Dr Marcus Bunyan

Review: ‘Heavenly Vaults’ by David Stephenson at John Buckley Gallery, Richmond

Exhibition dates: 7th – 28th November, 2009

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955) 'Nave, Laon Cathedral, Laon, France' 2006/07 from the exhibition 'Heavenly Vaults' by David Stephenson at John Buckley Gallery, Richmond, Nov 2009

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955)
Nave, Laon Cathedral, Laon, France
2006/2007

I remember many years ago, in the mid-1990’s, seeing the wonderful Domes of David Stephenson displayed in Flinders Lane in what is now fortfivedownstairs gallery. They were a revelation in this light filled space, row upon row of luminous domes seemingly lit from within, filled with the sense of the presence of divinity. On the opposite wall of the gallery were row upon row of photographs of Italian graves depicting the ceramic photographic markers of Italian dead – markers of the impermanence of life. The doubled death (the representation of identity on the grave, the momento mori of the photograph) slipped quietly into the earth while opposite the domes ascended into heaven through their numinous elevation. The contrast was sublime.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the latest exhibition Heavenly Vaults by David Stephenson at John Buckley Gallery, Richmond.

The problems start with the installation of the exhibition. As you walk into the gallery the 26 Cibachrome photographs are divided symmetrically down the axis of the gallery so that the prints reflect each other at both ends and each side of the gallery. It is like walking down the nave of a cathedral and observing the architectural restraint of the stained glass windows without their illumination. Instead of the punctum of light flooding through the stained glass windows, the varying of intensities, the equanimity of the square prints all exactly the same size, all reflecting the position of the other makes for a pedestrian installation. Some varying of the print size and placement would have added much life and movement to a static ensemble.

Another element that needed work were the prints themselves which, with a few notable exceptions, seemed remarkably dull and lifeless (unlike their digital reproductions which, paradoxically, seem to have more life!). They fail to adequately represent the aspirations of the vaults as they soar effortlessly overhead transposing the earth bound into the heaven sent. In the earlier work on the domes (which can be found in the book Visions of Heaven: The Dome in European Architecture) the symmetry of the mandala-like domes with their light-filled inner illumination worked well with the square format of the images making the photographs stand as equivalents for something else, other ineffable states of being.

“The power of the equivalent, so far as the expressive-creative photographer is concerned, lies in the fact that he can convey and evoke feelings about things and situations and events which for some reason or other are not or can not be photographed. The secret, the catch and the power lies in being able to use the forms and shapes of objects in front of the camera for their expressive-evocative qualities. Or to say this in another way, in practice Equivalency is the ability to use the visual world as the plastic material for the photographer’s expressive purposes. He may wish to employ the recording power of the medium, it is strong in photography, and document. Or he may wish to emphasize its transforming power, which is equally strong, and cause the subject to stand for something else too.”1

As Minor White further observes,

“When the image mirrors the man
And the man mirrors the subject
Something might take over”2

When the distance between object and image and image and viewer collapses then something else may be revealed: Spirit.

In this exhibition some of the singular images such as the Crossings, Choirs and Nave of the Church of Santa Maria, Hieronymite Monastery, Belém, Portugal (see photograph below) work best to achieve this revelation. They transcend the groundedness of the earthly plane through their inner ethereal light using a reductive colour palette and strong highlight/shadow detail. Conversely the diptychs and triptychs of Nave and Choir (see photographs below and above) fail to impress. The singular prints pinned to the gallery wall are joined together to form pairs and trios but in this process the ‘space between’ the prints (mainly white photographic paper), the breathing space between two or more photographs that balances their disparate elements, the distance that Minor White calls ‘ice / fire’, does not work. There is no tension, no crackle, no visual crossover of the arches and vaults, spandrels and flutes. Here it is dead space that drags all down with it.

I found myself observing without engagement, looking without wonder or feeling – never a good sign!

The photographs of Domes and Vaults have served David Stephenson well for numerous years but the concept has become tired, the inspiration in need of refreshment through other avenues of exploration – both physical and spiritual.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ White, Minor. “Equivalence: The Perennial Trend,” in PSA Journal, Vol. 29, No. 7, pp. 17-21, 1963 [Online] Cited 08/05/2019

2/ White, Minor. “Three Canons,” from Mirrors, Messages, Manifestations. Viking Press, 1969

Many thankx to Daniel and John Buckley Gallery for allowing me to reproduce the photographs from the exhibition. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955) 'Choir, Laon Cathedral, Laon, France' 2006/07 from the exhibition 'Heavenly Vaults' by David Stephenson at John Buckley Gallery, Richmond, Nov 2009

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955)
Choir, Laon Cathedral, Laon, France
2006/2007

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955) 'St. Hugh’s Choir, Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln, England' 2006/07 from the exhibition 'Heavenly Vaults' by David Stephenson at John Buckley Gallery, Richmond, Nov 2009

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955)
St. Hugh’s Choir, Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln, England
2006/2007

Installation view of Heavenly Vaults by David Stephenson at John Buckley Gallery, Richmond
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955) 'Nave, Cathedral of St. Barbara, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic' 2008/09

David Stephenson (Australian born America 1955)
Nave, Cathedral of St. Barbara, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic
2008/2009

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955) 'Choir, Cathedral of St. Barbara, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic' 2008/09

David Stephenson (Australian born America 1955)
Choir, Cathedral of St. Barbara, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic
2008/2009

“While the subject of my photographs has shifted… my art has remained essentially spiritual – furthermore than two decades I have been exploring a contemporary expression of the sublime – a transcendental experience of awe with the vast space and time of existence.”

David Stephenson

Internationally renowned photographer David Stephenson has dedicated his practice to capturing the sublime in nature and architecture. Fresh from a successful exhibition at Julie Saul Gallery in New York, Stephenson returns to John Buckley Gallery for his third highly anticipated exhibition Heavenly Vaults. The exhibition will feature 26 selected prints from his latest monograph published by Princeton Architectural Press; Heavenly Vaults: From Romanesque to Gothic in European Architecture. Shaun Lakin, Director of the Monash Gallery of Art, will launch the book and exhibition at the opening, November 7th.

Stephenson began to photograph Gothic vaults in Spain and Portugal in 2003, while completing the work for his Domes project, and his first monograph Visions of Heaven: the Dome in European Architecture. He began to focus on the Vaults project in 2006, photographing Gothic churches and cathedrals in England, Belgium and France. With the assistance of an Australia Council Artist Fellowship in 2008-2009, Stephenson completed extensive fieldwork for the Vaults project, intensively photographing Romanesque and Gothic architecture in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Germany. The exhibition at John Buckley Gallery coincides with the launch of his second monograph, Heavenly Vaults: from Romanesque to Gothic in European Architecture, published by Princeton Architectural Press, New York.

Even though the traditional systems the underpinned church architecture have lost their unequivocal power, David Stephenson’s photographs capture the resonance of those times. More importantly his work also suggest that the feelings of aspiration, transcendence, and infinity these buildings evoke in the viewer have an ongoing relevance beyond the religious setting and help us understand who and what we are.

Excerpt from Foreword, Heavenly Vaults, by Dr Isobel Crombie 2009

David Stephenson’s new book of photography is a love letter to the intricate, seemingly sui generis vaults of Europe’s Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals and churches.

Press release from the John Buckley website [Online] Cited 11/11/2009 no longer available online

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955) 'Nave, Church of Santa Maria, Hieronymite Monastery, Belém, Portugal' 2008/09

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955)
Nave, Church of Santa Maria, Hieronymite Monastery, Belém, Portugal
2008/2009

‘While the subject of my photographs has shifted from the landscapes of the American Southwest and Tasmania, and the minimal horizons of the Southern Ocean, and the icy wastes of Antarctica, to sacred architecture and the sky at both day and night, my art has remained essentially spiritual – for more than two decades I have been exploring a contemporary expression of the sublime – a transcendental experience of awe with the vast space and time of existence.’

David Stephenson 1998.1

With poetic symmetry the Domes series considers analogous ideas. It is a body of work which has been ongoing since 1993 and now numbers several hundred images of domes in countries including Italy, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, England, Germany and Russia. The typological character of the series reveals the shifting history in architectural design, geometry and space across cultures and time, demonstrating how humankind has continually sought meaning by building ornate structures which reference a sacred realm.2 Stephenson photographs the oculus – the eye in the centre of each cupola. Regardless of religion, time or place, this entry to the heavens – each with unique architectural and decorative surround – is presented as an immaculate and enduring image. Placed together, the photographs impart the infinite variations of a single obsession, while also charting the passage of history, and time immemorial.

