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Text: “In Press” chapter from Marcus Bunyan’s PhD research ‘Pressing the Flesh: Sex, Body Image and the Gay Male’, RMIT University, Melbourne, 2001

March 2023

 

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971) 'Seated man in a bra and stockings, N.Y.C., 1967' 1967

 

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Seated man in a bra and stockings, N.Y.C.
1967
Gelatin silver print

 

 

Since the demise of my old website, my PhD research Pressing the Flesh: Sex, Body Image and the Gay Male (RMIT University, Melbourne, 2001) has no longer been available online.

I have now republished the third of twelve chapters, “In Press”, so that it is available to read. More chapters will be added as I get time. I hope the text is of some interest. Other chapters include Historical Pressings (examines the history of photographic images of the male body) and Bench Press (investigates the development of gym culture, its ‘masculinity’, ‘lifestyle’, and the images used to represent it).

Dr Marcus Bunyan March 2023

 

 

“In Press” chapter from Marcus Bunyan’s PhD research Pressing the Flesh: Sex, Body Image and the Gay Male RMIT University, Melbourne, 2001

Through plain language English (not academic speak) the text of this chapter investigates the photographic representation of the muscular male body in the (sometimes gay) media and gay male pornography. In the title of the chapter I use the word ‘press’ to infer a link to the media.

 

Keywords

photography, muscular male body, muscular male body in the media, appearance, lifestyle, narcissism, advertising, media, appearance, consumer capitalism, visible bodies, gay male, gay male pornography

 

Sections

  • Consuming the Appearance
  • Consumer Capitalism and Narcissism
  • Visible Bodies
  • Gay Male Pornography
  • Alternatives to American gay male pornography
  • Alternative bodies

 

Word count: 6,884

 

 

In Press

 

“Not only do the media shape our vision of the contemporary world, determining what most people can and cannot see and hear, but the very images of our own body, our own selves, our own personal self worth (or lack of it) is mediated by the omnipresent images of mass culture…”

.
Douglas Kellner1

 

From the fervent explosion that saw the birth of the gay liberation movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s there emerged a period of amazing freedom and growth for many gay people. Sexualities that were previously hidden behind a veil of secrecy were now being expressed and fought for out on the streets. Sex, especially the desire of gay men for casual sex, was now out in the open. A new body image emerged from this revolution, one that was neither male nor female, but androgynous. This new androgynous body image can be seen as a reflection of societal changes that were happening during the swinging Sixties, the era of “free love.” You could swing, i.e., move both ways sexually. The joining together of male and female, gay men and lesbians was a very positive force in the formation and acceptance of new identities.

But the honeymoon was soon over.

The idealism of the early gay liberation movement did not last long. Gay men, long persecuted for their camp and feminine ways sought images to combat the long held stereotype of the limp-wristed pansy who had abdicated his male power to others through his effeminacy. Manliness came out of the closet of the physique magazines to express the longed for power of patriarchy that gay men sought. There was an enormous surge in the production of homoerotic imagery and gay men responded by imitating heterosexual masculinity in an ironic way; the ‘clone’ image was born: boots, tight fitting jeans, check shirts, short hair and usually a moustache to top off the image. Anybody could go out and purchase such an outfit. It did not discriminate along class or social boundary lines and the ‘look’ was relatively ageless. This clone image extended to other identities that included the leather man, the sailor, the construction worker & the cowboy. But the image was still ‘butch’; skinny or fat guys really need not apply.

The pop group ‘The Village People’ are a perfect example of the camp irony that infused the gay scene at this time. Their song “Macho Man” echoes the desire for gay men to be seen as butch: “I wanna be a macho, macho man – I wanna be, a macho man,” they sing parading around in their tight fitting and revealing outfits. By making their stereotypical cloned images of the cowboy, construction worker, cop, etc., … incredibly camp they undermined the credibility of traditional masculinity. But soon this camp ironic comment was devoured by the dichotomy of existing sex and gender differences. As Dennis Altman has said,

“In the early days of the movement, both women and men saw the process of gay liberation as intimately related to the blurring of sexual and gender boundaries, a move toward androgyny … Our biggest failure was an inability to foresee the extent to which the opposite would happen and a new gay culture / identity would emerge that would build on existing male / female differences.”2

.
The body and its visibility became increasingly important as a site of construction that was and is crucial to a persons identity and self-esteem. Appearance is critical to this construction.

I suggest that in contemporary gay culture the muscular body of the gay male has stopped being a ‘camp’ ironic comment on ‘normal’ masculinity and instead the body and photographic images of it have become a marketable asset, a commodity3 in a selling and surveillance exercise. Men advertise for sex by displaying their muscular body for admiration and desire by others and observe themselves and others reactions to it. Identity is now mediated by acceptance of their image and by ‘measuring up’ to a perceived image ideal. Media started to make use of this new availability of the male body as an objectified image of desire as it opened up new markets to companies. It encouraged men to undertake face lifts, tummy tucks, pectoral implants and hair removal, to purchase underwear, toiletries, clothes and all manner of goods so that they too could approach the archetypal ‘ideal’ of the masculine male.

 

David Lloyd. Cover of Naked Men of San Diego calendar 1998

 

David Lloyd
Untitled
Nd
Cover of Naked Men of San Diego calendar
Santa Monica: The Phenomenon Factory, 1998

 

 

Today images of the smooth, muscular, white male body are everywhere in advertising, encouraging us to purchase more, to help us get closer to the ideal. As David Kellner has said in the quotation at the beginning of the chapter, the images of mass culture have become omnipresent. Naked men now adorn calendars containing full frontal nudity of smooth muscular white bodies all sporting the latest in designer erections! You can have your man any time of the day, any time of the year, when you get poked in the eye with this calendar.

The muscular Billy Doll, complete with huge anatomically correct penis, (read ‘scientifically’ or how big a gay man’s penis should be) is the contemporary idealisation of earlier stereotypical gay fantasy images, a kind of male Barbie doll on steroids for gay men. I believe that in today’s incarnation of the gay male body the camp ironic comment present in the fantasy images of an earlier generation has disappeared.

 

Behavior Saviour. 'Untitled' 'Billy postcard' 1998

 

Behavior Saviour
Untitled
‘Billy postcard’
1998

 

“Born to love you!! Billy is an anatomically correct adult doll standing 32 cm tall, weighing 320g. Choose from – Master Billy, Sailor Billy, Cowboy Billy and San Francisco Billy! Billy, the world’s first out and proud gay doll, comes beautifully packaged in a high quality presentation case with photographic backdrop.”

 

'Billy Doll' c. 1997

 

Billy Doll
c. 1997

 

 

It has been replaced by a desiring consumerism, in this case the desire for a muscular form complete with jaw dropping penis, the envy of every gay man. And after all, consumerism is a form of self-obsession. Makes you feel a little insecure, eh? Billy doesn’t have an inch of fat or any body hair, is perfectly proportioned (particularly his huge endowment) and is made of plastic. No fear of infection here! Women have been fighting this kind of body stereotyping with the Barbie Doll for years and now the gay male has his own equivalent.

Oh but Billy – he’s born to love you!!

 

Consuming the Appearance

Sex sells. The appearance and image of hard bodies sells. They are consumed by individuals and societies eager to attain what they offer; individuality, success, popularity and ‘lifestyle’. But these images are not individual, they are ‘the same’, to be consumed by every-body. Below are three examples of the current genre of male body photography; all bodies are of the same homogenised type. Only the photographers are different, but they might as well have been the same.

 

Various photographers of the male body in Blue Magazine

 

Michael Childers
Untitled
Nd
Blue Magazine
Sydney: Studio Magazines, February 1999, p. 68

Jason Lee
Untitled
Nd
Blue Magazine
Sydney: Studio Magazines, April 1997, p. 108

Rob Lang
Untitled
Nd
Blue Magazine
Sydney: Studio Magazines, February 1999, p. 93

 

 

Apparently, “Jason Lee’s brooding male nudes plumb the shadowy depths of Mystery, Sensuality and Despair … Figures possess an aura of subdued eroticism … Faces and identities are almost inconsequential, the subject reduced to a study of line and texture.”4 He says that he doesn’t want to use clichés that tend to occur when photographing women and to establish an identity and style all of his own. Michael Childers images are supposedly, “Dynamic, sensual and glamorous,”5 while Rob Lang’s desert studies of the male nude, “Document his search for the man within … and [are] essentially about unearthing an emotional bond.”6

These “types” of photographer (ie. ones who take generic photographs of the muscular male body) and many more like them feature heavily in Blue Magazine, a glossy publication aimed at the gay ‘lifestyle’ demographic. Of course most photographers would like to think that their work contains a deep revealing: mystery, sensuality, emotional bonds, etc., … but speaking as a photographer myself, I believe that this type of body photography (with its self-absorption and narcissism), isolates the body from communication with others. The bodies are complete(d) within their own sensual gratification. The construction of these images is formulaic, the body forming a masturbatory landscape endlessly repeated by different photographers in slightly different poses that appeal to a gay erotic consumerism. There is no individual identity present in photographer or subject contrary to what Jason Lee would like to think.

Identities of the models and photographers are inconsequential. These images are used by advertisers, fashion photographers, media and “artists” alike to sell product and fall into clichés that have developed in the photography of the male body over the last 60 years.

 

Anonymous photographer. 'Untitled' Nd Yves Saint Laurent advertisement 'Blue Magazine'

 

Anonymous photographer
Untitled
Nd
Yves Saint Laurent advertisement
Blue Magazine
Sydney: Studio Magazines, February 1999, p. 9
1999

 

 

I suggest that these images are no longer just a fashion, but that they are here to stay. I believe that the problems associated with the idealisation of these male images (for example steroid abuse, low self-esteem, body dysmorphia), can be compared to the eating disorders that women have succumbed to in their attempts to attain the waif like super-model look of many contemporary women fashion models.

Some social commentators have argued that the multiplicity of images available to the public (in consumer culture) open up new identities and new areas of becoming, deconstructing the hierarchy of what is seen as valuable in body image types. Central to this hierarchy is the ability of dominant groups (such as supermodels or muscular mesomorphs) to prove that their lifestyle7 and body type are desirable, are superior and worthy of emulation. Chris Schilling has observed that,

“The rapid internationalization and circulation of consumer and ‘lifestyle’ goods threatens the readability of those signs used by the dominant to signify their elite physical capital. These issues raise doubts about the continuing management and control by the dominant class of those fields in which physical capital is recognized and valorized. If fields become saturated with increasing body images and social practices which are presented as constituting valuable forms of physical capital, then their structure may change. Unless dominant sections of society are able to classify these styles into existing hierarchies, and have these classifications recognized as valid, then the logic of differences in which taste in cultural and consumer goods and lifestyle activities are held to be oppositionally structured is threatened. In contemporary consumer society, then, we may be witnessing processes which will make it extremely difficult for any one group to impose as hegemonic, as worthy of respect and deference across society, a single classificatory scheme of ‘valuable bodies’.”8

.
I disagree with this argument.

It is still all too easy for the dominant group within a subculture or society to impose and identify a ‘valuable’ body. This can be seen in any of the above images and the way they are used by all types of artists, media & advertisers to attract ‘value’ status. The body of the muscular mesomorph attracts a projected desire that media and advertisers rely on. It is still very difficult to put forward alternate body images that can be seen as fantasies, both desirable & ‘valuable’. Since most males would like to have a muscular mesomorphic body shape this body type does have social status. Covers of gay magazines such as Outrage (below) sell far more copies when they have an attractive, muscular smooth young man on the front of them.

 

Anonymous photographer. 'Untitled' Nd in Blue Magazine 1999

 

Anonymous photographer
Untitled
Nd
2(x)ist underwear advertisement
in Blue Magazine. Sydney: Studio Magazines, February 1999, p.15

 

Darren Tieste. 'Geoff' Nd in Outrage Magazine 1999

 

Darren Tieste
Geoff
Nd
Outrage Magazine cover, “Making Porn” play and underwear feature
in Outrage Magazine No. 189. Melbourne: Bluestone Press, February 1999. Front cover / p. 63

 

 

Here Outrage kills three birds with one stone. Firstly, they have their attractive semi-naked cover model to help sell the mag. Secondly, there is an article on the play in which the model / actor is acting (different photographs). This promotes both the play and fills the magazine. Thirdly, the image is repeated inside the magazine with other models / actors in designer underwear as part of a photographic feature. Nice one Outrage!

This and other contemporary images of muscular male bodies are unlike the clone image of an earlier generation because the ‘look’ is now ageist, elitist and requires great sacrifices in order to come close to possessing the ‘ideal’. Great value is put on appearance, youth, beauty, and lifestyle to the possible detriment of everything else.

 

Consumer Capitalism and Narcissism

Consumer capitalism encourages the consumption of items that promote a socially valued model. This encourages narcissism9 in the individual as each seeks to tailor their appearance through the consumption of such items. The individual reflexively watches how they ‘measure up’ to the model of a socially valued self and modulates what they consume so that they can be seen as popular, attractive & possessing a good ‘lifestyle’. Anthony Giddens notes,

“Consumption addresses the alienated qualities of modern social life and claims to be their solution: it promises the very things the narcissist desires – attractiveness, beauty and personal popularity – through the consumption of the ‘right’ kinds of goods and services. Hence all of us, in modern social conditions, live as though surrounded by mirrors; in these we search for the appearance of an unblemished, socially valued self.”10

.
I suggest that looking at the self in a mirror may not be the same as seeking the truth of the Self in reality; after all, a mirror image is only a reflected surface, seen in reverse. This reflection, this appearance, dominates your social ‘value’ in contemporary society. Appearances are marketable, and the more unblemished a product you have the better. Across the many spectrums of life it is a buyers and sellers market, whether it is the body, the underwear or the aftershave. They have what you want; you might have what they want. What price a sale? Maybe it’s all an illusion with mirrors?

(Please see the Eye-Pressure chapter for more information on the gaze).

 

Anonymous photographer. 'Fresh, Pure, Cool – It's milk' Nd in Large Magazine 1997

 

Anonymous photographer
Fresh, Pure, Cool – It’s milk
Nd
Style Council milk advertisement
in Large Magazine Issue No.8. Melbourne: Large Publications Pty Ltd., 21st March 1997, back cover

 

Anonymous photographer. 'Fresh, Pure, Cool – It's milk' Nd in Large Magazine 1997

 

Anonymous photographer
Fresh, Pure, Cool – It’s milk
Nd
Style Council milk advertisement
in Large Magazine Issue No.8. Melbourne: Large Publications Pty Ltd., 21st March 1997, pp. 1-2

 

 

The surface of such an identity construction hides the cost of its production. Seemingly, no effort is required to possess such a socially valuable body and ‘lifestyle’. Advertising promotes these socially valued bodies and lifestyles; this can be seen in the imagery and advertising message of the two milk advertisements. In the above advert the (phallic) glass of milk is linked to the smooth muscular body of the man holding it, who is the only person dressed in white. The milk and the man who is about to drink it are both, by association, fresh, pure, cool. The surrounding crowd is not staring at the milk, they are staring at, and desiring, him. On the left well-heeled matrons eye him with open desire and behind a group of (gay) men, all of a similar smooth, muscular body-type stare with open mouths and obviously lust after his sculptured torso. This tableaux reinforces the message that such a body is fresh, pure and cool, and is seen as a ‘valuable’ status symbol by society. It’s possible that by drinking milk you too can acquire such a possession!.

In the second advert a women and two men are again surrounded by ‘others’, people that could be regarded as freaks, with most of them having strange hair, over the top make-up and wearing dark clothes. They are not ‘normal’. When the advertising agency was casting for this campaign in Melbourne I went along – they wanted the weirdest looking people they could find. In contrast the male model at right reveals his smooth sculptured torso to the desiring gaze of an admiring viewer, much as in the first advertisement above.

This is the desirable body and the desirable ‘lifestyle’ to which we should all aspire!

 

Visible Bodies

 

“Visible bodies are caught in webs of communication irrespective of individual intentions and these systems can exert a considerable influence on the behaviour of those involved.”

.
Tom Burns11

 

Media advertising makes use of these webs of communication to reinforce it’s system of consumer control. Sometimes advertisers do not openly deploy these lines of communication. In the example below Sheridan sheets has, perhaps subconsciously perhaps deliberately, targeted the gay ‘lifestyle’ demographic without making it too obvious. In the first photograph a beautiful, smooth, tanned young man lies in bed happily smiling at the camera …

 

Anonymous photographer. ''Sheer Poetry' by Sheridan' Nd in Sheridan Australia brochure 1998

 

Anonymous photographer
‘Sheer Poetry’ by Sheridan
Nd
in Sheridan Australia brochure. Mordialloc: DDI Adworks, 1998, pp. 17-20

 

 

On turning the page we find that this image is followed by a double page spread of towels in assorted colours. On the next page we find another gorgeous smooth, tanned young man reclining in bed smiling at the camera. Funny isn’t it that the sheets on both beds are identical, that one boy is photographed from one side of the bed and the other boy from the opposite side. They couldn’t be in the same bed could they, heaven forbid!

Instead of showing the boys in bed together which would not appeal to the wider heterosexual male or female purchaser, the designer of the brochure has cleverly suggested the possibility of homosexuality through the use of visible bodies in a disguised web of communication. The symbolic representation of such photographs (with their implicit language of sexual contact) can be recognised by gay men without the overt nature of homosexuality being thrust in the face of the general public. It took me some time to realise what the designers had done. I wonder how many gay men have consciously realised this association? I think most would only perceive and understand this message projection, this web of communication on a subconscious level. Still this subconscious recognition only serves to reinforce societal values of what is seen as worthy of esteem, what is desirable in a lifestyle, through visible bodies, possessions and in this case, sheets. It is the insidious nature of media advertising that it evens out the bumps of difference, that is, it standardises and shapes levels of diversity, style and taste into what is socially acceptable and desirable.

The advertising media that targets consumers are not the only one’s guilty of promoting a limiting desirability of ‘ideals’ through photographic imagery, the representation of valuable male bodies. Equally to blame are some well known health organisations, both gay and straight, that use ‘the same’ stereotypical muscular mesomorphic bodies to illustrate their health campaigns.

 

Stephen Paul. 'Are Men from Mars?' c. 1998

 

Stephen Paul
Are Men from Mars?
c. 1998
‘Momentum’ Postcard
Bristow and Prentice Response Advertising
Melbourne: Victorian AIDS Council/Gay Mens Health Centre Inc. c. 1998

 

Stephen Paul. 'Loves me, Loves me not' c. 1998

 

Stephen Paul
Loves me, Loves me not
c. 1998
‘Momentum’ Postcard
Bristow and Prentice Response Advertising
Melbourne: Victorian AIDS Council/Gay Mens Health Centre Inc. c. 1998

 

Anonymous photographer. 'Now I'm immune!' Nd

 

Anonymous photographer
Now I’m immune!
Nd
‘Get Vaccinated’ Postcard
Australian College of Sexual Health Physicians 1997

 

 

To be fair, there is an awareness amongst quite a few people at The Victorian AIDS Council / Gay Mens Health Centre in Melbourne, Australia, of the need for the imaging of a broader cross section of body-types in health promotions. Still, this does not stop the images on postcards such as the two above (designed by an advertising company), appearing with regular monotony. The back of “Are Men from Mars?” asks you to discover for your yourself what makes men tick by joining one of the many VAC courses. From the card image it would seem that what makes men tick is a muscular well defined body, clenched hands (symbol of phallic masculinity)12 and beer!

Once introduced to the VAC young gay men may attend the ‘Young and Gay’, ‘Boyant’ or ’18 and under’ courses. In an interview with Jim Sotiropolous13 I asked him about the courses, media advertising and body image commodification:

 

MAB: OK, so one example I heard about as that you looked at people’s underwear to see whether they were wearing Calvin Klein.

JS: The only thing I can relate that too is that in the first week we use autograph sheets as an icebreaker. A sheet has 6 questions on it and one of these questions is who owns a pair of CK underwear.

MAB: Why is that there? This is interesting to me because of the commodification of the body and consumer culture – if you can’t have the body you can buy the underwear!

JS: Because people talk about it. It is something that we know will get people saying “Well, yeah I do.” So they will sign it. Its no use asking very vague questions and you won’t get a response, so you have to ask very specific questions because we just know they will respond. They know about it. I think it is stronger than a gay focused strategy. You can’t miss the billboards and the advertising.

MAB: So they have been attracted by those images of men and gone out and bought this underwear pre-knowing about the gay community and what’s expected of a gay image?

JS: Yes – the images are very erotic in the CK ads. I was in New York recently and there is a billboard that stretches 2 blocks with the range of CK underwear, its amazing!

MAB: Is this self-reflective narcissism good for how people feel about their own bodies?

JS: No – I think that there a lot of people who know they will never achieve that ideal but I’m not sure …

MAB: … whether that’s a bad thing

JS: Up to a point, yeah.

MAB: I’m not positing it as a totally bad thing.”

 

I suggest that the very presence of this kind of question (whether it elicits a response or not), still smacks of a certain elitism and the promotion of a particular ‘lifestyle’ as desirable. Calvin Klein models are, after all, the epitome of the clean cut, well groomed, tanned, successful visible male body promoted by an advertising web of communication. This is how bodies unintentionally get caught up in webs of communication which affects the behaviour of all bodies, in this case through the proposition of such a question. This enmeshment causes problems not only for the gay male but also for the heterosexual male; increased levels of body dissatisfaction, eating disorders and steroid abuse have been noted by researchers.14 This may be due in part to the desirability and valued social status of muscular mesomorphic body images such as those used in the Calvin Klein advertisements.

