Australian cabinet cards and cartes de visite

In photographs that were taken around the same time, the contrast could not be more evident: horse and trap travelling down fashionable George Street, Sydney while donkey and cart in Outback Australia fetch water; Nicholas Caire’s King Billy’s camp in McCree’s Paddock, Maloga, Victoria – King Billy ‘The Last of His Tribe’, the final remnant of a dying race and J. W. Lindt’s Untitled (Two men in rural Victoria), old men with beards and hats, swag and billy, possibly itinerant travelling workers.

And so I have sequenced these images as best I could.

The white men stand implacably outside the courthouses while the Indigenous feet touch the earth. They fight for their country, win the Military Medal and can’t even vote. The courthouses of the colonial white, those massive edifices of the law, jurisdiction and punishment tied with Australian Aborigines in chains and Aboriginal youth Dylan Voller, 17, shackled to a metal chair by his hands, feet and neck and wearing a spithood at Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in 2015. And so it goes…

Although there can be many contexts and interpretations within the photographic labyrinthine abyss, and even though these photographs were taken by colonial masters, the materiality of photography (as act of creation and as final printed product) and its relationship to the real is what is important here. These are beautiful photographs of peoples from the First Nations, peoples that all have their own specific names, and in many instances, speak / spoke their own specific language.

You only have to look at the boy standing at the back of the photograph Aboriginal family group to recognise how his direct looking transcends the fixed gaze of the camera, the male gaze, the white gaze and the colonial gaze. His gaze, his return of serve if you like, speaks to us through time – of an individual, valuable and empowered human being assured in his own self. No colour, jurisdiction nor race is necessary for us recognise him as such.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

“Think carefully: there can be no redundancy in photography, for a photograph, whatever it is, already speaks twice of time, once to seize it and another to say that it has passed; And there can be no trompe-l’oeil in it either; it is and will always be the mise en abyme par excellence; It is the mind that looks at the abyss, it is a piece of the abyss cut clear, with four right angles cut terribly sharp.”

.
Denis Roche

Trompe-l’oeil

Trompe-l’œil (French for “deceive the eye”) is an art technique that uses realistic imagery to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects exist in three dimensions. It refers to perspectival illusionism.

Mise en abyme

Mise en abyme is a French term derived from heraldry, and literally means “placed into abyss”. A common sense of the phrase is the visual experience of standing between two mirrors, then seeing as a result an infinite reproduction of one’s image. Another is the Droste effect, in which a picture appears within itself, in a place where a similar picture would realistically be expected to appear… In Western art history, “mise en abyme” is a formal technique in which an image contains a smaller copy of itself, in a sequence appearing to recur infinitely; “recursive” is another term for this.

Unknown photographer
Richmond Courthouse, Courthouses of New South Wales
c. 1870-80s
Date built: 1877

Richmond is a town in New South Wales, in the local government area of the City of Hawkesbury. It is located on the alluvial Hawkesbury River flats, at the foot of the Blue Mountains. It is about 65 km by road from Sydney.

Richmond Court House and Police Station is located at 288 Windsor Street, Richmond NSW. The present building was designed by Colonial Architect, James Barnet in 1877 as a court house with associated police station. The front entrance is via an attractive arched colonnade with feature brickwork and the roof is supported by bracketed eaves. The raised roof of the court room may be seen in the centre of the structure. Note the similarity in style with the adjacent former post office, also the work of James Barnet. It replaced the watch-house built by William Cox in 1827. The watch-house was a four roomed structure with a detached kitchen. One of the rooms was barred and secure for the custody of prisoners. The other rooms were for the policeman on duty. The rear of the site was set aside for the first stock pound in the town. The court house is still in use but the Police Local Area Command is located in the nearby town of Windsor.

Text from the Hawkesbury.org website Nd [Online] Cited 19/12/2017

Alphonse Chargois (French, 1860-1936)
Cumjam Murdered Ferguson at Mentana March 1894
1894
Albumen print
16 x 10 inches

Chargois, Alphonse. (father of Herbert Chargois. died Nov 1936)
Townsville, Qld 1879
Croydon, Qld 1892-1896
Normanton, Qld 1896-1897
Townsville, Qld 1897
McArthur St, Croydon Qld (base) 1898-1913
Georgetown, Qld (trav) 1900
Torres Strait Islands, Qld (trav) Oct 1913
“Touring the South” 1913-1915
(owned Bicycle Business, Warwick, Qld, 1915, advertised for sale Feb 1915)
“Royal Studio”
“late Lyne Brown, McTaggart and Dobson”
Lake St, Cairns, Qld July 1915-1936
(bought McTaggart & Dobson’s studio, July 1915)
Mareeba, Qld (trav) Oct 1915
(estate publicly Auctioned up Oct 1947)

Cumjam standing in front of a government issue tent. Cumjam was arrested for the murder of Mr Ferguson (aged 60) who worked for Donald Mclntyre at Mentana Station. Ferguson’s murder and the capture of Cumjam were reported widely in the Norman Chronicle, The North Queensland Register and The Brisbane Courier between 1894-1895. Records detailing the outcome of his arrest have not been located.

“An Aboriginal Desperado”

The “Norman Chronicle” says: “By the last mail we received from Mr. Chargois, who is at present at Delta, two photos of the blackboy “Cumjam.” who is supposed to have murdered Ferguson at Mentana in March, 1894. The details of the capture as given by Mr. Chargois are as follows: ‘Mr Jack Adford, who has been managing Loch-na-gar for Mr. McInytre, had received instructions to move cattle to Daigonally, and wishing to bring over with him some of the native curios, he told the blacks, ‘Me go away by-and-by take away altogether bullock, you fetch ’em up spear, shell, boomerang, me give you tumbac. Me come back one moon.’ One moon goes by and the blacks were there to the number of about 50, eager to exchange their native gear for tobacco. All were up at the station except one, who stayed at the camp, and Jack Alford, wishing to know why he do so, asked the others, ‘What name boy sit down longa camp?’ ‘That fellow name ‘Cumjam’; he sick long a cobra.’ Alford at once recognised the murdered of Ferguson, although he gave no sign of his discovery, but said to the other, ‘Poor fellow, you go fetch em up, me give him medicine make him alright.’ ‘Cumjam’ was accordingly conducted up. ‘What name belongs you?’ said Alford. ‘Cumjam,’ replied the black. Alford decided at once upon his plan of action, told the other blacks to step back and site down, then taking Cumjam aside he seized him and with the help of his own boys bound him up. The other blacks, not liking the look of things, began to get uneasy, and slipped away one by one down to the creek, leaving Cumjam captured. It was no easy task to bring him along. He ate through one strap, and when that was replaced by a chain and padlock he managed somehow to pick the latter to pieces.’ The photo which we have on view shows the prisoner to be securely bound.”

The North Queensland Register 16 October 1895

Text from the Thagaalbi: History of Australia’s Indigenous people Facebook page [Online] Cited 19/12/2017

The presence of Europeans along the gulf coast and south-western areas of the Peninsula was met with Aboriginal resistance. When J.T. Embley surveyed the Mitchell River in 1886-1887 he counted “skirmishes with the blacks” to have been the cause of delays in the completion of his work.136 The death of Ferguson, an elderly white stockman, in March 1894 followed his spearing on Mentana station by the Aboriginal, Cumjam.137 Only a few months before Ferguson’s death one party of survivors of the steamship, Kanahooka, after its capsize off the Mitchell River in January 1894, were able to make their way through the Kokobera country through to safety at Mentana station.138 This was despite popular fears that they would be exposed to the “hostility of the blacks”.139

Philip L. Freier. Living with the ‘Munpitch’: The history of Mitchell River Mission, 1905-1967. James Cook University, Doctor of Philosophy Thesis, 1999, pp. 86-87 [Online] Cited 19/12/2017

Unknown photographer
Windsor Courthouse, Courthouses of New South Wales
c. 1870-80s
Date built: 1821

Windsor is a town lying North-West of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Windsor is located in the local government area of the City of Hawkesbury. It sits on the Hawkesbury River, on the north-western outskirts of the Sydney metropolitan area.

Windsor Courthouse is a rare surviving Colonial Georgian public building that originally dates from the early nineteenth century. The building has a fine and impressive form which uses an adapted Palladian plan to suit the Australian climate. It is of considerable historical, social and aesthetic significance as one of the earliest surviving courthouse buildings in Australia. The courthouse now [1967] ranks as Greenway’s best preserved building. The Building and Maintenance Branch of the NSW Department of Public Works carried out restoration work in 1961 to remove unsympathetic rendering of the external brickwork which was an attempt to reduce the problem of damp. The building now stands in its original and unspoiled form in Windsor, the most prosperous and successful of the towns then founded by Governor Macquarie. The courthouse was insisted upon by Governor Macquarie, designed by Greenway (himself originally a convict) and built for A₤1,800 by William Cox, using convict labour. It is a combination and the result of all the forces directly at play during the Australia’s early development. The oldest existing local court in New South Wales. Cox later served at Windsor as a magistrate.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Unknown photographer
Pitt St. looking S. from Bridge St., Sydney
1895
Albumen print

Unknown photographer
Getting Water
1892
Albumen prints

Unknown photographer
“At the well” Station Hands
1892
Albumen print

Unknown photographer
Untitled [Aboriginal ceremony]
c. 1892
Albumen print

Unknown photographer
Court House Bathurst N S Wales, Courthouses of New South Wales
c. 1870-1880s
Date built: 1880

Bathurst is a regional city in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia. It is about 200 kilometres north-west of Sydney.

Bathurst Courthouse is one of the finest Victorian Court House buildings in New South Wales. Built as part of a precinct of Victorian public buildings, it is a landmark building prominently sited in the town centre of Bathurst. The building has a lengthy association with the provision of justice in the district. The wings, built as the postal and telegraph offices, were opened in 1877. The entire structure is 81 metres (266 ft) long and 45 metres (148 ft) wide. The west wing is now occupied by the Central Western Music Centre. The east wing is now the Historical Society Museum.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Nicholas Caire (Australian, 1837-1918)
King Billy Maloga (King Billy’s camp in McCree’s Paddock, Maloga, Victoria)
1891

Photograph of four Aboriginal Australians, two men and two women, seated on ground in front of a shelter. Older man on left holds wooden sticks or spears, and a dog sits next to him. The three main local tribes were named after their “country” (or district), being “Burrumbeet” from Lakes Burrumbeet and Learmonth, “Keyeet” from Mt Buninyong and “Tooloora” from Mt Warrenheip and Lal Lal Creek. The last well recognised leader of the district, was “King Billy” from Burrumbeet, whose death surprisingly made the newspapers in mining areas and big cities right round the country.

Ballarat’s Mullawallah (also known as King Billy or Frank Wilson), was buried in 1896 to considerable civic interest as a result of being nominated as ‘The Last of His Tribe’.

J. W. Lindt (John William, Australian 1845-1926, Melbourne, photographer)
Untitled [Two men in rural Victoria]
c. 1880s
Cabinet card
Albumen print

John William Lindt (1845-1926), photographer, was born at Frankfurt on Main, Germany, son of Peter Joseph Lindt, excise officer, and his wife Justine, née Rambach. At 17 he ran away to sea and joined a Dutch sailing ship. He deserted at Brisbane; by 1863 he was at Grafton as a piano-tuner and then worked in a photographic studio. He visited Germany in 1867 and on his return bought the business. Using the wet-plate process he photographed the Clarence River district and its Aboriginals, producing albums in 1875 and 1876. He then sold out and went to Melbourne where he opened a studio in Collins Street. He soon won repute for his society, theatre and landscape photographs. In 1880 he photographed the capture of the Kelly gang at Glenrowan. When the first commercial dry plates arrived in Melbourne he went to Europe to seek agencies for the latest photographic equipment. On his return he worked in the studio and the Victorian countryside; many of his photographs were used in the railways. He also designed and modified cameras as well as ‘advising in matters photographic’.

Read the full biography on the Australian Dictionary of Biography website

Unknown photographer
Darlinghurst Gaol & Court House, Sydney Oct. 1870
1870
Date built: 1844

The Darlinghurst Court House and residence is the finest, and only erudite Old Colonial Grecian public building complex surviving in Australia. Commenced in the 1830s, it has a long and continual association with the provision of law and order along with the neighbouring Darlinghurst Gaol complex. The imposing sandstone building is prominently sited at Taylor Square. The Court House, designed by Lewis and built between 1837 and 1844, is the first purpose designed court house to be built in NSW. The pavilions on either side were designed by Barnet around 1886. The extension facing Victoria Street was designed by the Government Architect’s Office and completed c. 1963. The central block was adapted from an 1823 design in Peter Nicholson’s ‘The New Practical Builder’.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Unknown photographer
Untitled [Australian Aborigines in chains]
Nd
Albumen print

Aboriginal youth Dylan Voller, 17, shackled to a metal chair by his hands, feet and neck and wearing a spithood at Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in 2015

Unknown photographer
Unknown Courthouse, Courthouses of New South Wales
c. 1870-80s

Unknown photographer
Untitled [Aboriginal man smoking a pipe]
Nd

Unknown photographer
Untitled [Aboriginal making fire]
Nd

Anonymous photographer
Untitled [Aboriginal with spear]
Nd

Edwards & Errington (Adelaide, South Australia)
Studio portrait of 2597 Private (Pte) Frederick Prentice, 12th Battalion, and later 1st Australian Pioneer Battalion (detail)
c. 1914-1918
Gelatin silver print on postcard

Northern Territory born WWI veteran Frederick Prentice, an Indigenous serviceman who won the Military Medal. On the verso of the photograph is an original message “Just a little card to remember the good times at Paratoo.” This postcard was sent to a friend, Gertrude Fitzgerald, who he knew at Paratoo, SA. Born in Powells Creek, Northern, NT, on 18 January 1894, Frederick Prentice was educated at Kyre College (later part of Scotch College), Adelaide, from 1905 to 1908. Following schooling, Prentice worked as a station hand and was employed at Manunda Station, South Australia at the time of his enlistment on 7 May 1915 in Keswick. Pte Prentice won a Military Medal for his actions on 19 July 1916 at Pozieres, France, where he showed great courage, resource and ability in bringing machine guns and ammunition through the enemy barrage in the dark and across broken ground. Frederick Prentice returned to Australia as a Corporal on 12 May 1919.

Text from the Australian War Memorial website

Anonymous photographer
Untitled [Aboriginal with scars]
Nd

Kerry & Co., (Sydney)
Aboriginal chief
c. 1900-1917
Collotype
13.7 × 8.5cm (image and sheet)

Portrait of Aboriginal chief, Barron River, Queensland, with body paint and head decorations, in ceremonial dress.

Unknown photographer
Court House Orange N.S.W., Courthouses of New South Wales
c. 1870-1880s
Date built: 1883

“On a site where local Wiradjuri people are said to have once held corroborees stands the Orange court House. A slab and bark watch-house was erected in 1849 and used as a court house from 1851. Early church services and the first council meetings were held. A larger sandstone Court House was erected in 1860-62 by Kennard and Snow. Bushranger Ben Hall was tried here in the early 1860s. This building made way for the present Neo-classical building designed by James Barnet in 1883. A new wing was constructed a the rear of the site in 2001.”

~ Orange Heritage Trail, a pamphlet produced by Ross Maroney in conjunction with the Orange City Council, the Orange Visitor Information Centre.

.
The current Orange Courthouse building was designed by the Colonial Government Architect James Barnet. Construction was completed in 1883. Previous buildings existed on the site, the first being erected in 1847, around the time of the town’s settlement, and operated as a Court of Petty Sessions, being the usual arrangements in those times. Orange was proclaimed a municipality in 1860, the first meeting being held in the Courthouse, located on the same site as today, but a different structure.