1. Van Wyk, S. 1998. “Sublime space: photographs by David Stephenson 1989-1998,” National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne np
2. Hammond, V. 2005. “The dome in European architecture,” in Stephenson, D. 2005, Visions of heaven: the dome in European architecture, Princeton Architectural Press, New York p. 190

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955) 'Choir, King's College Chapel, Cambridge, England' 2006/07

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955)
Choir, King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, England
2006/2007

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955) 'Crossing, York Minster, York, England' 2006/07

David Stephenson (Australian born America, b. 1955)
Crossing, York Minster, York, England
2006/2007

John Buckley Gallery

This gallery is now closed.

LIKE ART BLART ON FACEBOOK

Back to top

Exhibition: ‘Twilight Visions: Surrealism, Photography, and Paris’ at the Frist Art Museum, Nashville, Tennessee

Exhibition dates: 10th September, 2009 – 3rd January, 2010

André Kertész (Hungarian, 1894-1985) 'Eiffel Tower, Summer Storm' 1927 from the exhibition 'Twilight Visions: Surrealism, Photography, and Paris' at the Frist Art Museum, Sept 2009 - Jan 2010

Andre Kertesz (Hungary, 1894-1985)
Eiffel Tower, Summer Storm
1927
Gelatin silver print

Atget, one of my all time favourite photographers; Paris, a city that stirs the heart – what more can one ask!

Many thankx to the Frist Museum of Art (formerly the Frist Center for the Visual Arts) for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Ilse Bing (German, 1899-1998) 'French Can Can Dancers, Moulin Rouge' 1931 from the exhibition 'Twilight Visions: Surrealism, Photography, and Paris' at the Frist Art Museum, Sept 2009 - Jan 2010

Ilse Bing (German, 1899-1998)
French Can Can Dancers, Moulin Rouge
1931
Gelatin silver print

Andre Kertesz (Hungary, 1894-1985) 'Eiffel Tower, Paris' 1929 André Kertész (Hungarian, 1894-1985) 'Eiffel Tower, Summer Storm' 1927 from the exhibition 'Twilight Visions: Surrealism, Photography, and Paris' at the Frist Art Museum, Sept 2009 - Jan 2010

Andre Kertesz (Hungary, 1894-1985)
Eiffel Tower, Paris
1929
Gelatin silver print

The Frist Center for the Visual Arts [now the Frist Museum of Art] will present Twilight Visions: Surrealism, Photography, and Paris, opening Sept. 10, 2009, in the Upper-Level Galleries. The show, which offers a unique perspective on Surrealism by examining the intersection of documentary photography, manipulated photography and film, will be on exhibition through Jan. 3, 2010, when it will travel to the International Center of Photography in New York followed by the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, Ga.

Guest Curator Therese Lichtenstein, Ph.D., New York-based art historian and photography scholar, has organised the exhibition, working with Frist Center Curator Katie Delmez.

The exhibition of more than 150 works, which features a preponderance of photographs but also includes films, books and period ephemera, explores the city of Paris as the literal and metaphoric base of Surrealism in the wake of the World War I. It was believed by the Surrealists that unconscious dreams, chance encounters and actions and automatism freed “pure thought,“ from all constraints imposed by conscious thought, reason or morals.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Frist Center will partner with Nashville’s Belcourt Theatre and Vanderbilt University’s International Lens and the school’s French and film departments to present a Surrealism film series which will include the classic Un Chien Andalou (The Andalusian Dog) directed by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí and several other rarely screened period films.

Paris was a hotbed of creative activity at the dawn of the 20th century, attracting artists and writers to its vibrant and wildly fertile art scene. Numerous galleries flourished during this period, fuelling the immigration of many of the world’s most talented artists. During the 1920s and 1930s, a number of photographers associated with Surrealism, including Man Ray, Brassaï, André Kertész, Ilse Bing and Germaine Krull, turned their lenses on the city of Paris with its dance halls, cafés and characters. These seemingly ordinary people and places not only had social histories but also became psychologically charged “found objects.“ In exploring the city’s commonplace as well as its monuments, these photographers used unusual viewpoints, manipulative lighting techniques and innovative technical processes to expose and examine “the marvellous“ in the everyday.

As Dr Lichtenstein writes, “The images in Twilight Visions form a collection of views of various urban spaces, filled with cultural artefacts. The viewer is invited to slowly contemplate the city – its architecture, its monuments, its public spaces and its denizens – as an ephemeral ruin, at once both of the past and the present.”

The Exhibition

Twilight Visions comprises five sections: images of the city at night and in the day, the transformation of well-known public monuments, the influence of Eugène Atget on the Surrealists; Parisian nightlife after hours and surreal figures.

The first section, “Marvellous Encounters”, includes photographs of city streets, shop windows, ordinary people and found objects that invite viewers to discover “the marvellous“ in common objects and familiar places. Many of the works in this section look both familiar and strange, as subjects were photographed from unexpected angles, using dim lighting, soft focus and abstracted views to create dreamlike images. Among the works in this section are photographs by Brassaï, Man Ray, Ilse Bing, André Kertész, Germaine Krull, Dora Maar and Joseph Breitenbach.

The second section of the exhibition, entitled “Photography’s Transformation of the Monument”, looks at the monuments of Paris, particularly the Eiffel Tower, to examine the ways they shape connections to past and future. Included in this section are works by André Kertész, Ilse Bing, Germaine Krull and Man Ray. The Eiffel Tower, constructed from 1887-1889, was designed to serve as the entry to the Paris World’s Fair commemorating the centennial anniversary of the French Revolution. The skeletal iron structure also was designed to be a radio transmitter and a beacon for commercial advertisements in the form of illuminated signs. In 1931 Man Ray created a series of photographs that were reproduced in a portfolio by the Paris Electric Company for an advertising booklet called Èlectricité, which was used to promote personal use of electricity. That same year, he photographed the tower at night and used the image as the basis for La Ville (The City, 1931 – see photograph below), a multiple-exposure print and one of the images used in Èlectricité. The Eiffel Tower, built as a utilitarian homage to the past, is transformed. The magic of electricity makes the tower visible at night, but in so doing, renders it unstable and non-architectural. Ray’s photograph turns the magnificent Eiffel Tower into indecipherable electrified text. In addition to Man Ray’s work, there are photographs by Ilse Bing, Georges Hugnet, André Kertész, Germaine Krull, Raoul Ubac and various postcards of the city that interrupt traditional heroic views of the monument.

Section three, entitled “Looking at Atget”, examines the powerful work of Eugène Atget, a photographer who was “discovered“ in the 1920s by Man Ray. Following a stint as a sailor, a brief career as an actor and an attempt at becoming a painter, he turned to photography. Working quietly and modestly, Atget documented the loss of “old“ Parisian culture after the turn of the 20th century. But in so doing, his “poetry of the everyday“ also became a personal expression of nostalgia for the world that was disappearing before his lens. His work was straightforward yet magical. Works include Pont Neuf (1902-1903), The Wine Seller, 15 Rue Boyer (c. 1910) and Boulevard de Strasbourg (1926) (see photographs above).

Section four, “Portraits After Hours”, explores the Bohemian avant-garde culture of Paris. In the 1920s and 1930s, the cafés and cabarets of Montparnasse and Montmartre were a part of the transition to modernity taking place in the city. The antibourgeois, often seedy places that were the comfortable haunts of Parisian artists and intellectuals were becoming tourist destinations … fetishised places of fantasy and desire. As these locales metamorphosed into tourist sites where “regular“ folk could rub elbows with Parisian characters, increasingly, these locales became stage sets where the “actors“ relived the past for the cameras of the tourists. Ilse Bing’s photographs of Cancan dancers at the famed Moulin-Rouge capture the colour, flourish, nostalgia and exhilaration of the dance (see photographs above). Photographers represented in section four include: James Abbe, Ilse Bing, Brassaï and Man Ray.

“Mutable Mirrors”, the fifth section of the exhibition, investigates the subject of shifting identities that was a part of the Surrealists’ desire to alter consciousness and transform concepts of personal, social and group identity. Issues of gender and sexuality and the roles of masquerade and play are examined in the works of Lee Miller, Nusch Eluard, Dora Maar, Claude Cahun, Raoul Ubac, Hans Bellmer, Georges Hugnet, André Kertész, Man Ray and Brassaï who experimented with techniques of doubling, distorting, multiplying and fragmenting their images. Included in this section are André Kertesz’s Distortions (1933) a series of photographs of nude women reflected in distorting mirrors that transform them into dreamlike creatures (see photographs below). The series was commissioned by the editor of the Parisian humour magazine, Le Sourire (The Smile).

