

Leaning against a palm tree, she is absorbed in a book, so that both figures are lost to their immediate surroundings.

In this showcase of contemporary London photography, Nick Turpin's image is one of many that set out to offer striking and sometimes surreal juxtapositions of urban life with images from giant advertising hoardings, or, in this case, a WH Smith window display.

But although the theatre of the streets has often been wonderfully illuminated by these sort of contrasts, such neat juxtapositions have also turned into something of a visual cliché.

The work of Dorothy Bohm, a photographer who has spent much of the last 40 years documenting the hustle and bustle of London streets dominated by commercial imagery, is constantly echoed in this exhibition.

But the element of genuine disorientation that often accompanies Bohm's work, as advertising images powerfully merge with the fleeting images of the street, is simply missing in these more prosaic encounters.

Elsewhere, Stephen McLaren's thick trail of blood being sidestepped by pedestrians offers a mysteriously disturbing narrative. Only Johanna Neurath stands out in this gritty urban company by offering something altogether more lyrical in her autumnal pictures of petals, leaves and halfglimpsed figures.

Until Sep 16, Photofusion, 17a Electric Lane, SW9, Tue to Sat 10am to 6pm, free. Tel: 020 7738 5774. Tube: Brixton

Onto The Streets
Photofusion
Electric Lane, Brixton, SW9 8LA