I believe that the search for self-identity through consumption is, in the end, a self defeating exercise. It is like looking into a thousand mirrors at an image of infinite regress never able to find the original image, that essence of inner Self that is ours only in the most insightful of moments. WE are the ones that create the images in the media, the mirror images of how we would like to be. As Lakoff and Scherr have said,

“Who, in the first place, are these faceless hordes? Who is ‘society’ but you and me? And the ‘media’ are not active, it is well known, but reactive; what they discern that their viewers / hearers / readers want, they provide. If we, the viewing public, are not stimulated to buy by the blandishments dangled before us, the media will be instantly responsive – there will be a whole new set of blandishments dangled faster than the eye can blink. So if the same tired messages, the same recycled pictures, pass across our weary retinas year after year, we cannot in all honesty blame the media.”15

.
We can only blame ourselves.

 

Gay Male Pornography

 

“If one were to write the ultimate cliched Australian coming out story, it would be about a boy born in a hick town who has the lithe body of a ballet dancer. Engaged to be married, he instead becomes a flight steward. The scales of heterosexuality drop from his eyes and he moves to Sydney to reinvent himself via the Yellow Brick Road of pumping at the City Gym, over-tanning at Tamarama, pulling beers at the Albury, and joining that bare-chested Roman garrison who shoulder their way across dance party floors. There is only one thing for him left to do: preserve the dream forever by becoming an American (which means the world) video sex icon.”

.
Peter Jordaan16

 

Following on from the previous text we might be able to say that we have only ourselves to blame if the media reinforce images of traditional ‘virile’ masculinity in a consumer society. It is we who have created these erotic male fantasy images, images that express our desires, not the media. But it is also true that capitalism and consumerism rely on the sale of product and constantly enlarge and amplify product appeal by advertising, thrusting these fantasy images into our faces until they become an overpowering omnipotent archetype. The male body in the contemporary gay porn industry is a prime example of such an archetype, the (re)enforcement of masculine power in the desirable image of the muscular mesomorphic body. How did this (re)enforcement of masculine power in the body image of gay porn stars come about?

 

Anonymous photographers. 'Solo Man' Nd

 

Anonymous photographers
Solo Man
Nd
Super 8mm pornography films advertisement in Super Star Studs No. 2. New York: No publisher, Nd (early 1970s) Back cover
Courtesy: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

During my research at The One Institute in Los Angeles I investigated the type of body images that appeared in the transitional phase from physique magazines of the mid-late 1960s into the early gay pornography magazines of 1969-1970 in America which occurred after the Supreme Court ruling on obscenity. I wanted to find whether there had been a crossover, a continuation of the muscular mesomorphic body image that was a favourite of the physique photographers into the early pornography magazines. From the evidence of the images in the magazines I would have to say that there was a limited crossover of the bigger muscular bodies but most bodies that appeared in the early gay porn mags were of the youthful, smooth, muscular ephebe-type body image.

As can be seen from the images (above) most of the men featured in the early gay pornography magazines and films have bodies that appear to be quite ‘natural’ in their form. Models are mostly young, smooth, quite solid with toned physiques, not as ‘built’ as in the earlier physique magazines but still well put together. Examining the magazines at the One Institute I found that the bodies of older muscular/hairy men were not well represented. Perhaps this was due to the unavailability of the bigger and older bodybuilders to participate in such activity? In the male bodies of the c. early-1970s Super 8 mm pornography films (above) we can observe the desirable image of the smooth youthful ephebe (males between boy and man) being presented for our erotic pleasure.

We can also observe in the bodies of Mark Hammer, Mike Powers and Bob Noll the presence of a bigger more muscular body. These bodies are an early indication of the later development that was to take place in the body images of men in gay pornography – a shift to older more ‘masculine’ bodies, probably as a reaction to the stereotype of the effeminate limp-wristed pansy and also the fear of being seen as a pederast, that is a person who has sex with underage boys.

In the late 1970s another revolution started to take place; towards the end of the decade porn films became more widely available on videocassette. This made porn much more accessible to the gay consumer and allowed the expansion of the gay pornography industry. Instead of having to buy Super 8 movies and use home projectors that took an age to set up gay men could now have their ‘hit’ of pornography in a quick, convenient package.

 

Anonymous photographer. 'Perfect Room Service' c. 1976

 

Anonymous photographer
Perfect Room Service
c. 1976
Homo Action
14 Color-Climax Corporation
Copenhagen: Peter Theander, 1976
Courtesy: Marcus Bunyan

 

Not all male bodies (especially those that appeared in the early European pornography films and magazines), conformed to the ‘ideal’ of the hairless muscular ephebe, as can be seen in this magazine ‘still’ photograph taken from a Danish Super 8 mm gay pornography film. Curiously the magazine is printed in Australia.

 

 

Early gay male pornographic films have a distinctly ‘underground’ flavour but some managed to capture the frenzied passion that drives such erotic encounters where the people really want to have sex with each other. In the early 1980s the amateurism of the early films was replaced by the professionalism (and money making power) of such directors as Steve Scott, Matt Sterling, John Travis and William Higgins who still managed to capture this sexual frenzy. Gone are the really youthful body types of the earlier magazines and films – smooth, white, older muscular bodies now dominate.

William Higgins is one of my favourite directors for his unique shooting style. He makes use of oblique angles, incredible distorted close-ups of blood engorged penises (Sailor in the Wild, 1983), slow motion repeats of cum shots from many angles, and jump cuts from one carnal scene to another without a break (Class Reunion, 1982). This surreal celluloid confusion adds to the mystery and excitement of the scenes and the participants really seem to enjoy their sex; they wince as the cock goes up their arse and there is a certain ‘reality’ about the whole sex thing.

Even in these early 1980s films the star has numerous sexual partners and fucks his way through the whole video having multiple ejaculations within the space of a few minutes running time. At the drop of a hat muscular men drop their pants and their loads all over the place and some of the scenes are really horny!

As with any pornography though, you have to trawl through heaps of dross before you find the gems that get you going. Multiple orgasms by the stars of pornographic videos help reinforce compulsive sexual behaviour17 that is learnt by gay men to be a societal performance ‘norm’.18 Withdrawing before cumming enabled the director to capture the ‘money shot’ (ejaculation) for the viewer; gay male sex on video became not a passionate intimate union between two men but a performance, a display of shooting skills (both physical and pictorial) which presents the body to best advantage. Later in his career William Higgins also pioneered the shaved bum which epitomises the pumped up, perfectly groomed young white male available for plumbing lessons.

 

Anonymous photographer. 'Cover image from The Devil and Danny Webster pornography video' 1997

 

Anonymous photographer
Untitled
Nd
Cover image from The Devil and Danny Webster pornography video
Champions Video of Australia catalogue Issue 31. Canberra: No publisher, 1997, p. 12

 

“Unable to compete with the ‘sun-bronzed gym gods’, Danny spends his nights alone watching old movies – hoping for a miracle … “

 

Anonymous photographer. 'Take it All! They Ate the Whole Thing!' Nd

 

Anonymous photographer
Untitled
Nd
in Take it All! They Ate the Whole Thing! Vol. 1 No. 1. American: No place or publisher, Nd
Courtesy: Marcus Bunyan

 

Rare image of thin bodies in gay male pornography.

 

 

Gay men wanted to be seen as virile ‘real’ men in reaction to the stereotype of the effeminate pansy. This emphasis on the possession and display of a muscular body became even more prevalent in pornography with the onset of the HIV / AIDS crisis in the mid-1980s.

Driven by the fear of disease and the anxiety, insecurity and dis-ease of being thin and being seen as possibly infected gay men started going to the gym and ‘pumping’ up in ever increasing numbers. A big, healthy, muscular body couldn’t possibly be infected with the virus! Body hair was out as it was a sign of experience and maturity and therefore of disease according to Michelangelo Signorile.19

Healthiness was in. Gay men with thin bodies (such as those above) or bodies like that of Danny Webster (above), hoped for a miracle otherwise they would be left on the shelf, never having any sex! Either that or they went to the gym and capitulated to the emerging stereotype. There was apparently no hope if you didn’t ‘fit’ the ideal. But this is not the real world, this is a fantasy! Many gay men gave in to this fantasy becoming ‘simulations’, carbon copies if you like, of their porn star heroes. Lots take illegal steroids to get close to their ‘ideal’.

Other gay men have carried on as they have always done; living their lives as positively as they can; incorporating their sexuality as part of their identity; coping with feelings of inadequacy that such bodily facades can generate. Perhaps if these bodies were seen as ‘unnatural’ gay men would get over some of their attraction towards them. Perhaps if they accepted them as an artifice, a deception; that the material (steroid abuse20 and possible HIV virus contraction to name two) and psychological (high / low self-esteem leading to depression and anxiety) cost of their production is hidden behind the rose coloured lens of the camera or the surface of the body, then their erotic power would be lessened. I suggest that gay men DO realise that these images are fantasies but still strive to attain the fantasy in themselves and in the bodies of their partners.

 

Anonymous photographer. Image from 'The Big Thrill' pornography video Nd

 

Anonymous photographer
Untitled
Nd
Image from The Big Thrill pornography video Nd
Cover of Champions Video of Australia catalogue Issue 46, 1998

 

 

“… when a dozen handsome young college guys arrive at the Kingsley Institute, the first thing they do is have a big pillow-fight, get incredibly horny, take their clothes off and have an all-in jerk off. After that, things get increasingly out of hand. All the young men are exceedingly cute and built like young gods, so they can link up in any combination they care to and make a very handsome couple. And they do care to. The viewer soon loses track of who’s doing what with who, or indeed of who is who, but it doesn’t really matter. These boys fit together like parts of a well-lubricated machine. They appear to have been selected for something more than their writing skills, then waxed and polished till they glow.” (My italics)

.
Rod Pounder21

 

In the above quotation we can see how the bodies in contemporary male pornography have become interchangeable, replaceable one with another. The image above is also a good example of the phenomenon of the homogenised body stamped out of the same mould. I believe that in contemporary gay male erotica it is not so much the sex that matters but the display of the body for admiration. There is a certain stiffness (pardon the pun) of performance now. The frenzied passion of sex has gone replaced by the surface, the positioning of the body for the benefit of the camera. It’s all to a formula. Big pricks have become even more important and stars have their dicks cast in rubber so the viewer at home can purchase and enjoy the satisfaction of taking their heroes prick (or a ‘simulation’ of it) up his own arse whilst watching the video at the same time.

Gay pornography depicts gay sex as ‘manly’ because gay men want to see themselves that way even though one man is fucking another man, supposedly queering ‘normal’ heterosexual masculinity. I believe this is not gay men ironically challenging traditional masculinity but the confirmation it’s power over them. As noted earlier, the body becomes a phallus – hard as granite and as tough as steel – signifying and embodying a mythological power. These bodies are built ‘tough’ despite the fact that you could probably drive a semi-trailer up their rear end and they probably wouldn’t feel a thing! Now, in contemporary male pornography, the range of body types is much narrower. Of course there are still specialist videos catering to the leather subculture, shaving fetishists, young men fantasies (mainly videos from Germany), wrestling, hairy men, toys, black men, etc., … but these form a small specialist minority group of the video market. In the main the videos that fill the Champions catalogue, for example, feature models that are constructed of smooth, prime white beef.

 

John Travis. Cover image from 'Billy 2000: Billy Goes to Hollywood' pornography video 1999

 

John Travis
Untitled
Nd
Cover image from Billy 2000: Billy Goes to Hollywood pornography video
Studio 2000, 1999

 

 

Recently I watched a video called Billy 2000: Billy Goes to Hollywood, directed by John Travis. The video features 4 couples and one solo performance. The story, as far as it goes, is that gay men go into a shop and sees the Billy doll (discussed earlier) and starts fantasising about meeting a man who looks exactly like the doll, including having his large ‘anatomically correct penis’. Low and behold we fade out into dream sex scenes between different men and different versions of the doll which has now come to life, wearing exactly the same clothes as the doll does. What follows are, I think, four of the most boring gay sex scenes I have ever seen. There is no passion in the sex and all four couples copy exactly (deliberately?) the same positions by rote: man sucks dolls dick, man sits on dolls dick, man gets fucked from behind by dolls dick, doll ejaculates all over mans back. This is formulaic sex. As we can see in the above image the muscular male body is now simulating the ‘ideal’ embodied in a doll! Great marketing ploy to link the sale of the doll and the video together…

As Peter Jordaan has observed,

“There is a desperate need for more gay romance. A video like 1992’s Matt Sterling effort ‘Scorcher’ stands out simply because one of the couples in it actually look with pleasure into each other’s eyes while they are fucking … dick-tugging videos which also tug at the heart remain rare delights indeed.”22

.
I most certainly agree.

 

Alternatives to American gay male pornography

As an alternative to American videos three names stand out in the pantheon of porn directors. The first is Kristen Bjorn was has made a reputation for himself and his videos by photographing men from all over the world in apparently natural, spontaneous sexual situations. His videos feature large casts of men from different ethnic backgrounds but all his actors are power- fully built, masculine men. The second is Jean-Paul Cadinot. His videos, usually set in reform schools, school dormitories, scout troops and army barracks feature young ephebes having their way with each other with a lusty abandon not usually present in American videos. Lastly there is George Duroy, pioneer of EuroAmerican videos such as Accidental Lovers (1993) and Sauna Paradiso (1994) that have been shot (using American money) in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain using East European men.

His videos include a combination of athletic, young performers who are all smooth; from the slim and toned ephebe to the more muscular built lad. And well built they are. The images below are a good examples of both body types. The boys, for they are not men in the American sense of the porn video word, really do seem to enjoy having sex and ‘making it’ with each other in a loving and intimate way. Which is great!

 

George Duroy. 'Untitled' from 'Sauna Paradiso' pornography video 1994

 

George Duroy
Untitled
Nd
Image from Sauna Paradiso pornography video
Falcon International Collection 1994
in Douglas, Jerry (ed.,). Manshots: The Firsthand Video Guide Vol. 7 No. 2. Teaneck, N.J.: FirstHand Ltd., December, 1994, p. 46.

 

Milan Demko, Victor Gravek, Pavol Zurek and Thomas Novak compare stiff dicks

 

Anonymous photographer. ‘Untitled’ image from ‘Lucky Lukas’ pornography video 1999

 

Anonymous photographer
Untitled
Nd
Image from Lucky Lukas pornography video
Blue Diamond Video Services advertisement in ‘Meetmarket’ section in Outrage Magazine No. 189. Melbourne: Bluestone Press, February 1999, p. 1

 

 

Dean Durber, in an article for Blue Magazine called “New Wood” observes,

“Even if the innocence of much cuter and younger faces is forced off the shelves, the recent interest in intimacy and tenderness cannot be ignored. We might yet see older men on screen who actually appear to enjoy what they do. Especially if there’s money to be made and pleasure to be had.”

.
Why forced off the shelves? Apparently because of concerns over pederasty (love of young boys) and the perceived age of the ephebes involved. But here’s the rub – it’s all in the name of money in the end. It’s all about selling product even if you do have a good time. The fantasy scenarios are just that – idealised fantasies. They are set up to sell product and use body image to do so. These EuroAmerican videos just use the fresh new faces and bodies of muscular young men to appeal to a different market demographic.

Let me comment on just one more thing that happens in a lot of porn videos. I have noticed that it is usually the bigger guy (either dick or body size) that fucks the smaller guy therefore marking him as the man – no matter who is making the video. Commenting, unwittingly, on this disparity in body size Stan Ward in his review of Sauna Paradiso says that when the boys in the above photograph have a fourway, “Soon enough the boys are separated from the men. Novak and Demko continue the oral action while Gravec gives Zurek a royal screw up the arse … For the money shots, the boys and men come together …”23

Does that mean that if you have a smaller body that you are not a man? Does it mean that to be a gay man you have to partake in anal sex? It would seem that a big cock or its substitute, a big body, will always classify you as a man and not a boy and to participate in anal sex will make you a man not a boy. But whether its boys or men, gay pornography is there for one major reason – to make money within a media driven, image conscious consumer society.

 

Alternative bodies

There are, however, one group of photographs that have appeared in some porn mags that do not represent the ideal of the perfect muscular mesomorph or the smooth, young ephebe. These are photographs that accompany the messages of ordinary gay men wanting to meet other men for sex and companionship. These are the images of themselves they want to show to the general public. How they perceive themselves. How they are posed reveals small contexts of identity, even though their actual identity is hidden because of the masking of the face (No. 3 is ingenious in this regard; it uses the flash of the camera in the mirror to obliterate the facial features). The backgrounds and attire (when present) can tell a lot about a person.

 

Anonymous photographer. ‘’Untitled Nd in 'Get In Touch section in various issues of ‘Gay’ 1984-185

 

(left to right)

Anonymous photographer
Untitled
Nd
in ‘Get In Touch’ section in Gay No. 104. Enmore: No publisher, 1984, p. 48.
Courtesy: Marcus Bunyan

Anonymous photographer
Untitled
Nd
in ‘Get In Touch’ section in Gay No.100. Enmore: No publisher, 1984, p. 46.
Courtesy: Marcus Bunyan

Anonymous photographer
Untitled
Nd
in ‘Get In Touch’ section in Gay No.121. Enmore: No publisher, 1985, p. 48.
Courtesy: Marcus Bunyan

Anonymous photographer
Untitled
Nd
in ‘Get In Touch’ section in Gay No. 101. Enmore: No publisher, 1984, p. 47.
Courtesy: Marcus Bunyan

Anonymous photographer
Untitled
Nd
in ‘Get In Touch’ section in Gay No. 118. Enmore: No publisher, 1985, p. 47.
Courtesy: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

Numbers 1 and 3 remind me of the photographs of Diane Arbus, shot in that person’s lounge room and bedroom respectively (see the photograph at the beginning of the chapter and below). In the background of No.3 we can see an ironing board, a wooden bed head and the bed itself. In the foreground we can see a full cup of tea or coffee sitting on the dressing table to which the mirror is attached.

No.’s 2, 4, and 5 feature men who are obviously into leather, cock rings, boots and whips; a poster of a man stares over the shoulder of the figure in No. 2 adding to the menacing air – I’m watching you! Note in all the images the bodies are of an everyday, ‘natural’ type. Types that we can see down the beach or at the sauna that are not toned and tanned but older, plumper, taller or skinnier, and for this reason they have an attractiveness which is solely their own.

These bodies have been lived in, they have earnt every wrinkle and crease, have survived their life experiences and are still sexually valuable in their own individuality and difference. These bodies are not fantasy material in the ‘normal’ understanding of what a contemporary male fantasy body should look like. This is because in the buyers and sellers market of contemporary gay society big, buff, and beautiful is the perfect dish of the last two decades and will continue to be so as long as gay men continue to desire this ‘ideal’.

Dr Marcus Bunyan
2001

 

Bodies are unstable … and how frightening, that can be, and how those two emotions comprise desire.”

Jesse Dorris. “Jimmy DeSana’s Transgressive Vision of Life and Desire,” on the Aperture website December 14, 2022 [Online] Cited 19/12/2022

 

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971) 'A naked man being a woman, N.Y.C.' 1968

 

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
A naked man being a woman, N.Y.C.
1968
Gelatin silver print

 

 

Footnotes

1/ Kellner, D. “Critical Theory, Commodities and the Consumer Society,” in Theory, Culture and Society 1, 3: 1983, p. 66, quoted in Evans, David. Sexual Citizenship: The Material Construction of Sexualities. London: Routledge, 1993, p. 48.

2/ Altman, Denis. The Homosexualisation of America. Boston: Beacon Press, 1982, p. 211, quoted in Chapkis, Wendy. Beauty Secrets: Women and the Politics of Appearance. Boston: South End Press, 1986, p. 136.

3/ This is not a new concept and the lament that the gay body is used as a commodity and marketable sexual tool and not exclusively joined in affection and love has been around since well before Stonewall within the gay community. Of course sex and love are NOT mutually exclusive but some people seem to think that they are:
“Not too many years ago it was unheard of to dress in a “gay” manner or to act in any way which might lead others to suspect that you were a homosexual. Now, almost overnight, we have “gay” bars “gay” dance clubs, “gay” books, even business firms openly soliciting the business of homosexuals.
While this is good in the sense that it gives the homosexual a right to live like the rest of humanity, it has led to problems which were heard of in the past. Perhaps a slave needs his chains let loose slowly if he worn them for many years. Perhaps the “gay” world was not ready for this freedom or maybe it came to quickly. However, the homosexual now finds himself in a position where his “public image” is not that it should be. The blame for this lies mainly with those who flaunt their homosexuality in the faces of the general public.
A homosexual, as defined by most medical authorities, is one who seeks love and sexual satisfaction from his or her own sex. The majority of today’s homosexuals (or so it seems to the general public) could best be described as persons who look for as much sexual satisfaction from as many of their own sex as they can, without giving their love to any of them. This has come about because of the so-called “emancipation” mentioned previously. A homosexual can gratify his passions so easily now that the finer things in life seem to be cast aside …
Inside the “gay” bars, the tourist or outsider can walk in, and with no effort, behold the spectacle of people openly trying to make a one-night stand with each other. Outside the bar, the same tourist or outsider can hear those who failed in their mission inside the bar bargaining with someone on the street for the use of his body for the night … This is the image today’s homosexual is giving to the general public …
Why not get back to caring for one another? Hurt each other if you have to – you can start over again and learn from your mistake. Stop chalking up your conquests as if sex were a commodity.
Why not see how long you can stay with one person? Put love back into homosexual life.
Stop poking fun at the person who seeks love and friendship instead of one-night stands.
Let the love that is locked away and going to waste inside yourself be let loose and given to someone who will return it with interest. Don’t be afraid of your emotions. Get back to making the “gay” life what it should be – two people living together who need love of their own kind.”
Lady Beesborough. “The Public is Watching,” in The Greyhuff Review. 1st Edition. Minneapolis, Minn: Directory Services Inc., 1965, pp. 24-25. Sourced at The Kinsey Institute, University of Indiana, USA.
Even at this date (1965, which is pre-Stonewall), some people obviously saw gay male sex (and inherently the gay male body) as being a promiscuous commodity, which is quite amazing because nothing much has changed today. It is still a sellers market and gay men still go for it! The advice not to be afraid of your emotions is a good one – but that will naturally open gay men up to experiences, including many sexual interactions and not just love! As I comment elsewhere in the Re-Pressentation chapter, gay men are paradoxically both seeking sexual release and intimate connection whilst at the same time being afraid of that connection and revealing themselves to others.