Text from the Frist Museum of Art (formerly the Frist Center for the Visual Arts) website [Online] Cited 11/11/2009. No longer available online

Man Ray (American, 1890-1976)
The City (Èlectricité – La Ville)
1931
Photogravure
© Man Ray Trust ARS-ADAGP

Germaine Krull (Dutch born Germany, 1897-1985)
La Tour Eiffel (The Eiffel Tower)
c. 1928
Gelatin silver print
9 1/8 x 6 1/6 in.
Collection of the Sack Photographic Trust of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
© Estate Germaine Krull, Museum Folkwang, Essen

Ilse Bing (German, 1899-1998)
Danseusue-Cancan, Moulin Rouge, Paris
1931
Gelatin silver print
14 in x 11 in
Zabriskie Gallery
© Ilse Bing Estate/Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
The Wine Seller, 15 Rue Boyer
1910-1911
Gelatin-silver print (printed by Berenice Abbott)
Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA.

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Boulevard de Strasbourg
1926
Albumen print

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Rue du Figuier
1924
Albumen print
9 x 7 in.
Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. by Exchange, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA.

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927) 'Pont-Neuf' 1902-1903

Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
Pont-Neuf
1902-03
Albumen print
8 7/8 x 7″ (22.6 x 17.8cm)

Andre Kertesz (Hungary, 1894-1985)
Distortion 144, Paris
1933
Gelatin silver print

Andre Kertesz (Hungary, 1894-1985)
Distortion 147, Paris
1933
Gelatin silver print

The Distortions were made with a glass plate view camera and Kertesz used two particular female models for the series, Najinskaya Verackhatz and Nadia Kasine. Kertesz began this surrealist experimentation with mirrors in the late 1920’s with most of the exhibited images being attributed to 1932-33. The series was first exhibited in Paris in 1932 causing a sensation that helped catapult Kertesz to international fame in the art world. In 1936 they were exhibited in New York at the Museum Of Modern Art, again causing a furore. Kertesz had “fun house” mirrors installed in his studio to experiment and create the landmark series.

By the 1960’s the entire series of original glass plate negatives was thought to be permanently lost due to deterioration and oxidation. In the early 1970’s a highly trained restoration specialist was employed to salvage these innovative pieces of art history. Using a newly discovered technique for removing oxidation, he meticulously and painstakingly laboured on the plates until this masterpiece collection was perfectly restored to its original beauty…

Andre Kertesz (Hungary, 1894-1985)
Distortion 38, Paris
1933
Gelatin silver print

Andre Kertesz (Hungary, 1894-1985)
Distortion 40, Paris
1933
Gelatin silver print

Frist Art Museum
919 Broadway, Nashville, Tennessee, 37203

Opening hours:
Monday, Friday, Saturday: 10.00am – 5.30pm
Thursday: 10.00am – 8.00pm
Sunday: 1.00 – 5.30 pm

Frist Art Museum website

LIKE ART BLART ON FACEBOOK

Back to top

Review: ‘Unforced Intimacies’ by Patricia Piccinini at Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 22nd October – 21st November 2009

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965) 'The Strength of one Hand (With Canadian Mountain Goat)' 2009 from the exhibition 'Unforced Intimacies' by Patricia Piccinini at Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, Oct - Nov, 2009

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
The Strength of one Hand (With Canadian Mountain Goat)
2009
Silicone, fibreglass, human hair, clothing, Canadian Mountain Goat

We are the clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly! – yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost forever:

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.

We rest. – A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise. – One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond foe, or cast our cares away:

It is the same! – For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.

Mutability by Percy Bysshe Shelley

When human imagination takes flight, as it does in this exhibition, the results are superlative. Piccinini is at the height of her powers as an artist, in full control of the conceptual ideas, their presentation and the effect that they have on the viewer. Witty, funny, thought-provoking and at times a little scary Piccinini’s exhibition (paradoxically entitled Unforced Intimacies) is an act of revelatio: the pulling aside of the genetic curtain to see what lies beneath.

Featuring hyperrealist genetically modified creatures and human child figures Piccinini’s sculptures, drawings and video seem passionately alive in their verisimilitude (unlike Ricky Swallow’s resplendently dead relics at the NGV). In The Strength of one Hand (With Canadian Mountain Goat), the title perhaps a play on the traditional Zen koan The Sound of One Hand Clapping, a meditation on the nature of inner compassion, a walrus-child balances on one hand on the back of a Canadian Mountain Goat. The walrus-child has extended eyes, a voluminous lower lip with whiskers under the nose; the hyperreality of the hand on the back of the goat makes it seem like the hand will come alive! A mane of hair flows down the walrus-child’s back to feet that are conjoined – like an articulated merman – ending not in flippers but in toes complete with dirty, cracked and broken nails. Here the natural athleticism of the mountain goat, now dead and stuffed, is surmounted by the mutated walrus-child’s natural athleticism, poignantly suspended like an exclamation mark above the in-animate pommel horse.

In Balasana (The Child’s Pose) a child reposes in the yoga position on a tribal rug. Balanced on top of the child is a stuffed Red-necked Wallaby that perfectly inverts the concave of the child’s back, it’s front feet curled over while it’s rear feet are splayed. The luminosity of the skin of the child is incredible – such a technical feat to achieve this realism – that you are drawn to intimately examine the child’s face and hands. The purpose of The Child’s Pose in yoga is that it literally reminds us of our time as an infant and revives in us rather vivid memories of lying in this position. It also reminds us to cultivate our inner innocence so that we in turn may see the world without judgement or criticism. The paradoxes of the ‘unforced’ intimacy between the child and the wallaby can be read with this conceptualisation ‘in mind’.

With The Bottom Feeder (2009) Piccinini’s imagination soars to new heights. With the shoulders of a human, the legs and forearms of what seems like a marsupial, the lowered head of a newt with intense staring blue eye (see photograph above), luminescent freckled skin covered in hair and a rear end that consists of both male and female genitalia that forms a ‘face’, the hermaphroditic bottom feeder is a frighteningly surreal visage. Inevitably the viewer is drawn to the exposed rump through a seemingly unforced interactivity, examining the folds and flaps of the labia and the hanging scrotum of this succulent feeder. Here Piccinini draws on psychoanalysis and Lacan’s theory of the mirror stage in a child’s development – where the child wants to merge with the mother to erase the self / other split by fulfilling the mother’s desire by having sex with her – thus erasing the mother’s lack, the idea of lack represented by the lack of a penis.1

As Jean Baudrillard notes of the mass of bodies on Brazil’s Copacabana beach, “Thousands of bodies everywhere. In fact, just one body, a single immense ramified mass of flesh, all sexes merged. A single, shameless expanded human polyp, a single organism, in which all collude like the sperm in seminal fluid … The sexual act is permanent, but not in the sense of Nordic eroticism: it is the epidermal promiscuity, the confusion of bodies, lips, buttocks, hips – a single fractal entity disseminated beneath the membrane of the sun.”2

An so it is here, all sexes merged within the anthropomorphised body of The Bottom Feeder, a body that challenges and subverts human perceptions of the form and sexuality of animals (including ourselves) that inhabit the world.

In Doubting Thomas (2008), my favourite piece in the exhibition, a skeptical child with pale and luminous skin is about to put his hand inside the mouth of a genetically modified mole like creature that has reared it’s hairy snout to reveal a luscious, fluid-filled mouth replete with suckers and teeth. You want to shout ‘No, don’t go there!’ as the child’s absent mother has probably already warned him – to no avail. Children only learn through experience, I suspect in this case a nasty one.

The terrains the Piccinini interrogates (nature and artifice, biogenetics, cloning, stem cell research, consumer culture) are a rematerialisation of the actual world through morphological ‘mapping’ onto the genomes of the future. Morphogenetic fields3 seem to surround the work with an intense aura; surrounded by this aura the animals and children become more spiritual in their silence. Experiencing this new world promotes an evolution in the way in which we conceive the future possibilities of life on this earth, this brave but mutably surreal new world.

This is truly one of the best exhibitions of the year in Melbourne.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Klages, M. Jacques Lacan. Boulder: University of Colorado, 2001 [Online] Cited 09/10/2009 no longer available online

2/ Baudrillard, Jean. Fragments: Cool Memories III, 1990-1995. London: Verso, 1997, p. 74

3/ “A morphogenetic field is a group of cells able to respond to discrete, localised biochemical signals leading to the development of specific morphological structures or organs.” Morphogenetic field definition on Wikipedia [Online] Cited 05/05/2019

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
The Strength of one Hand (With Canadian Mountain Goat)
2009
Silicone, fibreglass, human hair, clothing, Canadian Mountain Goat

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965) 'The Strength of one Hand (With Canadian Mountain Goat)' 2009 (detail) from the exhibition 'Unforced Intimacies' by Patricia Piccinini at Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, Oct - Nov, 2009

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
The Strength of one Hand (With Canadian Mountain Goat) (detail)
2009
Silicone, fibreglass, human hair, clothing, Canadian Mountain Goat

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
The Bottom Feeder
2009
Silicone, fibreglass, steel, fox fur

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965) 'The Bottom Feeder' 2009 (detail)

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
The Bottom Feeder (detail)
2009
Silicone, fibreglass, steel, fox fur

Exploring concepts of what is “natural” in the digital age, Patricia Piccinini brings a deeply personal perspective to her work.