Text from the Willshub website 2 Jan 2015 [Online] Cited 20th November 2017

Anonymous photographer
Untitled [Aboriginal group]
Nd

Anonymous photographer
Untitled [Aboriginal family group]
Nd

Alphonse Chargois (French, 1860-1936)
Daisy Belle, Jack Kinmont Moir and Rose-Marie, Delta Downs
Nd
14 x 10.5cm

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Nov

Review: ‘An unorthodox flow of images’ at the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP), Melbourne Part 2

By Dr Marcus Bunyan Leave a Comment

Categories: Australian artist, Australian cabinet cards and cartes de visite, Australian photography, Australian writing, beauty, black and white photography, book, colour photography, curator, Daido Moriyama, digital photography, documentary photography, exhibition, existence, gallery website, Indigenous Australians, Japanese artist, landscape, light, Melbourne, memory, photographic series, photography, portrait, postcards, psychological, quotation, reality, space, Susan Sontag, time, video, Walker Evans, William Eggleston and works on paper
Tags: 'Pompey' a well known resident of Marree, A sudden gust of wind, Aboriginal Chief, act of looking, Alter Ego, An unorthodox flow of images, Anne Noble, Anne Noble Ruby's Room 10, art photography, ASIO surveillance images, At times there is not too much to do except just sit in the sun, Australian art, Australian artist, Australian artists, Australian cartes de visite, Australian colonial photography, Australian contemporary photography, Australian landscape, Australian photographers, Australian photography, Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation, Author Frank Hardy shelters under an awning, Backyard Forster New South Wales, Beechworth Victoria, Benalla, Benalla Gaol, Bernd and Hilla Becher Gravel Plants, Bernd and Hilla Becher Kies-und Schotterwerke, Bill Culbert, Bill Culbert Small glass pouring Light, Body of Joe Byrne, Brassaï, Brassaï Young couple wearing a two-in-one suit at Bal De La Montagne, Bray Charred remains from Kelly gang siege, Bray Kelly Gang Armour, Bray McDonnell's Tavern opposite Railway Station, Bray The Glenrowan Inn after the Kelly Siege, Brook Andrew, Brook Andrew I split your gaze, Brook Andrew Sexy and Dangerous, Budapest Festival, Building Workers Industrial Union, Burman Joe Byrne's Body Benalla Gaol, CCP, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Charles Kerry, Charles Kerry Aboriginal Chief, Charred remains from Kelly gang siege, contemporary art, Contemporary Photography, contemporary photography and video, contemporary video, Daido Moriyama, Daido Moriyama DOCUMENTARY '78, Dan Kelly, David Bowie, David Bowie - Heroes, David Moore, David Moore Migrants arriving in Sydney, David Moore Sisters of Charity, democratic experience of the public gallery space, DOCUMENTARY '78, drawing connections, Dreaming in the sun at Marree, first press photograph in Australia, Fitzroy Square, Flagellation of Christ, Francis Alÿs, Francis Alÿs Fitzroy Square, Frank Hardy under awning, Georgie Mattingly, Georgie Mattingly Portrait IV (After Arthroplasty), Glenrowan, Glenrowan Inn, Gravel Plants, Harold Cazneaux, Harold Cazneaux Spirit of endurance, Heroes, Hokusai, I made a camera, I Split Your Gaze, In a Bind, In the far reaches of the familiar, J W Lindt Body of Joe Byrne, J W Lindt Body of Joe Byrne member of the Kelly Gang, J. E. Bray, J. E. Bray Charred remains from Kelly gang siege, J. E. Bray Kelly Gang Armour, J. E. Bray McDonnell's Tavern opposite Railway Station, J. E. Bray The Glenrowan Inn after the Kelly Siege, J. W. Lindt, Janina Green, Janina Green Self Portrait, Jeff Carter, Jeff Carter 'Pompey' a well known resident of Marree, Jeff Carter At times there is not too much to do except just sit in the sun, Jeff Carter Dreaming in the sun at Marree, Jeff Carter Morning Break, Jeff Carter The Eunuch Marree South Australia, Jeff Wall, Jeff Wall A sudden gust of wind, Jeff Wall A sudden gust of wind (after Hokusai), Joe Byrne's Body, Joe Byrne's Body Benalla Gaol, Joe Rosenthal, Joe Rosenthal Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, Joosep Martinson, Joosep Martinson Police Hostage Situation Developing at the Lindt Café in Sydney, Joyce Evans, Joyce Evans Budapest Festival, Julian Ashton, Kelly Gang, Kelly Gang Armour, Kelly Gang siege, Kelly Siege, Kies-und Schotterwerke, L'Autre, Leah King-Smith, Leah King-Smith Untitled #3, Lisa Hilli, Lisa Hilli In a Bind, Luc Delahaye, Luc Delahaye L'Autre, Lyn and Carol, Maryborough District, Masayoshi Sukita, Masayoshi Sukita David Bowie - Heroes, materiality of real photographs, Max Dupain, Max Dupain Backyard, McDonnell's Railway Tavern with remains of Kelly Gang in Coffins, McDonnell's Tavern opposite Railway Station, Melbourne, member of the Kelly Gang, Migrants arriving in Sydney, Ned Kelly, Ned Kelly photographs, Olive Cotton, Olive Cotton Teacup Ballet, one of five trackers who helped track Ned Kelly, Pat Brassington, Pat Brassington Vedette, personal encounters with photography and video, Persons Of Interest, Persons Of Interest - ASIO surveillance images, Photographer unknown Joe Byrne's Body Benalla Gaol, photographic representation, photographic reproductions, photography now, Piero della Francesca, Piero della Francesca Flagellation of Christ, Place where rails were taken up by Kelly gang, plein air explorers, Police Hostage Situation Developing at the Lindt Café in Sydney, Portrait IV (After Arthroplasty), Portrait of Tracker Johnny, Portrait of Tracker Johnny from Maryborough District, post-mortem photographs, public gallery space, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, Rapid Transit, Regarding the Pain of Others, remains of Dan Kelly and Hart in coffins, repositories of images, reproducibility, reproductions, returning the dispossessed to country, Robyn Stacey, Robyn Stacey Wendy and Brett Whiteley's Library, Ruby's Room 10, Sexy and Dangerous, shared democratic experience, siege at Glenrowan, siri hayes, Siri Hayes In the far reaches of the familiar, Siri Hayes Plein air explorers, Sisters of Charity, Small glass pouring Light, Spirit of endurance, Steve Hart, Sue Ford, Sue Ford Lyn and Carol, Sue Ford St Kilda, Susan Sontag, Susan Sontag Regarding the Pain of Others, Teacup Ballet, the act of looking, The Eunuch Marree South Australia, The Glenrowan Inn, The Glenrowan Inn after the Kelly Siege, the spatio-temporality of photographs, the spatio-temporality of photography, Tracey Moffatt, Tracey Moffatt I made a camera, Tracker Johnny, Untitled #3, Untitled (glass on plane), Vedette, violence and photographic representation, violence of photographic representation, violence physically enacted on the body, W. E. Barnes Steve Hart, Walker Evans, Walker Evans Rapid Transit, Wendy and Brett Whiteley's Library, William Eggleston, William Eggleston Untitled (glass on plane), William J. Burman, William J. Burman Joe Byrne's Body, William J. Burman Joe Byrne's Body Benalla Gaol, William Yang, William Yang Alter Ego, Young couple wearing a two-in-one suit at Bal De La Montagne

Exhibition dates: 30th September – 12th November 2017

Curators: Naomi Cass and Pippa Milne

Living artists include: Laurence Aberhart, Brook Andrew, Rushdi Anwar, Warwick Baker, Paul Batt, Robert Billington, Christian Boltanski, Pat Brassington, Jane Brown, Daniel Bushaway, Sophie Calle, Murray Cammick, Christian Capurro, Steve Carr, Mohini Chandra, Miriam Charlie, Maree Clarke, Michael Cook, Bill Culbert, Christopher Day, Luc Delahaye, Ian Dodd, William Eggleston, Joyce Evans, Cherine Fahd, Fiona Foley, Juno Gemes, Simryn Gill, John Gollings, Helen Grace, Janina Green, Andy Guérif, Siri Hayes, Andrew Hazewinkel, Lisa Hilli, Eliza Hutchison, Therese Keogh, Leah King-Smith, Katrin Koenning, O Philip Korczynski, Mac Lawrence, Kirsten Lyttle, Jack Mannix, Jesse Marlow, Georgie Mattingley, Tracey Moffatt, Daido Moriyama, Harry Nankin, Jan Nelson, Phuong Ngo.

Historic photographers: Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801-1887), Charles Bayliss (Australian born England, 1850-1897), Bernd and Hilla Becher (German; Bernd Becher 1931-2007, Hilla Becher 1934-2015), Lisa Bellear (Australian / Goernpil, 1962-2006), James E. Bray (Australian, 1832-1891), Jeff Carter (Australian, 1928-2010), Harold Cazneaux (Australian, 1878-1953), Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003), Peter Dombrovskis (Australian, 1995-1996), Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992), Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019), Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975), Sue Ford (Australian, 1943-2009), Marti Friedlander (New Zealand born Britain, 1928-2016), Kate Gollings (Australian, 1943-2017), André Kertész (Hungarian, 1894-1985), J. W. Lindt (Australian born Germany, 1845-1926), W. H. Moffitt (Australian, 1888-1948), David Moore (Australian, 1927-2003), Michael Riley (Australian / Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi, 1960-2004), Robert Rooney (Australian, 1937-2017), Joe Rosenthal (American, 1911-2006), Mark Strizic (Australian, 1928 -2012), Ingeborg Tyssen (Australian, 1945-2002), Aby Warburg (German, 1866-1929), Charles Woolley (Australian, 1834-1922).

(1) J W Lindt (Australian, 1845-1926)
Body of Joe Byrne, member of the Kelly Gang, hung up for photography, Benalla
1880
Courtesy State Library Victoria, Pictures Collection

Thought to be the first press photograph in Australia, this shows Joe Byrne, a member of the Kelly Gang, strung up for documentation days after his death, which followed the siege at Glenrowan. Byrne is displayed for an unknown photographer and the painter Julian Ashton who is standing to the left with possibly a sketchbook under his arm. Lindt’s photograph captures not only the spectacle of Byrne’s body but the contingent of documentarians who arrived from Melbourne to record and widely disseminate the event for public edification.

Double take

I was a curatorial interlocutor for this exhibition so it was very interesting to see this exhibition in the flesh.

An unorthodox flow of images is a strong exhibition, splendidly brought to fruition by curators Naomi Cass and Pippa Milne at the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP), Melbourne. To be able to bring so many themes, images, ideas and people together through a network of enabling, and a network of images, is an impressive achievement.

The exhibition explores the notion of connectivity between images in our media saturated world – across context, time and space. “With a nod to networked image viewing behaviour and image sharing – in one long line – the flow also impersonates the form of a sentence.” While the viewer makes their own flows through the works on view, they must interpret the interpolation of images (much like a remark interjected in a conversation) in order to understand their underlying patterns of connection. Like Deleuze and Guattari’s horizontal rhizome theory1 – where the viewer is offered a new way of seeing: that of infinite plateaus, nomadic thought and multiple choices – here the relationship between the photograph and its beholder as a confrontation between self and other, and the dynamic relation between time, subjectivity, memory and loss is investigated … with the viewer becoming an intermediary in an endless flow of non-hierarchical images/consciousness.

In this throng of dialects, the exhibition meanders through different “sections” which are undefined in terms of their beginning and end. The starting point for this flow is the public demonstration of trauma for the edification of society (the photographs of the aftermath of the siege of Ned Kelly and his gang at Glenrowan), notably what is thought to be the first press photograph in Australia, J W Lindt’s Body of Joe Byrne, member of the Kelly Gang, hung up for photography, Benalla (1880, above), and the flow then gathers its associations through concepts such as studio work, the gaze, disruption, truth, performance and traces, to name just a few. The exhibition ceaselessly establishes connections between semiotic chains, organisations of power and contextual circumstances, moving forward and backwards in time and space, jumping across the gallery walls, linking any point to any point if the beholder so desires. In this sense (that of an expanded way of thinking laterally to create a democracy of sight and understanding), the exhibition succeeds in fostering connections, offering multiple entryways into the flow of images that proposes a new cultural norm.

For Deleuze and Guattari these assemblages (of images in this case), “… are the processes by which various configurations of linked components function in an intersection with each other, a process that can be both productive and disruptive. Any such process involves a territorialization; there is a double movement where something accumulates meanings (re-territorialization), but does so co-extensively with a de-territorialization where the same thing is disinvested of meanings.”2 Now here’s the rub (or the trade-off if you like) of this exhibition, for everything in life is a trade-off: the accumulation of new meaning that such a flow of images creates is balanced by what has been lost. Both an accumulation and disinvestment of meaning.

I have a feeling that in such a flow of images the emotion and presence of the subject has been lost, subsumed into a networked, hypermedia flow where, “images become more and more layered until they are architectural in design, until their relationship to the context from which they have grown cannot be talked about through the simple models offered by referentiality, or by attributions of cause and effect.”3 The linear perspective developed during the Renaissance and its attendant evidence of truth / objective reality (the logic of immediacy) is disrupted. It is no longer about being there, about the desire for presence, but about a logic of hypermediacy that privileges fragmentation, process, and performance. Of course, immediacy / hypermediacy are part of a whole and are not exclusionary to each other. But here contemporary art, and in particular contemporary photography, keeps coming back to the surface, redefining conceptual and aesthetic spaces.

This is where I was plainly unmoved by the whole exhibition. Conceptually and intellectually the exhibition is very strong but sequentially and, more importantly, emotionally – the flow of images failed to engage me. The dissociative association proposed – like a dissociative identity disorder – ultimately becomes a form of ill/literation, in which the images seem drained of their passion, a degenerative illness in which all images loose their presence and power. In a media saturated world what does it mean to pluck these images from a variable spatio-temporal dimensionality and sequence them together and hope they give meaning to each other? Ultimately, it’s a mental exercise of identity organisation that is pure construct.

Further, this (re)iteration is a repetition that is supposed to bring you successively closer to the solution of a problem: what is the relevance of the stream of image consciousness in contemporary society? What happens to the referentiality and presence of the individual image?

With this in mind, let us return to the first image in the flow of images, J W Lindt’s Body of Joe Byrne, member of the Kelly Gang, hung up for photography, Benalla (1880, above). Here Byrne is displayed for an unknown photographer and the painter Julian Ashton who is standing to the left with possibly a sketchbook under his arm. Amongst other things, the image is by a photographer taking a photograph of another photographer taking a photograph of the body of Joe Byrne. Immediately, the triangular relationship of camera / subject / viewer (cause and effect) is disrupted with the addition of the second photographer. There is a doubling of space and time within this one image, as we imagine the image the photographer in the photograph would have taken. And then we can see two variations of that internal photograph: Photographer unknown Joe Byrne’s Body, Benalla Gaol, 29 June 1880 (below) and William J. Burman’s Joe Byrne’s Body, Benalla Gaol, 29 June 1880 (1880, below) which 1/ appears to solve who the “photographer unknown” is (unless Burman purchase the rights to use another’s photographers’ negatives); and 2/ is a more tightly framed image than the first iteration. If you look at the top of the head in the second image the hair goes over the metal hinge of the door behind… so the photographer (the same one) has moved closer and dropped the height of the camera, so that the camera looks up more, at the body.

Other details fascinate. The ring on the left finger of Joe Byrne; his stripped shirt; the rope under his arms used to help support his weight; the rope disappearing out of picture to help string him up; and questions such as, how did they get his left hand to stay in that position? This is also, “an image of an audience as much as a portrait of the deceased … Members of the public are also documented; children, men – trackers perhaps, bearing witness to the public display of retribution that was intended to restore social order.” To the left we have what is presumably the photographers’ coat hung on a tree; a man wiping his nose with his thumb; and Aboriginal man; and a boy looking at the camera. Through his silhouette the Aboriginal man can probably be identified as Tracker Johnny, one of five trackers who helped track Ned Kelly, and we can see a portrait of him in an albumen photograph held by the Queensland Police Museum (1880, below). A picture of the ‘Other’, both outsiders, the outlaw and the Aboriginal, detailing the social order. The blurred image of the boy looking at the camera shows the length of the time exposure for the glass plate, but it is his “Janus-faced” visage that I am fascinated with… as he both looks forwards and backwards in time. Whilst most images within An unorthodox flow of images are conceptually grounded, they also evidence only one direct meaning in relationship to themselves within that network, “each one connected to those on either side,” – from point to point to point. Conversely, in this image the interpretation is open-ended, WITHIN THE ONE IMAGE. It is a network all of its own. I also remember, emotionally, the other images of the burnt out Glenrowan Inn, the place where the rails were taken up (I was there!), the bodies in the coffins, the preparation for the photograph of the Kelly Gang Armour laid out in a muddy field for documentation, and the burnt to a cinder, charred remains rescued from the ashes of the Glenrowan Inn laid out on a piece of wood. There is a physicality to these photographs, and an emotional charge, that no other photograph in this exhibition matches. I think, then, not of Joe Bryne’s lifeless body and its/the photographs morbidity, but of him as a younger man – standing legs crossed, one hand on hip, the other resting on the surface of a table, imagining his touch on that table in reality – a son, an outlaw, a living being.

I wish the curators had been braver. I wish that they had given these images more chance to breathe. I wish they had cut the number of images and sequenced them so that the space between them (what Minor White calls ice/fire, that frisson of space between two images that adds to their juxtaposed meaning) provided opportunity for a more emotional engagement with what was being presented. Yes, this is a strong exhibition but it could have been so much more powerful if the flow had not just meandered through the sentence, but cried out, and declaimed, and was quiet. Where was the punctum? Where was the life blood of the party, if only disappearing in a contiguous flow of images.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Word count: 1,642

Footnotes

1/ Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis and London: University of Minneapolis Press, 1987

2/ Wood, Aylish. “Fresh Kill: Information technologies as sites of resistance,” in Munt, Sally (ed.,). Technospaces: Inside the New Media. London: Continuum, 2001, p. 166

3/ Burnett, Ron. Cultures of Vision: Images, Media, & the Imaginary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995, pp. 137-138.

.
Many thankx to the CCP for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. The numbers in brackets refer to the number of the image in the field guide. The text is taken from the field guide to the exhibition [Online] Cited 01/11/2017. No longer available online.

An unorthodox flow of images commences with what is known as the first press photograph in Australia and unfurls through historic, press, portraiture, popular and art photography, some in their intended material form and others as reproductions. An unbroken thread connects this line of still and moving images, each tied to those on either side through visual, conceptual, temporal, material or circumstantial links.