4/ Swift, Michael. “Darkside,” in Blue Magazine. Sydney: Studio Magazines, April 1997, p. 106.

5/ Parry, Tracey. “Access All Areas,” in Blue Magazine. Sydney: Studio Magazines, February 1999, p. 66.

6/ Massengill, Reed. “Sand Man,” in Blue Magazine. Sydney: Studio Magazines, February 1999, p. 90.

7/ “Lifestyle refers to a relatively integrated set of practices chosen by an individual in order to give material form to a particular narrative of self-identity. The more tradition loses its ability to provide people with a secure and stable sense of self, the more individuals have to negotiate lifestyle choices, and attach importance to these choices.”
Schilling, Chris. The Body and Social Theory. London: Sage Publications, 1993, pp. 181-183. See also Giddens, A. Modernity and Self-Identity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991, p. 2, 5, pp. 80-81.

8/ Schilling, Chris. The Body and Social Theory. London: Sage Publications, 1993, p. 143. See also Featherstone, Mike. “Perspectives on Consumer Culture,” in Sociology 24(1). 1990, pp. 5-22.

9/ Below are four quotations about the definition and effects of narcissism.
“Notwithstanding his occasional illusions of omnipotence, the narcissist depends on others to validate his self-esteem. He cannot live without an admiring audience. His apparent freedom from family ties and institutional constraints [especially gay men] does not free him to stand alone or to glory in his individuality. On the contrary, it contributes to his insecurity, which he can overcome only by seeing his “grandiose self” reflected in the attentions of others, or by attaching himself to those who radiate celebrity, power and charisma. For the narcissist the world is a mirror…” (My italics)
Lasch, Christopher. The Culture of Narcissism. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1978, p. 10.
“Central to the narcissistic personality is an orientation to the body as youthful, enduring and constitutive of the self. The narcissistic body is open to new experiences, but only as long as they can be easily appropriated and consumed to reinforce its own sense of self as sacred and immortal.” (My italics)
Schilling, Chris. The Body and Social Theory. London: Sage Publications, 1993, p. 194.
“Narcissism presumes a constant search for self-identity, but this is a search that remains frustrated, because the restless pursuit of ‘who I am’ is an expression of narcissistic absorption rather than a realisable quest … Narcissism treats the body as an object of sensual gratification, rather than relating sensuality to communication with others.”
Giddens, Anthony. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. California: Stanford University Press, 1991, p. 170.
“According to what I said about the nature of love, the main condition for the achievement of love is the overcoming of one’s narcissism. The narcissistic orientation is one which one experiences as real only that which exists within oneself, while the phenomena in the outside world have no reality in themselves, but are experienced only from the viewpoint of their being useful or dangerous to one. The opposite pole to narcissism is objectivity; it is the faculty to see people and things as they are, objectively, and to be able to separate this objective picture from a picture which is formed by one’s desires and fears.”
Fromm, Erich. The Art of Loving. London: Allen and Unwin, 1957, p. 118.

10/ Giddens, Anthony. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. California: Stanford University Press, 1991, p. 172.

11/ Burns, Tom. Erving Goffman. London: Routledge, 1992, p. 38, quoted in Schilling, Chris. The Body and Social Theory. London: Sage Publications, 1993, p. 85.

12/ “The penis can never live up to the mystique implied by the phallus. Hence the excessive, even hysterical quality of so much male imagery. The clenched fists, the bulging muscles, the hardened jaws, the proliferation of phallic symbols – they are all straining after what can hardly ever be achieved, the embodiment of the phallic physique.” (My italics)
Dyer, R. Only Entertainment. London: Routledge, 1992, p. 116, quoted in Stratton, Jon. The Desirable Body. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996, p. 195.

13/ Interview with Jim Sotiropolous, Melbourne. 23/09/1997. Co-ordinator of 3 different programmes at The Victorian AIDS Council / Gay Mens Health Centre, Melbourne, Victoria.

14/ For a discussion of these issues please see Mishkind, Marc, Rodin, Linda, Silberstein, Lisa and Striegel-Moore, Ruth. “The Embodiment of Masculinity: Cultural, Psychological and Behavioural Dimensions,” in Kimmel, M. (ed.,). Changing Men: New Directions in Research on Men and Masculinity. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1987, pp. 37-47. An extract from this paper can be found in Appendix A of the Bench Press chapter.

15/ Lakoff, Robin and Scherr, Raquel. Face Value: The Politics of Beauty. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984, pp. 292-293.

16/ Jordaan, Peter. “The Naked VCR,” in Outrage Magazine No. 131. Melbourne: Bluestone Media, 1994, p. 45.

17/ “Some people are so horny and desperate to have a connection that they will do anything to have sex, especially with someone who they find attractive. Sometimes sexually they even step over the line of physical attraction … and this can indicate compulsive sexual behaviour. I’M SO HORNY I JUST HAVE TO HAVE SEX!”
Interview with Greg Adkins. Melbourne. 02/10/1997. Outreach Beats Education Officer at The Victorian AIDS Council / Gay Mens Health Centre, Melbourne, Victoria.

18/ “We find it more important to preserve and foster the myth of sexuality as mechanical process than we do to develop any kind of detailed or sensitive phenomenology of sexual experience (ie., establishing how in fact people experience their sexual needs and feelings). I suspect that a vast proportion of people live in secret unhappiness about their sexuality because they are unable to meet what are in truth entirely mythical ‘norms’ of ‘performance’.”
Smail, David. Illusion and Reality: The Meaning of Anxiety. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1984, p. 113.

19/ Signorile, Michelangelo. Life Outside: The Signorile Report on Gay Men: Sex, Drugs, Muscles, and the Passages of Life. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997, p. 68.

20/ “Big Ears has heard of at least two cases of ‘roid rage in Sydney this week as the countdown to Mardi Gras and bodily perfection reaches its climax. One Big Ears associate minding his own business in a well known Oxford St. venue this week was set upon by an incredible hulk wielding a broken bottle after he tried to help up the hulk’s substance affected, brick shit-house of a friend who had toppled over and landed on top of him, all but crushing him to death. Meanwhile, in an inner Sydney gym, another Big Ears associate witnessed a similar savage and unprovoked attack this week. Enraged that someone was using a machine he wanted to use, brick shit-house #3 dragged off the poor girl in question, threw her against the wall and all but choked her until gym staff managed to pull him off. Hello? Mardi Gras is supposed to be a party not a battle to the death. Gone, it seems, are the days when all you needed to get yourself through an all night party were a jazzy pair of shorts and a bubbly personality…”
Big Ears. Melbourne Star Observer. Melbourne: Bluestone Media, 26th February, 1999, p. 15.

21/ Rod Pounder. “Video Review: One Hot Summer,” in Brother Sister Magazine. Melbourne, 9th May, 1997, p. 29.

22/ Jordaan, Peter. “The Naked VCR,” in Outrage Magazine No. 131. Melbourne: Bluestone Media, 1994, p. 50.

23/ Ward, Stan. “‘Sauna Paradiso’ review,” in Douglas, Jerry (ed.,). Manshots: The Firsthand Video Guide Vol. 7 No. 2. Teaneck, N.J.: FirstHand Ltd., December 1994, p. 46.

 

 

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10
Mar
23

Exhibition: ‘Peter Booth’ at TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healesville

Exhibition dates: 26th November 2022 – 13th March 2023

Curator: Anthony Fitzpatrick

 

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958) 'Painting' 1978

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958)
Painting
1978
Oil on canvas
© Peter Booth

 

 

Anima

 

tongue, long flickering tongue
drenched in blood
scours inside the cup
rapacious for more
blood thirsty luck
sucks souls of men
thorn and star
spirit of insect
bizarre–unique
cannibal

 

Dr Marcus Bunyan

.
Many thankx to the TarraWarra Museum of Art for allowing me to publish the media images in the posting. All other installation photographs as noted © Marcus Bunyan, the artist and TarraWarra Museum of Art. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

“A lot of humans forget we are organic entities, the same as every other creature on the planet, and we’ve only been here for a short time. I am very pessimistic about the plight of beings. We don’t learn much, I mean, we’ve been wreaking havoc as they did in the Middle Ages. We also have bigger weapons. One thing I am not pessimistic about is the ability of nature to heal itself.”

.
Peter Booth quoted in Ashley Crawford View from the Booth blog 29 November 2003

 

 

 

PETER BOOTH at TarraWarra Museum of Art

 

Introductory wall text from the exhibition 'Peter Booth' at the TarraWarra Museum of Art

 

Introductory wall text from the exhibition

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Peter Booth' at TarraWarra Museum of Art

 

Installation view of the exhibition Peter Booth at TarraWarra Museum of Art showing at left Painting 1974, and at centre Painting 1975 1975
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

While the TarraWarra survey features a collection of Booth’s works from the 1970s to the 2000s, it opens with a work in the ‘Doorway’ series: Painting, 1974. It’s a canvas covered with shades of black. As the curator says, “Just near the top, there’s this very thin horizon line of red, and it feels like there’s this massive magma just behind the surface that’s starting to seep through.” I’m told that written on the back of some ‘Doorway’ paintings is an instruction: “Never hang more than six inches from the floor.” As Fitzpatrick explains, “If you hang the work a little lower for the viewer … it becomes more immersive, and this painting is the opening work in the exhibition with the idea of the doorway as a threshold.”

This minimalism is compelling. “The ‘Doorway’ series could be about nothingness, or it could be a void,” says Fitzpatrick, “but voids are also where things are generated from – so they could be about an idea of fullness … you could almost see them as a kind of dark mirror.” In a rare interview with Australian artist, writer and curator Peter Hill, Booth humbly discusses how the ‘Doorway’ series was “influenced by what was going on in the art world at the time, in reduction, minimalism and colour field painting”.

Autumn Royal. “Once seen, Peter Booth is never forgotten,” on the Art Guide website 15 January 2023 [Online] Cited 02/02/2023

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958) 'Painting' 1974

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958)
Painting
1974
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas
213 x 167.5cm
Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane
Purchased 2006 with funds from the Estate of Lawrence F. King in memory of the late Mr and Mrs S.W. King through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation. Photograph: Natasha Harth, QAGOMA
© Peter Booth

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958) 'Painting 1975' 1975

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958)
Painting 1975
1975
Synthetic polymer paint and glass on canvas
274.2 x 167.2cm
TarraWarra Museum of Art collection
Gift of Eva Besen and Marc Besen AO, 2001
© Peter Booth

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958) 'Painting' 1977 (installation view)

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958)
Painting (installation view)
1977
Oil on canvas
Museum of Old and New Art (Mona), Hobart
© Peter Booth
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

With its shrouded figure standing before a highly volatile and fiery landscape, Painting 1977 conveys a forceful and undeniably apocalyptic vision. The painting finds a literary counterpart in the work of one of Booth’s favourite writers at the time, the novelist Doris Lessing with whom he found an affinity in their shared dystopian outlook. With its powerful blend of fantasy and reality, her 1971 novel Briefing for a Descent into Hell recounts the tale, vividly narrated in the first person, of a psychiatric patient’s hallucinatory journey through a dangerous and disturbing world of environmental despoliation, societal collapse, violent conflict and cosmic cataclysm.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Doris Lessing. 'Briefing for a Descent into Hell Briefing for a descent into hell' book cover

 

Doris Lessing (British-Zimbabwean born Iran, 1919-2013)
Briefing for a Descent into Hell
1971
Vintage book cover published 1981

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958) 'Untitled (Daughters)' c. 1976

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958)
Untitled (Daughters)
c. 1976
Ink on paper
11 x 12.5cm
Private collection

 

 

Untitled (Daughters), c. 1976, is a composition which originated in Booth’s visits to an inner-city park in Melbourne where he would take his young daughters to play. Here, through the intense rhythms of his lifework and cross hatching in black ink, and the introduction of symbolic forms such as a whirlpool and arrowhead, this everyday scene is imaginatively transformed into a mysterious, nocturnal realm. While his daughters play in the foreground, the artist has turned to face a rising moon on the horizon and there is a sense that he is being magnetically compelled to embark on the path which leads in its direction.

Text from the TarraWarra Museum of Art Facebook page

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Peter Booth' at TarraWarra Museum of Art

 

Installation view of the exhibition Peter Booth at TarraWarra Museum of Art showing at centre, Painting 1978
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958) 'Painting' 1978 (installation view)

 

Installation view of Peter Booth Painting 1978 from the exhibition Peter Booth at TarraWarra Museum of Art
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

Peter Booth became known for his black, minimal ‘doorway’ paintings of 1970-74. Yet by 1977 he had given up this style and begun to record the world of his dreams and nightmares in a series of apocalyptic, visionary landscapes. Booth’s paintings suggest that we are on the edge of another dark age. His paintings are brutal representations of his bleak dreams and fantasies. In an age of nuclear threat Booth’s work has a monumentality which is evocative of the final conflagration mentioned in The Book of Revelations. Painting 1978, challenges and disturbs the viewer by the artist’s choice of colour and method of painting. The dramatic black and red, yellow and white composition suggests both an industrial and a natural wasteland. The heavy impasto paint texture describes, with vigour and intensity, flames, explosions, and unidentified nightmarish images. Contradictory forces pull us into the central inferno below the glacial mountain peaks, and showers of rock explode towards us. Is it the artist himself who stands with his back to us, mesmerised by the scene, while grotesque metamorphosing figures stare out at us?

Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

Booth’s subject matter largely concerns the Australian landscape, both urban and rural, and the relationship between environment and individual, as well as the individual’s capacity to create and destroy. And also what the world will be like in the future, humans as mutants.

Booth’s landscapes are charged with emotion and symbolic meaning. Memories of his childhood in the blackened industrial landscape of Sheffield seem to infuse the work, especially his well-known apocalyptic figurative paintings, which look like images of the end of the world; illustrations for The Book of Revelation. These images contain an intense image of anxiety, evoking the aftermath of some terrible destruction, vividly pictured with menacing forms and agitated, heavily applied brushstrokes.

An example is Painting 1978 which has been described as challenging and disturbing the viewer by the artist’s choice of colour and method of painting. “The dramatic black and red, yellow and white composition suggests both an industrial and a natural wasteland”. The heavy impasto paint texture describes, with vigour and intensity, flames, explosions, and unidentified nightmarish images. Contradictory forces pull us into the central inferno below the glacial mountain peaks, and showers of rock explode towards us.

Is it the artist himself who stands with his back to us, mesmerised by the scene, while grotesque metamorphosing figures stare out at us?” Peter Booth has centred many of his paintings around his childhood in Sheffield England where he grew up during the war years and their aftermath.

Anonymous. “Peter Booth,” on the Art History Essay website Nd [Online] Cited 07/02/2023

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958) 'Drawing (Figure with Insect Tail)' 1982

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958)
Drawing (Figure with Insect Tail)
1982
Pastel and casein on paper
17.3 x 12.5cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchase, Victorian Foundation of Living Australian Artists, 2010

 

 

More than just figures of fantasy, Booth’s curious amalgams and mutated figures often express his personal insights into the interrelatedness of all living beings. With his closed eyes and restful expression, the metamorphic figure in Drawing (Figure with Insect Tail) appears contented with his hybrid condition, affirming the artist’s belief that humans “share something with these creatures … we are part of the same thing.”

Text from the TarraWarra Museum of Art Facebook page

 

William Blake (British, 1757-1827) 'The Ghost of a Flea' c. 1819

 

William Blake (British, 1757-1827)
The Ghost of a Flea
c. 1819
Tempera heightened with gold on mahogany
214 x 162 mm
Tate
Bequeathed by W. Graham Robertson 1949

 

 

Another physiognomic “vision” – “the stuff of delirium and nightmare, [which] taps into the unconscious, internalised sublime” – was the painting The Ghost of a Flea (c. 1819) used to illustrate John Varley’s Treatise on Zodiacal Physiognomy (1828). In studying the work of Blake for this posting, I found it instructive to look at Blake’s preparatory sketches for his works which can be found online. They give you a good idea of the spontaneity of the drawing and the ideas that arise, transformed into the finished work. Here in the graphite on paper drawing of The Ghost of a Flea we can see Blake’s initial vision, a more static, pensive figure with serrated wings which morphs into a muscular, blood sucking monster set on a cosmic stage, of life framed by curtains and a shooting star. As the vision appeared to Blake he is said to have cried out: ‘There he comes! his eager tongue whisking out of his mouth, a cup in his hand to hold blood, and covered with a scaly skin of gold and green.’

Marcus Bunyan. “Visions of divine damnation” on the exhibition William Blake at Tate Britain, London Part 2, February 2020 on the Art Blart website [Online] Cited 09/02/2023

 

William Blake (British, 1757-1827) 'The Ghost of a Flea' c. 1819 (installation view)

 

William Blake (British, 1757-1827)
The Ghost of a Flea
c. 1819
Graphite on paper
Private collection
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and Tate

 

 

Artist and astrologer John Varley encouraged Blake to sketch the figures, called ‘visionary heads’, who populated his visions. This image is the best known. While sketching the flea, Blake claimed it told him that fleas were inhabited by the souls of bloodthirsty men, confined to the bodies of insects because, if they were the size of horses, they would literally drain the population. Their bloodthirsty nature is shown by the eager tongue flicking at the ‘blood’ cup it carries. This intense disorientating image, the stuff of delirium and nightmare, taps into the unconscious, internalised sublime.

William Blake, “The Ghost of a Flea c. 1819-20,” in Nigel Llewellyn and Christine Riding (eds.), The Art of the Sublime, Tate Research Publication, January 2013

 

Wall text from the exhibition 'Peter Booth' at TarraWarra Museum of Art

 

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Peter Booth' at TarraWarra Museum of Art

 

Installation view of the exhibition Peter Booth at TarraWarra Museum of Art showing from left to right, Painting Two 1984, Painting 1984 and Leadman 1986
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958) 'Painting Two' 1984

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958)
Painting Two
1984
Oil on canvas
198 x 305cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased 1985
© Peter Booth

 

 

In the blasted landscape of Painting Two we are presented with a vision of a volatile world in the process of unnatural mutation. As an artist who has always been keenly attuned to what’s happening environmentally and politically, this painting forcefully conveys the fallout of a colossal act of destruction, reflecting widespread concerns in the 1980s over the dramatic escalation of the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union and the threat of atomic warfare.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958) 'Painting' 1984 (installation view)

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958)
Painting (installation view)
1984
Oil on canvas
© Peter Booth
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958) 'Leadman' 1986 (installation view)

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958)
Leadman (installation view)
1986
Oil on canvas
TarraWarra Museum of Art collection
Gift of Eva Besen and Marc Besen AO 2001
© Peter Booth
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

In this work a hulking grey figure, with his fierce determination and body braced for battle, appears to be biologically adapted for survival in a desolated terrain. As the title suggests, this unrelentingly bleak and polluted atmosphere has eventuated from the unbridled destructive ambitions of the toxic Leadman who has transformed the world in his own image.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Peter Booth' at TarraWarra Museum of Art

Installation view of the exhibition 'Peter Booth' at TarraWarra Museum of Art

 

Installation view of the exhibition Peter Booth at TarraWarra Museum of Art showing from left to right, Leadman 1986, Painting 1984 and Painting 2012
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Painting' 1984

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940)
Painting
1984
Oil on canvas
101 x 183cm
Heide Museum of Modern Art
The Baillieu Myer Collection of the ’80s
© Peter Booth

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Painting' 2012

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940)
Painting
2012
Oil on canvas
213.5 x 91cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
© Peter Booth

 

William Blake (English, 1757-1827) From 'The Pastorals of Virgil' 1821

 

William Blake (English, 1757-1827)
Thenot Remonstrates with Colinet
Thenot Under a Fruit Tree
Thenot Remonstrates with Colinet, Lightfoot in the Distance
Colinet Departs in Sorrow, a Thunder-Scarred Tree on the Right
Blasted Tree and Blighted Crops
The Good Shepherd Chases Away the Wolf
Sabrina’s Silvery Flood
Colinet’s Fond Desire Strange Lands to Know
1821
From The Pastorals of Virgil adapted by R.J. Thornton, 3rd edition. F.C. & J. Rivington et al., London 1921
Wood engravings on thin, white handmade wove paper
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased 1960
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

William Blake (English, 1757-1827) 'Blasted tree and blighted crops' 1821

 

William Blake (English, 1757-1827)
Blasted tree and blighted crops
1821
From The Pastorals of Virgil adapted by R.J. Thornton, 3rd edition. F.C. & J. Rivington et al., London 1921
Wood engraving on thin, white handmade wove paper
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased 1960

 

William Blake (English, 1757-1827) 'The Good Shepherd Chases Away the Wolf' 1821

 

William Blake (English, 1757-1827)
The Good Shepherd Chases Away the Wolf
1821
From The Pastorals of Virgil adapted by R.J. Thornton, 3rd edition. F.C. & J. Rivington et al., London 1921
Wood engraving on thin, white handmade wove paper
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased 1960

 

William Blake (English, 1757-1827) 'Colinet's Fond Desire Strange Lands to Know' 1821

 

William Blake (English, 1757-1827)
Colinet’s Fond Desire Strange Lands to Know
1821
From The Pastorals of Virgil adapted by R.J. Thornton, 3rd edition. F.C. & J. Rivington et al., London 1921
Wood engraving on thin, white handmade wove paper
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased 1960

 

 

Cabinet text from the exhibition
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

A survey exhibition of the work of the renowned Australian artist Peter Booth 

With a remarkable career spanning several decades, Melbourne-based Booth is a unique voice in Australian art. This new survey of paintings and works on paper is the first major public gallery exhibition of Peter Booth’s work since the NGV retrospective in 2003 and features a number of the artist’s most significant works from the 1970s to 1990s, alongside important recent works from the past two decades.