Rachel Kent notes: “Since the early 1990s, Piccinini has pursued an interest in the human form and its potential for manipulation and enhancement through bio-technical intervention. From the mapping of the human genome to the growth of human tissue and organs from stem cells, Piccinini’s art charts a terrain in which scientific progress and ethical questions are intertwined.”

Text from the Tolarno Galleries website [Online] Cited 05/05/2019 no longer available online

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
Doubting Thomas
2008
Silicone, fibreglass, human hair, clothing, chair

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965) 'Doubting Thomas' 2008 (detail)

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
Doubting Thomas (detail)
2008

“Time and again my work returns to children, and their ambiguous relationships with the (only just) imaginary animals that I create. Children embody a number of the key issues in my work. Obviously they directly express the idea of genetics – both natural and artificial – but beyond that they also imply the responsibilities that a creator has to their creations. The innocence and vulnerability of children is powerfully emotive and evokes empathy – their presence softens the hardness of some of the more difficult ideas, but it can also elevate the anxiety level.”

Patricia Piccinini quoted on the Kaldor Public Art Projects website [Online] Cited 05/11/2009 no longer available online

“I am interested in the way that contemporary biotechnology and even philosophy erode the traditional boundaries between the artificial and the natural, as well as between species and even the basic distinctions between animal and human.”

Patricia Piccinini quoted in Sarah Hetherington. “Patricia Piccinini: Related Individuals,” on the Artlink website [Online] Cited 05/05/2019. No longer available online

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965) 'Balasana' 2009 (detail)

Patricia Piccinini (Australian, b. 1965)
Balasana
Silicone, fibreglass, human hair, clothing, Red-necked Wallaby, rug
2009

Tolarno Galleries
Level 4, 104 Exhibition Street,
Melbourne, Vic, 3000
Phone: +61 3 9654 6000

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Friday 10am – 5pm
Saturday 1 – 5pm

Tolarno Galleries website

LIKE ART BLART ON FACEBOOK

Back to top

Exhibition: ‘Thomas Demand in Berlin’ at the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin

Exhibition dates: 18th September, 2009 – 17th January, 2010

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Diving Board (Sprungturm)
1994
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

“It’s not about the real place,” Demand has said. “It’s much more about what we have seen as the real place.”

All photographs in the posting appear in the exhibition.

A review of the catalogue that accompanied the exhibition can be found on the 5B4: Photographs and Books blog.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Brennerautobahn' 1994 from the exhibition 'Thomas Demand in Berlin' at the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Sept 2009 - Jan 2010

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Brennerautobahn
1994
C-Print/ Diasec
150 x 118 cm
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Tavern IV' 2006 Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Brennerautobahn' 1994 from the exhibition 'Thomas Demand in Berlin' at the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Sept 2009 - Jan 2010

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Klause IV / Tavern IV
2006
C-Print / Diasec
103 x 68 cm
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Bathroom' 1997

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Badezimmer / Bathroom
1997
C-Print / Diasec
160 x 122 cm
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Treppenhaus / Staircase
1995
C-Print/ Diasec
150 x 118 cm
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

The Nationalgalerie presents Thomas Demand’s show National Gallery Berlin. From September 18, 2009, the Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin devotes a comprehensive solo show to one of the internationally most influential artists of our time: Thomas Demand. It is so far the largest presentation of his work in this country. However, the exhibition National Gallery is not designed as an overall retrospective but it is firmly dedicated to only one subject, which is perhaps the most important in Demand’s multi-facetted oeuvre: Germany.

Living in Berlin since 1996 Thomas Demand is an artist known for his large-format photographs, which explore the blank domain between reality and the ways it is being represented. He is undoubtedly regarded as one of the most renowned artists of his generation. Using paper and cardboard he builds three-dimensional, usually life-size models of places which often make references to pictures found in the mass media. By taking photographs of the scenery created in this way, he produces artefacts of a kind of their own which play with the beholder’s ideas of fiction and reality.

Until January, 17, 2010, about 40 works by the artist will be on display in the glass hall of the Neue Nationalgalerie built by Mies van der Rohe. There is hardly a location which is more suitable to convey to the beholder the panorama of a nation’s history than the large glass hall of the Neue Nationalgalerie, which is not only regarded as an incunabulum of post-war architecture but also as a symbol for the self-image of the Federal Republic of Germany at the former border between East and West. The exceptional exhibition architecture of the firm, Caruso St. John, London, forms an ideal link between Demand’s works and Mies van der Rohe’s bright hall.

Each picture shown in the exhibition is accompanied by a specific caption written by Botho Strauß which does not so much explain or define Demand’s work but rather creates a space between the pictures and the texts to allow new versions of interpretation.

Text from the New National Gallery website [Online] Cited 01/11/2009 no longer available online

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Copyshop
1999
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Drafting Room
1996
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Laboratory (77-E-217)
2000
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Haltestelle
2009
C-Print / Diasec, 240 x 330 cm
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2009

List of works that appear in the exhibition:

Archiv / Archive, 1995, C-Print/ Diasec, 183,5 x 233 cm
Attempt, 2005, C-Print/ Diasec, 166 x 190 cm
Badezimmer / Bathroom, 1997, C-Print/ Diasec, 160 x 122 cm
Balkone / Balconies, 1997, C-Print/ Diasec, 150 x 128 cm
Brennerautobahn, 1994, C-Print/ Diasec, 150 x 118 cm
Büro / Office, 1995, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 240 cm
Campingtisch / Camping Table, 1999, C-Print/ Diasec, 85 x 58 cm
Copyshop, 1999, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 300 cm
Drei Garagen / Three Garages, 1995, C-Print/ Diasec, 108 x 223 cm
Fabrik (ohne Namen), 1994, C-Print/ Diasec, 120 x 185 cm
Fassade / Facade, 2004, C-Print/ Diasec, 178 x 250 cm
Fenster / Window, 1998, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 286 cm
Fotoecke, 2009, C-Print/ Diasec, 180 x 198 cm
Gangway, 2001, C-Print/ Diasec, 225 x 180 cm
Grube / Pit, 1999, C-Print/ Diasec, 229 x 167 cm
Haltestelle, 2009, C-Print/Diasec, 240 x 330 cm
Heldenorgel, 2009, C-Print/Diasec, 240 x 380 cm
Hinterhaus, 2005, C-Print/ framed, 26.9 x 21.5 cm
Kabine, 2002, C-Print/ Diasec, 180 x 254 cm
Kinderzimmer /Nursery, 2009, C-Print/Diasec, 140 x 230 cm
Klause 1 / Tavern, 2006, C-Print/ Diasec, 275 x 170 cm
Klause 2 / Tavern, 2006, C-Print/ Diasec, 178 x 244 cm
Klause 3 / Tavern, 2006, C-Print/ Diasec, 199 x 258 cm
Klause 4 / Tavern, 2006, C-Print/ Diasec, 103 x 68 cm
Klause 5 / Tavern, 2006, C-Print/ Diasec, 197 x 137 cm
Labor (77-E-217), 2000, C-Print/ Diasec, 180 x 268 cm
Lichtung / Clearing, 2003, C-Print/ Diasec, 192 x 495 cm
Modell / Model, 2000, C-Print/ Diasec, 164,5 x 210 cm
Paneel / Peg Board, 1996, C-Print/ Diasec, 160 x 121 cm
Parlament / Parliament, 2009, C-Print/ Diasec, 180 x 223 cm
Raum / Room, 1994, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 270 cm
Sprungturm / Diving Board, 1994, C-Print/ Diasec, 150 x 118 cm
Spüle / Sink, 1997, C-Print/ Diasec, 52 x 56.5 cm
Studio, 1997, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 349.5 cm
Rasen / Lawn, 1998, C-Print/ Diasec, 122 x 170 cm
Terrasse / Terrace, 1998, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 268 cm
Treppenhaus / Staircase, 1995, C-Print/ Diasec, 150 x 118 cm
Wand /Mural, 1999, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 270 cm
Zeichensaal / Drafting Room, 1996, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 285 cm

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Sink
1997
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Tavern 3
2006
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Demand’s work is based on pre-existing images from the media, often of sites of political or cultural interest. He translates these images into life-size models using paper and cardboard, and photographs the resulting tableaux. These five photographs [of which the above is just one] depict a tavern in the German village of Burbach where a young boy was kidnapped, held hostage and ultimately murdered in 2001. His body was never recovered. The case was covered extensively in the German press, and images of the tavern became imbued with the public’s horrified imagination of the crime. Demand’s photographs investigate the traces these mediated images leave in the collective memory.