This is a proposition about photography now. Relationships between images are sometimes real, and sometimes promiscuous. Unorthodox brings new contexts to existing artworks whilst celebrating the materiality of real photographs, in real time and critically, honouring the shared democratic experience of the public gallery space. (Text from the CCP website)

J W Lindt (Australian, 1845-1926)
Body of Joe Byrne, member of the Kelly Gang, hung up for photography, Benalla (details)
1880
Courtesy State Library Victoria, Pictures Collection

(2) Photographer unknown
Joe Byrne’s Body, Benalla Gaol, 29 June
1880
Photographic print from glass plate
12 × 19.5cm
© Collection of Joyce Evans
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

This image appears to the one of the images taken by the photographer in J. W. Lindt’s Body of Joe Byrne, member of the Kelly Gang, hung up for photography, Benalla 1880 (above)

William J. Burman (Australian born England, 1814-1890)
Joe Byrne’s Body, Benalla Gaol, 29 June 1880
1880
At 209 Bourke Street, East Melbourne 1878-1888
Albumen carte de visite
6.5 × 10.5cm

This image appears to the one of the images taken by the photographer in J. W. Lindt’s Body of Joe Byrne, member of the Kelly Gang, hung up for photography, Benalla 1880.

Unknown photographer
Untitled [Portrait of Tracker Johnny from Maryborough District one of five trackers who helped track Ned Kelly] (detail, not in exhibition)
c. 1880
Albumen photograph
Queensland Police Museum
Non-commercial – Share Alike (cc)

(3) J. E. Bray (Australian, 1832-1891)
Kelly Gang Armour
1880
Albumen cabinet portrait
16.5 × 10.5cm
© Collection of Joyce Evans
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

“As objects of contemplation, images of the atrocious can answer to several different needs. To steel oneself against weakness. To make oneself more numb. To acknowledge the existence of the incorrigible.” ~ Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (2003)

(4) Unknown photographer
Place where rails were taken up by Kelly gang
1880
Albumen carte de visite
6.5 × 10.5cm
© Collection of Joyce Evans
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

(5) J. E. Bray (Australian, 1832-1891)
The Glenrowan Inn after the Kelly Siege
1880
Albumen carte de visite
6.5 × 10.5cm
© Collection of Joyce Evans
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

(6) J. E. Bray (Australian, 1832-1891)
Charred remains from Kelly gang siege
1880
Albumen carte de visite
6.5 × 10.5cm
© Collection of Joyce Evans
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

In her comments on a related photograph by Bray, Helen Ennis writes, “What you see pictured, presumably as part of the official documentation are the thoroughly blackened remains of either Dan Kelly or Steve Hart… Relatives raked what remained of the bodies… from the ashes of the Glenrowan Inn. These were then photographed before family members took them home on horseback and buried them. … [These photographs] also underscore the brutality and barbarism of the post-mortem photographs – the violence physically enacted on the body in the first instance and then visually in terms of the photographic representation.”

Helen Ennis. “Portraiture in extremis” in Photogenic Essays/Photography/CCP 2000-2004, Daniel Palmer (ed.), 2005, CCP, pp. 23-39, p. 34

(7) J. E. Bray (Australian, 1832-1891)
Untitled [“McDonnell’s Tavern opposite Railway Station, remains of Dan Kelly and Hart in coffins”]
1880
Albumen cabinet portrait
16.5 × 10.5cm
© Collection of Joyce Evans
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

W. E. (William Edward) Barnes (Australian, 1841-1916)
Steve Hart (1859-1880) (front and verso, not in exhibition)
c. 1878
Albumen carte de visite
6.5 × 10.5cm
© Collection of Joyce Evans
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

W. E. (William Edward) Barnes (Australian, 1841-1916)
Steve Hart (1859-1880) (not in exhibition)
c. 1878
Albumen carte de visite
State Library of Victoria

(9) Piero della Francesca (Italian, 1415-1492)
Flagellation of Christ
1455-1460
Oil and tempera on wood, reproduced as digital print on wallpaper
58.4 × 81.5 cm, reproduced at 20 × 30 cm

The meaning of della Francesca’s Flagellation and exact identity of the three foreground figures in fifteenth century dress, is widely contested. In the context of this flow of images, the painting represents the pubic display of suffering as punishment, for the edification of society. In both J.W. Lindt’s documentary photograph and the possibly allegorical Flagellation, the broken body of Joe Byrne and that of Christ are isolated from other figures and subject of conversation and debate by gathered figures. Other formal similarities include framing of the tableau into shallow and deep space the organising role of architecture in signifying the key subject.

(10) Joosep Martinson
Police Hostage Situation Developing at the Lindt Café in Sydney
2014
Digital print on wallpaper
20 × 30cm

The scene outside the Lindt Cafe siege, caught by the photojournalist in a moment of public trauma. This bears formal resemblance to J.W. Lindt’s photograph of Joe Byrne, and even further back to Piero della Francesca.

(13) Tracey Moffatt (Australian, b. 1960)
I made a camera
2003
photolithograph
38 × 43cm, edition 201 of 750
Private collection

Returning to J.W. Lindt’s photograph º in particular the hooded central figure photographing Joe Byrne – Tracey Moffatt’s picturing of children role-playing calls to mind the colonial photographer’s anthropological gesture.

(14) Siri Hayes (Australian, b. 1977)
In the far reaches of the familiar
2011
C-type print
88 × 70 cm, exhibition print
Courtesy the artist

The photographer’s hood is the photographer.

(15) Janina Green (Australian born Germany, b. 1944)
Self Portrait
1996
Digital version of a hand-coloured work in early Photoshop
44 × 60cm
Courtesy the artist and M.33, Melbourne

(16) Georgie Mattingly
Portrait IV (After Arthroplasty)
2016
Hand-tinted silver gelatin print
36 × 26cm
Unique hand print
Courtesy the artist

The photographer’s hood has become a meat-worker’s protective gear, tenderly hand-coloured. [And spattered with blood ~ Marcus]

(17) Lisa Hilli (Makurategete Vunatarai (clan) Gunantuna / Tolai People, Papua New Guinea)
In a Bind
2015
Pigment print on cotton rag
76 × 51.5cm
Courtesy the artist

‘The woven material that hoods the artist’s identity is a reference to collected Pacific artefacts, which are usually of a practical nature. Magimagi is a plaited coconut fibre used for reinforcing architectural structures and body adornment within the Pacific. Here it emphasises the artist’s feeling of being bound by derogatory Western and anthropological labels used by museums and the erasure of Pacific bodies and narratives within public displays of Pacific materiality.’ ~ Lisa Hilli 2017, in an email to the curator

In an era of ‘tumbling’ images, An unorthodox flow of images presents visual culture in a novel way: commencing with Australia’s first press photograph, 150 images unfurl in flowing, a-historical sequences throughout the gallery. Each work is connected to the one before through formal, conceptual or material links.

An unorthodox flow of images draws upon the photographic image in its many forms, from significant historical photographs by major Australian artists, such as J.W. Lindt, Olive Cotton and Max Dupain, through to contemporary international and Australian artists, such as Tracey Moffatt, Michael Parekowhai, Christian Boltanski and Daido Moriyama. This exhibition brings early career artists into the flow, including Georgie Mattingley, Jack Mannix and James Tylor.

Celebrating the breadth of photographic technologies from analogue through to digital, including hand made prints, a hand-held stereoscope, early use of Photoshop, iPhone videos and holography, An unorthodox flow of images propels the viewer through a novel encounter with technology, art, and the act of looking. Rather than a definitive narrative, this exhibition is a proposition about relationships between images: sometimes real and sometimes promiscuous, and is inevitably open to alternative readings. Contemporary culture necessitates quick, networked visual literacy. So viewers are invited to make their own readings of this unorthodox flow.

Akin to how images are experienced in our personal lives and perhaps to how artists are influenced by the multiverse of photography, this extraordinary gathering also includes spirited incursions from other kinds of images – rare prints of grizzly 19th century photojournalism abuts contemporary video first shared on Instagram, and surrealist French cinema nestles in with Australian image-makers.

This exhibition aims to bring new contexts to existing artworks to highlight networked image-viewing behaviour, whilst honouring the materiality of real photographs, in real time and critically, honouring the shared democratic experience of the public gallery space. An unorthodox flow of images is presented as part of the 2017 Melbourne Festival.

Press release from the CCP

(30)Siri Hayes (Australian, b. 1977)
Plein air explorers
2008
C-type print
108 × 135cm, edition 4 of 6
Collection of Jason Smith

An artist’s studio in the landscape.

(31) Robyn Stacey (Australian, b. 1952)
Wendy and Brett Whiteley’s Library
2016
From the series Dark Wonder
C-type print
110 × 159cm, edition of 5 + 3 artist proofs
Courtesy the artist and Jan Manton Gallery, Brisbane

The landscape brought into the studio by a camera obscura. Robyn Stacey captures the perfect moment of light and clarity, in this instance, also turning the egg-object into an orb of light.

(37) Pat Brassington (Australian, b. 1942)
Vedette
2015
Pigment print
75 × 60cm, edition of 8,
Courtesy the artist and ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne and Bett Gallery, Hobart

Two orbs, a positive and a negative space.

(38) Anne Noble (New Zealand, b. 1954)
Ruby’s Room 10
1998-2004
Courtesy the artist and Two Rooms Gallery Auckland

(42) Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
DOCUMENTARY ’78
1986
Silver gelatin print
61 × 50.8cm
Private collection

(43) Leah King-Smith (Australian / Bigambul, b. 1957)
Untitled #3
1991
From the series Patterns of connection
C-type print
102 × 102cm, edition 6 of 25
Private collection

‘I was seeing the old photographs as both sacred family documents on one hand, and testaments of the early brutal days of white settlement on the other. I was thus wrestling with anger, resentment, powerlessness and guilt while at the same time encountering a sense of deep connectedness, of belonging and power in working with images of my fellow Indigenous human beings.’ ~ L King-Smith, White apron, black hands, Brisbane City Hall Gallery, 1994, p. 7. In this series, the artist superimposes the colonial portrait onto images of the subject’s own landscape, returning the dispossessed to country.

Unorthodox: a field guide

We could have started anywhere. Perhaps every image ever made connects with another image in some way. But, we have begun with what is known as the first press photograph in Australia – a grisly depiction of Kelly Gang member Joe Byrne, strung up some days after his execution, for a group of onlookers, including a group of documentarians who came in by train to record the event: a painter and several photographers. This is an image of an audience as much as a portrait of the deceased. A hooded photographer bends to his tripod, and a painter waits in line. Perhaps a seminal moment between competing technologies of record, magnificently captured by colonial photographer, J. W. Lindt (1845-1926): this is as decisive a moment as current technology permitted. Members of the public are also documented; children, men – trackers perhaps, bearing witness to the public display of retribution that was intended to restore social order.

From here, Unorthodox draws a thread of images together, each one connected to those on either side, whether through visual, conceptual, temporal, material or circumstantial ties, or by something even more diffuse and smoky – some images just conjure others, without a concrete reason for their bond. Spanning the entire gallery space, nearly 150 images unfurl with links that move through historic, press, portraiture, popular and art photography.

You are invited to wander through CCPs nautilus galleries, and make what you will of this flow because unlike a chain of custody, there is no singular narrative or forensic link: you are invited to explore not just connections between works but to see individual works in a new light.

At the core of this exhibition is an attempt to lay bare the way that images inform and seep into everyday life, underpinning the way that we see, interpret and understand the world. With a nod to networked image viewing behaviour and image sharing – in one long line – the flow also impersonates the form of a sentence.

The act of looking. Looking is a process, informed by context – where and when we see something, and what surrounds it. Here, images are unbuckled from their original context, indeed there are no museum labels on the wall. But this is often the way when viewing images on the internet, or reproduced in books, referenced in ads, reenacted in fashion shoots, or reinterpreted by artists. The notion of reproductions within photography is slippery, made more so by the rapid circulation of images whereby we sometimes only know certain originals through their reproductions. In this exhibition, sometimes we have the original images, at others we proffer ‘reproductions’, setting out a swathe of contemporary and historical approaches to the craft of photography and video, unhampered by traditional constraints of what we can or cannot show within a non-collecting contemporary art space.

This exhibition moves through a number of notional chapters, for example visual connections can be made between orbs made by soap bubbles (no. 32, 34) and moons (no. 33); eyes (no. 40, 41, 42), gaping mouths (no. 37), the balletic body in space (no. 45); and light from orbs (no. 44, 46) and then moonlight on the ocean (no. 47), which tumbles into salty connections, with photographs exposed by the light of the moon through seawater (no. 48) connecting to an image of salt mines (no. 50), and on to salt prints (no. 51).

We have been influenced by observing how audiences view exhibitions, traversing the space, seemingly drawing connections, making their own flows through works on view. In spite of its indexicality to the world, photography is particularly open to multiple readings due to its reproducibility and its vulnerability to manipulation. A key to this permeability is the intention of the photographer, which can become opaque over time. For example, installation artist Christian Boltanski’s found photograph (no. 137) has been taken out of its time and context so as to mean something quite different from what the photographer intended.

Importantly, due to their multiple readings, many works could be equally effective if placed in other sections of the exhibition. For example, of the many places to position Leah King-Smith’s Untitled #3 (no. 43), we have elected to locate it amongst compositions that include orbs. However, it is also a staged work; a constructed or collaged photograph; it embodies an Indigenous artist returning the colonial gaze and, due to the age of her source photograph, it represents a deceased person. And, in her own words King-Smith is responding to the trauma of settlement. ‘I was thus wrestling with anger, resentment, powerlessness… while at the same time encountering a sense of deep connectedness, of belonging and power in working with images of my fellow Indigenous human beings.’

A curious process indeed, we have been open to many repositories of images while gathering this flow – from our work with artists at CCP; to childhood memories of images and personal encounters with photography and video; to our trawling of the Internet and books; as well as conversations with writers, artists and collectors. From these stores, we have also considered which works were available in their material form, as opposed to reproductions on wallpaper, postcards and record covers. While we exhibit a broad timespan and multiple technologies, our primary desire as a contemporary art space is to create new contexts for the exhibition of contemporary photography and video.

Unorthodox is a proposition about relationships between images: sometimes real and sometimes promiscuous, and is inevitably open to alternative readings. It brings new contexts to existing artworks whilst celebrating the materiality of real photographs, in real time and critically, honouring the shared democratic experience of the public gallery space.

Naomi Cass and Pippa Milne

(62) Brook Andrew (Australian, b. 1970)
I Split Your Gaze
1997, printed 2005
Silver gelatin print
160 × 127cm
Private collection
Courtesy the artist and Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne; Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney; and Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris and Brussels

(63) Brassaï (French, 1899-1984)
Young couple wearing a two-in-one suit at Bal De La Montagne Saint-Genevieve
c. 1931
Gelatin silver print
Reproduced as digital print on wallpaper
23.2 × 15.9cm, reproduced at 24.5 × 19cm

(64) William Yang (Australian, b. 1943)
Alter Ego
2000
from the series Self Portraits
Inkjet print, edition 2 of 30
68 × 88cm
Courtesy the artist

(65) Sue Ford (Australian, 1943-2009)
Lyn and Carol
1961
Silver gelatin print, edition 3 of 5
44 × 38cm
Courtesy Sue Ford Archive

(76) Harold Cazneaux (Australian, 1878-1953)
Spirit of Endurance
1937
Silver gelatin print
16.8 × 20.4cm
Private collection

In the following two works, a critical change of title by the artist reveals what, alone, the eye cannot see. This photograph had already achieved iconic status as a symbol of the noble Australian landscape when, following the loss of his son who died aged 21 at Tobruk in 1941, Cazneaux flipped the negative and presented the image under the new title Spirit of Endurance. The tree is now classified on the National Trust of South Australia’s Register of Significant Trees.

(77) Jeff Carter (Australian, 1928-2010)
The Eunuch, Marree, South Australia
1964
Silver gelatin print
37.5 × 27.2cm
Private collection

Changing a title can dramatically alter the meaning of an image. This work has had several titles:

Morning Break 1964;
Dreaming in the sun at Marree, outside the towns single store 1966;
At times there is not too much to do except just sit in the sun… 1968;
‘Pompey’ a well known resident of Marree;
and finally The Eunuch, Marree, South Australia 2000

Under early titles, the photograph appeared to be a simple portrait of “Pompey”, a local Aboriginal man in Marree who worked at the town’s bakery. The final title draws viewers’ attention away from what might have seemed to be the man’s relaxed approach to life, and towards the violence enacted on Aboriginal communities in castrating young boys.

(82) Photographer undisclosed
Persons Of Interest – ASIO surveillance images
1949 -1980
‘Frank Hardy under awning Caption: Author Frank Hardy shelters under an awning, in the doorway of the Building Workers Industrial Union, 535 George St, Sydney, August 1955’
C-type prints
22 × 29cm each
Private collection

The Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) employed photographers to spy on Australian citizens. The photographs which were annotated to indicate persons of interest, were retained by ASIO along with other forms of material gathered through espionage.