The exhibition is presented thematically, honing in on and highlighting particular motifs, subjects and moods which have become hallmarks of Booth’s expansive oeuvre: stillness and turbulence, alterity and alienation, mutation and hybridity, the absurd and the grotesque, the road and the ruin, and the despoliation and the resilience of nature.

A small group of abstract paintings from the mid-1970s at the start of the exhibition provide a prelude to an important series of gestural paintings which mark the beginning of the artist’s journey into the highly expressive landscape and figure subjects which have characterised his practice since that time.

The exhibition progresses through Booth’s vivid imaginings of an apocalyptic world characterised by grotesque, unsettling, and at times absurd scenes of human and hybrid figures in varying states of apprehension, aggression and conflict. These works will be accompanied by a small selection of prints by William Blake, James Ensor, Francisco Goya, and Samuel Palmer, visionary artists who have been important touchstones for Booth and with whom he shares a number of affinities.

This survey also brings together important works from the past three decades to convey humanity’s often fraught and ambiguous relationship to the natural world, revealing Booth’s extraordinary capacity to transmute his intensely personal perceptions of the mysteries and forces of nature and the folly and hubris of human endeavours, into exceptional and deeply compelling paintings and drawings.

PETER BOOTH, curated by Anthony Fitzpatrick, is generously supported by The Balnaves Foundation.

Text from the TarraWarra Museum of Art website

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Peter Booth' at TarraWarra Museum of Art

 

Installation view of the exhibition Peter Booth at TarraWarra Museum of Art showing from left to right, Untitled 1997, Painting 1982 and Painting 1981
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Untitled' 1997

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940)
Untitled
1997
Oil on canvas
The University of Melbourne Art Collection, Michael Buxton Collection
Donated through the Australia Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Michael and Janet Buxton 2018
© Peter Booth

 

 

In Doris Lessing’s 1974 novel, The Memoirs of a Survivor, in the aftermath of an unspecified disaster, civilisation gradually disintegrates into anarchy as hordes of people form ad hoc tribes in the city streets to increase their chances of survival. In this dystopian narrative, Lessing describes the irrational and aggressive behaviour that can be unleashed within the safety and obscurity of a large group. This same sense of apprehension is one that Booth shares in many of his depictions of crowds. In Untitled, 1997, a large throng of men forms a single, impenetrable wall, gathered together to cheer on the spectacle of a violent struggle. Disturbing and absurd in equal measure, this work graphically portrays the violent actions that can be incited by a mob.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Doris Lessing. 'The Memoirs of a Survivor' book cover

 

Doris Lessing (British-Zimbabwean born Iran, 1919-2013)
The Memoirs of a Survivor
1974
Penguin Random House book cover published 1988

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Untitled' 1997 (installation view detail)

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940)
Untitled (installation view detail)
1997
Oil on canvas
The University of Melbourne Art Collection, Michael Buxton Collection
Donated through the Australia Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Michael and Janet Buxton 2018
© Peter Booth
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Painting 1982' 1982 (installation view)

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940)
Painting 1982 (installation view)
1982
Oil on canvas
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
A.M. Ragless Bequest Fund
© Peter Booth
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

Another scene of demonic possession enacted under the spell of a fiendish presence, Painting 1982, confronts the viewer with a deeply disturbing vision of human cannibalism. With its visceral imagery of mutilation and dismemberment, parallels have been drawn to the atrocities depicted in Goya’s series of etchings The Disasters of War1810-1815, while the highly theatrical quality of the painting suggests a more recent connection to George A. Romero’s cult zombie film Night of the Living Dead, 1968. When the work was first exhibited critics responded to what the painting conveyed about the current state of western mass culture, finding in its brutal imagery a powerful metaphor for greed and material consumption. Whichever way one choses to interpret this work, one thing remains clear, whenever a large group of men get together in Booth’s painting, there is always the potential for danger.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'Saturn Devouring His Son' c. 1819-1823

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
Saturn Devouring His Son
c. 1819-1823
Mixed media mural transferred to canvas
143.5 cm × 81.4cm (56.5 in × 32.0 in)
Museo del Prado, Madrid

 

 

Saturn Devouring His Son is a painting by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. It is traditionally interpreted as a depiction of the Greek myth of the Titan Cronus (known as Saturn in Roman mythology) eating one of his offspring. Fearing a prophecy foretold by Gaea that predicted he would be overthrown by one of his children, Saturn ate each one upon their birth. The work is one of the 14 so-called Black Paintings that Goya painted directly on the walls of his house sometime between 1819 and 1823. It was transferred to canvas after Goya’s death and is now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. …

Various interpretations of the meaning of the picture have been offered: the conflict between youth and old age, time as the devourer of all things, the wrath of God and an allegory of the situation in Spain, where the fatherland consumed its own children in wars and revolution. There have been explanations rooted in Goya’s relationships with his own son, Xavier, the only of his six children to survive to adulthood, or with his live-in housekeeper and possible mistress, Leocadia Weiss; the sex of the body being consumed cannot be determined with certainty. If Goya made any notes on the picture, they have not survived, as he never intended the picture for public exhibition.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Painting 1982' 1982 (installation view detail)

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940)
Painting 1982 (installation view detail)
1982
Oil on canvas
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
A.M. Ragless Bequest Fund
© Peter Booth
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Painting' 1981 (installation view)

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940)
Painting (installation view)
1981
Oil on canvas
Private collection
© Peter Booth
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

In Painting 1981 a blindfolded boor is accompanied by a red-eyed, pointy-eared imp who appears to have just whispered a cosmic joke or secret in his ear. Situated in a bleak and desolate terrain, this disquieting scenario recalls the German legend of Faust in which, following the protagonist’s pact to sell his soul to the Devil in exchange for unlimited knowledge, Mephistopheles appears as his demonic guide. In this light, Booth’s painting can be seen as a powerful reimagining of this cautionary tale of how blind ambition and human hubris can lead to inner corruption and the unleashing of dangerous, irrational impulses.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Painting' 1981 (detail)

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940)
Painting (detail)
1981
Oil on canvas
Private collection
© Peter Booth

 

 

A survey exhibition of the work of major Australian artist Peter Booth will be held at TarraWarra Museum of Art, 26 November 2022 – 13 March 2023.

With a remarkable career spanning several decades, Melbourne-based Booth is a unique voice in Australian painting and is considered by many to be one of the most significant contemporary artists working in Australia today.

This new survey of paintings and works on paper will be the first major public gallery exhibition of Peter Booth’s work since the NGV retrospective in 2003 and will feature a number of the artist’s most significant works from the 1970s to 1990s, alongside important recent works from the past two decades.

Curated by TarraWarra’s Anthony Fitzpatrick, the exhibition will be presented thematically, honing in on and highlighting particular motifs, subjects and moods which have become hallmarks of Booth’s expansive oeuvre: stillness and turbulence; alterity and alienation; mutation and hybridity; the absurd and the grotesque; the road and the ruin; and the despoilation and the resilience of nature.

“This exhibition will reveal Booth’s extraordinary capacity to transmute his intensely personal perceptions of the mysteries and forces of nature, and the folly and hubris of human endeavours, into exceptional and deeply-compelling paintings and drawings,” Mr Fitzpatrick said.

A small group of abstract paintings from the mid-1970s at the start of the exhibition provide a prelude to an important series of gestural paintings which mark the beginning of the artist’s journey into a neo-expressionist figurative style.

The exhibition progresses through Booth’s vivid imaginings of an apocalyptic world characterised by grotesque, unsettling, and at times absurd scenes of human and hybrid figures in varying states of apprehension, aggression and conflict.

These works will be accompanied by a small selection of prints by William Blake, James Ensor, Francisco Goya, and Samuel Palmer, visionary artists who have been important touchstones for Booth and with whom he shares a number of affinities.

This survey will also bring together important works from the past three decades to convey humanity’s often fraught and ambiguous relationship to the natural world.

“Initially Booth’s highly visceral paintings of fiery, turbulent environments were the stage for confronting and, at times, violent human encounters. Since the 1990s, many of the scenes he has painted have become increasingly depopulated, implicating the viewer who is called to contemplate and navigate their own subjective relationship to these vivid landscapes.

“Most recently, the artist has returned to the apocalyptic imagery that characterised his first forays into figuration, with large-scale paintings of desolate and devastated scenes of a world in a cataclysmic state of collapse. This is art for a time of ecological and existential crisis in which anthropogenic impacts have driven the planet, and its intricate web of ecosystems, to the brink of utter catastrophe,” Mr Fitzpatrick said.

Press release from the TarraWarra Museum of Art

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Peter Booth' at TarraWarra Museum of Art

 

Installation view of the exhibition Peter Booth at TarraWarra Museum of Art showing at second right, Painting 2022 (below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Painting' 2022 (installation view)

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940)
Painting (installation view)
2022
Oil on canvas
214.0 x 137.5cm
Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery
© Peter Booth
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Painting' 2022 (installation view)

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940)
Painting (installation view)
2022
Oil on canvas
214.0 x 137.5cm
Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery
© Peter Booth
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Painting' 2022

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940)
Painting
2022
Oil on canvas
214.0 x 137.5cm
Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery
© Peter Booth

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958) 'Acheron Way' 1993 (installation view)

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958)
Acheron Way (installation view)
1993
Oil on canvas
208 x 304.8cm
Private collection
© Peter Booth
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958) 'Acheron Way' 1993 (installation view detail)

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958)
Acheron Way (installation view detail)
1993
Oil on canvas
208 x 304.8cm
Private collection
© Peter Booth
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

Acheron Way is named after a long snaking road which rises steeply through the rainforest of the Yarra Ranges between Narbethong and Warburton. Pictured beneath a clear blue sky, this scene of animated trees backlit by a soft, yellow light evokes a sense of energy, growth and even hope. The swaying trunks and tentacular forms of the sprawling limbs of the trees painted in thick swathes of impasto, imbue them with a powerful emotional charge. However, there is a more ambiguous aspect to this work alluded to in its title which not only refers to a real location, but also to an infernal realm of the imagination: Acheron (‘river of pain’) one of the rivers of the Underworld in Greek mythology over which the souls of the dead were ferried. From this perspective, the tangled and twisted forms of these sentinel-like trees seem to be denying us access to the light suffused landscape in the distance, forcing us to linger in their shadow, begging the question: are we in the realm of the living or the dead?

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Peter Booth' at TarraWarra Museum of Art

 

Installation view of the exhibition Peter Booth at TarraWarra Museum of Art showing at left Untitled 1998 (below), and at right Painting 2017 (below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958) 'Untitled' 1998

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958)
Untitled
1998
Oil on canvas
Private collection
© Peter Booth
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958) 'Painting' 2017

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958)
Painting
2017
Oil on canvas
193.4 x 81.3cm
Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane

 

 

In Painting 2017, as the sun begins to rise over the horizon, new epicormic growth spouts from the pruned limbs of a tree; a potent symbol of resilience and renewal. Peter Booth’s ‘Garden of Eden’ paintings vividly convey his feeling for the elemental and generative qualities found in nature and his fervent empathy for other nonhuman lifeforms. ‘Everything is connected. All life comes from the same source.’

Text from the TarraWarra Museum of Art Facebook page

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Peter Booth' at TarraWarra Museum of Art

 

Installation view of the exhibition Peter Booth at TarraWarra Museum of Art showing at left Acheron Way 1993, at third right Painting 2022, and at right Painting 2014 (below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958) 'Painting' 2014

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958)
Painting
2014
Oil on canvas
188 x 219cm
Private collection
© Peter Booth

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Peter Booth' at TarraWarra Museum of Art

 

Installation view of the exhibition Peter Booth at TarraWarra Museum of Art showing at second left Winter 1993 (below), and at right Mount Donna Buang 1991 (below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Peter Booth' at TarraWarra Museum of Art

 

Installation view of the exhibition Peter Booth at TarraWarra Museum of Art showing at left Winter 1993 (below), and at right Mount Donna Buang 1991 (below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958) 'Winter' 1993

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958)
Winter
1993
oil on canvas
203.4 × 396.5cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Presented by the National Gallery Women’s Association, 2002
© Peter Booth

 

 

In discussing Winter when it was first exhibited in 1994, Booth revealed: it’s about my childhood, about taking walks with my brothers in the woods in Yorkshire. Triggered by a recent return to Sheffield, this memory is transformed into a richly textured landscape of open forest which has been stilled and silenced by a thick blanket of snow. As the artist later revealed, his younger twin brothers died in tragic circumstances adding particular poignancy to this painting and suggesting that the two very similar trees which occupy the centre of the work, could be seen as symbolic representations of his siblings. In this light, Winter becomes a powerful and deeply personal expression of remembrance and cathartic release.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958) 'Mount Donna Buang' 1991 (installation view)

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958)
Mount Donna Buang (installation view)
1991
Oil on canvas
Private collection
© Peter Booth
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Peter Booth' at TarraWarra Museum of Art

 

Installation view of the exhibition Peter Booth at TarraWarra Museum of Art showing at left Painting 2018 (below), and at right Untitled 1995 (below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Painting' 2018

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940)
Painting
2018
Oil on canvas
152.5 x 243.8cm
Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane
© Peter Booth

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Untitled' 1995

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940)
Untitled
1995
Oil on canvas
167.5 x 305cm
The University of Melbourne Art Collection, Michael Buxton Collection
© Peter Booth

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Painting' 2020 (installation view)

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958)
Painting (installation view)
2020
Oil on canvas
Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane
© Peter Booth
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Peter Booth' at TarraWarra Museum of Art

 

Installation view of the exhibition Peter Booth at TarraWarra Museum of Art showing at left Painting (Figure with bandaged head) 2004 (below), and at right Painting 1998 (below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958) 'Painting (Figure with bandaged head)' 2004

 

Peter Booth (Australian born England, b. 1940, Australia from 1958)
Painting (Figure with bandaged head)
2004
Oil on canvas
© Peter Booth

 

 

The strength and power of Painting (Man with Bandaged Head), 2004 … is palpable. But like so many of Booth’s images, formulated over years of development, the strength lies not so much in the initial ‘shock’, but with the ensuing waves of other possible readings it evokes…

The tension between our first confrontation with the bandaged figure and the subsequent sensations of pathos for, even some recognition of sensitivity within, the character makes this such a successful work. And as we look upon the painting, venturing into the space behind the bandages, the focus of the work internalises: in reading the mind of the figure we are offered a portal to see within ourselves.

This notion of the mirror to one’s soul, with themes of the nature of power and frailty, desire and control, so deftly captured within Painting (Man with Bandaged Head), 2004 adds a further dimension to the history of this particular painting.

Damian Hackett. “Important Australian + International Fine Art catalogue text,” on the Deutsche and Hackett website 25 November 2009 [Online] Cited 02/02/2023

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Painting' 1998 (installation view)

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940)
Painting (installation view)
1998
Oil on canvas
Private collection
Courtesy of Smith & Singer Fine Art
© Peter Booth
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Painting' 1998 (installation view detail)

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940)
Painting (installation view detail)
1998
Oil on canvas
Private collection
Courtesy of Smith & Singer Fine Art
© Peter Booth
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Painting' 2022

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940)
Painting
2022
Oil on canvas
Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane
© Peter Booth

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Painting' 1989

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940)
Painting
1989
Oil on canvas
167.4 x 95.9cm
Collection of Jeff Hall and Sharon Grey
© Peter Booth

 

Wall text from the exhibition 'Peter Booth' at TarraWarra Museum of Art

 

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Untitled' 2007

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940)
Untitled
2007
Oil on canvas
56.5 x 111cm
Private collection
Image courtesy of Bonhams Australia
© Peter Booth

 

 

The figure in Untitled, 2007 has averted eyes and stoically sealed lips, suggesting that he has endured great hardship. This feeling is amplified by the rich tonal contrasts and paint texture built with swathes of impasto which transform his wizened face into a blustery landscape. Having taken the troubles and turmoil of the world into himself, this austere figure is imbued with a powerful sense of inner fortitude and resilience.

Text from the TarraWarra Museum of Art Facebook page

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940) 'Drawing (Pole Sitter Before a Crowd)' 1981 (installation view)

 

Peter Booth (Australian, b. 1940)
Drawing (Pole Sitter Before a Crowd) (installation view)
1981
Brush and ink and ink wash on paper
Private Collection
© Peter Booth
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

TarraWarra Museum of Art
Wurundjeri Country
313 Healesville-Yarra Glen Road
Healesville VIC 3777 Australia
Phone: +61 3 5957 3100

Opening hours:
Tues – Sun 11am – 5pm
Open all public holidays except Christmas Day

TarraWarra Museum of Art website

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04
Mar
23

Exhibition: ‘Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium’ at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 4th November 2022 – 13th March 2023

Curators: Lesley Harding and Kendrah Morgan

 

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Sculpture with Colour and Strings' 1939/1961

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Sculpture with Colour and Strings
1939/1961
Bronze, string
19 x 25 x 18cm
Ingram Collection, London, Barbara Hepworth
© Bowness

 

 

Out of balance or, how to kill the love for an artist in one easy lesson

I have always had an innate, incendiary love for the work of British artist Barbara Hepworth ever since I first saw her work in books and online, especially the stunning string sculptures full of tensioned negative and positive space. Therefore, I was so excited to visit Heide Museum of Modern Art to see my first Hepworth exhibition in the flesh. The work itself was as superb as I knew it would be, but the installation of it totally ruined my feeling for the art.

Usually when I write about art I follow the maxim if you can’t say anything positive, don’t say anything at all. A good principle to follow. But here I am having to write not about the art but its installation in the gallery spaces which crushed the soul – of the work and of this viewer.

The salient points are thus:

1/ Stygian gloom in the main gallery, so dark the sculptures were drained of life. Why? They are not going to fade being made of bronze and wood! And the iPhone images in this posting are, as usual, way too bright, about 3 times brighter than it actually was…

2/ Two thirds of the small sculptures were encased in Perspex casting shadows over them which again drained them of any “presence”. Walking around the main gallery I felt like I was all at sea, the Titanic surrounded by sea of floating icebergs, afraid of stepping backwards for fear of knocking into one of the plinths and the sculpture being sunk without trace. There was no room, or light, or “air” to let the sculptures actually breathe…

3/ The small galleries at the end of the main galleries hung with drab, overpowering floor to ceiling curtains. I felt like I was in a cheap multiplex cinema. The sculptures were asymmetrically placed in the spaces so you could not see them in the round there being only a foot or so to walk between the plinth and the curtains. Ridiculous.

4/ And in the second gallery (and this was the worst), poo brown walls which clashed terribly with the work… She lived and worked in St Ives for gods’s sake = light, bright, sea, clouds, energy – not poo brown shock, horror

.
The late Dame Barbara Hepworth was not an average British artist living in St Ives. She never set foot in Australia but her work has surely been murdered here, leaving her rolling in her grave. As an artist friend of mine said on the Art Blart Facebook page: ‘What a missed opportunity’

I sadly concur with that sentiment.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

.
All installation photographs by Marcus Bunyan. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Gallery one

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

 

Installation views of the exhibition Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Spring' 1966 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Spring' 1966 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Spring (installation views)
1966
Bronze, paint and string
Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

 

Installation view of the exhibition Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne showing at left Sculpture with Colour (Deep Blue and Red) [6] 1940; and at right Eidos 1947
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Sculpture with Colour (Deep Blue and Red) [6]' 1940 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Sculpture with Colour (Deep Blue and Red) [6]' 1940 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Sculpture with Colour (Deep Blue and Red) [6]' 1940 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Sculpture with Colour (Deep Blue and Red) [6]' 1940 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Sculpture with Colour (Deep Blue and Red) [6]' 1940 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Sculpture with Colour (Deep Blue and Red) [6]' 1940 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Sculpture with Colour (Deep Blue and Red) [6] (installation views)
1940
Plaster, paint and string
Private collection, United Kingdom
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Eidos' 1947 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Eidos' 1947 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Eidos' 1947 (installation view)

 

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Eidos (installation views)
1947
Portland stone and paint
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with the assistance of the Samuel E. Wills Bequest to commemorate the retirement of Dr E. Westbrook, Director of Arts for Victoria 1981
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

 

Installation view of the exhibition Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne showing at left Curved Form (Wave II) 1959; and at right Eidos 1947
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Curved Form (Wave II)' 1959 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Curved Form (Wave II)' 1959 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Curved Form (Wave II) (installation views)
1959
Bronze and steel
The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
Purchased 1963
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

The doyenne of modernist sculpture, Barbara Hepworth was one of the leading British artists of her generation and the first woman sculptor to achieve international recognition. The first exhibition of her work in Australia, Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium brings together more than forty works from prestigious international and national collections, including sculptures in stone, wood, bronze and other metals and a select group of paintings. Introducing Australian audiences to her remarkable oeuvre, the exhibition has been developed in consultation with the Hepworth Estate and has been designed by award-winning architecture firm Studio Bright.

Married to the painter Ben Nicholson, from 1938 to 1951, Hepworth was a central figure in a network of major international abstract artists and closely linked with the School of Paris. From 1939 she was based in the creative community of St Ives, Cornwall, where she drew much inspiration from the natural environment. An early practitioner of the avant-garde method of direct carving, which dispensed with the tradition of preparatory models or maquettes, she later made large-scale cast and constructed sculptures. Her pioneering practice and technique of piercing the form had an enduring influence on the development of new sculptural vocabularies.