Tate Gallery label, April 2008

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Archive
1995
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Lawn
1998
C-Print / Diasec
122 x 170 cm
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964) 'Office' 1995

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Büro / Office
1995
C-Print / Diasec
183.5 x 240 cm
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2009

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Gangway
2001
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2009

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Attempt
2005
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2009

Thomas Demand (German, b. 1964)
Balconies
1997
C-Print / Diasec
© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2009

Neue Nationalgalerie
Potsdamer Straße 50 10785
Berlin Kulturforum-Potsdamer Platz

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 6pm
Closed Mondays

Neue Nationalgalerie website

LIKE ART BLART ON FACEBOOK

Back to top

Exhibition: ‘A Few Frames: Photography and the Contact Sheet’ at Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Exhibition dates: 25th September, 2009 – 3rd January, 2010

David Wojnarowicz (American, 1954-1992)
Untitled
1988
Synthetic polymer on two chromogenic prints
11 x 13 1/4 in. (27.9 x 33.7cm)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Purchase with funds from the Photography Committee
Courtesy of The Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York, NY

I gently massaged more photographs of the work in the exhibition from the Whitney press office after initially only being able to download one press image! Many thankx to the Whitney for supplying more images.

As the press release mentions them by name, presumably there will be some of the Robert Frank contact sheets which you can see at the posting Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans and the water towers of Bernd and Hilla Becher two photographs of which can be seen at the posting Notes on a conversation with Mari Funaki.

In case you don’t know the work of artist David Wojnarowicz he was a gay man who died of HIV/AIDS aged 37 in 1992: I believe he was one of the most talented and subversive artists of his generation and his powerful images of identity, sexuality, power and death remain seared in my memory. Unfortunately there are not many good images to be found online but there is an excellent Aperture book, Aperture 137 Fall 1994 (David Wojnarowicz: Brush Fires in the Social Landscape) available from Amazon.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

Rachel Harrison (American, b. 1966)
Contact Sheet (should home windows…)
1996
Chromogenic print on fibreboard
20 x 16 in.
Collection of the artist  courtesy Greene Naftali, New York
© 2009 Rachel Harrison

In this selection of works drawn principally from the Whitney’s permanent collection, the repetitive image of the proof sheet is the leitmotif in a variety of works spanning the range of the museum’s photography collection, including the works of Paul McCarthy, Robert Frank, Ed Ruscha, and Andy Warhol. The exhibition is co-curated by Elisabeth Sussman, Whitney Curator and Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography, and Tina Kukielski, Senior Curatorial Assistant. A Few Frames opens on September 25, 2009 in the Sondra Gilman Gallery and runs through January 3, 2010.

Decisions about which photograph to exhibit or print are frequently the end result of an editing process in which the artist views all of the exposures he or she has made on a contact sheet – a photographic proof showing strips or series of film negatives – and then selects individual frames to print or enlarge. Repetition, seriality, and sequencing – inherited from the contact sheet – are evident in all of the works on view. As co-curator Tina Kukielski notes, “this presentation includes a variety of photographs that build on the formal, thematic, and technical logic of the editing process.”

The exhibition includes photo-based works from sixteen featured artists in the Whitney’s collection. The work of David Wojnarowicz and Paul McCarthy present the contact sheet as a work of art, while those of artists such as Andy Warhol, Harold Edgerton, and Robert Frank play with its repeating forms. Other works call to mind the format of the contact sheet, such as Bernd and Hilla Becher’s typological study of industrial water towers and Silvia Kolbowski’s grid of appropriated images of female fashion models.

Works by contemporary artists such as Rachel Harrison and Collier Schorr in their continued interest in the contact sheet, despite perhaps growing trends toward digital photography, reveal the residual and sustained effects of this process.

Press release from the Whitney Museum of American Art website [Online] Cited 01/11/2009 no longer available online

Collier Schorr (American, b. 1963)
Day Dream (Sky)
2007
Collage
48 x 43 in. (121.9 x 109.2cm)
Courtesy 303 Gallery, New York

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Untitled (Cyclist)
c. 1976
Four gelatin silver prints stitched with thread
27 3/8 x 21 5/8 in. (69.5 x 54.9cm) overall
Unique Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and purchase with funds from the Photography Committee
© 2009 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. /Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Ellen Gallagher (American, b. 1965)
Bouffant Pride
2003
Layered photogravure, cut-outs, collage, acrylic, plasticine, and toy eyes
Overall: 13 1/2 × 10 1/2 × 3/16in. (34.3 × 26.7 × 0.5cm)
Sheet: 13 1/2 × 10 1/2in. (34.3 × 26.7cm)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Print Committee

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Things are Queer' 1973

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932)
Things are Queer
1973
Nine silver gelatin prints
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of David Kezur

Edward Ruscha (American, b. 1937)
[A Few Palm Trees Contact Sheet]
1971
Gelatin silver print, tracing paper and crayon
Sheet: 10 × 8 1/16in. (25.4 × 20.5cm)
Overall (overlay): 9 3/4 × 8 3/16in. (24.8 × 20.8cm)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Purchase, with funds from The Leonard and Evelyn Lauder Foundation, and Diane and Thomas Tuft
© Ed Ruscha

Edward Ruscha (American, b. 1937)
Mock Up #19 (South West Corner of Graciosa Drive and Beachwood Drive)
1971
Gelatin silver print, tracing paper, pigment, pencil, and ink on board,
Image: 7 × 5in. (17.8 × 12.7cm)
Overall (overlay): 8 1/8 × 5 1/2in. (20.6 × 14cm)
Mount (board): 11 × 8in. (27.9 × 20.3cm)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Purchase, with funds from The Leonard and Evelyn Lauder Foundation, and Diane and Thomas Tuft
© Ed Ruscha

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Mabou Winter Footage
1977
Gelatin silver print
23 11/16 × 14 3/4″ (60.1 × 37.5cm)

Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street
New York, NY 10021
General Information: (212) 570-3600

Opening Hours:
Sunday – Monday, Wednesday – Thursday 10.30am – 6pm
Friday and Saturday 10.30am – 10pm
Closed Tuesday

Whitney Museum of American Art website

LIKE ART BLART ON FACEBOOK

Back to top

Review: ‘Nocturnalians and Shadow Eaters’ by Vera Möller at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 20th October – 14th November 2009

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986) 'Rabinova' 2009 from the exhibition 'Nocturnalians and Shadow Eaters' by Vera Möller at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond, Melbourne, Oct - Nov, 2009

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986)
Rabinova
2009
Oil on linen
82 x 76cm

“I am interested in this border between the real and the imagined, the constructed and the natural.”

Vera Möller quoted in “Artist earns her stripes” on The Age newspaper website May 28, 2005 [Online] Cited 23/06/2022

There is a lot of mutability floating around current exhibitions in Melbourne at the moment. At the National Gallery of Victoria we have the deathly, eloquent freeze frame mutability of Ricky Swallow; at Tolarno Galleries we have the genetic hyper-realist mutability of Patricia Piccinini; and at Sophie Gannon Gallery we have the surreal, spatial mutability of Vera Möller.

In this exhibition the real meets the imagined and the constructed encounters the natural in delicate sculptures and beautiful paintings. Coral snake and mutated striped hydras float above Phillip Huntersque backgrounds, looking oh so innocent until one remembers that hydras are predatory animals: the stripes, like the strips of a prisoners uniform not so innocent after all.

These ‘portraits’ (for that is what they strike me as) emerge from the recesses of the subconscious, rising up like some absurd alien fish from the deep. The sculptural forests of mutated specimens waft on the breeze of the ocean current. This detritus of biotechnology, living in the dark and the shadow, emerges into the light and space of the gallery – genetic recombinations in which a strands of genetic material are broken and then joined to another DNA molecule. In Möller’s work this chromosomal crossover has led to offspring (called ‘recombinants’) that dance to a surrealist tune: genetic algorithms that use mutation to maintain genetic diversity from one generation of chromosomes to the next.1

Spatially there is a lightness of touch and a beauty to their representation that brings the work alive within the gallery space. However, Möller’s recombinants are as deadly as they are beautiful. I really liked these creatures narcoleptic shadow dances.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Definition of mutation (genetic algorithm) in Wikipedia.

