by David London

Paul Soso was a familiar face around TG. For years, he was one of the club’s authorised photographers, continuing to snap pictures all night and all through the afterparties, becoming an unofficial diarist of the London fetish scene. 

His first ever solo show opens at 41 Frith Street, Soho, at 7pm on 18th November. The theme is Masks – an item of clothing that always featured heavily in Paul’s work, and that has taken on a very different meaning since his day. Because sadly, he won’t be around to see the exhibition.

Paul died in March 2020, less than a week before the first Covid lockdown, meaning his funeral passed without fanfare. But in the days following his death, Paul’s daughter, Mia, reached out to Spela London with some unexpected news. 

When he was still alive, Paul had told Mia that Spela was the person he would trust most with his pictures. Spela, who studied Curation at Central St Martin’s, had been trying to help Paul put together an exhibition over the previous couple of years. And now, according to his wishes, she went from being the curator of one show to being custodian of his life’s work.

It was a huge task. Not only was there the responsibility of securing his legacy, but she also had to untangle the mess that was Paul’s archive.

Perhaps as a result of his dyslexia, Paul wasn’t a great fan of admin. When we took delivery of his PC and his hard drives, we found that his spirit lived on. More than 100,000 photos were spread across 7TB of computers and battered portable drives, some of them corrupted, in a system of folders that seemed designed to hide anything useful. One of the drives couldn’t be accessed at all.

To sort through this glorious mess, Spela called on a select group of mutual friends who had known Paul well – a circle of trust who she knew wouldn’t abuse their privileged access to his work. Together, Adrianna, Ame, Andy, Evy, Icaro, two Marcos, Virna and I helped to figure out what we had and copy it to more reliable hardware.

It was like panning for gold in the heart of the Klondike. There was so much to find, and a year into the search, we’re still finding new nuggets.

But when his family cleared out Paul’s apartment, it seems likely that a lot of his work was lost: the archive included no memory cards, which Paul always carried with him. His cloud storage accounts had expired, and we were unable to find the originals of many images that we’d seen him share online. 

Once we’d taken stock of what we did have, the question was: what to do with it all? The priority was, bluntly, to bring in some money for Mia and her brother Marley. Paul’s lack of organisation included a fuzzy approach to finance, and he never managed to make much of a profit from his pictures when he was alive. The photos constitute the children’s inheritance.

With the help and advice of Art Society Soho’s Martin Vintner-Jackson (aka artist Hugo von Hugo), we’re now trying to realise the commercial value of this literally priceless archive. 

So Paul’s first exhibition is just the tip of the iceberg – a few dozen images from the thousands available, expertly finished by friend and photographer Atton Conrad O’Murchadha, who also provided expert input on the eventual selection.

We’re opening the show with a preview event at 7pm, Thursday 18 November, across two floors of the legendary salon/gallery We Are Cuts at 41 Frith Street – with the party most likely spilling out into the street as well. All are welcome. The show will remain free to attend for the rest of the year, Monday to Saturday during regular working hours. 

Limited edition prints of the pictures will be on sale at a special discounted rate for the duration of the show, and we’ll be throwing in some special offers on the preview night too. Talk to gallery owner Daniel at the venue or email PaulSosoPhoto@gmail.com if you’d like to buy a print or find out more.

Come along and celebrate the big man’s legacy. And wear your most fabulous mask.