(85) Luc Delahaye (French, b. 1962)
L’Autre (detail)
1999
Book published by Phaidon Press, London
17 × 22cm
Private collection

In the footsteps of Walker Evans’ classic candid series, Rapid Transit 1956

(94) David Moore (Australian, 1927-2003)
Migrants arriving in Sydney
1966
Silver gelatin print
35.7 × 47cm
Private collection

In 2015, Judy Annear said of this famous photograph: “It’s great to consider that it’s not actually what it seems.” Years after the photo was published, it emerged that four of the passengers in it were not migrants but Sydneysiders returning home from holiday.

(95) Joe Rosenthal (American, 1911-2006)
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima
1945
Digital print on wallpaper, reproduced at 20 × 25cm

While not present at the the raising of the first flag over Iwo Jima, Rosenthal witnessed the raising of the replacement flag. Some maintain that this Pulitzer Prize winning photograph was staged, while others hold that it depicts the replacement of the first flag with a larger one.

(103) Charles Kerry (Australian, 1857-1928)
Aboriginal Chief
c. 1901-1907
Carte de visite
13.7 × 8.5 cm
Private collection

No name or details are recorded of this sitter from Barron River, QLD. He was a member of the touring Wild West Aboriginal troupe, which staged corroborees, weapon skills and tableaux of notorious encounters between armed Native Police and unarmed local communities.

(104) Brook Andrew (Australian, b. 1970)
Sexy and Dangerous
1996
Computer-generated colour transparency on transparent synthetic polymer resin, included here as postcard of artwork
original 146.0 × 95.6cm, included here at 15.3 × 10.5cm
The artist is represented by Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne; Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney; and Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris and Brussels

(116) William Eggleston (American, b. 1939)
Untitled (glass on plane)
1965-1974
C-type print
41 × 56cm
Private collection

(117) Bill Culbert (New Zealand, b. 1935)
Small glass pouring Light, France
1997
Silver gelatin print, edition of 25
40.5 × 40.5cm
Courtesy the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney and Hopkinson Mossman Gallery, Auckland

(118) Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
Teacup Ballet
1935
Silver gelatin print
35.5 × 28cm
Courtesy Tony Lee

(119) David Moore (Australian, 1927-2003)
Sisters of Charity
1956
Silver gelatin print
40.5 × 27.1cm
Private collection

(120) Bernd and Hilla Becher (German; Bernd Becher 1931-2007, Hilla Becher 1934-2015)
Kies-und Schotterwerke (Gravel Plants)
2006
Silver gelatin print
99 × 121cm
Private collection

(123) Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
Backyard, Forster, New South Wales
1940
Silver gelatin print
44 × 39cm
Private collection

(138) Joyce Evans (Australian, 1929-2019)
Budapest Festival
1949
Inkjet print
7.6 × 7.6cm
Courtesy the artist

(145) Jeff Wall (Canadian, b. 1946)
A sudden gust of wind (after Hokusai)
1993
Transparency on lightbox, included here as postcard of artwork
250 × 397 × 34cm, included here at 15.3 × 10.5cm
Artist is represented by Marian Goodman Gallery; Gagosian; and White Cube Gallery

(147) Masayoshi Sukita (Japanese, b. 1938)
David Bowie – Heroes
1977
Record cover
31 × 31cm

Sukita: In gesture and gaze, Sukita’s photograph for David Bowie’s 1977 cover harks back 60 years to Weimar Republic artist, Erich Heckel’s 1917 painting, Roquairol, which is in Bowie’s art collection.

(148) Francis Alÿs (Belgian based Mexico, b. 1959)
Railings (Fitzroy square)
London, 2004
4.03 min.
Francis Alÿs website

We posit Fitzroy Square at this point; in honour of your journey through this unorthodox flow of images.

Centre for Contemporary Photography
404 George St, Fitzroy
Victoria 3065, Australia
Phone: + 61 3 9417 1549

Opening Hours:
Wednesday – Sunday, 11am – 6pm

Centre for Contemporary Photography website

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Nov

Exhibition: ‘An unorthodox flow of images’ at the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP), Melbourne Part 1

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E. Bray, J. E. Bray Kelly Gang Armour, J. E. Bray McDonnell's Tavern opposite Railway Station, J. W. Lind Aboriginal man with Snake, J. W. Lindt, J. W. Lindt Seated Aboriginal man holding Boomerangs, Janina Green, Janina Green Self Portrait, Jeff Carter, Jeff Carter The Eunuch Marree South Australia, Jesse Marlow, Jesse Marlow Santa, Jewish School in Berlin 1938, Joe Byrne, Joyce Evans, Joyce Evans Budapest Festival, Juno Gemes, Juno Gemes One with the Land, Kate Gollings, Kate Gollings Lee family portrait, Kelly Gang Armour, kete whakario, Kies-und Schotterwerke, Kilburn Brothers, Kilburn Brothers Affection, Kirsten Lyttle, Kirsten Lyttle Twilled Work, L'Autre, L'ecole de la Große Hamburger Straße, last female Aborigine of Tasmania, last female Aborigine of Tasmania with shell necklace, Law Library, Le Musee Imaginaire, Lee family portrait, Lee family portrait before the funeral, Lee family portrait with portrait of dead father added, light and clarity, Lima Tapadas, Lisa Bellear, Lisa Bellear The Black GST Protest at Camp Sovereignty, Lisa Hilli, Lisa Hilli In a Bind, Luc Delahaye, Luc Delahaye L'Autre, Lyn and Carol, Mac Lawrence, Mac Lawrence Five raised fingers, Maori raranga technique, Maree Clarke, Maree Clarke Nan's House, Marie Shannon Pussy, Max Dupain, Max Dupain Backyard Forster, McDonnell's Tavern opposite Railway Station, Michael Riley, Michael Riley Maria, Migrants arriving in Sydney, Murray Cammick, Murray Cammick Bob Marley p owhiri, museum diorama, Nan's House, Narrabeen Baths, narrative structure, NASA Images, National Geographic, National Geographic Vol. 174, native fishing scene, Ned Kelly, Ned Kelly shoot out, Ngarrindjeri people Chowilla Station, Ngati Pikiao, Nina Dumbadze, O. Philip Korczynski, O. Philip Korczynski Unwanted Witness and Run, Olive Cotton, Olive Cotton Teacup Ballet, One with the Land, photographic diorama, photographs of Glen Rowan, plein air explorers, Portrait IV (After Arthroplasty), Raranga Whakairo, Regarding the Pain of Others, River of Corn, Robert Billington, Robert Billington Narrabeen Baths, Robert Rooney, Robert Rooney Garments, Robyn Stacey, Robyn Stacey Dark Wonder, Robyn Stacey Wendy and Brett Whiteley's Library, Sarah Brown, Sarah Brown Quietly, Seated Aboriginal man holding Boomerangs, Self-portrait as a Drowned Man, sequencing images, sequencing photographs, sequencing photography, Sexy and Dangerous, Simon Terrill, Simon Terrill Arsenal vs Fenerbahce, siri hayes, Siri Hayes In the far reaches of the familiar, Siri Hayes Plein air explorers, Sisters of Charity, Small glass pouring Light, Smoke Bubble No. 30, Spirit of endurance, Staring together at the stars, Steve Carr, Steve Carr Smoke Bubble No. 30, Sue Ford, Sue Ford Lyn and Carol, Surveillance Image, Susan Fereday, Susan Fereday Köln, Susan Sontag, Susan Sontag Regarding the Pain of Others, Tasmanian Tiger, Te Hikapuhi, Teacup Ballet, The Australian Magazine 1958, The Black GST Protest at Camp Sovereignty, The Eunuch Marree South Australia, the Great Depression, The imaginary museum, the museum without walls, Thylacine, Thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger, Time and motion study #1, traces, Tracey Lamb, Tracey Lamb Surveillance Image, Tracey Moffatt, Tracey Moffatt I made a camera, Trent Parke, Trent Parke Untitled #92, Truccanini, Twilled Work, Unwanted Witness and Run, W. H. Moffitt, W. H. Moffitt Beach Scene, Walker Evans, Walker Evans Family Snapshots on Farmhouse Wall, Wendy and Brett Whiteley's Library, Wet Hair, Wild Times Call 2, Wild West Aboriginal troupe, William Yang, William Yang Alter Ego, Women of the Soviet Georgia, Women seem to adapt to repetitive-type tasks

Exhibition dates: 30th September – 12th November 2017

Curators: Naomi Cass and Pippa Milne

Living artists include: Laurence Aberhart, Brook Andrew, Rushdi Anwar, Warwick Baker, Paul Batt, Robert Billington, Christian Boltanski, Pat Brassington, Jane Brown, Daniel Bushaway, Sophie Calle, Murray Cammick, Christian Capurro, Steve Carr, Mohini Chandra, Miriam Charlie, Maree Clarke, Michael Cook, Bill Culbert, Christopher Day, Luc Delahaye, Ian Dodd, William Eggleston, Cherine Fahd, Fiona Foley, Juno Gemes, Simryn Gill, John Gollings, Helen Grace, Janina Green, Andy Guérif, Siri Hayes, Andrew Hazewinkel, Lisa Hilli, Eliza Hutchison, Therese Keogh, Leah King-Smith, Katrin Koenning, O Philip Korczynski, Mac Lawrence, Kirsten Lyttle, Jack Mannix, Jesse Marlow, Georgie Mattingley, Tracey Moffatt, Daido Moriyama, Harry Nankin, Jan Nelson, Phuong Ngo.

Installation photographs of the exhibition

The installation photographs (some of the 148 images in the exhibition) proceed in spatial order, in the flow that they appear in the gallery spaces. The numbers in brackets refer to the number of the image in the field guide. The text is taken from the field guide to the exhibition (Online cited 01/11/2017. No longer available online).

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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Many thankx to the CCP for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. All installation photographs © Dr Marcus Bunyan, the artists and the CCP.

Text from the CCP website

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne with at right, wallpaper of J. W. Lindt’s Body of Joe Byrne, member of the Kelly Gang, hung up for photography, Benalla 1880, to open the exhibition
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

(1) J W Lindt (Australian, 1845-1926)
Body of Joe Byrne, member of the Kelly Gang, hung up for photography, Benalla
1880
Courtesy State Library Victoria, Pictures Collection

J W Lindt: Thought to be the first press photograph in Australia, this shows Joe Byrne, a member of the Kelly Gang, strung up for documentation days after his death, which followed the siege at Glenrowan. Byrne is displayed for an unknown photographer and the painter Julian Ashton who is standing to the left with possibly a sketchbook under his arm. Lindt’s photograph captures not only the spectacle of Byrne’s body but the contingent of documentarians who arrived from Melbourne to record and widely disseminate the event for public edification.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (3) J. E. Bray’s Kelly Gang Armour 1880 cabinet card © Collection of Joyce Evans
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

J. E. Bray: “As objects of contemplation, images of the atrocious can answer to several different needs. To steel oneself against weakness. To make oneself more numb. To acknowledge the existence of the incorrigible.” ~ Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (2003)

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (7) J. E. Bray’s Untitled [“McDonnell’s Tavern opposite Railway Station, remains of Dan Kelly and Hart in coffins”] 1880 cabinet card (right) and (8) a photograph by an unknown photographer Hunters of Ned Kelly 1880 (left)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation views of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (13) Tracey Moffatt’s I Made a Camera 2003
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Moffatt: Returning to J.W. Lindt’s photograph – in particular the hooded central figure photographing Joe Byrne – Tracey Moffatt’s picturing of children role-playing calls to mind the colonial photographer’s anthropological gesture.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (14) Siri Hayes’ In the far reaches of the familiar 2011 (right) and (15) Janina Green’s Self Portrait 1996 (left)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (15) Janina Green’s Self Portrait 1996
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Green: Although celebrated for her hand coloured prints, this is in fact made with the second version of Photoshop.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (16) Georgie Mattingley’s Portrait IV (After Arthroplasty) 2016 (right) and (17) Lisa Hilli’s In a Bind 2015 (middle)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Mattingley: The photographer’s hood has become a meat-worker’s protective gear, tenderly hand-coloured.

Hilli: ‘The woven material that hoods the artist’s identity is a reference to collected Pacific artefacts, which are usually of a practical nature. Magimagi is a plaited coconut fibre used for reinforcing architectural structures and body adornment within the Pacific. Here it emphasises the artist’s feeling of being bound by derogatory Western and anthropological labels used by museums and the erasure of Pacific bodies and narratives within public displays of Pacific materiality.’ ~ Lisa Hilli 2017, in an email to the curator

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (18) Fiona Pardington’s Saul 1986 (right), (19) Fiona MacDonald’s 12 Artists 1987 (postcard, middle), and (20) Jack Mannix’s Still Life, Footscray 2013 (left)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Pardington: A portrait of Joe Makea in his beekeeper’s helmet.

MacDonald: A vintage Victorian Centre for Photography (VCP) postcard, prior to its change of name to CCP.

Mannix: A vanitas is a still life artwork which includes various symbolic objects designed to remind the viewer of their mortality and of the worthlessness of worldly goods and pleasures.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (27) Wolfgang Sievers’ The writer Jean Campbell, in her flat in East Melbourne 1950 (right); (26) André Kertész’s Chez Mondrian, Paris 1926 (middle top); (28) Gisèle Freund’s Vita Sackville-West 1938 (middle bottom); and (29) Anne Zahalka’s Home #3 (mirror) 1998 (left)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Sievers: Wolfgang’s inscription on the back of this particular print reads: The writer Jean Campbell in her near-eastern flat with her portrait by Lina Bryans.

Kertész: A studio is site for the artist’s gathering of images.

Freund: Vita Sackville-West’s writing studio was in an Elizabethan tower at Sissinghurst in Kent, overlooking her famous white garden. It remains, exactly as she left it.

Zahalka: The boundary between home and studio is often blurred when an artist has a small child.

Installation views of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing in the bottom image (30) Siri Hayes’ Plein air explorers 2008
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Hayes: An artist’s studio in the landscape.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (31) Robyn Stacey’s Wendy and Brett Whiteley’s Library from the series Dark Wonder 2016
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Stacey: The landscape brought into the studio by a camera obscura. Robyn Stacey captures the perfect moment of light and clarity, in this instance, also turning the egg-object into an orb of light.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (33) NASA Images’ A lunar disc as seen from the Apollo 15 spacecraft 1971 (top); (34) Steve Carr’s Smoke Bubble No. 30 2010 (right); and (35) National Geographic Vol. 174, No.6, December 1988 (left)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Carr: Smoke filled soap orb, reminiscent of a planet.

National Geographic: The subtitle to this special 1988 issue of National Geographic, which has a holographic front and back cover is: “As We Begin Our Second Century, the Geographic Asks: Can Man Save this Fragile Earth?”

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (39) Jesse Marlow’s Santa 2002
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (44) Susan Fereday’s Köln 2016
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (49) W. H. Moffitt’s Beach Scene, Collard #3 c. 1944
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

W. H. Moffitt: The bromoil process was invented in 1907 by Englishman C. Wellbourne Piper. A bromoil print is simply a black and white photograph printed on a suitable photographic paper from which the silver image is removed and lithography inks applied.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (51) Sarah Brown’s Quietly 2017 (right); (52) Robert Billington’s Narrabeen Baths 1994 (middle bottom); and (53) Trent Parke’s Untitled #92 1999-2000 (middle top)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Brown: The salted paper technique was created in the mid-1830s by Henry Fox Talbot. He made what he called “sensitive paper for “photogenic drawing” by wetting a sheet of writing paper with a weak solution of ordinary table salt, blotting and drying it, then brushing one side with a strong solution of silver nitrate.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (55) Charles Bayliss’ Ngarrindjeri people, Chowilla Station, Lower Murray River, South Australia 1886 (right) and (56) Anne Noble’s Antarctic diorama, Polaria Centre, Tromso, Norway 2005 (left)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Bayliss: Water looks like glass in this colonial photograph where the subjects perform for Bayliss. “Bayliss here re-creates a ‘native fishing scene’ tableau, reminiscent of a museum diorama.”

Noble: Water is glass in this diorama; photographed as if it were from nature.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (58) Andrew Hazewinkel’s Staring together at the stars, #1 2013 (right); (59) Ian Dodd’s Wet Hair 1974 (second right); (60) Juno Gemes’ One with the Land 1978 (middle); (61) David Rosetzky’s Milo 2017 (upper left); and (62) Brook Andrew’s I Split Your Gaze 1997 (left)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Gemes: The subtitle to this photograph in some collections reads: ‘waiting for the sacred fish the Dunya and Wanra to come in, Mornington Island, Queensland’.