Many thankx to Sophie Gannon Gallery for allowing me to publish the art work in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986) 'Martinette' 2009 (installation view)

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986)
Martinette (installation view)
2009
Modelling material, acrylic and enamel paint, MDF, perspex cove

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986) 'Veronium' 2007 from the exhibition 'Nocturnalians and Shadow Eaters' by Vera Möller at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond, Melbourne, Oct - Nov, 2009

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986)
Veronium
2007
Oil on canvas
167 x 199cm

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986) 'Shapinette' 2009 from the exhibition 'Nocturnalians and Shadow Eaters' by Vera Möller at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond, Melbourne, Oct - Nov, 2009

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986)
Shapinette
2009
Oil on linen
101 x 101cm

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986)
Telenium
2009
Oil on linen
165 x 135cm

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986)
Rubella
2008-2009

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986) 'Bureniana' 2008 (installation view)

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986)
Bureniana (installation view)
2008
Modelling material, acrylic and enamel paint, MDF, perspex cover
60 x 61 x 61cm

Installation photo of 'Nocturnalians and Shadow Eaters' by Vera Moller at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne

Installation photographs of Nocturnalians and Shadow Eaters by Vera Möller at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Interested in the boundaries between the real and the imagined, Vera Möller creates paintings and sculptures by placing fictional hybrid plants in existing terrains. Bright colours and patterns, coral-like and succulent-plant forms and toadstool shapes describe her depictions of dreamt-up specimens that evoke the natural world. Möller’s ‘fantasy specimens’ demonstrate the way in which her science background and art practice have steadily converged.

After training as a biologist in Germany, Möller migrated to Australia in 1986. She later completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts and a PhD at Monash University. Her work has been exhibited in the USA, Japan, Finland, France, Germany and the UK, as well as throughout Australia.

Text from the Sophie Gannon Gallery website [Online] Cited 03/05/2019

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986)
Benthinium
2008-2009
Oil on linen
140 x 220cm

Vera Möller (Australian, b. 1955 Germany arrived Australia 1986)
Tokyana
2009
Oil on linen
137 x 107cm

Sophie Gannon Gallery
2, Albert Street, Richmond, Melbourne

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 5pm

Sophie Gannon Gallery website

LIKE ART BLART ON FACEBOOK

Back to top

Exhibition: ‘Humanism in China: A Contemporary Record of Photography’ at the China Institute in America, New York

Exhibition dates: 24th September – 13th December, 2009

Curators: Wang Huangsheng, An Ge and Hu Wugong

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

Hao Junchen. 'Hugging a portrait of his wife deceased wife, an elderly man fulfils their dream of visiting Beiijing' 2003 from the exhibition 'Humanism in China: A Contemporary Record of Photography' at the China Institute in America, New York, Sept - Dec, 2009

Hao Junchen (Chinese)
Hugging a portrait of his wife deceased wife, an elderly man fulfils their dream of visiting Beijing
2003
Gelatin silver print

Feng Jianxin. 'A soldier bids farewell to his wife and child who have just visited him and are now returning home' Weichang, Hebei, Winter 1987 from the exhibition 'Humanism in China: A Contemporary Record of Photography' at the China Institute in America, New York, Sept - Dec, 2009

Feng Jianxin (Chinese)
A soldier bids farewell to his wife and child who have just visited him and are now returning home
Weichang, Hebei
Winter 1987

Hu Wugong. 'Migrant wheat farmer in the field in Guanzhong' 1998 from the exhibition 'Humanism in China: A Contemporary Record of Photography' at the China Institute in America, New York, Sept - Dec, 2009

Hu Wugong (Chinese)
Migrant wheat farmer in the field in Guanzhong
1998
Gelatin silver print

Wei Dezhong. 'At the Red Flag Canal construction project, suspended laborers cut a channel' 1960

Wei Dezhong (Chinese, b. 1934)
At the Red Flag Canal construction project, suspended labourers cut a channel
1960
Gelatin silver print

Liu Jun. 'A Parent-Official Like This' 1985

Liu Jun (Chinese)
A Parent-Official Like This
1985
Gelatin silver print
51 × 40.7cm

A new exhibition of documentary photography, Humanism in China: A Contemporary Record of Photography, will be on view at China Institute Gallery from September 24 through December 13, 2009, revealing a glimpse of China never before seen in the U.S. The photographs, dating from 1951 though 2003, offer intimate portraits of rural and urban daily life in China, beyond the glossy veneer of the economic boom. A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition.

Much in the way that The Family of Man, the 1955 landmark photography exhibition curated by Edward Steichen at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, explored the universality of the human experience, Humanism in China: A Contemporary Record of Photography offers rare insight into ordinary and extraordinary human experiences – in this case, taking place in China over the last 50 years.

Humanism in China: A Contemporary Record of Photography was organised by the Guangdong Museum of Art and represents the first large-scale collection of photography acquired permanently by any museum in China. Opening at the Guangdong Museum in 2003, the exhibition has since travelled to seven venues in China, Germany and Scotland. The curators, Wang Huangsheng, An Ge and Hu Wugong, visited photographers’ homes and studios in more than 20 provinces and viewed an estimated 100,000 photographs before selecting 600 images by 248 photographers. The exhibition at China Institute Gallery will offer a more tightly focused selection – 100 photographs by more than 80 photographers – chosen by Dr. Jerome Silbergeld, Professor of Chinese Art History at Princeton University.

Together the images present an unvarnished, starkly realistic view of the hardships and rewards of social modernisation. “These photographs are not just about society and history but are equally about photography itself and the history of documentary photography in China,” Silbergeld writes in the catalogue essay.

Willow Hai Chang, the Director of China Institute Gallery, notes “The medium and language of photography provide an exceptional opportunity to foster a dialogue, enhancing communication and understanding about everyday life in China. Growing up in China and returning there often, I have witnessed the transforming relationship the Chinese have experienced with photography – from the fear that the camera could steal one’s soul that still exists in some remote regions to the urban proliferation of cell-phone cameras and social-networking sites filled with portraits. Photography also provides a most compelling method of recording history, and Humanism in China: A Contemporary Record of Photography creates a contextual framework for both the traditional and modern elements of life in China.”

The emerging themes from the exhibition span an enormous range of human emotions. Tragedy can be seen in the eyes of a man holding a portrait of his deceased wife, while fear is evident as victims flee rising floodwaters. There is also a graceful patience on view as a couple awaits their country wedding, and utter joy is clearly evident as a man displays his wads of cash after winning the lottery.

One of the most striking images in the exhibition is Iron Rice Bowl (see below), Hei Ming’s 2000 portrait of a Muslim chef squatting in front of a crude construction workers’ restaurant, his skullcap mimicking the customers’ rice bowls hanging on the restaurant’s facade. Another notable image, Geng Yensheng’s painterly photograph Miners at Wumeng Mountain (see below), 2003, depicts the harsh working conditions in the mountainous district where Yunnan, Sichuan and Guizhou provinces come together. As Silbergeld writes, the photograph of the young bathing miners “brings social bitterness and formal beauty into a perfectly fused relationship.”

One of the images, A Parent-Official Like This (see above), became well known in China. In May 1985, Liu Jun had his camera ready when he witnessed a rural deputy chief from the Baishui region in Shaanxi province forcefully push a 60-year-old villager to the ground in a dispute over migration. The resulting photograph captures the horrific arrogance of the authority figure as he towers over the powerless villager whose mouth is contorted in pain. The award-winning image is considered the foremost work of photographic social criticism since the 1949 revolution.

Press release from the China Institute in America website [Online] Cited 20/10/2009 no longer available online

Installation view of the exhibition Humanism in China: A Contemporary Record of Photography at the China Institute in America, New York, September – December, 2009

Wu Jialin. 'Having a Chat, Cheng Du' 1999

Wu Jialin (Chinese, b. 1926)
Having a Chat, Cheng Du
1999
Gelatin silver print

Hei-Ming (Chinese, b. 1964)
Iron Rice Bowl
2000
Gelatin silver print

Li Dan. 'Tourists at the Wenshu Temple in Chengdu taking a souvenir photograph' 1983

Li Dan (Chinese)
Tourists at the Wenshu Temple in Chengdu taking a souvenir photograph
1983
Gelatin silver print

Geng Yensheng. 'Miners at Wumeng Mountain' 2003

Geng Yensheng (Chinese)
Miners at Wumeng Mountain
2003
Gelatin silver print

China Institute in America
125 East 65th St, between Lexington and Park Avenues
New York

Gallery hours:
Monday – Friday 10am – 5pm
Thursday 10am – 8pm
Saturday 11am – 5pm
Closed on Sundays

China Institute in America website

LIKE ART BLART ON FACEBOOK

Back to top

Review: ‘Long Distance Vision: Three Australian Photographers’ at The Ian Potter Centre NGV Australia, Federation Square, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 28th August, 2009 – 21st February, 2010

Max Pam (born Australia 1949, lived in Brunei 1980-1983) 'Road from Bamiyan' 1971 from the exhibition 'Long Distance Vision: Three Australian Photographers' at The Ian Potter Centre NGV Australia, Federation Square, Melbourne, Aug 2009 - Feb 2010

Max Pam (born Australia 1949, lived in Brunei 1980-1983)
Road from Bamiyan
1971
Gelatin silver photograph
20.1 x 20.1cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1979

Long Distance Vision is a disappointingly wane exploration of travel photography at NGV Australia. With the exception of the work of Max Pam the exhibition lacks insight into the phenomena that the curators want the work to philosophically investigate: namely how photographs shape our expectations of a place (even before we arrive) and how photographs also serve to confirm our experience – the picture as powerful mnemonic tool.