The exhibition demonstrates the shift in Hepworth’s approach from figurative and naturalistic to increasingly simplified and abstract forms. Though concerned with abstraction, she created work that was predominantly about relationships: between the human figure and the landscape; between forms presented side-by-side; between colour and texture; and between individuals and groups of people.

Text from the Heide Museum of Modern Art website

 

Gallery 1 continued…

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Disc with Strings (Moon)' 1969 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Disc with Strings (Moon)' 1969 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Disc with Strings (Moon)' 1969 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Disc with Strings (Moon) (installation views)
1969
Aluminium and string
Private collection, Oxford, United Kingdom
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Sculptures with strings wall text

 

Sculptures with strings wall text

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Orpheus (Maquette 2) Version II' 1956 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Orpheus (Maquette 2) Version II' 1956 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Orpheus (Maquette 2) Version II' 1956 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Orpheus (Maquette 2) Version II (installation views)
1956, 1959 edition, edition 1/3
Brass and string on wooden base
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Purchased 1959

 

 

Installation view of the exhibition Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne showing at front Stringed Figure (Curlew) (Maquette) 1956; and at rear Maquette for Winged Figure 1957
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Stringed Figure (Curlew) (Maquette)' 1956 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Stringed Figure (Curlew) (Maquette)' 1956 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Stringed Figure (Curlew) (Maquette) (installation views)
1956
Brass and string on wooden base
Private collection, United Kingdom
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Maquette for Winged Figure' 1957 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Maquette for Winged Figure' 1957 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Maquette for Winged Figure (installation views)
1957
Brass and string on wooden base
British Council Collection, London
Purchased 1960
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Sculpture with Colour and Strings' 1939 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Sculpture with Colour and Strings' 1939 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Sculpture with Colour and Strings' 1939 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Sculpture with Colour and Strings' 1939 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Sculpture with Colour and Strings' 1939 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Sculpture with Colour and Strings (installation views)
1939, cast 1961, edition 1/9
Bronze and string
The Ingram Collection of Modern British Art, London
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Landscape Sculpture' 1944 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Landscape Sculpture' 1944 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Landscape Sculpture' 1944 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Landscape Sculpture' 1944 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Landscape Sculpture (installation views)
1944, cast 1961
Bronze on bronze base
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Early Years: Towards Abstraction wall text

 

Early Years: Towards Abstraction wall text

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Kneeling Figure' 1932 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Kneeling Figure (installation view)
1932
Rosewood
The Hepworth Wakefield, Yorkshire
Wakefield Council Permanent Art Collection
Purchased with aid from the Wakefield Permanent Art Fund (Friend of Wakefield Art Galleries and Museums,) V&A Purchase Grant Fund and Wakefield Girls’ High School 1944
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

 

Installation views of the exhibition Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne showing at left Three Forms (Carving in Grey Alabaster) 1935; at centre Mother and Child 1934; and at right Pierced Hemisphere II 1937-1938
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Three Forms (Carving in Grey Alabaster)' 1935 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Three Forms (Carving in Grey Alabaster)' 1935 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Three Forms (Carving in Grey Alabaster) (installation views)
1935
Alabaster on marble base
Tate, London
Presented by the executors of the artist’s estate, in accordance with her wishes 1980
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Mother and Child' 1934 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Mother and Child (installation view)
1934
Pink Ancaster stone
The Hepworth Wakefield, Yorkshire
Wakefield Council Permanent Art Collection
Purchased by Wakefield Corporation 1951
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Pierced Hemisphere II' 1937-1938 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Pierced Hemisphere II' 1937-1938 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Pierced Hemisphere II' 1937-1938 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Pierced Hemisphere II (installation views)
1937-1938
Hoptonwood stone on Portland stone base
Tate, London
Accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to Tate 2004
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Pierced Hemisphere II' 1937-1938 (installation view)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne showing at front Pierced Hemisphere II 1937-1938; at background left Conicoid 1937; and at background right Pierced Round Form 1959-1960
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Conicoid' 1937 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Conicoid' 1937 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Conicoid' 1937 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Conicoid' 1937 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Conicoid' 1937 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Conicoid (installation views)
1937
Teak
Leeds Museums and Galleries, Leeds, United Kingdom
Purchased from the artist 1943
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Pierced Round Form' 1959-1960 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Pierced Round Form' 1959-1960 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Pierced Round Form' 1959-1960 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Pierced Round Form (installation views)
1959-1960
Bronze on wooden base
British Council Collection, London
Purchased 1960
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Figure' 1933 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Figure' 1933 (installation view)

 

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Figure (installation views)
1933
Alabaster on slate base
Tate, London
Lent from a private collection 2016
On long term loan
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Rock Face' 1973 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Rock Face' 1973 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Rock Face (installation views)
1973
Ancaster stone on beechwood base
Tate, London
Bequeathed by the artist 1976
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Two Heads' 1932 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Two Heads' 1932 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Two Heads (installation views)
1932
Cumberland alabaster
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Maquette for 'The Unknown Political Prisoner' 1952 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Maquette for 'The Unknown Political Prisoner' 1952 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Maquette for 'The Unknown Political Prisoner' 1952 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Maquette for 'The Unknown Political Prisoner' 1952 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Maquette for 'The Unknown Political Prisoner' 1952 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)

Maquette for ‘The Unknown Political Prisoner’ (Truth)
1952
Mahogany
Tate, London
Accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to Tate 2005

Maquette for ‘The Unknown Political Prisoner’ (Prisoner)
1952
Beechwood and iron
Tate, London
Accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to Tate 2005

Maquette for ‘The Unknown Political Prisoner’ (Knowledge)
1952
Mahogany
Tate, London
Collection of the Lucas family, United Kingdom

(installation views)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Corinthos' 1954-1955 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Corinthos' 1954-1955 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Corinthos' 1954-1955 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Corinthos' 1954-1955 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Corinthos' 1954-1955 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Corinthos' 1954-1955 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Corinthos' 1954-1955 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Corinthos (installation views)
1954-1955
Guarea wood and paint on wooden base
Tate, London
Purchased 1962
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

Heide Museum presents first major Australian survey of pioneering modernist British sculptor Barbara Hepworth

Heide Museum of Modern Art today announced the first major survey in Australia of the celebrated British artist Dame Barbara Hepworth DBE (1903-1975). A leading figure of modernist sculpture in Britain in the 20th century, Hepworth is best known for her abstract sculptures and pioneering method of ‘piercing’ the form. Presented at Heide from 5 November 2022 to 13 March 2023, the exhibition Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium brings together more than forty works from significant international and national collections, introducing Australian audiences to Hepworth’s enduring oeuvre and remarkable story.

Presented throughout Heide’s main galleries, the exhibition charts the trajectory of Hepworth’s artistic career. From early figurative marble carvings through to large-scale purely abstract forms, the exhibition will feature works on loan from the the collections of Tate Britain, Hepworth Wakefield and the British Council, as well as prominent Australian and New Zealand public collections including the National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, and Te Papa Tongarewa, Museum of New Zealand.

Heide Museum of Modern Art Director Lesley Harding said: “It is with great pleasure that Heide brings together works by one of the most important artists of the 20th century, many never-before-seen here in Australia. The exhibition reflects our commitment to foregrounding modernist women artists, and is the result of extensive research and support from national and international organisations and the Hepworth Estate.”

A key figure of the abstract art movement in Britain, Hepworth’s pioneering practice enriched the language of modern sculpture. While the artist’s early works featured figurative and naturalistic forms, her sculptures would become increasingly simplified and abstract. Highlighted in the exhibition is Hepworth’s significant exploration of the tension between mass and negative space, with sculptures that are ‘pierced’ by large holes. This technique of piercing the form exemplifies Hepworth’s revolutionary contribution to the development of new sculptural vocabularies that influenced not only her contemporaries, but future generations of sculptors.

Heide Museum of Modern Art Head Curator Kendrah Morgan said: “A true pioneer, Barbara Hepworth’s contribution to the evolution of modern art cannot be underestimated. Hepworth’s combination of modernist reductive form and timeless materials produces its own particular magic.”

Heide has enlisted award-winning Melbourne-based architecture practice Studio Bright to design the exhibition, with a focus on connecting the museum’s inside galleries to the surrounding landscape. Central to Hepworth’s practice was the influence of nature, with the artist inspired by the coastal landscape of St Ives in Cornwall, where she lived and worked for much of her career. From the movement of tides to the ancient standing stones of west Cornwall, the artist’s later sculptures are grounded in references to patterns and forms found in nature.

Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium brings together more than forty artworks by British artist Barbara Hepworth, in what is a rare chance for Australian audiences to experience a major survey of one of the world’s greatest woman sculptors.

Press release from Heide Museum of Modern Art

 

Gallery two

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

 

Installation view of the exhibition Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne showing at left Sea Form (Porthmeor) 1958; and at right Twin Forms in Echelon 1961
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Sea Form (Porthmeor)' 1958 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Sea Form (Porthmeor)' 1958 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Sea Form (Porthmeor)' 1958 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Sea Form (Porthmeor) (installation views)
1958
Bronze on bronze base on wood veneer base
Tate, London
Presented by the artist 1967
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Twin Forms in Echelon' 1961 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Twin Forms in Echelon' 1961 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Twin Forms in Echelon' 1961 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Twin Forms in Echelon' 1961 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Twin Forms in Echelon' 1961 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Twin Forms in Echelon (installation views)
1961, edition of 7
Bronze
The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
Purchased 1979
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Later Works: Figures in the Landscape wall text

 

Later Works: Figures in the Landscape wall text

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Forms in Movement (Galliard)' 1956 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Forms in Movement (Galliard) (installation view)
1956
Copper and bronze
Wairarapa Cultural Collection
Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History, Masterton, New Zealand
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Head (Ra)' 1971 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Head (Ra)' 1971 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Head (Ra) (installation views)
1971
Bronze on wooden base
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Gift of Lesley Lynn through the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation, in memory of her husband Dr Kenneth Lynn 2001
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

 

Installation view of the exhibition Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne showing at centre Twin Forms in Echelon 1961; and at right Maquette (Variation on a Theme) and Figure (Oread) both 1958
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

 

Installation views of the exhibition Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne showing at left Maquette (Variation on a Theme) 1958; and at right Figure (Oread) 1958
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Maquette (Variation on a Theme)' 1958 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Maquette (Variation on a Theme) (installation view)
1958
Bronze on a wooden base
British Council Collection, London
Purchased 1950
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Figure (Oread)' 1958 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Figure (Oread) (installation view)
1958
Bronze
British Council Collection, London
Purchased 1950
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Two Figures (Menhirs)' 1964 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Two Figures (Menhirs)' 1964 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Two Figures (Menhirs)' 1964 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Two Figures (Menhirs)' 1964 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Two Figures (Menhirs) (installation views)
1964
Slate on wooden base
Tate, London
Purchased 1964
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

 

Installation view of the exhibition Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne showing at left Oval form (Trezion) 1964; and at right Single Form (Chûn Quoit) 1961
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Oval form (Trezion)' 1964 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Oval form (Trezion)' 1964 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Oval form (Trezion)' 1964 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Oval form (Trezion) (installation views)
1964
Bronze on wooden base
Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, Wellington
Purchased with assistance from the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand, Contemporary Art Society, London, and Lindsay Buick Bequest funds 1964
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Single Form (Chûn Quoit)' 1961 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Single Form (Chûn Quoit)' 1961 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Single Form (Chûn Quoit) (installation views)
1961
Bronze, edition of 7
The Hepworth Wakefield, Yorkshire
Wakefield Council Permanent Art Collection
On loan from the Hepworth Estate
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Group of Three Magic Stones' 1973 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Group of Three Magic Stones' 1973 (installation view)

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) 'Group of Three Magic Stones' 1973 (installation view)

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975)
Group of Three Magic Stones (installation views)
1973
Silver on ebony base
Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge, Cambridge
Bequest of Priaulx Rainier 1986
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

Barbara Hepworth (British, 1903-1975) short biography

Barbara Hepworth, in full Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth, (born January 10, 1903, Wakefield, Yorkshire, England – died May 20, 1975, St. Ives, Cornwall), sculptor whose works were among the earliest abstract sculptures produced in England. Her lyrical forms and feeling for material made her one of the most influential sculptors of the mid-20th century.

Fascinated from early childhood with natural forms and textures, Hepworth decided at age 15 to become a sculptor. In 1919 she enrolled in the Leeds School of Art, where she befriended fellow student Henry Moore. Their lifelong friendship and reciprocal influence were important factors in the parallel development of their careers.

Hepworth’s earliest works were naturalistic with simplified features. Purely formal elements gradually gained greater importance for her until, by the early 1930s, her sculpture was entirely abstract. Works such as Reclining Figure (1932) resemble rounded biomorphic forms and natural stones; they seem to be the fruit of long weathering instead of the hard work with a chisel they actually represent. In 1933 Hepworth married (her second husband; the first was the sculptor John Skeaping) the English abstract painter Ben Nicholson, under whose influence she began to make severe, geometric pieces with straight edges and immaculate surfaces.

As Hepworth’s sculpture matured during the late 1930s and ’40s, she concentrated on the problem of the counterplay between mass and space. Pieces such as Wave (1943-1944) became increasingly open, hollowed out, and perforated, so that the interior space is as important as the mass surrounding it. Her practice, increasingly frequent in her mature pieces, of painting the works’ concave interiors further heightened this effect, while she accented and defined the sculptural voids by stretching strings taut across their openings.

During the 1950s Hepworth produced an experimental series called Groups, clusters of small anthropomorphic forms in marble so thin that their translucence creates a magical sense of inner life. In the next decade she was commissioned to do a number of sculptures approximately 20 feet (6 metres) high. Among the more successful of her works in this gigantic format is the geometric Four-Square (Walk Through) (1966).

“Barbara Hepworth,” on the Britannica website Last Updated: Jan 6, 2023 [Online] Cited 13/02/2023

 

Descending walk way

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium' at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

 

Installation views of the exhibition Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

Heide Museum of Modern Art
7, Templestowe Road
Bulleen, Victoria 3105

Opening hours:
(Heide II and Heide III)
Tuesday – Sunday 10.00am – 5.00pm

Heide Museum of Modern Art website

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01
Mar
23

Exhibitions: ‘Australian Airliners Across the Pacific’, ‘Airmail Down Under’ and ‘Flying the Southern Cross Route: Seventy-Five years of Australian Commercial Air Service to North America’ at SFO Museum, San Francisco international airport

Australian Airliners Across the Pacific exhibition dates: 4th March 2021 – 28th November 2022

International Terminal: Aviation Museum & Library

Airmail Down Under exhibition dates: 4th March 2021 – 2nd December 2022

International Terminal: Aviation Museum & Library

Flying the Southern Cross Route: Seventy-Five years of Australian Commercial Air Service to North America exhibition dates: 8th January 2022 – 5th March 2023

International Terminal: Aviation Museum & Library

 

 

Australian Airliners Across the Pacific

Anonymous photographer. 'British Commonwealth Pacific Airways (BCPA) Douglas DC-4 R.M.A. Resolution at Nadi Airport, Fiji' 1948

 

Anonymous photographer
British Commonwealth Pacific Airways (BCPA) Douglas DC-4 R.M.A. Resolution at Nadi Airport, Fiji
1948
Gelatin silver photograph
Courtesy AussieAirliners.org and Whites Aviation via Sheehan Collection

 

The first leg of a flight from Australia to the United States was from Sydney to Nadi, in Fiji. The journey was just under two thousand miles and took about nine hours.

 

 

I wholeheartedly commend the SFO Museum for the exhibitions they put on. The themes of their exhibitions are always interesting, eclectic and memorable.

As with my recent posting on their exhibition Japonisme, other current exhibitions include fascinating topics such as The Victorian Papered Wall and California Modernist Women: Groundbreaking Creativity … and the photographs used to illustrate the exhibitions online are always so polished and professional.

While two of the exhibitions in this posting have already finished, the exhibition Flying the Southern Cross Route: Seventy-Five years of Australian Commercial Air Service to North America continues until 5th March 2023. Viewing the history of air routes across the Pacific Ocean to the United States recorded through photographs, objects, posters and attire makes you realise – back in those early days of trans-Pacific flight – how long it took to get anywhere; how glamorous, class-orientated and exclusive flying was in those days; and how precarious and dangerous flying in twin turbo-prop aircraft or seaplanes could be.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

.
Many thankx to the SFO Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Anonymous photographer. 'British Commonwealth Pacific Airways (BCPA) Douglas DC-6 R.M.A. Endeavor on approach to San Francisco' 1952

 

Anonymous photographer
British Commonwealth Pacific Airways (BCPA) Douglas DC-6 R.M.A. Endeavor on approach to San Francisco
1952
Gelatin silver photograph
Courtesy AussieAirliners.org and W. Larkins Collection

 

Qantas Airways Boeing 707 City of Canberra on inaugural Sydney to San Francisco flight 1959

 

Anonymous photographer
Qantas Airways Boeing 707 City of Canberra on inaugural Sydney to San Francisco flight
1959
Gelatin silver photograph
Courtesy Qantas Heritage Collection

 

 

In the wake of World War II, Australian airline companies embarked on the task establishing an air route across the Pacific Ocean to the United States. Initially, the long, island-hopping journey stopped at several wartime airfields along the way. Australians dubbed this transpacific airway the Southern Cross Route, named after Charles Kingsford-Smith’s aircraft the Southern Cross, the first to make the long flight between the two countries in 1928. Smith had named his aircraft after one of the signature constellations of the southern hemisphere. The first passenger flights in the late 1940s lasted almost two days and made three stops along the way. In the decades that followed, faster and longer-ranged aircraft improved the experience of the flight. Today, non-stop air travel between the two countries requires only fifteen hours of flight. This exhibition illustrates the evolution of the aircraft and the passenger service through images drawn from the collections of the Qantas Heritage Collection and AussieAirliners.org.

Text from the SFO Museum website

 

Anonymous photographer. 'Qantas Airways first class "Blue Ribbon Service" aboard Boeing 707s' c. 1960

 

Anonymous photographer
Qantas Airways first class “Blue Ribbon Service” aboard Boeing 707s
c. 1960
Courtesy Qantas Heritage Collection

 

Anonymous photographer. 'Qantas Airways upper deck "Captain Cook Lounge" aboard Boeing 747s' Early 1970s

 

Anonymous photographer
Qantas Airways upper deck “Captain Cook Lounge” aboard Boeing 747s
Early 1970s
Gelatin silver photograph
Courtesy Qantas Heritage Collection

 

Anonymous photographer. 'Qantas Airways Boeing 747-400ER Fraser Island at San Francisco International Airport' 2018

 

Anonymous photographer
Qantas Airways Boeing 747-400ER Fraser Island at San Francisco International Airport
2018
Courtesy AussieAirliners.org and G. Snyder

 

Although a common and beloved site for decades, Qantas is taking advantage of the lull caused by the COVID pandemic to accelerate the retirement of their 747 fleet. The aircraft will be replaced by more efficient and economical twin-engine wide-body models.

 

 

Flying the Southern Cross Route: Seventy-Five years of Australian Commercial Air Service to North America

'Qantas Empire Airways advertisement' 1950s

 

Qantas Empire Airways advertisement
1950s
Paper, ink
Collection of SFO Museum
Gift of Qantas Airways Limited

 

 

Following the historic first flight from North America to Australia by Charles Kingsford Smith and crew in 1928, the transpacific “Southern Cross” route – named after the aircraft they flew, the Fokker F.VIIb/3m Southern Cross – received worldwide fame. After World War II, BCPA (British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines) and ANA (Australian National Airways) commenced commercial air services on their branded “Southern Cross Route” between Australia and San Francisco via Fiji and Hawai’i. When Qantas Empire Airways acquired BCPA in 1954, the airline assumed operations of the route. Since then, Qantas has continuously offered premier air service between the two continents on the most advanced airliners of the day. Through a diverse collection of airliner models, promotional items, meal service wares, cabin crew uniforms, and photographs, Flying the Southern Cross Route presents a legacy of Australian air service on this long celebrated route that connects two diverse regions and both hemispheres.