Installation views of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing at centre right in the bottom image (64) William Yang’s Alter Ego 2000
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (65) Sue Ford’s Lyn and Carol 1961 (right)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (67) a stereoscope by an unknown photographer titled Affection c. 1882
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Kilburn Brothers, Littleton, N. H. (publisher): In the stereoscope, the double image combines to create the illusion of three-dimensional space. Compelled to make meaning from disrupted information, the brain merges two slightly different images into a seemingly single three-dimensional image.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (68) a photograph by an unknown photographer (Courret Hermanos Fotografía – Eugenio Courret 1841 – c. 1900) titled Lima Tapadas c. 1887
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (76) Harold Cazneaux’s Spirit of Endurance 1937
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Cazneaux: In the following two works, a critical change of title by the artist reveals what, alone, the eye cannot see. This photograph had already achieved iconic status as a symbol of the noble Australian landscape when, following the loss of his son who died aged 21 at Tobruk in 1941, Cazneaux flipped the negative and presented the image under the new title Spirit of Endurance. The tree is now classified on the National Trust of South Australia’s Register of Significant Trees.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (77) Jeff Carter’s The Eunuch, Marree, South Australia 1964 (NB. note reflections in the image from the gallery)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Carter: Changing a title can dramatically alter the meaning of an image. This work has had several titles:

Jeff Carter (Australian 1928-2010)
Morning Break, Marnee SA
1964
Silver gelatin print

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (78) Lisa Bellear’s The Black GST Protest at Camp Sovereignty 2006
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Bellear (Minjungbul/Goernpil/Noonuccal/Kanak): Is the demonstrator leading the policeman? Is the policeman arresting this demonstrator? Or is this tenderness between two men? This is a photograph of a photograph. As was her practice, Lisa Bellear always gave the original to her subject.

Installation views of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (82) photographer undisclosed ASIO surveillance images 1949-1980
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

ASIO: The Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) employed photographers to spy on Australian citizens. The photographs which were annotated to indicate persons of interest, were retained by ASIO along with other forms of material gathered through espionage.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (83) O. Philip Korczynski’s Unwanted Witness and Run 1980s
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation views of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (85) pages from Luc Delahaye’s book L’Autre 1999
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Delahaye: In the footsteps of Walker Evans’ classic candid series, Rapid Transit 1956.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (88) Tracey Lamb’s Surveillance Image #3 2015
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (89) Walker Evans’ Family Snapshots on Farmhouse Wall 1936 (right) with (91) Photographer unknown Lee family portrait before the funeral c. 1920 (top left); and (92) Photographer unknown Lee family portrait with portrait of dead father added c. 1920 (bottom left)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Evans: During his celebrated work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression, Walker Evans secretly removed these photographs from the home of his subject, and seemingly hurriedly pinned them to the exterior wall of the house, and photographed them without permission.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (90) photographer unknown In memoriam album 1991
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Memoriam: Double exposure enables the impossible in this personal memorial album.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (91) Photographer unknown Lee family portrait before the funeral c. 1920 (top) and (92) photographer unknown Lee family portrait with portrait of dead father added c. 1920 (bottom)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Funeral: When the family photographer arrived at the Lee home – the day of grandfather’s funeral – he asked them to pose with smiles so that, in the absence of a family portrait, he could create a composite portrait, which was given to the family some days later.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (93) Kate Gollings’ Lee family portrait 1986 (right) and (94) David Moore’s Migrants arriving in Sydney 1966 (left)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Gollings: A studio portrait of the Lee family, some 60 years following the previous two photographs. The young man is now grandfather. Still the photographer continues to craft the family, in this case through positioning the subjects, in ways which may or may not reflect actual family relationships.

Moore: In 2015, Judy Annear said of this famous photograph: “It’s great to consider that it’s not actually what it seems.” Years after the photo was published, it emerged that four of the passengers in it were not migrants but Sydneysiders returning home from holiday.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (98) Hippolyte Bayard’s Self-portrait as a Drowned Man 1840 (right); (99) J. W. Lindt’s Untitled (Seated Aboriginal man holding Boomerangs) c. 1874 (top middle); (100) J. W. Lindt’s Untitled (Aboriginal man with Snake) c. 1875 (bottom middle); and (101) Charles Woolley’s Truccanini, last female Aborigine of Tasmania with shell necklace 1886 (left)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Bayard: With its telling title, this staged image is the first instance of intentional photographic fakery, made in protest by Bayard because he felt aggrieved that his role in the invention of photography was unrecognised.

Lindt: For white colonialists, photography became “a vehicle for recording new and exotic lands and informing the ‘unexotic’ Europe of the strange landscape, flora, fauna, and people. In the case of the postcard print fashion from around 1900; to entice tourists to cruise to [exotic] places … Ultimately and blatantly however, photography became another tool of colonialism, to label, control, dehumanise and disempower their subjects who could only reply in defiant gaze at the lens controlled by someone else.” ~ Djon Mundine from Fiona Foley: River of Corn, exh. cat. University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, USA, 2001

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (101) Charles Woolley’s Truccanini, last female Aborigine of Tasmania with shell necklace 1886 (right); (102) Christian Thompson’s (Bidjara) Untitled (self portrait) Image No 1 from Emotional Striptease 2003 (middle); (103) Charles Kerry’s Aboriginal Chief c. 1901-1907 (top left); and (104) Brook Andrew’s Sexy and Dangerous 1996 (bottom left)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Thompson: Contemporary Indigenous artists return the colonial photographer’s gaze. “For Indigenous people the camera’s central role has been in transforming but really stereotyping our cultures.” In more recent times, “Indigenous people have moved behind the camera, firstly replacing the documenter, then creatively reinterpreting their photographic history.” ~ Djon Mundine from Fiona Foley: River of Corn, exh. cat. University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, USA, 2001

Kerry: No name or details are recorded of this sitter from Barron River, QLD. He was a member of the touring Wild West Aboriginal troupe, which staged corroborees, weapon skills and tableaux of notorious encounters between armed Native Police and unarmed local communities.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (105) Fiona Foley’s (Badtjala) Wild Times Call 2 2001 (right); (106) Murray Cammick’s Bob Marley p owhiri, White Heron Hotel, April 1979 1979 (second right); and (107) Kirsten Lyttle’s (Waikato, Tainui A Whiro, Ngāti Tahinga) Twilled Work 2013 (middle left)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Foley: Referencing Hollywood’s representation of the Wild West, Fiona Foley stands with Seminole Indians.

Lyttle: This is woven using the Maori raranga (plaiting) technique for making kete whakario (decorated baskets). According to Mick Pendergrast, the pattern is not named, but attributed to Te Hikapuhi, (Ngati Pikiao), late 19th Century. ~ Pendergrast, M (1984), Raranga Whakairo, Coromandel Press, NZ, pattern 19.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (107) Kirsten Lyttle’s (Waikato, Tainui A Whiro, Ngāti Tahinga) Twilled Work 2013 (right) and (108) Michael Riley’s (Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi) Maria 1985 (left)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (109) Maree Clarke’s (Mutti Mutti, Yorta Yorta, BoonWurrung) Nan’s House (detail of installation) 2017 (right); (110) photographer unknown Writer, Andre Malraux poses in his house of the Boulogne near Paris working at his book Le Musee Imaginaire or Imaginary Museum 2nd volume 1953 (middle top); and (111) Clare Rae’s Law Library 2016 (bottom left)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Clarke: This work is currently on display at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, as a hologram of the artist’s grandmother’s house, as remembered by the artist.

Unknown: ‘The imaginary museum’ or ‘the museum without walls’ (as it is often translated) is a collection reflecting Andre Malraux’s eurocentric conception of art history.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (117) Bill Culbert’s Small glass pouring Light, France 1997 (right) and (119) David Moore’s Sisters of Charity 1956 (left)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (119) David Moore’s Sisters of Charity 1956 (bottom right); (118) Olive Cotton’s Teacup Ballet c. 1935 (top right); and (120) Bernd and Hilla Becher’s Kies-und Schotterwerke (Gravel Plants) 2006 (left)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (120) Bernd and Hilla Becher’s Kies-und Schotterwerke (Gravel Plants) 2006 (right) and (121) Robert Rooney’s Garments: 3 December – 19 March 1973 1973 (left)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (122) Helen Grace’s Time and motion study #1 ‘Women seem to adapt to repetitive-type tasks…’ 1980, printed 2011 (detail)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (123) Max Dupain’s Backyard Forster 1940 (right) and (124) Marie Shannon’s Pussy 2016 (left)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Shannon: Also a trace of the cat.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (127) Mac Lawrence’s Five raised fingers 2016
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Lawrence: Watery trace.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (136) Simon Terrill’s Arsenal vs Fenerbahce 2009

Terrill: The long exposure leaves only a trace of the football crowd, that has disappeared for the day.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (137) Christian Boltanski’s L’ecole de la Große Hamburger Straße, Berlin 1938 1993
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Boltanski: Photography records the passing or death of a particular moment. This is a photograph of a Jewish School in Berlin in 1938.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (138) Joyce Evans’ Budapest Festival 1949 (top) and (139) photographer unknown Nina Dumbadze, Honoured Master of Sports of the USSR, world champion in discus throwing from the series Women of the Soviet Georgia c. 1953 (bottom)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (139) photographer unknown Nina Dumbadze, Honoured Master of Sports of the USSR, world champion in discus throwing from the series Women of the Soviet Georgia c. 1953
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (141) Harry Burrell’s Thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger, cover image for The Australian Magazine 1958, September, Vol 12, No 11 1958
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Burrell: Published in this museum journal, there is now some contention as to whether Burrell’s series of photographs of the extinct thylacine were made from life, or staged using a taxidermied animal.

Installation view of the exhibition An Unorthodox Flow of Images at the CCP, Melbourne showing (148) Francis Alÿs’ Fitzroy Square 2004 (video stills)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

(148) Francis Alÿs
Railings (Fitzroy square)
London, 2004
4.03 min.
Francis Alÿs website

We posit Fitzroy Square at this point; in honour of your journey through this unorthodox flow of images.

Centre for Contemporary Photography
404 George St, Fitzroy
Victoria 3065, Australia
Phone: + 61 3 9417 1549

Opening Hours:
Wednesday – Sunday, 11am – 5pm

Centre for Contemporary Photography website

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Exhibition: ‘Sit. Pose. Snap. Brisbane Portrait Photography 1850-1950’ at the Museum of Brisbane

By Dr Marcus Bunyan Leave a Comment

Categories: Australian artist, Australian cabinet cards and cartes de visite, Australian photography, beauty, black and white photography, colour photography, documentary photography, exhibition, existence, gallery website, intimacy, light, memory, photographic series, photography, portrait, postcards, reality, space, time and works on paper
Tags: 19th century studio photography, 19th century studio space, Albert Lomer & Co., Albert Lomer & Co. Three children, Andrew Weddell, Andrew Weddell Reproductions of a recently deceased man requested by the family, Andrew Weddell Three men acting for the camera, Anna Lee Group of friends at Cloudland Ballroom, Arthur Kean playing a flute, Australian 19th century studio photography, Brisbane, Brisbane Australia, Brisbane photogapher, Brisbane photography, Brisbane Portrait Photography, Brisbane Portrait Photography 1850 - 1950, Bushman with a swag, Caldwell Christmas party, carte-de-visites, Child with bucket and spade, Children's Hospital Ball, Cloudland Ballroom, Cloudland Dance Hall, Couple with child, daguerreotypes, Dana Studio, Dana Studio Lady wearing gloves with parasol, Daniel Marquis, Daniel Marquis The same woman in a crinoline dress posing with a chair, early Queensland photographer, early Queensland photography, Eddie Hutchison, Eddie Hutchison Freemason Elite, Elite Photo Co Eddie Hutchison, Elite Photo Co., Elite Photo Co. Girl in ballet shoes, Family portrait before the father left for the First World War, Fegan & Ruddle, Fegan & Ruddle Harry Smith Jr dressed as Duke of York, Ferdinand Sturgess, Fred Cherry, Freemason Elite, George Brown, George Brown Girl with fancy buckled shoes, George Hendry, George Hendry Norma Horniblow in a bathing costume, Girl holding a toy koala and boy holding a toy car, Girl in ballet shoes with pigeons, Girl with fancy buckled shoes, Grand Old Man of Queensland photography, Group of friends at Cloudland Ballroom, hand coloured photography, hand-coloured photographs, Hand-coloured postcard, Harry Smith Jr dressed as Duke of York, Jack Fegan, James Patching & Co., James Patching & Co. Young lady in feathered hat leaning on bamboo furniture, Jane and Thomas Mathewson, John 'Jack' Fegan, John 'Jack' Fegan Brisbane, John 'Jack' Fegan Family portrait before the father left for the First World War, John 'Jack' Fegan Lady holding flowers, John James William Rolling Fegan, John Wiley, John Wiley Seated lady holding flowers, Lady holding flowers, Lady in a heavily beaded bodice and skirt, Lady wearing gloves with parasol, Marcel Safier, Mathewson & Co., Murray Studios, Murray Studios Brisbane, Murray Studios The Noonans, Norma Horniblow, Norma Horniblow in a bathing costume, Paragon Portraits, Paragon Portraits Tim nearly 4 years-old and Darryl, photographic studios, portrait photography, postcards, Poul C Poulsen, Poul C Poulsen Bushman with a swag, Poul C Poulsen Queensland policeman, Poulsen Studio, Poulsen Studio Brisbane, Poulsen Studio Child with bucket and spade, Queensland photographers, Queensland photography, Queensland policeman, Regent Studios, Regent Studios Brisbame, Regent Studios Fred Cherry, Regent Studios Girl holding a toy koala and boy holding a toy car, Regent Studios Jane and Thomas Mathewson, Reproductions of a recently deceased man requested by the family, Seated lady holding flowers, Sit. Pose. Snap., Sit. Pose. Snap. Brisbane Portrait Photography 1850 - 1950, studio photography, Talma Studios, Talma Studios Arthur Kean playing a flute, Talma Studios Ferdinand Sturgess, The Noonans, The same woman in a crinoline dress posing with a chair, Thomas Mathewson, Thomas Mathewson & Co., Thomas Mathewson & Co. Two Salvation Army girls, Three children, Three men acting for the camera, Tim nearly 4 years-old and Darryl, Tosca Studio, Tosca Studio Couple with child, Trissie Deazeley Studio, Trissie Deazeley Studio Wedding party, Tuttle & Co., Tuttle & Co. Lady in a heavily beaded bodice and skirt, Two Salvation Army girls, Wedding party, Young lady in feathered hat leaning on bamboo furniture

Exhibition dates: 24th March – 30th July 2017

Poul C Poulsen (Australian born Denmark, 1857-1925)
Bushman with a swag
c. 1885
Cabinet photograph

This exhibition looks fascinating. I wish I could have seen it!

Information about some photographers is included in the posting, as much as I could find through research online. Also included is a beautiful photograph of the Cloudland Ballroom (not in the exhibition) which I digitally restored.

I tried to work out the height of the young man in Bushman with a swag (c. 1885, above). If you take the billy can at his feet (bottom left) at about 24cm, measured by my ankles, then his height is around 180cm or 5’9″. What was his name, what did he do in his life?

Also notice the covers on his shoes that hide the laces, and the idyllic, painted pastoral backdrop with bridge. These are the details that fascinate. The studio prop of a rock outcrop against which he stands also appears in another image by the same photographer, Queensland policeman (c. 1885, below). How many days or months were these photographs taken apart? Did they know each other, being of similar age?

The presence of the people in these photographs is incredible. Even though they are posed, they stare back at us from across time and reach out to us to speak of their lives in that moment, in that studio in Brisbane, Australia.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

Poul C Poulsen (Australian born Denmark, 1857-1925)
Bushman with a swag (detail)
c. 1885
Cabinet photograph

The Poulsen Studio was a very important establishment recording Queensland’s development for a considerable period of time.

Poul C. Poulsen, founder of the Poulsen Studios in Brisbane, was born in Denmark in 1857 and arrived in Sydney in 1876. In 1882, he moved to Queensland and was later joined by his sisters and brothers from Denmark. He opened his own studio at no 7 Queen Street in 1885 and later opened branches, run by his brothers in other Queensland towns. Poulsen vigorously advertised constant improvements and modernisation in his studio and in the service he provided. His sons and grandson followed in his footsteps.

Text from the State Library of Queensland website

Installation views of the exhibition Sit. Pose. Snap. Brisbane Portrait Photography 1850-1950 at the Museum of Brisbane

Sit. Pose. Snap. Brisbane Portrait Photography 1850-1950 explores the phenomenon of studio portrait photography in Brisbane, and shows how the process of capturing and sharing a portrait evolved from the formal studio sittings of the 19th century through to candid and relaxed photographs of the mid-20th century.

With the introduction of commercial photography in the mid 1850s, dozens of photographic studios popped up in and around Brisbane capitalising on this popular new technology. Interest in this novel sensation was high, and profitable – with photographers increasingly savvy when it came to selling their service and products.

Featuring hundreds of Brisbane residents captured in original photographs from local studios between 1850-1950, this exhibition draws from the extensive private collection of Marcel Safier – one of Australia’s most significant collectors of portrait photography. Discover the variety, trends and historical progression of photographic types through this period, from the early forms of daguerreotypes through to carte-de-visites and postcards. Woven into the exhibition is an examination of photographic techniques and technologies; the popularisation of photography; and the ever-increasing control that subjects have over their portrayal.

Significant Brisbane photographic houses of the period and their legacies are also featured. Visitors will have the chance to experience what it felt like to visit Mathewson & Co., one of the leading studios of the time, through an immersive Victorian backdrop and a journalist’s account from 1889. They will also have a chance to take a selfie in this recreated 19th century studio space.

