You could no more describe Grant Fleming simply as “a photographer” any more than you could usefully describe any of the 120 countries he’s worked in simply as “a place.” If words could do these matters justice, we wouldn’t need cameras. Some things resist easy description, as in this case does the person taking the pictures.

‘Hasta La Victoria!’ is his first major exhibition and showcases images from his first overseas trip with a photographic objective – the upheaval in late 80’s Central America via the southern states of the US.

Grant Fleming became politically active in the 80’s after fortunately escaping a prison term after a number of collective ‘misdemeanors’ in his youth. He changed direction and turned to music, tour managing popular punk band Sham 69 at 18, was involved in the Mod Revival in the late 70’s, then played bass guitar with the Chords and Lords of The New Church and toured the US until the group split.

Finding himself back in London on the dole, he started playing around with a camera. He would go on to cut his teeth as a photographer in the UK – at Wapping, the South African Embassy, through CND, the Miners strike and the NHS demos to name but a few.

He developed a growing interest in politics, and in particular, Latin America (a love of which exists to this day), primarily through popular culture via The Clash and their album Sandinista and later Oliver Stone’s movie Salvador.

After leaving the cinema on Tottenham Court Road in 1987, he turned to his friend and said, “I’m going there.” He explains, “Mad as he thought I was, I set the plan into action, having had a period on the dole after a band splitting up and my wife being deported, I took a job in a Phillips Colour printers in Spitalfields, learnt more about the photographic process, got the cash together and off I went, passing the Republican Convention in New Orleans on the way.”

Inspired by the brave and the bold, particularly the war photographer Don McCullin, Grant wanted to put his own resolution and endurance to the test. To see if he could hack it as a photographer, “to see if I had the balls”, dramatic circumstances duly unfolded and challenges presented themselves. In Panama City, he was arrested one evening by a drunken immigration officer who was publicly reprimanded and made to apologise. The following day, the immigration officer had mobilised local street gang ‘The Famous Ones’, and Grant found himself with a gun held against his head and was run out of town.

In three months, he traveled through eight different countries. He explains “I wanted to see if I could handle it in conflict zones because I’d soon be found out if not. But rather than just go into the revolutionary strongholds and play it safe behind ‘friendly’ lines, I decided to undertake a journey throughout the region, and visit all the countries of Central America, some of which were more hostile than others. Witnessing life in all those places would not only turn out to be an unforgettable and lifechanging experience, it would also serve to give me a better understanding of the issues down there. I timed my entry into the US to begin this ‘all-seeing’ mission overland to be in New Orleans for the Republican convention, populated of course by the very architects of the foreign policy that kept the people of where I was heading to oppressed. Even though this felt like I was entering into the belly of the beast it was worth it.”

Hasta La Victoria! is Grant Fleming’s first major exhibition after a 25-year career in photography. It is also a political landscape that he felt was in need of revisiting. “I’m going there!” remains a mantra that inspires him just as surely as “Who Let Him In?!” (the forthcoming book of his adventures) has proved the astonished response from doormen to dictators and assorted authority figures, unsure how to process the arrival or indeed manage the departure of East London’s restless and relentless son.

Born in Stepney in the early 1960’s Grant Fleming has troubled almost as many trades as he has traversed territories. He sold evening papers outside London stations at 14, spent time as a city runner, then followed his father into the docks, bothering the good offices of the customs & excise until the music (punk) came calling, became a tour manager, musician, author, salesman (of many things by many means), political agitator, lens man and more. From the back of the class to the frontlines of style revolutions, real revolutions, one football club in particular and almost any party he could find, often with a camera, always at the front.

As a musician he supported Dexys Midnight Runners, Cockney Rejects, The Clash and The Jam, had a young Guns and Roses support his band and played with the likes of Paul Weller, Joey Ramone, Little Steven/Silvio Dante and Ian McLagan from fellow East End musical heroes the Small Faces. He was Primal Scream’s official photographer for twenty years, published a book of those heady times, Higher Than The Sun in 1997, and spent the glory years of Loaded (1994-99) as their go-to-man for photographic coverage of music, football, carnivals and fiestas as well as placing some of the harder-edged reportage into the magazine.

Moving on in the new millennium, to making films - he directed Punta Del Este, a dance music program for Channel 4 and a feature-length documentary on Paul Oakenfold and the cult of the superstar DJ. Grant is also currently editing several Primal Scream shorts in advance of the feature Screamadelica and he has just completed the short, Trainspotting20 with Irvine Welsh to commemorate the books’ 20th anniversary.

His many adventures include the following: meeting and photographing Nelson Mandela while covering the elections at the end of apartheid (an exhibition of this will follow in 2014); rescuing Jason Donovan after his infamous Viper Room overdose incident at Kate Moss’s 21st party in LA; he nearly fell into Yasser Arafat’s coffin while hanging from a moving vehicle at the late Palestinian leader’s funeral; was kidnapped in Somalia and saved by none other than his time and experience as an ex football hooligan with West Ham’s ICF (which he is credited in naming); smuggled himself in disguise across the Bin Ladenoccupied Khyber Pass to work on aid projects in Afghanistan; disappeared into the Colombian jungle with the Farc (which earned him the epithet Granty Rio courtesy of Joe Strummer); he scuttled past security to photograph Ronald Reagan at a Republican conference in 1988 at the start of this photographic journey and found himself ‘escorted’ out by the neck and interrogated by the dark-suits of the US secret service.

He has photographed, among others David Beckham, Paul Weller, Oasis, Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, My Bloody Valentine, Lemmy, Maradona, Sir Geoff Hurst, Ronaldo, Primal Scream, Chemical Brothers, Manic Street Preachers, Kate Moss, Usain Bolt, Ray & Jamie Winstone, The Stone Roses, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Neil Kinnock, Arthur Scargill, Tony Blair, Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat, Ahmadinejad and the Queen.

Hasta La Victoria! is the first exhibition in a series of 5 and Grant will publish the book of his adventures ‘Who Let Him In?!’ in 2014 and direct his first feature film ‘The Knockers’, scheduled to start production that summer.

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