Text from the SFO Museum website

 

Anonymous photographer. 'BCPA (British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines) stewardess Daughne Kelpe on the stairs next to a BCPA Douglas DC-4' Late 1940s

 

Anonymous photographer
BCPA (British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines) stewardess Daughne Kelpe on the stairs next to a BCPA Douglas DC-4
Late 1940s
Gelatin silver photograph
Qantas Heritage Collection

 

'BCPA (British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines) coaster and ashtray' c. 1950

 

BCPA (British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines) coaster and ashtray
c. 1950
Wood, paint, paper, metal, ink
SFO Museum
Coaster: gift of Thomas G. Dragges
Ashtray: gift of Walton F. Kemmerle

 

Anonymous photographer. 'Qantas Empire Airways Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation at San Francisco International Airport' c. 1958

 

Anonymous photographer
Qantas Empire Airways Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation at San Francisco International Airport
c. 1958
Gelatin silver photograph
Collection of SFO Museum

 

'Qantas Empire Airways Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation model aircraft' 1950s

 

Qantas Empire Airways Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation model aircraft
1950s
Raise Up, Rotterdam, Holland
Scale 1:72
Metal, paint
Courtesy of Anthony J. Lawler

 

'Qantas Airways Boeing 707 model aircraft' c. 2006

 

Qantas Airways Boeing 707 model aircraft
c. 2006
Scale 1:200
Corgi Classics
Metal, paint
SFO Museum

 

Emilio Pucci (Italian, 1914-1992) (designer) 'Qantas Airways flight hostess dress' 1974

 

Emilio Pucci (Italian, 1914-1992) (designer)
Qantas Airways flight hostess dress
1974
Polyester, wool
SFO Museum
Dress gift of Margaret Bowen-Jones

 

Emilio Pucci (Italian, 1914-1992) (designer) 'Qantas Airways male service director uniform' 1974

 

Emilio Pucci (Italian, 1914-1992) (designer)
Qantas Airways male service director uniform
1974
Polyester, wool, cotton
SFO Museum
Jacket, pants, and tie gift of Juris Turmanis

 

Wedgwood, England (manufacturer). 'Qantas Airways "Alice Springs" first-class meal service set' 1970s

 

Wedgwood, England (manufacturer)
Qantas Airways “Alice Springs” first-class meal service set
1970s
Ceramic, glaze
SFO Museum
Gift of Thomas G. Dragges

Qantas Airways flatware set
1970s
Metal
SFO Museum
Knife gift of Adam Wong
Spoon and fork gift of Thomas G. Dragges

 

Yves Saint Laurent (French, 1936-2008) 'Qantas Airways female flight attendant uniform' 1986 and 'Qantas Flight Service Director uniform' c. 1987

 

Yves Saint Laurent (French, 1936-2008)
Qantas Airways female flight attendant uniform
1986
Polyester, cotton, plastic
SFO Museum
Gift of Suzanne de Monchaux

Qantas Flight Service Director uniform
c. 1987
Wool, cotton, polyester, metal, plastic
Collection of SFO Museum
Gift of Ron Reyn

 

Wedgwood, England (manufacturer) 'Qantas Airways first class meal service set' 1990s

 

Wedgwood, England (manufacturer)
Qantas Airways first class meal service set
1990s
Ceramic
Collection of SFO Museum

 

Peter Morrissey (Australian, b. 1968) (designer) 'Qantas Airways female flight attendant dress and name tag' 2003

 

Peter Morrissey (Australian, b. 1968) (designer)
Qantas Airways female flight attendant dress and name tag
2003
Polyester, plastic
Collection of SFO Museum
Gift of Suzanne de Monchaux

 

'Qantas Airways Boeing 787 Dreamliner model aircraft' c. 2019

 

Qantas Airways Boeing 787 Dreamliner model aircraft
c. 2019
Scale 1:140
Plastic resin, metal, ink
Collection of SFO Museum

 

 

Airmail Down Under

Anonymous photographer. 'Pan American Airways Martin M-130 Hawaii Clipper in Honolulu' c. 1935

 

Anonymous photographer
Pan American Airways Martin M-130 Hawaii Clipper in Honolulu
c. 1935
Gelatin silver photograph
SFO Museum, Gift of the Pan Am Association

 

Pan American Airways, Honolulu–San Francisco airmail flight cover March 16, 1939

 

Pan American Airways, Honolulu-San Francisco airmail flight cover
March 16, 1939
Paper, ink
SFO Museum

 

 

In the 1920s, aviation visionaries imagined how the nations of the Pacific Rim could be linked by a new mode of transportation, the aircraft. Governments encouraged the development of new air routes with lucrative airmail contracts and the Pacific arena was no exception. One of the key obstacles to this endeavour was the vast 2400-mile water gap between the coast of California and the Hawaiian Islands. To successfully traverse this distance and open the rest of the Pacific region for air travel, the U.S. Navy attempted a flight using two Naval Aircraft Factory PN-9 flying boats in 1925. One plane turned back, but the other, led by Commander John Rodgers, continued, only to run out of fuel about four hundred miles from Hawai’i. Commander Rodgers managed to complete the journey by stripping fabric off the wings and fashioning improvised sails. In 1928, an aircrew led by Australian Charles Kingsford Smith flew the modified Fokker F.VIIb Southern Cross to Hawai’i, then continued on to Fiji and, finally, to Brisbane, Australia. In the 1930s, the U.S. Navy developed a practical flight route to Hawai’i with a squadron of Consolidated P2Y patrol aircraft. making the journey. In 1935, Pan American Airways opened the first regularly scheduled air service flying the Sikorsky S-42 and Martin M-130 flying boats. With this obstacle surmounted, planners trained their eyes on a commercial air route to Oceania.

Upon forging an air route to Hawai’i, Pan American Airways began planning further air links to destinations in Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Each of these employed the long range of large flying boats to link a chain of island bases along the way. The route to the south was planned to fly through Fiji and New Caledonia. However, the distance from Hawai’i to Fiji was over 3,000 miles, beyond the safe operating range of even Pan American’s largest aircraft. The solution was to establish a refuelling base at the remote and barren Canton Island, an atoll in the Phoenix Islands, located 1,900 miles from Hawai’i and 1,200 miles from Fiji. After refuelling on Canton Island, the aircraft flew either to Suva in Fiji or Nouméa in New Caledonia on their way south. Although Pan American Airways desired a route all the way through to Australia, negotiations between the governments and Britain’s Imperial Airways proved more difficult than anticipated. As a result, the transpacific route in the south terminated at Auckland, New Zealand. These incredibly long-range routes were surveyed using the Sikorsky S-42 flying boat and opened with the new Boeing 314 Clipper.

In the early 1940s, Pan American Airways established regular service to Auckland, New Zealand, with their Boeing 314 Clipper flying boats. Although this service was halted by the outbreak of World War II in the Pacific Ocean theatre, the war years were transformational for transpacific air travel. Not only were new and improved aircraft developed, but a network of airfields were built across the Pacific basin as part of the war effort. In the late 1940s, land-based aircraft, like the Douglas DC-4 and the larger DC-6, made regularly-operated commercial air routes between the United States and Australia a reality for airmail and cargo, and for passengers as well. Pan American was also finally able to obtain permission for their service to extend all the way to Australia. Pan American was joined in flying these routes by Australian airlines like Australian National Airways (ANA), British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines (BCPA) and, later, Qantas Empire Airways. The route flown was the same as that pioneered before the war, using New Caledonia, Fiji, Canton Island, and Hawai’i as stepping-stones between Australia and the west coast of the United States. This route persisted through the propeller airliner era, even as newer aircraft like the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser were introduced.

In the late 1950s, jet airliners began to enter service for airlines around the world. These new aircraft revolutionised transpacific air travel with their high speed and longer range. Pan American World Airways and Qantas favoured the Boeing 707 airliner for their long-range international routes. These planes did not need to stop as frequently and layovers in New Caledonia and Canton Island were no longer required. Regular, same-day air travel between the United States and Australia had been realised.

Today, these rare surviving airmail flight covers document how the air route across the Pacific Ocean was established during the 1920s and 30s, and then strengthened in the post-war era with the introduction of more advanced aircraft making non-stop travel between the United States and Australia a reality.

Text from the SFO Museum website

 

First U.S. Navy Flight Squadron VP-10, San Francisco–Honolulu airmail flight cover January 10, 1934

 

First U.S. Navy Flight Squadron VP-10, San Francisco-Honolulu airmail flight cover
January 10, 1934
Paper, ink
SFO Museum, Gift of Jon E. Krupnick

 

Pan American Airways, Honolulu–Canton Island airmail flight cover September 5, 1939

 

Pan American Airways, Honolulu-Canton Island airmail flight cover
September 5, 1939
Paper, ink
SFO Museum, Gift of Jon E. Krupnick

 

Qantas Empire Airways, First Boeing 707 Flight, Honolulu–Sydney airmail flight cover August 1, 1959

 

Qantas Empire Airways, First Boeing 707 Flight, Honolulu-Sydney airmail flight cover
August 1, 1959
Paper, ink
SFO Museum, Gift of Mrs. Siusiadh Rasmussen

 

Pan American World Airways, First Jet Clipper Air Mail, Sydney – Los Angeles airmail flight cover December 17, 1959

 

Pan American World Airways, First Jet Clipper Air Mail, Sydney – Los Angeles airmail flight cover
December 17, 1959
Paper, ink
SFO Museum, Gift of the Captain John B. Russell Family

 

 

SFO Museum 
San Francisco International Airport
P.O. Box 8097
San Francisco, CA 94128 USA
Phone: 650.821.6700

SFO Museum website

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24
Feb
23

Exhibition: ‘Documentary Genealogies: Photography 1848-1917’ at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid

Exhibition dates: 16th November 2022 – 27th February 2023

 

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927) 'Sur les quais – La sieste / Les p'tits métiers de Paris' c. 1898-1900

 

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Sur les quais – La sieste / Les p’tits métiers de Paris
On the quays – The siesta / The little jobs in Paris 

c. 1898-1900, printed 1904
Collotype
8.8 x 13.7cm
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

 

 

“While human truth may be ephemeral qualities like justice are not; the struggle is to define justice and to live it. And for artists to display it.”

.
Dr Marcus Bunyan

 

 

Another fascinating exhibition that extends the remit of “documentary” photography back to the earliest days of the medium and the “the empire of photography”: the rise of a new visual regime that became an instrument for the system of bourgeois, industrial and colonial culture in the second half of the nineteenth century.

In other words in the hands of the powerful (both national and personal) photography became an instrument which reinforced the entitlement and social position of the privileged while depriving the disenfranchised of a visual voice, and thus legitimacy and recognition of their plight. Photography also became the means to form a taxonomic ordering of supposed genetic deficiencies, ethnicities, criminals, homosexuals and revolutionaries, amongst others.

“The democratic promise of photography was long unfulfilled and remained, for over almost a century, an instrument in the hands of bourgeois culture and its means of representation. Thus, the portraits of the working and subaltern classes were an accidental and marginal incursion, an involuntary presence inside pictures with another intention.” (Press release)

Here I would disagree with the assertion that portraits of the working classes were an accidental and marginal incursion, an involuntary presence inside pictures with another intention. “Incursion” means an invasion or attack. “Involuntary” means done without will or conscious control. So images of the poor appear, without any conscious control, as an attack inside / against images that reinforce their prerogative meaning?

Perhaps the poor are just human beings that lived and breathed the same air as the photographer, that perchance appeared through serendipity in the images with no ulterior motive attached to their being … other than those that have been attached to their representation at a later date. Interpretations of photographs change over time and we have to think how these photographs would have been read when they were first taken.

The terms accidental and marginal are critical. In the work of politically engaged now called social documentary photographers – for example Lewis Hine, Jacob Riis, John Thomson, Hill and Adamson, O.G. Rejlander and Paul Martin – these artists captured photographs of the working classes that are neither accidental nor marginal. They are deliberate and provocative photographs taken to raise awareness of social conditions and injustice in order to bring about a change in the law (such as the anti-slavery laws and child labor laws in the United States) or a change in social conditions of the poor such as the state of slum housing  or tenement house evils for example.

There is nothing marginal about these photographs, no margin in which to ostracise, nor any accident of inclusion, for the human beings in them are placed front and centre before the public ‘in order’ to expose an immorality or injustice that was supposed to be hidden from view.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

.
Many thankx to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

“During the 1830s, a period covered by [the novel] Middlemarch, much was changing in terms of class/social structure. During the Victorian era, the rates of people living in poverty increased drastically. This is due to many factors, including low wages, the growth of cities (and general population growth), and lack of stable employment. The poor often lived in unsanitary conditions, in cramped and unclean houses, regardless of whether they lived in a modern city or a rural town. Victorian attitudes towards the poor were rather muddled. Some believed that the poor were facing their situations because they deserved it, either because of laziness or because they were simply not worthy of fortune. However, some believed it was up to personal circumstances. It is important to note that many charities have their roots from this era in English history, because of how overwhelming the issue of poverty became at this time.”

.
Anonymous. “The life of the poor in Victorian England,” on the Cove website Nd [Online] Cited 23/02/2023

 

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Documentary Genealogies: Photography 1848-1917' at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid

At centre, Lewis Hine exhibition panels 1913-1914 (see below)

Installation view of the exhibition 'Documentary Genealogies: Photography 1848-1917' at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid

Installation view of the exhibition 'Documentary Genealogies: Photography 1848-1917' at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid

Installation view of the exhibition 'Documentary Genealogies: Photography 1848-1917' at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid

At left rear, pages from Carl Dammann’s [Races of Mankind]: Ethnological Photographic Gallery of the Various Races of Men 1876 (see below)

Installation view of the exhibition 'Documentary Genealogies: Photography 1848-1917' at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid

Installation view of the exhibition 'Documentary Genealogies: Photography 1848-1917' at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid

Wounded men from the American Civil War

Installation view of the exhibition 'Documentary Genealogies: Photography 1848-1917' at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid

Pages from the book Oriental and Occidental Northern and Southern Portrait Types of the Midway Plaisance by N.D. Thompson Publishing Company, 1894, photographs by unknown artists, with at centre left an image of Bachibonzouk, a Greek wearing traditional Turkish needlework and embroidery reminiscent of the uniforms worn by the Sultan’s officers, as seen at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, 1893 (see below)

 

Installation views of the exhibition Documentary Genealogies: Photography 1848-1917 at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid

 

 

Documentary Genealogies. Photography 1848-1917 starts from Walter Benjamin’s remark in his essay The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility (1936) on the parallel emergence of photography and of socialism. Following such parallel allows the hypothesis that the ideas and iconographies used to represent the everyday life of the working class – which is the constitutive impulse for the rise of documentary discourse and practices in the 1920s, as a specific form of filmic and photographic poetics – were already latent or active in 1840s visual culture. The seminal figure of the bootblack on Boulevard du Temple [Boulevard of the Temple, 1838], one of Louis Daguerre’s first daguerreotypes, is the first appearance of the worker in photography: the root of the historical narrative around class relations and conflicts, an axis for the documentary discourse to come.

This exhibition presents a cartography of practices related to the appearance and evolution of representations of subaltern identities – workers, servants, proletarians, beggars, the deprived – stretching from the rise of photography to the turn of the century (more specifically, between the European revolutionary cycle of 1848 and the Russian Revolution in 1917), and inside the framework termed by historian André Rouillé as “the empire of photography”: the rise of a new visual regime that became an instrument for the system of bourgeois, industrial and colonial culture in the second half of the nineteenth century. Such subaltern figures can also be understood as metaphors of Charles Baudelaire’s famous and seminal condemnation to photography which he consigned to a subordinate position, as “the servant of the arts”. The democratic promise of photography was long unfulfilled and remained, for over almost a century, an instrument in the hands of bourgeois culture and its means of representation. Thus, the portraits of the working and subaltern classes were an accidental and marginal incursion, an involuntary presence inside pictures with another intention.

Documentary Genealogies. Photography 1848-1917 closes a series that began in 2011 in the Museo Reina Sofía with the exhibitions A Hard, Merciless Light. The Worker Photography Movement, 1926-1939 and continued in 2015 with Not Yet. On the Reinvention of Documentary and the Critique of Modernism, both of which offered an alternative narrative of the rise and evolution of documentary discourse in the history of photography, based on case studies at key moments in the twentieth century. This final exhibition contributes to this narrative from a different, proto-historical perspective: an observation of the early promises and potential of photography contained in the fact that the documentary idea and function are as old as photography itself.

Text from the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía website

 

Louis Daguerre (French, 1787-1851) 'Boulevard du Temple' Between 24 April 1838 and 4 May 1838

 

Louis Daguerre (French, 1787-1851)
Boulevard du Temple
Between 24 April 1838 and 4 May 1838
Daguerreotype
Public domain

This image is not in the exhibition

 

 

Boulevard du Temple, Paris, 3rd arrondissement, Daguerreotype. Made in 1838 by inventor Louis Daguerre, this is believed to be the earliest photograph showing a living person. It is a view of a busy street, but because the exposure lasted for 4 to 5 minutes (see shutter speed Daguerre photo explained) the moving traffic left no trace. Only the two men near the bottom left corner, one apparently having his boots polished by the other, stayed in one place long enough to be visible. As with most daguerreotypes, the image is a mirror image.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Unknown photographer. 'Rahlo Jammele. (Jewish Dancing Girl.)' c. 1894

 

Unknown photographer
Rahlo Jammele. (Jewish Dancing Girl.)
c. 1894
From the book Oriental and Occidental Northern and Southern Portrait Types of the Midway Plaisance
N.D. Thompson Publishing Company, 1894

 

Unknown photographer. 'Jeanette Le Barre. (French Peasant Girl.)' c. 1894

 

Unknown photographer
Jeanette Le Barre. (French Peasant Girl.)
c. 1894
From the book Oriental and Occidental Northern and Southern Portrait Types of the Midway Plaisance
N.D. Thompson Publishing Company, 1894

 

Unknown photographer. 'William. (Samoan.)' c. 1894

 

Unknown photographer
William. (Samoan.)
c. 1894
From the book Oriental and Occidental Northern and Southern Portrait Types of the Midway Plaisance
N.D. Thompson Publishing Company, 1894

 

 

Oriental and Occidental Northern and Southern Portrait Types of the Midway Plaisance

N.D. Thompson Publishing Company, 1894

Putnam, F. W. (Frederic Ward), 1839-1915/ Oriental and occidental, northern and southern portrait types of the Midway Plaisance: a collection of photographs of individual types of various nations from all parts of the world who represented, in the Department of Ethnology, the manners, customs, dress, religions, music and other distinctive traits and peculiarities of their race: with interesting and instructive descriptions accompanying each portrait, together with an introduction. St. Louis : N.D. Thompson, 1894.

 

Paul Strand (American 1890-1976) 'Blind woman, New York' 1916

 

Paul Strand (American, 1890-1976)
Blind Woman
Camera Work 49/50, July 1917
Photoengraving on paper
23.3 x 16.7cm
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

 

Lewis Hine (American, 1874-1940) 'Making Human Junk' 1913-1914

 

Lewis Hine (American, 1874-1940)
Making Human Junk
Exhibition panel from the National Child Labor Committee Facsimile reconstruction
1913-1914
Image courtesy of Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington D.C.

 

Lewis Hine (American, 1874-1940) 'Children's Rights vs States' Rights' 1913-1914

 

Lewis Hine (American, 1874-1940)
Children’s Rights vs States’ Rights
Exhibition panel from the National Child Labor Committee Facsimile reconstruction
1913-1914
Image courtesy of Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington D.C.

 

George Bretz (American, 1842-1895) Miner using coal auger, Kohinoor Colliery, Eastern Pennsylvania c. 1884

 

George Bretz (American, 1842-1895)
Miner using coal auger, Kohinoor Colliery, Eastern Pennsylvania
c. 1884
Albumen paper
19.5 x 23cm
Photography Collection, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

 

 

George M. Bretz (1842-1895) was an American photographer who is best known for his photographs of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Coal Region and its coal miners.

A collection of Bretz’s original glass plate negatives from the Kohinoor Mine at the Shenandoah Colliery were recently rediscovered at the National Museum of American History. Taken circa 1884, this was one of the earliest fully illuminated photo shoots in an underground mine. These photographs were displayed at the 1884 World Cotton Centennial in New Orleans, and again at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Bretz is also known for his photos of alleged Molly Maguires, radical coal miners who fought against unfair labor practices in the coal fields. For the rest of his life, Bretz was considered an authority on coal mining, and articles about his photography were widely published.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Coal mining was central to the lives of the people in Eastern Pennsylvania especially during the era of 1870 to 1895 when photographer George M. Bretz (1842-1895) lived and worked in Pottsville, the gateway to the Anthracite Coal Mining Region. Bretz achieved distinction if not fame for his photographs related to coal mining and the people who depended upon coal for their livelihood.

Born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Bretz worked at local businesses in Carlisle before heading to New York City where he worked successively for two companies in 1859. Letters of reference indicated that he had become a fine young businessman. He worked briefly in 1862 for a photographer before receiving an appointment as a clerk in the quartermaster’s department of the Union Army in Tennessee during the Civil War. Although he was not on the front lines, he was close enough to the war that being captured was often on his mind. He even wrote a will describing the disposition of his body in case he was killed. Serious illness rather than capture or death took him away from the war in 1863. He was sent home to Carlisle to recuperate, and did not rejoin the service until the next year when he became a clerk in the provost marshal’s office, a job that he held until the end of the war.

Photography became Bretz’s focus after the war. He and a friend opened a studio in Newville, Pennsylvania, and continued in operation until 1867 when Bretz went to work in the studio of A.M. Allen in Pottsville. In 1870, Bretz opened his own studio in Pottsville, and made sculptures as well as photographic portraits and landscape views. Among the portraits that Bretz made were images of the alleged Molly Maguires, radical coal miners who turned to violence against unfair labor practices in the coal fields. Bretz made portraits of the alleged Mollies in 1877 on the day before the ten men were to be hanged. Such iconic photographs became the rule rather than the exception for Bretz. In 1884 at the request of the Smithsonian Institution, Bretz descended into a coal mine to photograph miners at work. Using a dynamo that had been set up in the mine, electric light was generated to provide illumination. One critic at the time wrote: “Even in direct sunshine one would hardly undertake to photograph a heap of anthracite coal.” So successful were Bretz’s photographs in the mines, that he gained notoriety for his accomplishment. The photographs were displayed at the New Orleans World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition in 1884, and again with additional images at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. For the rest of his life, Bretz was considered an authority on coal mining and articles about him were periodically published in newspapers and photography magazines.

Anonymous. “George Bretz Collection,” on the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) website Nd [Online] Cited 02/02/2023

 

Unknown photographer. 'Work scenes from the Krupp Works at Essen' Nd

 

Unknown photographer
Work scenes from the Krupp Works at Essen: wheel tire transport
Nd
Silver chloride gelatin
22 x 18cm
Historisches Archiv Krupp, Essen

 

 

This exhibition presents a specific cartography within the set of practices that André Rouillé termed “the empire of photography”: the new visual regime created by the rise of photography in the bourgeois, industrial, and colonial cultural system in the mid-nineteenth century. Within this new visual regime, the exhibit traces the appearance and early evolution of the representations of subaltern subjectivities: hired-hands, beggars, workers, the unemployed, slaves, prison inmates, the sick, the ill and so on. The representation of the working classes will be the emancipatory impulse for the rise of documentary discourse in the 1920s, but it appears early on as an accidental or marginal interruption, a presence running against the grain in images that have another intention altogether.