From personal portraits capturing life’s most significant milestones, to the curious and often humorous ways in which people presented themselves, Sit. Pose. Snap. is a charming and nostalgic glimpse into a 19th century photographic studio.

Press release from the Museum of Brisbane

Daniel Marquis (Australian born Scotland, 1829-1879)
The same woman in a crinoline dress posing with a chair, then a pedestal
1865-1870
Carte de visite

Daniel Marquis (1829-1879) was an early portrait photographer in Brisbane, Australia. Marquis was born in Glasgow, Scotland, where he had a studio as a professional photographer at 32 King Street, Stirling. Marquis travelled to Australia in 1865 and was given a land grant at Kangaroo Point, Queensland. He set up his photographic studio in 82 George Street, Brisbane, from 1866 to 1880.

Marquis was one of the earliest portrait photographers in Brisbane, working there exclusively until his death in 1879. Marquis had commissions to photograph leading members of society, for example the Governor of Queensland, Samuel Wensley Blackall, and Judge Alfred Lutwyche.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Andrew Weddell (active 1864-1874)
Reproductions of a recently deceased man requested by the family
c. 1870
Carte de visite

Located at Ann Street, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Queensland from 1864-1874.

Andrew Weddell (active 1864-1874)
Three men acting for the camera
c. 1870
Carte de visite

Elite Photo Co., (Eddie Hutchison)
Girl in ballet shoes, with pigeons
1884-1891
Cabinet photograph

1884-1890: 8 Queen Street, Brisbane
Eddie T B Hutchison
1889: McDougal Terrace, Milton Estate
1895-1896: 183 Queen Street, Brisbane
1896-1897: 181A Queen Street, Brisbane
1897-1899: 37 Queen Street, Brisbane
1900: Warwick

Alan Davies and Peter Stanbury. The mechanical eye in Australia: photography 1841-1900.

“Oscar [Friström] was soon involved in the business of photography, a popular artistic and cultural pursuit of the time; and it was also a ready source of income. By 1885 he had gone into partnership with the established photographer D Hutchison, and later Edward TB Hutchison. The business operated under various names, including Hutchison, Fristrom and Company and Elite Photographic Company.”

Julie K Brown, Versions of reality, PhD thesis, University of Queensland, 1984, pp. 37, 274 cited in W Ross Johnston. “Reviving Oscar Friström: his Aboriginal paintings,” in the Queensland History Journal Volume 22, No. 4, February 2014, p. 272.

Elite Photo Co’s dates and locations from Alan Davies’ and Peter Stanbury’s book The mechanical eye in Australia: photography 1841-1900:

1894-1895: Charters Towers
Brisbane
(Eddie T B Hutchison)
Brisbane
(John S Wiley)
Brisbane
(S E Hill)
Brisbane
(J Brame & Co)

cabinet: Crown Street, Wollongong, NSW
1890: Wagga Wagga, NSW, late Fiddes

Eddie Hutchison
Freemason Elite
c. 1900
Cabinet photograph

Eddie T B Hutchison’s dates and locations from Alan Davies’ and Peter Stanbury’s book The mechanical eye in Australia: photography 1841-1900:

Poul C Poulsen (Australian born Denmark, 1857-1925)
Queensland policeman
c. 1885
Carte de visite

In 1885, Poul C. Poulsen opened his photographic studio at No.7 Queen Street in Brisbane and over time established himself as an important and longstanding early Queensland photographer. State Library of Queensland is fortunate to hold a large collection of photographs taken by the Poulsen Studios.

Polsen was born in Denmark in 1857 and travelled to Sydney in 1876. In 1882 he travelled to Brisbane and in 1885 opened the studio in Queen Street, previously occupied by Gove and Allen, photographers. Via advertisements in local newspapers that year Poulsen proclaimed himself “the people’s favourite photographer” and offered “high class work at moderate charges.” Poulsen’s success enabled him to expanded his business, opening studios in regional centres including Gympie, Maryborough and Laidley as well as additional studios in Brisbane. Poulsen retired to Cooran in 1915, passing away in 1925. He is interred at Bulimba Cemetery. His sons and grandsons continued the family business after his death.

Hundreds of images taken by Poulsen Studios have been digitised and can be viewed online. These photographs range from individual or group portraits to external street views. The quality of these images are superb, most likely due to Poulsen’s desire to use the latest photographic equipment available at the time.

Myles Sinnamon. “Early Queensland photography – Poulsen Studios,” on the State Library of Queensland website September 15, 2015 {online] Cited 10/03/2023

Poul C Poulsen (Australian born Denmark, 1857-1925)
Unknown couple
c. 1897
Cabinet photograph
Marcel Safier collection

Directly opposite Fegan Studios on Queen Street was the studio of Ada Driver. Driver was one of the successful female photographers in Brisbane in the early 20th century, along with Elsie and Trissie Deazeley, Mary Lambert and Dorothy Coleman.

Before starting her own studio, Coleman had gained experience as a camera operator with Thomas Mathewson. Mathewson, along with Poul C Poulsen, set the standard of quality for portrait photography in Brisbane; between them they trained and inspired future generations of photographers.

Poulsen moved to Brisbane in 1882 and opened a branch of Gove and Allen opposite the Treasury Building on Queen Street.

This studio was later known as the American Photo Co, and then Poulsen Studios (below), and remained at this location until 1918. The studio was considered the major ‘society’ studio in Brisbane; Poulsen established a reputation for taking fine portraits of stars of the stage, including Dame Nellie Melba in 1903, and he secured the patronage of several Queensland governors.

Phil Manning. “Northern Exposure,” in Portrait 57 Winter 2017 on the National Portrait Gallery website 25 July 2017 [Online] Cited 13/12/2021

Poulsen Studio
Child with bucket and spade
1920s
Postcard

Albert Lomer & Co., (Albert Lomer Australian, 1862-1899, active c. 1865 – c. 1895)
Three children
c. 1885
Cabinet photograph

Professional photographer and colourist of Brisbane, Sydney and Queensland who worked throughout the mid to late 19th century. A one-time partner of Andrew Chandler, Lomer’s later clients included the painter Samuel Elyard.

Lomer worked in Melbourne before 1865 when he opened a studio at Sydney in partnership with Andrew Chandler. They advertised as being from W. Davies & Co. of Melbourne, where both had presumably trained. Their studio, The London Photographic Company, was at 419 George Street, next door to Lassetter’s ironmongery store. By February 1867 Lomer was continuing alone but promising that ‘the business will be conducted in the same efficient manner and under the same liberal principles as hitherto’. He had reduced the old price for cartes-de-visite to two for 5s or 15s a dozen and sold cabinet and other portrait photographs ‘beautifully coloured (on the premises) in oil or water’. Lomer appears to have been his own colourist, regularly advertising as both ‘artist and photographer’ (which this normally signified). In 1872-73 Lomer was working at 57 Bourke Street, Melbourne. He then established a very successful Brisbane studio at 158 Queen Street which lasted from 1874 until 1905, although he apparently no longer ran it after 1880. Branch studios were opened in various parts of the colony: the Lomer studio at Mackay in 1887 (managed by J.P. Kemp), a studio at Toowoomba (1893-96) and one at Ipswich (1898-99). Lomer was again in Sydney in 1880-95. In April 1881 Albert Lomer’s Parlour Studios at 805 George Street opposite the railway terminus,’The Really Popular (and Cheap) Photographer’, was selling cartes-de-visite for 7s 6d a dozen.

Anonymous text. “Lomer, Albert (1862-1899),” on the Trove website [Online] Cited 13/12/2021

1862: Brisbane
1865-1870: 417-419 George Street, Sydney
18??: 775 George Street, Sydney
1872-1873: 57 Bourke Street East, Melbourne
1874-1900: 158 Queen Street, Brisbane
1887: Mackay, Queensland ( J P Kemp)
1893-1896: Toowoomba, Queensland
1894-1895: 158 Queen Street, Brisbane (G A Collins & F T E Keogh)
1896-1897: 158 Queen Street, Brisbane (G A Collins)
1898-1899: Brisbane Street, Ipswich, Queensland

Alan Davies and Peter Stanbury. The mechanical eye in Australia: photography 1841-1900.

Tuttle & Co.,
Lady in a heavily beaded bodice and skirt
1885-1894
Cabinet photograph

William Nutting Tuttle
died 7 April 1895 at Sydney Hospital, Macquarie Street, Sydney
buried Waverley Cemetery, Sydney

William Nutting Tuttle and Co. was a commercial photographic firm active in Australia in the 1880s and 1890s. The firm had various studios and were active in a variety of areas: Sydney 1883-91; Goulburn 1895; Brisbane 1885-95; Charters Towers 1888; Adelaide 1882-89; Melbourne 1881-94; Hawthorn 1888-89; Perth 1892, Fremantle 1892; Coolgardie 1895-96 (Davies and Stanbury 1985, p. 244).

“The enterprising gentlemen comprising the firm of Tuttle & Co. took the people of Melbourne by surprise some five years ago [1880]. Since then they have established studios and galleries in the principal cities of Australia. By careful attention to, and despatch of business, the elegance and attractiveness of their rooms, and the splendid finish of their work, they have earned a wide-spread reputation on the island continent, and lead the van there in the photographic art.”

1885-1895: 67 Queen Street, Brisbane
1888: Charters Towers, Queensland
1883-1891: 84 Elizabeth St., Melbourne

Alan Davies and Peter Stanbury. The mechanical eye in Australia: photography 1841-1900, p. 244.

Tosca Studio
Couple with child
1896-1900
Cabinet photograph

The management of the “Tosca” studios in Brisbane make it their proud boast that they are thoroughly up to date in every detail, and in this they challenge comparison with any photographic establishment in the Australian colonies. Their head studios, at 67 Queen-street, Brisbane, are known to all local residents, and since the commencement of their business a reputation has been established for high class work not only in the city of Brisbane, but throughout Queensland. Mr. W. T. Farrell, in whose hands is the sole control of the business, is a man of the widest range of experience in his particular line. He has gained his knowledge in the leading studios of Australasia. The high character of the work produced is vouched for by the fact that the chief operator, Mr. Stuart MacQee, was for many years under engagement to Messrs. W. and D. Downoy, Imperial Court photographers, of Ebury street, London, and was also five years with Messrs. Falle and Co., of Sydney. Branches of the “Tosca” studios have already been established at Gympie, Rockhampton, Charters Towers, and Townsville. It is also contemplated to establish branches in other country towns in the near future. As indicating the amount of business transacted, it may be mentioned that during the present year no fewer than 200,000 cabinet mounts have been imported by the firm. This is exclusive of mounts required for Paris panels, for which there is a very large demand. In the head studio alone, as much as £88 has been taken in one day from sitters.

Anonymous text. “The Tosca Portrait Studios,” in The Brisbane Courier Sat 11 Dec 1897, p. 6 on the Trove website [Online] Cited 13/12/2021

Dana Studio
Lady wearing gloves with parasol
1897-1898
Cabinet photograph

James Patching & Co.,
Young lady in feathered hat leaning on bamboo furniture
1897-1901
Cabinet photograph

John Wiley (active 1880s – 1890s)
Seated lady holding flowers
1899-1901
Cabinet photograph

John S Wiley’s dates and locations from Alan Davies’ and Peter Stanbury’s book The mechanical eye in Australia: photography 1841-1900:

Lomer & Co, Brisbane
Tuttle & Co, Brisbane
Toowoomba
1890-1894 8 Queen Street, Brisbane
Elite Photo Co
1894-1900 10 Queen Street, Brisbane

Thomas Mathewson & Co., (active c. 1854 – c. 1934)
Two Salvation Army girls
1910-1915
Postcard

Thomas Mathewson (born Helensburgh, Dumbartonshire, Scotland, UK, 1842 – died Brisbane 12 May 1934; arrived Australia 1853) was a professional photographer, was born in Helensburgh, Dumbartonshire, Scotland. He was orphaned in early adolescence, shortly after his family migrated to Moreton Bay, Queensland, in 1853. For a few months in 1854 he attended the Anglican Church School in Nicholas Street, Ipswich run by Alfred Hazelton, then learnt photography from Rev. Theophilus Beazeley in evening self-improvement classes at Ipswich. After practising as an amateur Mathewson set up as a professional photographer at Toowoomba in 1861. In 1865 he worked his way through the Darling Downs, via Roma, St George and the Gwydir River, reaching Sydney by late 1867. Travelling northwards, he took photographs at Gympie (1868-72), Rockhampton, Bowen, Charters Towers and Townsville.

Thomas’s brother Peter joined him in 1876 and the firm became Mathewson & Co. until the 1890s, operating mainly from Queen Street, Brisbane, but making regular tours to country towns and rural districts. Thomas, the senior partner, was said in 1894 to have made a speciality ‘of children and other pets’. Peter set up on his own in the late 1890s and his son Thomas eventually took over the firm, so the name Thomas Mathewson was associated with two separate Brisbane photographic studios. Thomas senior eventually renamed his business the Regent Studios, where he was assisted by his son Jack. Thomas junior called his father’s business the Austral Studio when he inherited it.

Thomas Mathewson senior died in Brisbane on 12 May 1934, aged ninety-three. Recognised as the ‘Grand Old Man’ of Queensland photography, he was said in 1894 to have left the ‘tracks of his tripod’ in every inhabited place from the Great Barrier Reef to the South Australian border. Before his death he wrote his recollections, depicting the excitement, initiative and hardships of an early cameraman as he trekked through the countryside ‘fully equipped with tents, one in which to photograph sitters, and another in which to live, together with all the needful paraphernalia of wet-plate photography, all packed in a two-wheeled vehicle drawn by two horses’.

Rod Fisher and Joan Kerr. “Thomas Mathewson,” on the Design & Art Australia Online website 1992 last updated 2011 [Online] Cited 13/12/2021

c. 1854: Ipswich, Qld
c. 1853 – c. 1854: Moreton Bay, Qld
c. 1867: Sydney, NSW
c. 1865 – c. 1867: Gwydir River, NSW
c. 1865 – c. 1867: St George, Qld
c. 1865 – c. 1867: Roma, NSW
c. 1868 – c. 1872: Townsville, Qld
c. 1868 – c. 1872: Charters Towers, Qld
c. 1868 – c. 1872: Bowen, Qld
c. 1868 – c. 1872: Rockhampton, Qld
c. 1868 – c. 1872: Gympie, Qld
c. 1865 – c. 1867: Darling Downs, NSW
c. 1861 – c. 1865: Toowoomba, Qld
c. 1876 – c. 1900: Queen Street, Brisbane, Qld

Thomas Mathewson & Co., (active c. 1854 – c. 1934)
Thomas Mathewson (inset) and his studio on Queen Street
c. 1908
Sandy Barrie collection

Thomas Mathewson is regarded as the father of photography in Queensland, having begun his business in 1864 (the Mathewson family would go on to have a presence in Brisbane’s photographic community until 1940). It is said that Mathewson left the tracks of his tripod in every inhabited place from the Great Barrier Reef to the South Australian border. He returned to Brisbane in 1876, going into partnership with his brother, Peter, in a studio on Queen Street. In 1895 they ended the partnership and Thomas continued on his own, establishing Regent Studios, while Peter established Austral Studios. Both brothers established branches of their respective operations throughout Queensland.

Phil Manning. “Northern Exposure,” in Portrait 57 Winter 2017 on the National Portrait Gallery website 25 July 2017 [Online] Cited 13/12/2021

Thomas Mathewson & Co., (active c. 1854 – c. 1934)
Lady in ‘snow’
c. 1880-1885
Cabinet photograph
Marcel Safier collection

Regent Studios (Thomas Mathewson)
Jane and Thomas Mathewson
1920s
Card-mounted sepia-toned silver gelatin photograph

Talma Studios (Ferdinand Sturgess) (Brisbane, 1866-1939)
Arthur Kean playing a flute
1915
Postcard

John ‘Jack’ Fegan (Australian, 1839-1919)
Lady holding flowers
c. 1915
Postcard

Jack Fegan was born John James William Rolling Fegan in 1839 and died in 1919. He operated photographic studios in Gympie and Brisbane. He was the first president of the Professional Photographers of Queensland.

Fegan & Ruddle
1902-1904: Brunswick St. Fortitude Valley
1918-1920: 126 Queen St. Brisbane
Fegan Ltd.
126 Queen St. Bris. 1918 -1920.
Fegan Studios
Mrs Fegan (wife of “Jack”, manager after Jack’s death in 1922)
126 Queen st,. Bris.

John ‘Jack’ Fegan (Australian, 1839-1919)
Family portrait before the father left for the First World War
1914-1918
Postcard

Fegan & Ruddle (1866-1939, Brisbane)
Harry Smith Jr dressed as Duke of York for Children’s Hospital Ball
1902
Cabinet photograph

George Brown
Girl with fancy buckled shoes
1912-1928
Postcard

Murray Studios (Brisbane & Gympie)
The Noonans
1916-1919
Postcard

George Hendry
Norma Horniblow in a bathing costume
c. 1920
Parisian Studio Postcard

Norma Gwendoline Horniblow (1904-1977)

Trissie Deazeley Studio (active c. 1924 – c. 1928)
Wedding party
c. 1925
Silver gelatin photograph

Trissie Deazeley (active c. 1924 – c. 1928) was an early 20th century Queensland photographer.