Firstly a quick story: when travelling in America to study at the Kinsey Institute I boarded a train from Chicago to what I thought was Bloomington, Indiana only to arrive many hours later at Bloomington, Illinois. Unbeknownst to me this Bloomington also had a motel of the same name as I was staying at in Indiana! After much confusion I ended up at the local airport trying to catch a single seater aircraft to Bloomington, Indiana with no luck – at the end of my tether, fearful in a foreign country, in tears because I just had to be at this appointment the next morning. Riding to my rescue was a nineteen year old kid with no shoes, driving an ex-cop car, who drove me across the Mid-West states stopping at petrol stops in the dead of night. It was a surreal experience, one that I will never forget for the rest of my life … fear, apprehension, alienation, happiness, joy and the sublime all rolled into one.

I tell this story to illustrate a point about travel – that you never know what is going to happen, what experiences you will have, even your final destination. To me, photographs of these adventures not only document this dislocation but step beyond pure representation to become art that re-presents the nature of our existence.

Matthew Sleeth‘s street photographs could be taken almost anywhere in the world (if it were not for a building with German writing on it). His snapshot aesthetic of caught moments, blinded people and dissected bodies in the observed landscape are evinced (to show in a clear manner; to prove beyond any reasonable doubt; to manifest; to make evident; to bring to light; to evidence – yes to bring to light, to evidence as photography does!) in mundane, dull, almost lifeless prints – ‘heavy’ photographs with a lack of shadow detail combined with a shallow depth of field. His remains, the people walking down the street and their shadow, are odd but as as The Age art critic Robert Nelson succinctly notes in his review of this exhibition, “To become art, the odd cannot remain merely quaint but has to signify an existential anomaly by implication.”1

If we look at the seminal photographs from the book The Americans by Robert Frank we see in their dislocated view of America a foreigners view of the country the artist was travelling across – a subjective view of America that reveals as much about the state of mind of the artist as the country he was exposing. No such exposition happens in the works of Matthew Sleeth.

Christine Godden‘s photographs of family and friends have little to do with travel photography and I struggle to understand their inclusion in this exhibition. Though they are reasonable enough photographs in their own right – small black and white photographs of small intimacies (at the beach, in the garden, at the kitchen table, on the phone, on the porch, on the float, etc…) Godden’s anthropomorphist bodies have nothing to do with a vision of a new land as she had been living in San Francisco, New York and Rochester for six years over the period that these photographs were taken. Enough said.

The highlight of the exhibition is the work of Max Pam. I remember going the National Gallery of Victoria in the late 1980s to view this series of work in the collection – and what a revelation they were then and remain so today. The square formatted, dark sepia toned silver gelatin prints of the people and landscapes of Tibet are both monumental and personal at one and the same time. You are drawn into their intimacies: the punctum of a boys feet; the gathering of families; camels running before a windstorm; human beings as specks in a vast landscape.

“If the world is unfair or beyond our understanding, sublime places suggest it is not surprising things should be thus. We are the playthings of the forces that laid out the oceans and chiselled the mountains. Sublime places acknowledge limitations that we might otherwise encounter with anxiety or anger in the ordinary flow of events. It is not just nature that defies us. Human life is as overwhelming, but it is the vast spaces of nature that perhaps provide us with the finest, the most respectful reminder of all that exceeds us. If we spend time with them, they may help us to accept more graciously the great unfathomable events that molest our lives and will inevitably return us to dust.”2

The meditation on place and space that the artist has undertaken gives true insight into the connection of man and earth, coming closest to Alain de Botton’s understanding of the significance of sublime places. Through a vision of a distant land the photographs transport us in an emotional journey that furthers our understanding of the fragility of life both of the planet and of ourselves.

While the National Gallery of Victoria holds some excellent photography exhibitions (such as Andreas Gursky and Rennie Ellis for example) this was a missed opportunity. The interesting concept of the exhibition required a more rigorous investigation instead of such a cursory analysis (which can be evidenced by the catalogue ‘essay’: one page the size of a quarter of an A4 piece of paper that glosses over the whole history of travel photography in a few blithe sentences).

Inspiration could have easily been found in Alain de Botton’s excellent book The Art of Travel. Here we find chapters titled “On Anticipation”, “On Travelling Places”, “On the Exotic”, “On Curiosity”, “On the Country and the City” and “On the Sublime” to name but a few, with places and art work to illustrate the journey: what more is needed to excite the mind!

Take Charles Baudelaire for example. He travelled outside his native France only once and never ventured abroad again. Baudelaire still dreamt of going to Lisbon, or Java or to the Netherlands but “the destination was not really the point. The true desire was to get away, to go, as he concluded, ‘Anywhere! Anywhere! So long as it is out of the world!'”3

Heavens, we don’t even have to leave home to create travel photography that is out of the world! Our far-sighted vision (like that of photographer Gregory Crewdson) can create psychological narratives of imaginative journeys played out for the camera.

Perhaps what was needed was a longer gestation period, further research into the theoretical nuances of travel photography (one a little death, a remembrance; both a dislocation in the non-linearity of time and space), a gathering of photographs from collections around Australia to better evidence the conceptual basis for the exhibition and a greater understanding of the irregular possibilities of travel photography – so that the work and words could truly reflect the title of the exhibition Long Distance Vision.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Nelson, Robert. “In blurred focus: le freak c’est chic,” in The Age newspaper. Friday, October 23rd 2009, p. 18

2/ de Botton, Alain. The Art of Travel. London: Penguin, 2002, p. 178-179

3/ Ibid., p. 34

Max Pam (born Australia 1949, lived in Brunei 1980-83) 'My donkey, our valley, Sarchu' 1977 from the exhibition 'Long Distance Vision: Three Australian Photographers' at The Ian Potter Centre NGV Australia, Federation Square, Melbourne, Aug 2009 - Feb 2010

Max Pam (born Australia 1949, lived in Brunei 1980-1983)
My donkey, our valley, Sarchu
1977
Gelatin silver photograph
20.1 x 20.1cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1979
© Max Pam

Max Pam (Australian, b. 1949) 'Sisters' 1977 from the exhibition 'Long Distance Vision: Three Australian Photographers' at The Ian Potter Centre NGV Australia, Federation Square, Melbourne, Aug 2009 - Feb 2010

Max Pam (born Australia 1949, lived in Brunei 1980-1983)
Sisters
1977
Gelatin silver photograph
20.1 x 20.1cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1979
© Max Pam

Max Pam (Australian, b. 1949) 'Tibetan nomads' 1977

Max Pam (born Australia 1949, lived in Brunei 1980-1983)
Tibetan nomads
1977
Gelatin silver photograph
20.1 x 20.2cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1979
© Max Pam

Christine Godden (Australian, b. 1947)
Bobbie and Amitabha at the beach
c. 1972
Gelatin silver photograph
13.2 x 20.1cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased from Admission Funds, 1991
© Christine Godden

Christine Godden (Australian, b. 1947)
Elliot holding a ring
1973
Gelatin silver photograph
15.0 x 22.8cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased from Admission Funds, 1991
© Christine Godden

Christine Godden.Christine Godden (Australian, b. 1947)kitchen table' 1973

Christine Godden (Australian, b. 1947)
Joanie at the kitchen table
1973, printed 1986
Gelatin silver photograph
20.1 x 30.6cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased from Admission Funds, 1991
© Christine Godden

Christine Godden (Australian, b. 1947)
With Leigh on the porch
1972, printed 1986
Gelatin silver photograph
20.2 x 30.5cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased from Admission Funds, 1991
© Christine Godden

“The National Gallery of Victoria will celebrate the work of Christine Godden, Max Pam and Matthew Sleeth in a new exhibition, Long Distance Vision: Three Australian Photographers opening 28 August.

Long Distance Vision will include over 60 photographs from the NGV Collection exploring the concept of the ‘tourist gaze’ and its relationship with the three artists.

Susan van Wyk, Curator Photography, NGV said the exhibition provides a fascinating insight into the unusual perspective brought by the three photographers to their varied world travel destinations.

“There’s a sense in the works in the exhibition that the photographers are not from the places they choose to photograph, and that each is a visitor delighting in the scenes they encounter.

“What is notable about the photographs in Long Distance Vision is that rather than focussing on the well known scenes that each artist encountered, they have turned their attention to the ‘little things’, the details of the everyday,” said Ms van Wyk.

From the nineteenth century, photography has been a means by which people could discover the world, initially through personal collection and albums, and later via postcards, magazines, books and the internet.

Dr Gerard Vaughan, Director, NGV said that both contemporary photographers and tourists use the camera as a means to explore and capture the world.