 

1848

The historical narrative begins with the earliest photographic images of a revolution, namely the European revolutionary cycle of 1848. Contemporary historiography cites this “Springtime of the Peoples” as the moment when the proletariat acquired class consciousness, and as the starting point of working-class political struggles. A contradictory starting point, indeed. In January 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels released The Communist Manifesto with the famous diagnosis that the specter of communism was haunting Europe – to be confirmed a month later with the uprisings in Paris. However, shortly after in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), Marx would offer a critical interpretation of 1848 as a parody of the 1789 French Revolution: great world-historic events happen twice, first as tragedy, then as farce.

 

Image of the People

Beginning in the 1850s, photographic campaigns documenting national monuments, such as the Heliographic Mission in France, were one of the defining drives behind the rise of the “empire of photography”. The Heliographic Mission is a paradigm of how the discourse of national historic monuments was instrumental for the ideology of the nation-state and for nationalist discourses throughout Europe. Several European countries launched their own such campaigns, the pioneer in Spain being Charles Clifford. Clifford retraced Queen Isabella II’s travels in album form, which constitute the earliest photographic statement on the Spanish nation and its heritage. However, the bourgeois nationalist ideology underlying these campaigns and albums was countered by the appearance of certain figures of alterity around the periphery of these images: servants in palaces, the Roma in the Alhambra, small trade and work scenes, beggars, and picturesque street characters who appear spontaneously alongside the architecture.

 

The Other Half

A second catalyst for the “empire of photography” was the spatial reorganisation of historic urban centres according to the logic and demands of industrialisation. The expansions and reforms, undertaken around 1860 in cities such as Paris, Vienna, Barcelona, and Madrid, gave rise to photography campaigns of both the old streets and medieval city walls that were being demolished, as well as of the new avenues and urban infrastructure. Most emblematic of this process was Charles Marville’s documentation of Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s renovation of Paris, which also included images of construction workers and labourers.

As a counterpoint to these photographs of grand urban redevelopments, we find the first images of the urban proletariat. In the New York of the 1880s, muckraking journalist Jacob Riis photographed the miserable conditions of the Lower East Side working-class tenements. He used the images as slides in his public lectures and published the foundational book How the Other Half Lives (1890). With a similar focus and use at public slide lectures, in 1904 Hermann Drawe photographed the Viennese underworld of vagrants and the poor, in collaboration with journalist Emil Kläger. Their reportage was also published as a book. The turn-of-the-century urban peripheries, the terrains vagues [The French term ‘terrain vague’ is used by architects and urban planners to describe forgotten spaces which are left behind as a result of post-industrial urbanisation] created by the razing of the old city walls, and their poor inhabitants, or subproletarians, were photographed by Eugène Atget in Paris, by Heinrich Zille in Berlin, and by Ferdinand Ritter von Staudenheim in Vienna.

 

Men at Work

The promotion of the new industrial processes, and the grand feats of engineering and infrastructure – another facet of the mid-nineteenth-century construction of the modern nation-state – were also the target of the nascent photographic visual regime. World’s fairs were the mass events that closely followed and helped spread industrialisation. They were also a means for photography to burst into the public sphere. The Great Exhibition of 1851 in London was, in this sense, a key moment. In Spain, Charles Clifford was once again a pioneer, documenting such works as the Isabella II Canal – inaugurated in 1858 to definitely solve the issue of Madrid’s water supply. It is also in this context that the first images of factory labor and industrial workers appeared. The 1890 photographic studies of workers and machinery in the Krupp steelworks in Essen are possibly the pioneering images of the kind. They laid the basis for the most influential iconographies of industrial labor of the twentieth century.

Forced labour was often employed in the grand infrastructure projects, which attests to how industrial capitalism prospered upon the radical exploitation of the working class. In fact, some images of public works and penal colonies may easily be mistaken for one another. In the daguerreotypes of the works led by engineer Lucio del Valle, a pioneer in Spain for photographic documentation of public works, we see prison labourers in chains. Convicts and enslaved labourers are to be found, as well, in images of railroad construction and other work sites during the Civil War period in the United States, and also at the turn of the century in the mines of the Russian penal colony on Sakhalin Island. As part of his production for the Fortieth Parallel Survey, Timothy O’Sullivan reported underground mining using an innovative system of lighting. It is interesting to relate these images to the enigmatic scenes of the Paris catacombs taken by Nadar, souvenirs from a hellish underworld.

 

The Body and the Archive

Another subtext in photography’s rise during the colonial era is its inscription in modern technologies of social discipline and governance. Photography as a technology of industrialisation was part of a new episteme in the natural and social sciences, and contributed to a new archival unconscious that was symptomatic of the hegemony of positivism. While photography in service of geological exploration had its early golden age in the surveys of the US Western territories that began in the late 1860s after the Civil War. The first such survey was of the Fortieth Parallel, led by geologist Clarence King, with Timothy O’Sullivan as lead photographer.

The immense encyclopaedic catalog of human races by German photographer Carl Dammann, published from 1874 onward, is one of the great monuments to the aspirations of positivism in the study of human diversity. Photography changed the methodology of the human sciences. Another example is the art historian Aby Warburg’s study of Hopi Indians in the US southwest in 1895, which he thought of as a journey into the ancient pagan world and led to a famous slide conference in 1923. The trip and conference were instrumental for the emergence of Warburg’s iconological method, which would change the historiography of art by introducing a cultural or anthropological approach. However, it was the work on the Trobriand Islands, by Bronisław Malinowski and his collaborators around 1900, when the use of photography in fieldwork would finally reach maturity. A series of the Trobriand people photographs would later be published, in 1922, in a book that would be essential for modern ethnography, Argonauts of the Western Pacific.

The expansion of anthropological uses of photography in the last decades of the nineteenth century ran parallel to its rise in the medical and judiciary practices. The Civil War in the US yielded a notable corpus of anatomical photographs and various catalogs of the wounded, amputees, and deceased. In Europe, Nadar had already carried out some photographic experiments on medical issues around 1860, such as his research on “hermaphroditism.” Yet the great pioneer of photography in medical experimentation would be neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, who studied the then so-called hysteria in women and other neuropsychiatric pathologies in the Parisian Hospital de Pitié-Salpêtrière, beginning in the 1870s. His illustrated publications from the following decade had a huge influence on modern neurology. These practices emerged at the same time as the judiciary and police use of photography, and the standardisation of modern methods of photographic identification, based on the work of Alphonse Bertillon in France, Cesare Lombroso in Italy, and Francis Galton in England. Just as medical photography is inextricable from discourses on health versus pathology or on deviations from the norm, police photography produces typologies of criminal and deviant personalities.

 

Revolution

The 1871 Paris Commune stands as a foundational experiment in working class self-government. It would become a legendary reference for the political culture of the workers’ movement. The Commune was also the first event to generate an extensive photographic market of a revolution, one which grew from the seeds of the 1848 Parisian daguerreotypes. As a consequence, a visual grammar for the future of revolutionary iconography was set – even if the multiple images of the uprising, produced industrially as albums and souvenirs, had in fact a counterrevolutionary focus. The visual catalog of the barricades, the destruction of monuments such as the Vendôme Column, and the burning of major institutional buildings such as the Paris city hall creates a dystopian, undisciplined image of the city in ruins – as corresponds to the time of uncertainty following the dissolution of the established governmental order.

 

Social Photography

Following the different revolutionary outbursts and the organisation of the workers’ movement throughout the nineteenth century, some improvements in social rights came about, as well as new public policies to ease the living conditions of the working class within a fledgling welfare state. Lewis Hine was a pioneer in the articulation of photography and social reform politics. Begun in 1907, his photographic work for the National Child Labor Committee “(NCLC)” makes him a founding figure.

Lewis Hine was a professor of photography at the Ethical Culture School in New York City. One of his students was Paul Strand, rendered the founder of photographic modernism because of his work begun in 1916. Influenced by the reception in New York of the Paris pictorial avant-garde, Strand published two portfolios in the modernist magazine Camera Work (1916 and 1917), jointly shaping a sort of manifesto for the future of photography. The 1930s were a time of ideological awakening for Strand, and he would become involved with the Photo League, the New York branch of the international Worker’s Photography Movement. His role as a link between an era that was coming to an end and another that was about to begin make him both the symbol and the most significant symptom of the ambiguity between factuality and idealisation that the documentary idea will carry throughout twentieth-century photography.

Text from the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

 

Charles François Thibault (French) 'Barricade de la Rue de la Faubourg du Temple' 25 June 1848

 

Charles François Thibault (French)
Barricade de la Rue de la Faubourg du Temple
25 June 1848
Daguerreotype, facsimile copy (original from 1848)
Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris
CCO Paris Musées / Musee Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris

 

 

This daguerreotype is part of a series of two exceptional views of the barricades taken during the popular insurrection of June 1848. Disseminated in the form of woodcuts in the newspaper L’Illustration at the beginning of the following July, these photographs were realised by an amateur named Thibault, from a point of view overlooking the Rue Saint-Maur-Popincourt, June 25 and 26, before and after the assault. The first photographs reproduced in the press, they show the value of proof given to the medium in the processing of information since the middle of the nineteenth century, well before the development of photomechanical reproduction techniques. The inaccuracies and ghostly traces caused by a long exposure time limit the accuracy lent to the medium. Also the engraver allowed himself to “rectify” the views for the newspaper, adding clouds here and there and specifying the posture or the detail of the silhouettes. The remarkable interest of these daguerreotypes, however, resides in their indeterminate aspect. In fact, they reveal the singular temporality of these events: both short (since each second counts during the confrontations) and at the same time extended (in the moments of preparation and waiting). The temporalities proper to events and photography are thus combined in order to offer the perennial image of an invisible uprising and therefore always in potentiality.

Text from the Jeu de Paume website translated by Google translate

 

The first photo of an insurrectionary barricade

This photo was taken by a young photographer, by the name of Charles-François Thibault, at the level of no. 92 of the current rue du Faubourg-du-Temple on the morning of Sunday June 25, 1848. The insurrection is coming to an end, and only the last defences of the working-class districts of eastern Paris resist.

Thibault used twice, probably between 7 am and 8 am, his daguerreotype, a primitive process of photography which fixed the image on a metal plate. These two pictures are visible in Parisian museums, the first at the Carnavalet museum, the second (featured image) at the Musée d’Orsay. One distinguishes there in particular a flag planted in the axle of a wheel on the first barricade (which according to the researches of Olivier Ilh [La Barricade reversed, history of a photograph, Paris 1848, Editions du Croquant, 2016] carried the inscription “Democratic and social Republic”) as well as silhouettes of back.

These are the first pictures showing an insurrection and complete barricades. This scene is also regarded as the first photographic illustration of a report in the newspapers, since it was published a few days later in the form of engraving (one could not reproduce at the time directly the daguerreotype in a printed document) in the newspaper L’Illustration, with the caption “The barricade on rue Saint-Maur Popincourt on Sunday morning, from a plate daguerreotyped by M.Thibault.”

Anonymous text. “The first photo of a barricade,” on the Un Jour de Plus a Paris website [Online] Cited 11/11/2021.

 

On the Rue du Faubourg du Temple in June 1848. The shot is said to be the first photographic illustration of a newspaper report. The scene captured by this famous daguerreotype is the Rue du Faubourg du Temple during the bloody days of June 1848. The picture shows a barricade on an empty street at 7.30am, Sunday 25 June. On the following 8 July the newspaper L’Illustration published two of these shots as woodcuts. Against the backdrop of insurrection, they celebrated the return to order. Yet even though two of Thibault’s plates have been kept at the Orsay Museum, and another at the Carnavalet Museum, little is known about their author. The plates are nevertheless considered to be one of the founding events of the history of photography. Manifestly, the place photographed, the operator’s identity, the motive behind the shot: everything here is indeed enigmatic.

Olivier Ihl. “In the Eye of The Daguerreotype. On the Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple in June 1848.” Abstract. August 2018 on the Researchgate website [Online] Cited 03/02/2023

 

Unknown photographer (French) 'Barricade de la Rue de la Roquette, Place de Bastille' 18 March 1871

 

Unknown photographer (French)
Barricade de la Rue de la Roquette, Place de Bastille
18 March 1871
Albumen print
Album de photographies et d’articles de journaux sur la guerre Franco-Prussienne et la Commune de Paris
Album of photographs and newspaper articles on the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune
1870-1871
Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris
CCO Paris Musées / Musee Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris

 

 

Commune of Paris

Commune of Paris, also called Paris Commune, French Commune de Paris, (1871), was an insurrection of Paris against the French government from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It occurred in the wake of France’s defeat in the Franco-German War and the collapse of Napoleon III’s Second Empire (1852-70).

The National Assembly, which was elected in February 1871 to conclude a peace with Germany, had a royalist majority, reflecting the conservative attitude of the provinces. The republican Parisians feared that the National Assembly meeting in Versailles would restore the monarchy.

To ensure order in Paris, Adolphe Thiers, executive head of the provisional national government, decided to disarm the National Guard (composed largely of workers who fought during the siege of Paris). On March 18 resistance broke out in Paris in response to an attempt to remove the cannons of the guard overlooking the city. Then, on March 26, municipal elections, organised by the central committee of the guard, resulted in victory for the revolutionaries, who formed the Commune government. Among those in the new government were the so-called Jacobins, who followed in the French Revolutionary tradition of 1793 and wanted the Paris Commune to control the Revolution; the Proudhonists, socialists who supported a federation of communes throughout the country; and the Blanquistes, socialists who demanded violent action. The program that the Commune adopted, despite its internal divisions, called for measures reminiscent of 1793 (end of support for religion, use of the Revolutionary calendar) and a limited number of social measures (10-hour workday, end of work at night for bakers).

With the quick suppression of communes that arose at Lyon, Saint-Étienne, Marseille, and Toulouse, the Commune of Paris alone faced the opposition of the Versailles government. But the Fédérés, as the insurgents were called, were unable to organize themselves militarily and take the offensive, and, on May 21, government troops entered an undefended section of Paris. During la semaine sanglante, or “bloody week,” that followed, the regular troops crushed the opposition of the Communards, who in their defense set up barricades in the streets and burned public buildings (among them the Tuileries Palace and the City Hall [Hôtel de Ville]). About 20,000 insurrectionists were killed, along with about 750 government troops. In the aftermath of the Commune, the government took harsh repressive action: about 38,000 were arrested and more than 7,000 were deported.

“Commune of Paris” 1871 on the Britannica website [Online] Cited 03/02/2023

 

Bronislaw Malinowski (Polish-British, 1884-1942) 'The tasasoria on the beach of Kaulukuba: stepping the masts and getting the sails for the run' 1915-1916

 

Bronislaw Malinowski (Polish-British, 1884-1942)
The tasasoria on the beach of Kaulukuba: stepping the masts and getting the sails for the run
Plate from the book Argonauts of the Western Pacific
1915-1916
Gelatin silver print
LSE Library, The British Library of Political and Economic Science

 

Frederic Ballell (Spanish, 1864-1951) 'La Rambla. Enllustrador de sabates' (La Rambla. Shoeshiner) 1907-1908

 

Frederic Ballell (Spanish born Puerto Rico, 1864-1951)
La Rambla. Enllustrador de sabates (La Rambla. Shoeshiner)
1907-1908
© Arxiu Fotogràfic de Barcelona

 

 

Federico Ballell Maymí (Spanish, 1864-1951)

Federico Ballell Maymí (Guayama, 1864 – Barcelona, ​​1951) was a Spanish photojournalist, born in Puerto Rico. …

Work

Photo of the Garcia-Bravo couple April 12, 1913 published in Mundo Gráfico on April 30, 1913 as an advertisement for Capilar Americano distributed at the American Clinic in Barcelona by Juan Garcia-Bravo Menéndez.

Ballell’s photographic work is important due to its volume, the quality of his photographs and the wide range of topics covered. He was one of the founding members of the Barcelona Daily Press Association, where he participated until 1940. The work he did after the 1920s is little known. Reliable information on Ballell is not available again until 1944, when he contacted the Barcelona City Council , concerned about the future of his collection of negatives, which, in July 1945, would end up in the Historical Archive of the City of Barcelona.

His work has been exhibited on various occasions: thus, in April 2000 his first anthology was presented with the title “Frederic Ballell, photojournalist” at the Palacio de la Virreina. The figure of the photographer was presented with a selection of copies of the time to show the different photographic procedures used, in addition a thematic selection was presented again in large enlargements, which allowed showing the great thematic diversity treated by the photographer throughout of his trajectory. The same year a part of his production related to marine disasters was exhibited in the exhibition hall of the Historical Archive of the City of Barcelona with the title “Disaster”, organised by the Photographic Archive of Barcelona. These exhibitions were later exhibited in other places outside of Barcelona.

In 2010, an exhibition of a unique set of photographs was held at the headquarters of the Barcelona Photographic Archive, entitled “Frederic Ballell. La Rambla 1907-1908”. In this exhibition it was possible to see more than one hundred original photographs that offered a vision of La Rambla and the different characters that made it up. In this set of images, Ballell captured the daily evolution of one of the most important communication centres of the early 20th century.

 

Photographic background

Frederic Ballell’s photographic collection contains a wealth of information on life in Barcelona, ​​mainly in the first quarter of the 20th century. His participation in the important public acts of the moment make him a faithful follower of the evolution of citizen events, both urban and social. His constant presence led him to generate a corpus of some 2,600 photographs published only in Ilustració Catalana and Feminal between 1903 and 1917. Also in the magazine Actualidades since its creation in 1908.

He was a correspondent for Blanco y Negro, Nuevo Mundo, 1 ​ABC and La Esfera, where we found many images also published in this period.

His collection was acquired between June and July 1945 and the set of negatives entered the Historical Archive of the City of Barcelona. Subsequently, a selection of negatives was made that was taken to be printed in Francisco Fazio’s photographic workshop and made available to the public, those that were not printed were stored in the Archive depository. In 2000, after documentary research and physical conditioning of the negatives and positives, the entire collection was left for public consultation at the Photographic Archive of Barcelona .

Text translated from the Spanish Wikipedia website by Google Translate

 

Carl Dammann (German, 1819-1874). 'Amazonenstrom-Gebiet' 1873-1876

 

Carl Dammann (German, 1819-1874) publisher
Amazonenstrom-Gebiet (Amazon River area)
1873-1876
From [Races of Mankind]: Ethnological Photographic Gallery of the Various Races of Men 1876
Albumen, paper, cardboard
Museo Nacional de Antropologia MNA FD 4325

 

C. Dammann. 'Australian' 1873-1876

 

Carl Dammann (German, 1819-1874) publisher
Australian
1873-1876
From [Races of Mankind]: Ethnological Photographic Gallery of the Various Races of Men 1876
Albumen, paper, cardboard
Museo Nacional de Antropologia MNA FD 4350

 

C. Dammann. 'Brazilian Neger' 1873-1876

 

Carl Dammann (German, 1819-1874) publisher
Brazilian Neger
1873-1876
From [Races of Mankind]: Ethnological Photographic Gallery of the Various Races of Men 1876
Albumen, paper, cardboard
Museo Nacional de Antropologia MNA FD 4324

 

C. Dammann. 'Indischer Archipel' 1873-1876

 

Carl Dammann (German, 1819-1874) publisher
Indischer Archipel (Indian archipelago)
1873-1876
From [Races of Mankind]: Ethnological Photographic Gallery of the Various Races of Men 1876
Albumen, paper, cardboard
Museo Nacional de Antropologia MNA FD 4340

 

C. Dammann. 'Kaukasien' 1873-1876

 

Carl Dammann (German, 1819-1874) publisher
Kaukasien (Caucasian)
1873-1876
From [Races of Mankind]: Ethnological Photographic Gallery of the Various Races of Men 1876
Albumen, paper, cardboard
Museo Nacional de Antropologia MNA FD 4344

 

C. Dammann. 'Malaischer Archipel' 1873-1876

 

Carl Dammann (German, 1819-1874) publisher
Malaischer Archipel (Malay Archipelago)
1873-1876
From [Races of Mankind]: Ethnological Photographic Gallery of the Various Races of Men 1876
Albumen, paper, cardboard
Museo Nacional de Antropologia MNA FD 4341

 

C. Dammann. 'Mittel-Aegypten' 1873-1876

 

Carl Dammann (German, 1819-1874) publisher
Mittel-Aegypten (Central Egypt)
1873-1876
From [Races of Mankind]: Ethnological Photographic Gallery of the Various Races of Men 1876
Albumen, paper, cardboard
Museo Nacional de Antropologia MNA FD 4310

 

C. Dammann. 'Ostkuste von Afrika' 1873-1876

 

Carl Dammann (German, 1819-1874) publisher
Ostkuste von Afrika (Eastern coast of Africa)
1873-1876
From [Races of Mankind]: Ethnological Photographic Gallery of the Various Races of Men 1876
Albumen, paper, cardboard
Museo Nacional de Antropologia MNA FD 4308

 

 

Carl Dammann

Photographer based in Hamburg
Author of “Ethnological photographic gallery of the various races of men.”

C. Dammann
F.W. Dammann

Collectors of anthropological photographs and some were published in C. & F.W. Dammann, 1876, [Races of Mankind]: Ethnological Photographic Gallery of the Various Races of Men, (London: Trubner).

24 pages of plates: illustrations, portraits; 32 x 43cm
Cover title: Races of mankind

 

 

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Sabatini Building
Santa Isabel, 52
Nouvel Building
Ronda de Atocha (with plaza del Emperador Carlos V)
28012 Madrid
Phone: (34) 91 774 10 00

Opening hours:
Monday 10.00am – 9.00pm
Tuesday Closed
Wednesday – Saturday 10.00am – 9.00pm
Sunday 10.00am – 2.30pm

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía website

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20
Feb
23

Exhibition: ‘The Stillness of Things: Photographs from the Lane Collection’ at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Exhibition dates: 27th August, 2022 – 27th February, 2023

 

William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877) 'Articles of China' before 1844

 

William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877)
Articles of China
Before 1844
Salt print from a paper negative
The Lane Collection

 

 

The world is a reality,
not because of the way it is,
but because
of the possibilities it presents.