One of the first female photographers in Brisbane was Ada Driver, whose Brisbane studio was right in Queen Street Mall along with other female photographers Trissie Deazeley, Dorothy Coleman and Mary Lambert.

c. 1927 – c. 1928: Brisbane, Qld
c. 1924 – c. 1927: Toowoomba, Qld

Trissie Deazeley Studio (active c. 1924 – c. 1928)
Wedding party (details)
c. 1925
Silver gelatin photograph

Regent Studios (Fred Cherry)
Girl holding a toy koala and boy holding a toy car
1940s
Sepia-toned silver gelatin photograph in presentation folder

Anna Lee
Group of friends at Cloudland Ballroom, including Mrs Hobson (front left)
1947-1950
Salon Postcard

Read the fascinating history of Brisbane’s most iconic building, the big arch on the hill that was the Cloudland Ballroom.

“Cloudland Dance Hall” at the time, builders declared, “With its private alcoves, upholstered seating, dressing rooms, and perfect ventilation… the ballroom will be the finest of its kind in Australia.” It was no exaggeration, and Cloudland was without doubt one of the best dance and concert venues in the country. The venue was a classic World War II structure. Inside it had hard timber floors, decorative columns, sweeping curtains, domed skylights and chandeliers. Cloudland also had an upper circle of tiered seating which overlooked the floor and stage.

On a commanding hilltop site in the Bowen Hills above Brisbane, Cloudland’s distinctive parabolic laminated roof arch, nearly 18 meters high, was visible for miles, and was illuminated at night. Inside, as the photo clearly shows, it was famed for elegant decoration and its sprung dance floor, reputed to be the best in Australia. Cloudland was significant as a landmark, and as a place where generations of Brisbane residents went for entertainment. It was illegally demolished in 1982.

Unknown photographer
Cloudland Ballroom (digitally restored by MB)
Nd

Paragon Portraits
Tim, nearly 4 years-old, and Darryl, 2 years-old, at the Caldwell Christmas party
1949
Hand-coloured postcard

Museum of Brisbane
Level 3, Brisbane City Hall
King George Square, Brisbane

Opening hours:
Open 7 days a week, 10am – 5pm daily, and until 7pm Fridays

Museum of Brisbane website

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Jul

Review: ‘Patrick Pound: The Great Exhibition’ as part of the NGV Festival of Photography at NGV Australia, Melbourne Part 2

By Dr Marcus Bunyan Leave a Comment

Categories: American, american photographers, Australian artist, Australian cabinet cards and cartes de visite, Australian photography, beauty, black and white photography, colour photography, documentary photography, drawing, exhibition, existence, gallery website, installation art, Japanese artist, landscape, light, Man Ray, Melbourne, memory, National Gallery of Victoria, painting, Paris, photographic series, photography, Polaroid photography, portrait, postcards, psychological, quotation, reality, review, sculpture, space, street photography, surrealism, Susan Sontag, time, video, Walker Evans and works on paper
Tags: algorithms, American vernacular photography, art of collecting, assemblage, Australia, Australian art, Australian artist, Australian collector, Australian photographer, Australian photographic archive, Australian photography, Australian photography collector, Australian vernacular photography, Banquet at the Quai d'Orsay, Bondi, cabinet of curiosities, camera, collage, collection, connections across objects, Damaged, defaced, defaced photographs, displays of found photographs, Drive by (en passant), enigma, ephemera, ephemeral and ethereal states, ephemeral images, ephemerality, Erich Salomon, Erich Salomon Banquet at the Quai d'Orsay, ethereal states, Eye and tears, found photographs, games, Georges Perec, Georges Perec Species of Spaces, ghosts and traces, Ground Zero, Guercino, Guercino Study for Esther before Ahasuerus, High wire act, how photographs are shared, In tears, labyrinth, Listen to the music, Man Ray Eye and tears, Man Ray Solarised double portrait, matrix of connections, Max Dupain, Max Dupain Bondi, medium of record, medium of transmission, Melbourne, Museum of there not there, museums, museums of things, network of intersections, NGV Australia, NGV Festival of Photography, organising collections, Oulipo, Pairs (and the double), pairs and doubles, patrick pound, Patrick Pound Damaged, Patrick Pound Drive by (en passant), Patrick Pound High wire act, Patrick Pound In tears, Patrick Pound Listen to the music, Patrick Pound People holding cameras, Patrick Pound People who look dead but (probably) aren't, Patrick Pound Photography and air, Patrick Pound Portmanteau, Patrick Pound Self portraits, Patrick Pound Tangled, Patrick Pound The collection of shelves, Patrick Pound The entrants, Patrick Pound The Fountainhead, Patrick Pound The game of things, Patrick Pound The hand of the photographer, Patrick Pound The Museum of there / Not there, Patrick Pound The photographer's shadow, Patrick Pound The readers, Patrick Pound Twenty six and one books, Patrick Pound With arms outstretched, Patrick Pound: The Great Exhibition, Patrick Pound Pairs (and the double), Patrick Pound The sleepers, patterns, patterns and structures, People holding cameras, People who look dead but (probably) aren't, photographic artefacts, photographic collection, photographic pairs and doubles, Photography and air, photography as medium of record, photography as medium of transmission, photopuzzles, Portmanteau, puzzles, representation, retaking the photograph, self-portraits, Solarised double portrait, Species of Spaces, Study for Esther before Ahasuerus, Susan Sontag, Tangled, the art of collecting, The camera is an idling hearse, The collection of shelves, The entrants, the formation of collections, The Fountainhead, The game of things, The Great Exhibition, The hand of the photographer, The Ian Potter Centre NGV Australia, The Museum of there / Not there, The photographer's shadow, The readers, The Sleepers, thinking through things, thumb of the photographer, to be a collector, Twenty six and one books, vernacular photography, what it means to collect, what people photograph, William De Morgan, William De Morgan Startled tigers, With arms outstretched, works of art and ideas, wunderkammer

Exhibition dates: 31st March – 30th July 2017

Photographs are in the chronological room order of the exhibition.

Entrance

Patrick Pound (New Zealand/Australian, b. 1962)
The entrants (detail)
2016-2017
Site specific installation comprising objects collected by the artist and works from the NGV Collection
Courtesy of the artist, Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound

e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e

E

This polymorphic album of an exhibition by Patrick Pound at NGV Australia, Melbourne, is unfortunately stuck with a most ridiculous title.

The great “show and tell” consists of 6 large galleries which are crammed full of thousands of photographs from the artists collection and artefacts from the NGV collection which form a (according to the exhibition blurb) “diagrammatic network of intersections, and in that way shows one of the underlying ideas of the whole exhibition, which is to seek out patterns and similarities and connections across objects and works of art and ideas. In other words, one thing leads to another.” Not necessarily.

Pound is interested in the writing of Georges Perec (a member of the Oulipo group of writers and mathematicians which formed in France in 1960) and his use of “restrictions in his writing as a way of encouraging new patterns and structures.” Perec wrote a whole novel in 1969, A Void, translated from the original French La Disparition (literally, “The Disappearance”) entirely without using the letter e (except for the author’s name). Oulipo writers sought to produce a document that undermines its own reliability. Through structures – or constraints – on composition, Oulipo writers sought to produce new and interesting works.

In a similar vein Pound restricts his collections of photographs to restrictive themes, such as people falling, sleepers, holes, readers, the air, lamps, listening to music, hands, shadows, interventions, backs, possibly dead people, holding cameras, self-portraits, doubles, entrants, etc. He seeks to gather his thoughts through these collections, and proposes that collecting found photographs “is like taking cuttings from the world.” A form of collage.

For me the grouping of all these “found” photographs together in display cases is a form of conceptual conceit: the collection of such varied instances of the shadow of the photographer appearing in every image, for example, means very little. Unlike the restrictions that Perec proposes which lead to interesting outcomes, Pound’s restrictions do not enrich the individual photographs by placing them all together, in fact the opposite. The totality is less than the sum of the parts. Reductio ad absurdum.

As individual photographs (as seen below in this posting), the images have presence, they have an aura which emanates from the moment, and context, in which the photograph was taken. Different in each instance. But in this exhibition we are overwhelmed by thousands of images and cannot give them due attention; the photographic “trace” becomes specious. The aura of the singular image is denuded; the aura of the collective does not exist. The collections become the collective photograph (of space) as reassurance: that the interrupting time freeze of individual photographs is not unique and occurs again and again and again. Pound’s collections are a form of photographic cancer… a kind of photographic plate-spinning, where the artist tries to keep all topics rotating in mid-air.

Pound’s existential typologies and classifications are a form of superficial play, using one photo to beget another. The addition of artefacts from the NGV collection only highlights the folly, in which two ceramic parrots paired with a photograph of two parrots is the indulgent nadir. The typologies and collections can, however, be seen as an ironic comment on the nature of our image saturated society, where millions of photographs are uploaded and viewed on the www every day. They can also be seen as a comment on the way people view photography in contemporary culture, where every selfie or picture of what I had for breakfast is posted online for consumption. While I admire Pound’s pugnaciousness and the obsessiveness needed to collect all of these images (being a collector myself) and, further, the tenacity required to catalogue and arrange them all – I really wonder about the clinamen, a term coined by Lucretius to describe the unpredictable swerve of atoms in his version of physics. It was adopted by the Oulipo set as – quoting Paul Klee – ‘the error in the system’. By gathering all of these photographs together in groups, the periphery becomes the centre … AND LOSES ITS UNPREDICTABILITY – the collective photographs loose their punctum, their unpredicatability. The photographs loose their individual transcendence of time. Perec’s missing eeeeeeeeeeeeeee’s at the beginning of this text thus exclude chaos, randomness, the capital E.

Other statements and ideas also grate. “The camera reduces the world to a list of things to photograph. When I click BUY on eBay – for me that’s the equivalent of taking a photograph. The mouse is my camera.” Well, no actually. The camera never reduces the world, it just is, it’s a machine. It is the person who takes the photograph, the human, that reduces the world to what they want to photograph. And when you click BUY on eBay it is not the equivalent of taking a photograph. You have used your money, your capitalism, your CAPITAL, to purchase your DESIRE. You are taking someone else’s vernacular, their moment of deciding what to photograph, to purchase their desire so that you can possess it yourself. You are coveting time and space. “Eventually every photograph is a photograph of a dead person.” Well, no actually, because not every photograph is of a person. “The camera is an idling hearse.” Yes, and so is your body, and the motor car, and walking across the road. The effect of these oblique statements is to further dumb down the public understanding of photography.

The work in the exhibition starts to come alive in Room 2 The Museum of There / Not there, where all of the things in the room are asked to stand in for an absence, where everything is a remnant or a trace. “Each thing here is a reminder of something else, it can be seen a surrogate or a partial representation.” The dissociative associations challenge the viewer to create their own connections and narratives from the objects placed before them. They mentally challenge the viewer to imagine. This challenge is further heightened in some of the best work in the exhibition, the series Portmanteau – definition: a large travelling bag; a word blending the sounds and combining the meanings of two others: podcast is a portmanteau, a made-up word coined from a combination of the words iPod and broadcast – in which visually disparate images (a cloud, a person blowing gum; a golf ball hovering over the cup, an eclipse) make unusual but sympathetic and intriguing connections across time and space. Photographs such as High wire act (2015) and The Fountainhead (2016, both below) are complex and creative examples of focused image making which reminded me of the Bauhaus collages of Josef Albers where Albers nowhere changes, “the rules of the game more profoundly than in his collages that feature a multitude of photographs. His collage of a bullfight in San Sebastian can be read as a short story or experimental film, where we as viewers recognise that we are being transported to a distant time and place, no less enchanting for its impossibility.” Randomness and synchronicity are back in the game.

Speaking of games, my favourite Pound objects in the exhibition were his Solander box series The game of things (2016, below). Their charm, wittiness, beauty, visual and mental acuity put paid to many other forced associations in the exhibition. He observes that, “Some things have little to do with each other until they come into contact.” But even when they do come into contact, they can still have very little to do with each other. Why The game of things series works so well is that Pound restricts himself (yes that Perec restriction that actually means something) in order / disorder to create something new and interesting, a document that undermines its own reliability (its a game!). The clinamen, the unpredictable swerve which, according to Lucretius occurs “at no fixed place or time” and which provides the “free will which living things throughout the world have” appears. Pound’s free will combines disparate elements in a pared down aesthetic, a playful game, where there is no need for thousands of photographs to focus his ideas.

While Pound’s description of multiplicities, repetitions and differences is engaging in a humorous and ironic way as “lines of escape from the generalities of society,” they create distance from laws and norms even while still re-enacting them. Much more interesting are Pound’s subversions of a singular reality through the overlapping of images – both mental and physical. While existing in a physical space, the “game of things” actually lives in my mind because humanness is the ultimate clinamen.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Word count: 1,372

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

A page from Georges Perec’s book Species of Spaces (Espèces d’espaces) and Other Pieces 1974

Entrance to the exhibition Patrick Pound: The Great Exhibition with the work The photographer’s shadow (2000-2017) right
Photo: Wayne Taylor

Installation view of Patrick Pound’s work The photographer’s shadow (2000-2017, detail)
Photo: Wayne Taylor

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
The photographer’s shadow (detail)
2000-2017
Site specific installation comprising photographs collected by the artist
Video: © Dr Marcus Bunyan, National Gallery of Victoria and Patrick Pound

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
The photographer’s shadow (detail)
2000-2017
Collection of the artist
Courtesy of Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
People holding cameras (detail)
2007-2017
Site specific installation comprising photographs collected by the artist
Video: © Dr Marcus Bunyan, National Gallery of Victoria and Patrick Pound

Room 1

Installation views of the exhibition Patrick Pound: The Great Exhibition at NGV Australia, Federation Square. Presented as part of the NGV Festival of Photography.
Photos: Wayne Taylor

Installation views of Patrick Pound’s work Damaged 2008-2017 (detail)
Photos: Wayne Taylor

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
Damaged (details)
2008-2017
Collection of the artist
Courtesy of Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound

Installation view of Patrick Pound’s work People holding cameras 2007-2017 (detail)
Photo: Wayne Taylor

Installation view of Patrick Pound’s work Listen to the music 2016-2017 (detail)
Photo: Wayne Taylor

Installation view of Patrick Pound’s work Self portraits 2007-2017 (detail)
Photo: Wayne Taylor

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian 1962- )
The hand of the photographer (details)
2007-2017
Collection of the artist
Courtesy of Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian 1962- )
The readers (installation view details)
2016-2017
Site specific installation comprising photographs collected by the artist and works from the NGV Collection
Courtesy of the artist, Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound
Photos: © Dr Marcus Bunyan, National Gallery of Victoria and Patrick Pound

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
Photography and air (installation view details)
2016-2017
Site specific installation comprising photographs collected by the artist and works from the NGV Collection
Courtesy of the artist, Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound
Photos: © Dr Marcus Bunyan, National Gallery of Victoria and Patrick Pound

Room 2

Installation views of The Museum of there / Not there 2016-2017 (detail) with (above) John Brack’s Self-portrait (1955), David Potts Cat show, London (1953), Eugène Atget’s Eclipse (1911, top right), Lee Friedlander’s Mount Rushmore (1969, middle right) and Erich Salomon’s Banquet at the Quai d’Orsay, Paris, August 1931 (bottom right).
Photos: Wayne Taylor

Erich Salomon (German, 1886-1944)
Banquet at the Quai d’Orsay, Paris, August 1931. ‘A le voilà, le roi des indiscrets!’
1931, printed 1970
Gelatin silver photograph, ed. 3/100
Purchased, 1971

Here are some examples of how
The Museum of There / Not there works:

From Rodin’s marble head
without its helmet …

to a sculpture that’s lost its head
yet remains holding onto its hair …

and from a broken comb found in
an Egyptian tomb to a novelty wig …

it is full of missing parts,
surrogates and substitutions,
apparitions and disappearing acts.

Every representation is, after all,
something of a conjurer’s trick.

Patrick Pound

The Museum of There / Not there is a collection of my things, and the NGV’s things. All of the things in this room are asked to stand in for an absence. To make its presence shimmer.

From a ventriloquist’s dummy to a copy of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness; from a photo of an empty shell to a nineteenth-century bustle; from an American toy border patrol car to a painting of an immigrant – everything in this room is a remnant or a trace. They speak of being there or not being all there.

Each thing here is a reminder of something else, it can be seen a surrogate or a partial representation. There are things that are unfinished or incomplete; there are ghosts and traces; things that are missing parts or that are simply missing. Meanings too might have changed, or become fluid, with the passing of time. In effect, this is a giant collage where things are asked to stand in for other things. They are material realisations of ephemeral and ethereal states.

There is also a soundtrack, featuring music ranging from Tom Petty’s “Refugee” to Aretha Franklin’s “I Wonder (Where You Are Tonight)”.