“Through their photographs, the three artists featured in Long Distance Vision show us highly individual ways of seeing the world. This exhibition will surprise and delight visitors as our attention is drawn to not only what is different but what remains the same as we travel the world,” said Dr Vaughan.

Born in Melbourne in 1949, Max Pam began his career in various commercial photography studios in the 1960s. After responding to a university notice for assistance to drive a Volkswagen from Calcutta to London in 1969, Pam got his first taste of being a traveller. The body of Pam’s work in this exhibition is from the series The Himalayas, which was photographed over a number of early visits to India.

Christine Godden also travelled the popular overland route between Europe and India in the early 1970s, returning to Sydney in 1978. In 1972, after a period of travelling, Godden found her home in the US where she remained for six years. Godden’s photographs in this exhibition were taken between 1972 and 1974 during her stay in the US.

Born in Melbourne in 1972, Matthew Sleeth is another seasoned traveller. During the late 1990s, Sleeth settled in Opfikon, an outer suburb of Zurich, Switzerland. The series of photographs in Long Distance Vision were taken during this time, showing Sleeth’s interest not only in street photography, but also in the narrative possibilities in everyday scenes. Dotted with garishly coloured playhouses, naive sculptures and whimsical arrangements of garden gnomes Sleeth’s photographs go beyond the ‘picture-perfect’ scenes of typical tourist photography.

Long Distance Vision: Three Australian Photographers is on display at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Federation Square from 28 August 2009 to 21 February 2010.”

Text from the National Gallery of Victoria press release

Matthew Sleeth (Australian, b. 1972) From the series 'Opfikon' 1997

Matthew Sleeth (Australian, b. 1972)
Photographs from the series Opfikon
1997, printed 2004
Type C photograph
43.2 x 43.0cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Presented through the NGV Foundation by Patrick Corrigan, Governor, 2005
© Matthew Sleeth courtesy of Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne

The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia Federation Square
Corner of Russell and  Flinders Streets, Melbourne

Opening hours:
Every day 10am – 5pm

National Gallery of Victoria website

LIKE ART BLART ON FACEBOOK

Back to top

Exhibition: ‘William Christenberry: Photographs, 1961-2005’ at the Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia

Exhibition dates: 12th September – 8th November, 2009

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

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) 'Green Warehouse, Newbern, Alabama' 1997 from the exhibition 'William Christenberry: Photographs, 1961-2005' at the Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia, Sept - Nov, 2009

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
Green Warehouse, Newbern, Alabama
1997
Dye coupler print

Widely recognised as a pioneer in the field of colour photography, William Christenberry has used this expressive medium to explore the American South for forty years. While pursuing this artistic quest he has drawn inspiration from Walker Evans, and influenced a generation of emerging photographers. William Christenberry: Photographs, 1961-2005 surveys his poetic documentation of southern vernacular architecture, signage, and landscape using a wide range of cameras, from his earliest Brownie photographs of the early 1960s to his later work with a large-format camera. Combining never-before-seen photographs, both old and new, with images that are now iconic, this exhibition comprises fifty vintage photographic works and one sculpture. Together, they convey the breadth of his singular photographic vision. Discuss the artistic objectives of his long-term interpretation of the Southern landscape with Michelle Norris of National Public Radio, Christenberry explained: “What I really feel very strongly about, and I hope reflects in all aspects of my work, is the human touch, the humanness of things, the positive and sometimes the negative and sometimes the sad.”

Text from the Morris Museum of Art website [Online] Cited 15/10/2009. No longer available online

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
House and Car, near Akron, Alabama
1981

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
Kudzu with Storm Cloud, near Akron, Alabama
1981

“William Christenberry Photographs, 1961-2005, a phenomenal retrospective exhibition of Christenberry’s photographs, opens to the public at the Morris Museum of Art on September 16, 2009. The Morris Museum is the only Georgia venue hosting this exhibition.

“‘William Christenberry Photographs, 1961-2005’ is an overview of the career of one of the South’s most important living artists,” said Kevin Grogan, director of the Morris Museum of Art. “Organised by the Aperture Foundation, this exhibition brings to Augusta a body of work like no other. No one has so scrupulously and attentively captured a sense of place and time in quite the way that Bill Christenberry has. He is a remarkable artist, as is proven by this extraordinary body of work. He is America’s Proust.”

Since the early 1960s, William Christenberry has plumbed the regional identity of the American South, focusing his attention primarily on his childhood home, Hale County, Alabama. Widely recognised as a pioneer in the field of colour photography, Christenberry draws inspiration from the work of Walker Evans, while paralleling the work of such international practitioners as Bernd and Hilla Becher. Ranging from his earliest Brownie photographs to his later work with a large-format camera, William Christenberry Photographs, 1961-2005 is a survey of the artist’s poetic documentation of the Southern landscape and vernacular architecture that surrounded him as he grew up. The exhibition, coupling never-before-seen photographs with images that are now iconic, reveals how the history, the very story of place, is at the heart of Christenberry’s ongoing project. While the focus of his work is the American South, it touches on universal themes related to family, culture, nature, spirituality, memory, and ageing. Christenberry photographs real things in the real world – ramshackle buildings, weathered commercial signs, lonely back roads, rusted-out cars, whitewashed churches, decorated graves. Dutifully returning to photograph the same locations annually – the green barn, the palmist building, the Bar-B-Q Inn, among others – he has fulfilled a personal ritual and documented the physical changes wrought by every single year. Straddling past and present, Christenberry’s art suggests the gravity and power of the passage of time.

The exhibition is accompanied by a stunning monograph entitled William Christenberry, published by Aperture in cooperation with the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The book, a comprehensive survey, presents all aspects of the artist’s oeuvre as he intended it to be viewed and considered. More than half the work reproduced has not been previously published.”

Text from the press release on the Morris Museum of Art website [Online] Cited 15/10/2009. No longer available online

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
Sprott Church in Alabama
1971

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
T.B. Hick’s Store, Newbern, Alabama
1976

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
Farmhouse, Hale County, Alabama
1977

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
House and Car, near Akron, Alabama
1978

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
Palmist Building, Havanna, Alabama
1980

The Palmist Building is one of the most iconic structures in Christenberry’s extensive body of work. When he was a child, the clapboard building was a general store operated by his great uncle, but it was later home to a palm reader. The inverted hand-painted sign that covers a broken window initially enticed him to photograph the building in 1961. His earliest photographs pinpoint the sign itself and the peeling whitewash around it. As he became more engrossed in the project, Christenberry carefully examined the relationship of the building to its surroundings, particularly the chinaberry tree that eventually engulfed it.

Text from the High Museum of Art website

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
Rabbit Pen, near Moundville, Alabama
1998

William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016)
Old House, near Akron, Alabama
1964

Morris Museum of Art
1 Tenth Street
Augusta, Georgia 30901
Phone: 706-724-7501

Opening Hours:
Tuesday – Saturday: 10.00am – 5.00pm
Sunday: 12 – 5.00pm
Closed Mondays and major holidays

Morris Museum of Art website

LIKE ART BLART ON FACEBOOK

Back to top

Review: ‘October 2009’ jewellery by Carlier Makigawa at Gallery Funaki, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 6th October – 31st October, 2009

Carlier Makigawa (Australian, b. 1952) 'Brooch' 2009 from the exhibition 'October 2009' jewellery by Carlier Makigawa at Gallery Funaki, Melbourne, October 2009

Carlier Makigawa (Australian, b. 1952)
Brooch
2009
Silver, paint

Jewellery as art; is art

Brooches, objects

Robust/delicate

Holistic body of work

Affirmation of line and form

Simplicity/complexity of shapes

Span ______ (meta)physical

[Interior] exterior!

elemental | articulation

Volume ((( ))) form

arch-itecture

SPACE

√

beauty

……………………….

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

Carlier Makigawa (Australian, b. 1952)
Brooch
2009
Silver

Carlier Makigawa (Australian, b. 1952) 'Brooch 1a' 2009 from the exhibition 'October 2009' jewellery by Carlier Makigawa at Gallery Funaki, Melbourne, October 2009

Carlier Makigawa (Australian, b. 1952)
Brooch
2009
Silver

“A spiritual and private space. Ritual object, jewellery. Linear structures appear fragile and monumental to cradle the internal spirit. They appear to float in space, hovering, penetrating, a temporary existence. Nature is the reference, and the geometry of nature and architecture inform this world.”

Carlier Makigawa

Carlier Makigawa explores the parameters of small spaces in her new exhibition October 2009. Her spare, exacting constructions in silver wire have a monumentality that defies their scale and delicacy. Her new work consists of brooches and objects which move beyond the botanical inspiration of her earlier work to engage with more abstract notions of movement, compression and spatial manipulation.

Text from the Gallery Funaki website [Online] Cited 01/05/2019 no longer available online