.
Frederick Sommer

 

 

A small but vibrant posting. Beautiful still life photographs my favourite being those by Mather, Sommer, Weston, Cunningham, Sudek and Morrell.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

.
Many thankx to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

This exhibition presents nearly 60 innovative photographs – all departures from the traditional still life – drawn from the MFA’s Lane Collection. Grouped thematically, the works on view span the entire history of photography, from its first introduction in England during the 1840s by William Henry Fox Talbot to the work of contemporary artists such as Adam Fuss, David Hilliard, Kenro Izu, Abelardo Morell, and Olivia Parker. Works by American modernists are prominently featured, with unexpected takes on the still life by Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Charles Sheeler, and Edward Weston – photographers better known for capturing vast landscapes and portraits of people.

One of the largest gifts in the MFA’s history, the Lane Collection was promised to the Museum in 2012. This exhibition is the latest in a series that has celebrated the single most important donation to the Museum’s photography holdings.

Text from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston website

 

 

Margrethe Mather (American, 1886-1952) 'Water Lily' 1922

 

Margrethe Mather (American, 1886-1952)
Water Lily
1922
Palladium print
The Lane Collection

 

Charles Sheeler (American, 1883-1965) 'Still Life' Early 1920s

 

Charles Sheeler (American, 1883-1965)
Still Life
Early 1920s
Gelatin silver print
The Lane Collection

 

 

Loosely organised by subject from messy desktops, kitchen utensils, and flora to empty chairs or found objects, the exhibit revels the mid-twentieth century strengths of the collection with works by modernists such as Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and especially Charles Sheeler. Sheeler pays homage to the painter Morandi with two still lifes featuring a simple ewer and ceramic vase and to Cezanne in a composition of apples. Often overlooked among the modernist masters are women such as Margaret Mather and Imogen Cunningham. Mather’s wispy pine needles and delicate water lily classically weave light, form and abstraction while Cunningham brings a geometric edge to the aloe plant she photographed on her window sill.

Suzanne Révy. “The Stillness of Things,” on the What Will You Remember website September 14, 2022 [Online] Cited 31/01/2023

 

Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976) 'Aloe Variagata' Early 1930's

 

Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976)
Aloe Variagata
Early 1930’s
Gelatin silver print
The Lane Collection

 

Charles Sheeler (American, 1883-1965) 'Cactus and Photographer's Lamp' 1931

 

Charles Sheeler (American, 1883-1965)
Cactus and Photographer’s Lamp
1931
Gelatin silver print
The Lane Collection

 

Ansel Adams (American, 1902-1984) 'Still Life, San Francisco' about 1932

 

Ansel Adams (American, 1902-1984)
Still Life, San Francisco
about 1932
Gelatin silver print
The Lane Collection
© The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust

 

Frederick Sommer (American, 1905-1999) 'Chicken Entrails' 1939

 

Frederick Sommer (American, 1905-1999)
Chicken Entrails
1939
Gelatin silver print
The Lane Collection

 

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) 'Junk' 1939

 

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Junk
1939
Gelatin silver print
The Lane Collection

 

Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976) 'The Unmade Bed' 1957

 

Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976)
The Unmade Bed
1957
Gelatin silver print
The Lane Collection
© 2022 Imogen Cunningham Trust

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'From the Window of my Atelier' 1965

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
From the Window of my Atelier
1965
Gelatin silver print
The Lane Collection
© I & G Fárová Heirs

 

Robert Heinecken (American, 1931-2006) 'TV Dinner' 1971

 

Robert Heinecken (American, 1931-2006)
TV Dinner
1971
Gelatin silver print on canvas with pastel, chalk, and resin
The Lane Collection
© The Robert Heinecken Trust

 

Irving Penn (American, 1917-2009) 'Gingko Leaves' 1990

 

Irving Penn (American, 1917-2009)
Gingko Leaves
1990
Dye-transfer print
The Lane Collection

 

Abelardo Morell (Cuban, b. 1948) 'Wavy Book' 2001

 

Abelardo Morell (Cuban, b. 1948)
Wavy Book
2001
Gelatin silver print
The Lane Collection
© Abelardo Morell/Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery, NYC

 

Adam Fuss (British, b. 1961) 'Butterfly' 2002

 

Adam Fuss (British, b. 1961)
Butterfly
2002
From the series My Ghost
Daguerrotype
The Lane Collection
© Adam Fuss

 

David Hilliard (American, b. 1964) 'Perennial' 2006

 

David Hilliard (American, b. 1964)
Perennial
2006
Archival pigment print
The Lane Collection
Museum purchase with funds donated by Saundra B. Lane
© David Hilliard

 

 

Olivia Parker’s green and purple artichoke dangling from a string is a nod to the Spanish painter Juan Sánchez Cotán whose vegetable paintings depict foodstuffs hung high to keep rodents at bay. Her work is installed near two surrealist pictures by Frederick Sommer. His jarring but beautiful compositions of chicken heads and innards brim with the tension between the life sustaining nourishment the chicken may have provided and the stark reminder of our mortality. And in an ironic twist, David Hilliard’s ebullient polyptych, Perennial, features an aisle of plastic Walmart flowers that were his mother’s favorites, in striking contrast to the ephemeral flowers featured in countless still life paintings in the galleries of the museum.

Suzanne Révy. “The Stillness of Things,” on the What Will You Remember website September 14, 2022 [Online] Cited 31/01/2023

 

Olivia Parker (American, b. 1941) 'Artichoke' 2010

 

Olivia Parker (American, b. 1941)
Artichoke
2010
Digital inkjet print
The Lane Collection
© Olivia Parker 2010

 

 

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Boston, Massachusetts

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17
Feb
23

Exhibition: ‘Uta Barth: Peripheral Vision’ at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Exhibition dates: 15th November 2022 – 19th February 2023

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) 'Sundial (07.4)' 2007

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
Sundial (07.4)
2007
Chromogenic prints
Image (each): 76.2 x 71.7cm
Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Humana Foundation Endowment for American Art
© Uta Barth

 

 

“Look beyond the facts
and you may discover,
there are new facts, that upon
careful examination
are not facts but assumptions.
The human eye is prejudiced.”

Drager Meurtant

.
Many thankx to the J. Paul Getty Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

“To photograph in my home is a matter of convenience but it’s a way of saying that vision happens everywhere. Working with what’s around me all the time is to drive home that point and to get people to think about what is around them all the time, what is in the immediate environment.”

.
Uta Barth

 

“I consider the framing and mounting and display of the work to be a continuation of the work itself,” Barth says. “I look at the gallery space as a sculptural problem to solve. The space between pieces matters as much as the pieces themselves. Artwork, architecture and light – I want to give equal strength to all of those elements. From the beginning, I had to tell everyone [at the museum] this is not a collection of pictures. It’s an installation.” …

Barth unsettles the figure/ground relationship by assuming but omitting a clearly focused figure. What remains, and what Barth champions as plenty, is the ground. What conventionally would register as secondary becomes primary; the peripheral becomes all. These pictures aren’t out of focus, she has explained now for decades; rather, they are focused on the point unoccupied by that absent figure.

.
Utah Barth quoted in Leah Ollman. “For artist Uta Barth, learning to photograph is a way of learning to see,” on the Los Angeles Times website Dec 28, 2022 [Online] Cited 27/01/2023

 

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Uta Barth: Peripheral Vision' at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

 

Installation view of the exhibition Uta Barth: Peripheral Vision at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Left to right: In the Light and Shadow of Morandi (17.12), 2017. JPMorgan Chase Art Collection; In the Light and Shadow of Morandi (17.03), 2017. Courtesy of the artist; In the Light and Shadow of Morandi (17.06). Courtesy of the artist; 1301PE, Los Angeles; and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles; Thinking about… In the Light and Shadow of Morandi, 2018. Getty Museum; Untitled (17.01), 2017. Courtesy of the artist; 1301PE, Los Angeles; and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles. All works by and © Uta Barth

 

 

For more than forty years, Los Angeles-based artist Uta Barth (born in West Germany, 1958) has made photographs that investigate the act of looking. In her multipart works, she explores the ephemeral qualities of light and its ability to overwhelm and entirely destabilise human vision. In certain series, the repetition of motifs – including aspects of her home – creates a rhythm that suggests movement, carrying viewers from one image to the next. Barth also highlights photography’s abiding connection to the passage of time with her sequential images captured at intervals over a particular period.

This exhibition traces Barth’s career from her early experimentations as a student to later studies of the eye’s capabilities and the camera’s role in helping an artist translate visual information into a photograph. Barth’s most recent work is displayed here for the first time: a project commissioned in celebration of the Getty Center’s twentieth anniversary.

 

 

“Dated 1979-82 (2010), these small, square- format black and white prints are hung individually and in groups of up to sixteen sequenced images. They offer interesting and in some cases revelatory connections to aspects of Barth’s mature work, specifically her preoccupation with compositional framing and the behaviour of light, her depiction of everyday environments, and her use of the anonymous figure. For example, in the eleven-panel piece One Day, the artist documented a day’s progression of the shadow of an unnamed figure cast from light passing through a sliding glass door onto a vinyl floor. And, in the diptych Untitled #1, a figure stands adjacent to, then enters, a rectangle of shadow cast upon a white wall. While elements of the student work are echoed in to walk, they appear more overtly in other recent projects, such as Sundial (2007), which records the passage of light on an interior space as a temporally ambiguous series of perceptual shifts.”

.
Audrey Mandelbaum. “Uta Barth: …to walk without destination and see only to see,” X_TRA Winter 2010 Volume 13 Number 2 on the X_TRA website [Online] Cited 29/01/2023

 

 

Early Work

1978-1990

Works from the start of Barth’s career are multifaceted and experimental. They exemplify the fits and starts of a young artist trying to translate complex ideas into physical prints. At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she earned her master’s degree in fine arts (1985), Barth was strongly influenced by theories of the “gaze,” or how the perceptions of individuals define power relations within social dynamics.

The artist’s body plays a central role in many of her works from the 1980s. In their exploration of the physical experience of being looked at or being blinded by light, some photographs are inherently confrontational. Others display words written directly on her skin that provoke questions or form the connective tissue of a sentence. By isolating these small elements of language, Barth rejected the possibility of creating a specific narrative, leaving us with an inscrutable fragmentary text. Devoid of greater context, the photographs appear to embrace the potential for ambiguity in both images and language.

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) 'One Day' 1979, printed 2010

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
One Day
1979, printed 2010
Pigment prints
Image (each): 26.7 x 21.6cm
Courtesy of the artist; 1301PE, Los Angeles; and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York/Los Angeles
© Uta Barth

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) 'Untitled #3' 1979-1982; printed 2010

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
Untitled #3
1979-1982; printed 2010
Pigment print
26.7 x 21.6cm
Courtesy of the artist; 1301PE, Los Angeles; and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York/Los Angeles
© Uta Barth

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) 'Untitled #5' 1979-1982; printed 2010

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
Untitled #5
1979-1982; printed 2010
Pigment print
26.7 x 21.6cm
Courtesy of the artist; 1301PE, Los Angeles; and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York/Los Angeles
© Uta Barth

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) 'Untitled' about 1990

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
Untitled
About 1990
Gelatin silver print
Courtesy of the artist; 1301PE, Los Angeles; and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York/Los Angeles
© Uta Barth

 

 

“The principal reveal is that Barth belongs to a category all her own – one that begs definition but is cued by recalling that “camera” means “room”. Through a disciplined technique developed over years of training and teaching, Bart manipulates light and space to create rooms within rooms and, most interestingly, the illusion of a camera recording itself. Using for the most part her home as the world, with subjects extending from scattered or grouped household objects to clouds, branches and rooftops seen through a window, Barth has invented a new visual language – one that exercises an almost atrophied muscle, grown lazy by habit, which separately powers the eye and the brain to reveal how, not what the eye sees, and how the brain processes what is seen.

Her focus is neither on self (as with a portrait) nor on the object (as in a painting) but rather on how forms are perceived if the focus is shifted from the object to the surround. To achieve this skewed way of seeing – which the show titles (wrongly, I think) “peripheral vision” – Barth might focus her lens on an object placed where the viewer would stand, then remove it before shooting. The resulting blurry image doesn’t present as blurred (as do those of Gerhard Richter, William Klein and Rolf Sachs), but rather as the visual echo of a partially registered scene.” …

Random domestic items and studio ephemera slip out of the frame while registering what’s in it; the surround overtakes the centre; spaces are left for the viewer to complete; and although Barth’s serial works sequence from one image to the next, unlike film they resist narrative. The Getty’s photography curator Arpad Kovacs’s brilliant staging heeds her injunction to mount the work as an installation rather than a photography show to encourage the eye to focus separately on each image, and even the modestly scaled works to command their space. …

Such is the rigour of Barth’s technique, now fully adept at portraying the ground behind the subject, and adapted to the self-imposed limitations of portraying virtually nothing outside her living and workspace, that even the few literal images of domestic objects tweak perception, and even the longer series, though unavoidably filmic, are so charged with atmosphere as to resist narrative.

Most magical are the rhythmic forms seemingly sculpted with light into both waves and still-lives. In this sense, at her core, Barth is an environmentalist, creating a charged electrical field from light, shadow and her deceptive take on focus. …

The biggest takeaway is the revelation of what, in the hands of a master, the camera can do: namely, break the frame or create an artificial one; create the optical effect of an after-image left after looking into headlights; position the viewer both in front of and inside the scene, choreograph a lit surface to create rhythm, and, most radically, manipulate light to brain-shift perception. Realising Barth’s career goal of “how to get someone to think about thinking, not about what they’re looking at”, the blurred or serial images achieved with subtle interventions of light, camera angles and removing the focused-on object create palimpsests of the absent to produce a truly new way of seeing.

Jill Spalding. “Uta Barth: Peripheral Vision,” on the Studio International website 9th January 2023 [Online] Cited 27/01/2023

 

 

 

Perceptual Shift: Thoughts on the Photographs of Uta Barth

Los Angeles-based photographer Uta Barth has spent her career exploring subtle changes of light as it illuminates various surfaces, documenting the passage of time, and investigating the differences between how the human eye and the camera perceive the world. In this conversation, curators and critics Russell Ferguson and Jan Tumlir discuss major themes and motifs in Barth’s work and delve into the ways she approaches her artistic practice. Moderated by Getty curator Arpad Kovacs, the conversation also explores her most significant sources of inspiration and her years as an educator in Southern California.

 

Speakers

Russell Ferguson is a curator and a writer. Formerly a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; chief curator at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, he has organized many solo and group exhibitions.

Arpad Kovacs (moderator) is an assistant curator in the Department of Photographs at the Getty Museum. His exhibitions focus on 20th-century and contemporary photography, with a specific interest in conceptual practices.

Jan Tumlir is an art writer, teacher, and curator who lives in Los Angeles. He is a founding editor of the local art journal X-TRA and a regular contributor to Artforum.

 

 

 

Uta Barth’s Atmospheric Photographs

“The camera sort of teaches you to see in a really different way and to experience your environment in a different way, and to pay attention to the act of looking.”

Photographer Uta Barth’s photographs focus on the act of looking. She has long been interested in creating images in which there is no discernable subject, but rather the image or light itself is the subject. Barth’s conceptual photographs examine how we see and how we define foreground and background. Her series are often long-term engagements; she photographs the same place over many months, or even years, to understand how light changes a space over time. She recently completed a series at the Getty Center taken over the course of a year and comprising over 60,000 images. Barth has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation.

In this episode, Barth discusses her approach to making images through several of her bodies of work including Ground, Figure, and her new Getty series. Her career will be the subject of a retrospective at the Getty Center in fall 2022.

 

 

Uta Barth

Modern Art Notes Podcast

 

 

Ground

1994-1997

In this series, Barth focused on an unoccupied plane in space, resulting in photographs that appear blurry and make ordinary places and objects appear elusive and ultimately hard to discern. Slivers of architectural details and furnishings are occasionally evident in the images of interior spaces from 1994, but these prints yield little narrative information.

A single photograph in the gallery, Ground #52, presents the central subject, the top of a sofa, in clear focus. Displayed amid prints that make use of blur, this work suggests that crisp detail invites quick glances, while images that are more difficult to understand slow the viewer down. By removing the traditional subject, the artist creates photographs that are more atmospheric than descriptive, encouraging us to consider the very act of looking.

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) 'Ground #30' 1994

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
Ground #30
1994
Chromogenic print
55.7 x 45.6cm
Collection Lannan Foundation
© Uta Barth

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) 'Ground #41' 1994

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
Ground #41
1994
Chromogenic print
Mount: 28.6 x 26.7 x 4.8cm
Burt and Jane Berman
© Uta Barth

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) 'Ground #42' 1994

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
Ground #42
1994
Chromogenic print
Mount: 28.6 x 26.7 x 4.8cm
The Eileen Harris Norton Collection
© Uta Barth

 

 

“For an in-depth discussion of the phenomenological aspects of Barth’s work, see Pamela M. Lee’s “Uta Barth and the Medium of Perception,” in Pamela lee, Matthew Higgs, and Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, eds., Uta Barth (London: Phaidon Press, 2004), 36-97.”

Audrey Mandelbaum. “Uta Barth: …to walk without destination and see only to see,” on the X_TRA website Winter 2010 Volume 13 Number 2

 

phenomenological meaning:

relating to the science of phenomena as distinct from that of the nature of being.
denoting or relating to an approach that concentrates on the study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience.

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) 'Ground #44' 1994

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
Ground #44
1994
Chromogenic print
99.7 x 121.9cm
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Purchase with funds provided by Nancy Escher, Nowell J. Karten, Tom Peters, Pieter Jan Brugge and Anna Boorstin, Janice Miyahira and Duff Murphy, Joe Rosenberg, Bernard and Peggy Lewak, Patricia Marshall and an anonymous donor
© Uta Barth

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) 'Ground #58' 1994

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
Ground #58
1994
Pigment print
24.1 x 30.5 x 4.4cm
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Uta Barth

 

 

Field

1995-1996

In the 1990s Barth deliberately blurred the focus of her camera to create images that destabilise the viewer’s expectation of a photograph.

The atmospheric urban scenes depicted in the Field series relate to film production stills like those used in storyboards. Barth has likened the works to location scouting, an activity closely associated with Los Angeles and the film industry. Rather than literal descriptions of specific places, these photographs are suggestive of a mood.

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) 'Field #8' 1995

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
Field #8
1995
Chromogenic print
58.5 x 73cm
Magasin III Museum for Contemporary Art, Stockholm
© Uta Barth

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) 'Field #9' 1995

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
Field #9
1995
Chromogenic print
58.4 x 73cm
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Gift of Councilman Joel Wachs
© Uta Barth

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) 'Field #19' 1996

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
Field #19
1996
Chromogenic print
58.5 x 73cm
Magasin III Museum for Contemporary Art, Stockholm
© Uta Barth

 

 

……………………in passing.”,

1995-1997

In the mid-1990s Barth made ……………………in passing.”, a portfolio of images torn from magazines that she cropped to isolate out-of-focus backgrounds, thereby pushing the figures to the edges of the frame. The results highlight backgrounds containing little discernible information, emphasising the importance of details along the periphery.

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) '........................in passing.”,' 1995-1997

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
……………………in passing.”,
1995-1997
Lithographs
Sheet (each): 32.4 x 28.6cm
Collection UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, Hammer Museum
Gift of Randall and Jennifer Green
© Uta Barth

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) '...............................in passing."' 1995-1997

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
………………………….in passing.”,
1995-1997
Lithograph
Sheet (each): 32.4 x 28.6cm
Collection UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, Hammer Museum
Gift of Randall and Jennifer Green
© Uta Barth

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) '...............................in passing."' 1995-1997

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
………………………….in passing.”,
1995-1997
Lithograph
Sheet (each): 32.4 x 28.6cm
Collection UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, Hammer Museum
Gift of Randall and Jennifer Green
© Uta Barth

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) '...............................in passing."' 1995-1997

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
………………………….in passing.”,
1995-1997
Lithograph
Sheet (each): 32.4 x 28.6cm
Collection UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, Hammer Museum
Gift of Randall and Jennifer Green
© Uta Barth

 

 

Untitled

1998

The untitled diptychs present an almost stereoscopic view of outdoor spaces. In this series Barth sought for the first time to render a delayed visual reaction through sequential images. The works represent the moment when we passively perceive the world and catch sight of a detail that briefly holds our interest, compelling us to look again. Barth’s second image, made minutes or even hours later, is never the same as the first.

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) 'Untitled (98.2)' 1998

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
Untitled (98.2)
1998
Chromogenic prints
Image each: 114.3 x 144.8cm
Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel
© Uta Barth

 

 

…and of time

2000

In 2000 the Getty Museum invited eleven artists to create works in response to art in the collection. Barth found inspiration in Claude Monet’s Wheatstacks, Snow Effect, Morning, 1891, a painting that demonstrates the role of light in altering the perception and appreciation of a subject. In a series of multipart photographs, she examined the daylight streaming through her living room window, producing variations on the scene of a sparsely appointed interior bathed in warm, soft light. The series underscores how prolonged observation, especially of our immediate surroundings, prompts a nuanced understanding of the mundane.

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) '...and of time (aot 2)' 2000

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
…and of time (aot 2)
2000
Chromogenic prints
Image (each): 89.5 x 112.4cm
Collection Buffalo AKG Art Museum
Norman E. Boasberg Art Fund, 2001
© Uta Barth

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958) '...and of time (aot 4)' 2000

 

Uta Barth (German, b. 1958)
…and of time (aot 4)
2000