Patrick Pound

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
The Museum of There / Not there (installation view details)
2016-2017
Site specific installation comprising objects collected by the artist, a selection of works by the artist, and works from the NGV Collection
Courtesy of the artist, Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound
Photos: © Dr Marcus Bunyan, National Gallery of Victoria and Patrick Pound

Passageway

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
The game of things (installation view detail)
2016
Collection of the artist
Courtesy of Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound
Photo: © Dr Marcus Bunyan, National Gallery of Victoria and Patrick Pound

“Photographs and things reflect on each other as if in a game or a puzzle.” ~ Patrick Pound

“To collect is to gather your thoughts through things.”

“When I began collecting photographs I was thinking of the way the camera reduces the world to a list of things to photograph. I thought that to photograph was to collect the world in the form of pictures… As writer Susan Sontag said, photography is not so much a representation of the world but a piece of it. Collecting found photos is like taking cuttings from the world. For me it is a form of collage.”

“I did suggest the call the show ‘Enough Already’ but they went with ‘The Great Exhibition’. Perhaps the best thing about that is that even people who really don’t like it will still have to call it ‘The Great Exhibition’.”

“The camera reduces the world to a list of things to photograph. When I click BUY on eBay – for me that’s the equivalent of taking a photograph. The mouse is my camera.”

“As Honoré de Balzac said, “A hobby, a mania, is pleasure transformed into the shape of an idea!””

“Some things have little to do with each other until they come into contact.”

“To collect is to look for like-minded things. One thing inevitably leads to another. When you pair one thing with another, some things start to make sense – or not. In the end, every collection is, after all, a reflecting pool.”

“Every representation is, after all, something of a conjurer’s trick.”

“Art traditionally becalms her sitters.”

“Photography stops people in their tracks. Eventually every photograph is a photograph of a dead person. The camera is an idling hearse.”

.
Patrick Pound

Patrick Pound: The Great Exhibition is the first comprehensive exhibition of the New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based artist. An avid collector, Patrick Pound is equally interested in systems and the ordering of objects: an attempt, perhaps, to make things coherent. As Pound says, ‘to collect is to gather your thoughts through things’.

Through complex arrangements and installations of objects drawn from the artist’s expansive archives, Pound’s work playfully and poetically explores the art of collecting, and the ways in which things can hold and project ideas. For this exhibition Pound has created several vast new collections, which he describes as ‘museums of things’. Objects that are seemingly redundant or overlooked are meticulously collected by the artist and put back into ‘use’ in these museums. There are museums of falling, sleepers, and of holes.

The Museum of there / not there houses objects ranging from a souvenir spoon to a mask, a mourning locket to a painted ruin – one thing standing in for another. Within each museum a new logic or narrative is created for the viewer to unravel or identify. In several of Pound’s museums, works from the NGV Collection are grouped into their own categories or sit alongside his ‘things’, with the artist inviting us to rethink these works and consider what it means to collect.

Text from the NGV

Room 3

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
Pairs (and the double) (detail)
2016-2017
Collection of the artist
Courtesy of Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound

“This room started with my collection of photos of reflections, and of photos of pairs of things; of twins and double exposures. I then began researching the NGV Collection and found an abundance of “pairs and doubles”, assembled within paintings, decorative arts objects, prints and photographs.

To collect is to look for like-minded things. One thing inevitably leads to another. When you pair one thing with another, some things start to make sense – or not. In the end, every collection is, after all, a reflecting pool.”

~ Patrick Pound

William De Morgan & Co., London (manufacturer, England 1872-1911)
William De Morgan (designer, England 1839-1917)
Startled tigers, dish
c. 1880
Earthenware
Felton Bequest, 1980

Man Ray (born United States 1890, lived in France 1921-1939, 1951-1976, died France 1976)
Solarised double portrait
1930s
Gelatin silver photograph
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of Miss F. MacDonald Anderson and Mrs E. E. O. Lumsden, Founder Benefactors, 1983

Guercino (Italian, 1591-1666)
Study for Esther before Ahasuerus
c. 1639
Red chalk
Felton Bequest, 1923

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
Pairs (and the double) (installation view details)
2016-2017
Collection of the artist
Courtesy of Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound
Photos: © Dr Marcus Bunyan, National Gallery of Victoria and Patrick Pound

Room 4

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
The collection of shelves (installation view)
1999-2017
Circles 1999-2015
28 (screwed) 2004
Knife blocks 1999-2017
Things Change 2015
The Collector 2000-2017
Some French things 2014
Museum darts 1989-2017
Twenty six and one books 2010
Tangled 2012-2015
Blade magazine 2014
Criminal records 2012
Index cards 2012
Lost birds 1999-2014
Index photos 2013
The names 2007
Small arms 2000-2017
Soldiers 2009
Lockets 1989-2016
26 brown things 2002
Site specific installation comprising objects collected by the artist
Photos: Wayne Taylor

Installation view of Patrick Pound’s work Twenty six and one books 2010 (detail)
Photo: Wayne Taylor

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
Twenty six and one books (installation view detail)
2010
Museum darts (detail)
1989-2017
From the work Twenty six and one books 2010
© Patrick Pound
Photo: © Dr Marcus Bunyan, National Gallery of Victoria and Patrick Pound

These shelves house a range of collections which Pound has been gathering over many years: they demonstrate how collections of things gradually evolved into works of art. These collections tend to be smaller than others seen throughout this exhibition, and each one operates according to a very specific constraint. Their organisational technique derives from Pound’s interest in the Oulipo group of writers and mathematicians which formed in France in 1960 and, specifically, in the writing of key member Georges Perec. Pound is fascinated by Perec’s use of restrictions in his writing as a way of encouraging new patterns and structures, and has translated some of those ideas into the formation of these collections.

In Pound’s work Twenty six and one books, 2010, each book has a number in the title, starting with Ground Zero, all the way through to Maxim Gorky’s story collection Twenty-Six and One. The entire 26 brown things, 2002, collection was found and purchased by the artist in one shop, on the same day, with everything being – you guessed it – brown.

Like some vast novel cycle, collections reflect the world. The use of such constraints when organising the collections allows for surprising and poetic responses. If we look closely enough, things are found to reflect, to hold and to project ideas.

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
Tangled (details)
2012-2015
Collection of the artist
Courtesy of Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound

Installation view of the exhibition Patrick Pound: The Great Exhibition at NGV Australia with the work Portmanteau (2015-2017) at middle centre. Presented as part of the NGV Festival of Photography.
Photo: Wayne Taylor

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
Portmanteau (detail)
2015-2017
Collection of the artist
Courtesy of Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
Portmanteau (installation view detail)
2015-2017
Collection of the artist
Courtesy of Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound
Photo: © Dr Marcus Bunyan, National Gallery of Victoria and Patrick Pound

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
High wire act (installation view)
2015
Collage of photographs
Courtesy of the artist, Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound
Photo: © Dr Marcus Bunyan, National Gallery of Victoria and Patrick Pound

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
The Fountainhead (installation view)
2016
Collage of photographs
Courtesy of the artist, Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound
Photo: © Dr Marcus Bunyan, National Gallery of Victoria and Patrick Pound

Photographs, objects and curios sourced from the internet and op shops will be organised alongside artworks from the NGV Collection in a wondrous series of encyclopaedic displays for Patrick Pound’s major exhibition Patrick Pound: The Great Exhibition.

An avid collector, the New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based artist is fascinated by the categorisation and ordering of objects. Irreverently titled The Great Exhibition, with a knowing nod to the epic ambitions of the famous London exposition of 1851, in his largest ever presentation Pound will showcase more than 50 collections, which he describes as ‘museums of things’, featuring hundreds of items from the artist’s expansive archives.

Pound has also extensively researched the scope of the NGV Collection, identifying more than 300 works from across all of the NGV collecting departments to incorporate into his ‘museums of things’. The connections that Pound draws between objects will allow audiences to see the NGV’s diverse holdings in surprising new contexts.

Among the ‘museums’, viewers will encounter vast displays of found photographs which, at closer glance, reveal their common thread, such as The hand of the photographer, a display in which the eclipsing thumb of the photographer is ever-present, and Damaged, a huge display of photographs which have been defaced by their original owners; faces marred by cigarette burns, marker or ripped out of the photo entirely.

Other ‘museums’ incorporate seemingly disparate items, like The Museum of there / Not there, which explores the idea of absence and presence, illustrated by a curated selection of objects such as an obsolete Australian $2 banknote and a mourning locket alongside a milk jug produced to commemorate the forthcoming coronation of King Edward VIII, who abdicated before he was crowned.

Tony Ellwood, Director, NGV, commented, “Through complex arrangements of items drawn from the artist’s archives alongside works from the NGV Collection, Pound’s installations playfully explore the art of collecting, and the ways in which things can hold and project ideas. Within each museum a new logic or exciting narrative is created for the viewer to unravel or identify.”

Pound last exhibited at the NGV in the 2013 exhibition Melbourne Now with his popular “Gallery of Air”, a wunderkammer of diverse artworks and objects that held the idea of air, drawn from the NGV Collection and the artist’s archives.

Press release from the NGV

Room 5

Installation views of the exhibition Patrick Pound: The Great Exhibition at NGV Australia, Federation Square. Presented as part of the NGV Festival of Photography.
Photos: Wayne Taylor

This room contains several of Pound’s collections which intersect with each other in various ways, revealing what the artist describes as a ‘matrix of connections’. Occasionally the collections also connect to works of art in the NGV Collection, and vice versa. The room is a vast diagrammatic network of intersections, and in that way shows one of the underlying ideas of the whole exhibition, which is to seek out patterns and similarities and connections across objects and works of art and ideas. In other words, one thing leads to another.

This installation also reflects the way in which Pound searches on the internet, and the ways in which the internet leads us from one thing to another via algorithms. The room is a visual representation of what Pound describes as ‘thinking through things’.

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
In tears (installation view)
2016-2017
Site specific installation comprising photographs collected by the artist
Courtesy of the artist, Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound

Man Ray (born United States 1890, lived in France 1921-1939, 1951-1976, died France 1976)
Eye and tears
1930s, printed 1972
Gelatin silver photograph
Purchased, 1973

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian 1962- )
With arms outstretched (installation view detail)
2016-2017
Site specific installation comprising photographs collected by the artist
Courtesy of the artist, Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound
Photo: © Dr Marcus Bunyan, National Gallery of Victoria and Patrick Pound

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
Drive by (en passant) (detail)
2016-2017
Collection of the artist
Courtesy of Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
Drive by (en passant) (installation view detail)
2016-2017
Collection of the artist
Courtesy of Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound
Photo: © Dr Marcus Bunyan, National Gallery of Victoria and Patrick Pound

The photographs collected by Patrick Pound include masses of family and vernacular snapshots, as well as newspaper archives and movie stills, which he describes as being ‘unhinged’ from their original sources. Pound does not create photographs in the traditional sense; rather, he spends hours searching for, sorting and buying prints on the internet. He describes this process as a form of ‘retaking’ the photograph.

The images are then organised according to an idea or theme or pattern, such as: ‘readers’, ‘the air’, ‘lamps’ or ‘listening to music’. Pound says he likes the idea of photographing something you cannot otherwise see. Unexpected connections, repetitions and coincidences emerge when the images are placed together in this way. Looking through these images reminds the viewer of the dramatic changes that have occurred in photography – not only in terms of the evolving technology of cameras and prints, but also in terms of what people photograph, why, and how these photographs are shared.

“When I began collecting photographs I was thinking of the way the camera reduces the world to a list of things to photograph. I thought that to photograph was to collect the world in the form of pictures. I love the way photography is so directly connected with the world. It has a remarkable familiarity. We all think we can understand it immediately. As writer Susan Sontag said, photography is not so much a representation of the world but a piece of it. Collecting found photos is like taking cuttings from the world. For me it is a form of collage.

Typically, the analogue photograph stopped life in its tracks. It couldn’t stop time, of course, but it could hold it up to a mirror. The vernacular snap reminds us that the camera is both a portal and a mirror. Photographers used to put photographs in albums and in boxes to be viewed and reviewed at will. Photographs were never made to be scanned and redistributed on eBay. Whether they are analogue or digital, printed photographs have an afterlife that no one saw coming. Photography used to be the medium of record. Now it is equally the medium of transmission.”

Wall text from the exhibition

Room 6

Installation view of the exhibition Patrick Pound: The Great Exhibition at NGV Australia with at left, People from behind 2016-2017; at centre, People who look dead but (probably) aren’t 2011-2014; and at right, The sleepers 2007-2017. Presented as part of the NGV Festival of Photography.
Photo: Wayne Taylor

The exhibition ends as it began, with figures whose backs are turned to us. Alongside are images of people who are asleep for the moment, and some forever; this gallery houses images of people who are all somehow removed from us. They are absorbed in their actions; they are unconscious, or not conscious, of us as they look away. There is a peculiar aspect of voyeurism that is afforded by the camera; the people in these photographs cannot see us looking at them. The camera also has a long association with the idea of stopping time – of freezing, or embalming, fleeting moments.

As Pound says, “Photography stops people in their tracks. Eventually every photograph is a photograph of a dead person. The camera is an idling hearse.”

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
People who look dead but (probably) aren’t
2011-2014
Gelatin silver photographs and type C photographs
Yvonne Pettengell Bequest, 2014
© Patrick Pound
Photo: Wayne Taylor

Installation view of Patrick Pound’s People who look dead but (probably) aren’t 2011-2014 (installation view detail)
Photo: Wayne Taylor

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
People who look dead but (probably) aren’t (installation view detail)
2011-2014
Gelatin silver photographs and type C photographs
Yvonne Pettengell Bequest, 2014
© Patrick Pound
Photo: © Dr Marcus Bunyan, National Gallery of Victoria and Patrick Pound

Installation view of Patrick Pound’s The sleepers 2007-2017 (installation view)
Photo: Wayne Taylor

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
The sleepers (installation view detail)
2007–2017
Site specific installation comprising photographs collected by the artist
Courtesy of the artist, Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound
Photo: © Dr Marcus Bunyan, National Gallery of Victoria and Patrick Pound

Installation view of Patrick Pound’s People from behind 2016-2017 (installation view)
Photo: Wayne Taylor

Patrick Pound (New Zealander/Australian, b. 1962)
People from behind (installation view details)
2016-2017
Site specific installation comprising works from the NGV Collection
Courtesy of the artist, Station, Melbourne, Stills Gallery, Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington and Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
© Patrick Pound
Photos: © Dr Marcus Bunyan, National Gallery of Victoria and Patrick Pound

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
Bondi
1939, printed c. 1975
Gelatin silver photograph
Purchased with the assistance of the Visual Arts Board, 1976

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

Opening hours:
Daily 10am – 5pm

National Gallery of Victoria website

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Apr

Cabinet card: William Bardwell, photographer – Alfred William Howitt, William Barak and unidentified man

By Dr Marcus Bunyan Leave a Comment

Categories: Australian artist, Australian cabinet cards and cartes de visite, Australian photography, black and white photography, documentary photography, existence, Indigenous Australians, intimacy, landscape, light, Melbourne, memory, painting, photography, portrait, psychological, reality, space, time and works on paper
Tags: A group of Aboriginal men at Coranderrk Station, Aboriginal art, Aboriginal Australian art, Aboriginal ceremony, Aboriginal cricketers at Coranderrk, Aboriginal painting, Aboriginal Protection Board, Aborigines Protection Act, Alfred William Howitt, Alfred William Howitt and William Barak, Alfred William Howitt c. 1861, Anne Bon, Australian Aboriginal Art, Australian Aboriginal painting, Australian art, Australian carte de visite, Australian colonial photography, Australian Indigenous artist, Australian photography, Barak Chief of the Yarra Yarra Tribe, Barak drawing a corroboree, Batchelder & O'Neill, Batchelder & O'Neill Alfred William Howitt, Carl Walter, Coranderrk, Coranderrk Aboriginal Station, Coranderrk Station, corroboree, David Barak, David Barak at Coranderrk Aboriginal Station, early Australian photography, Fred Kruger, Fred Kruger Aboriginal cricketers at Coranderrk, Fred Kruger David Barak at Coranderrk Aboriginal Station, Fred Kruger William and Annie Barak with their son David, Fred Kruger William and Annie Barak with their son David at Coranderrk Aboriginal Station, Healesville, Indigenous artist, Indigenous Australian Art, Indigenous Australians, Indigenous painter, Melbourne, Melbourne International Exhibition, Ngurungaeta, photographs of Coranderrk Station, State Library of Victoria, Talma & Co Barak Chief of the Yarra Yarra Tribe, Talma & Co Barak drawing a corroboree, Talma & Co., William and Annie Barak with their son David, William and Annie Barak with their son David at Coranderrk Aboriginal Station, William Barak, William Barak Aboriginal ceremony, William Barak Aboriginal ceremony with wallaby and emu, William Bardwell, William Bardwell Alfred William Howitt and William Barak, Wurundjeri, Wurundjeri-willam clan, Yarra Yarra Tribe

April 2016

Caution: Art Blart advises that the subject of this posting may include images and names of deceased people that may cause distress to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

William Bardwell (Australian, active 1858-1895)
Untitled (Alfred William Howitt, William Barak and unidentified man)
Melbourne, 1866-1870(?)
Albumen photograph
Cabinet card

This cabinet card (above) was offered for sale recently and went for a large sum of money. I have never seen this photograph before and, although I have searched for it on the National Library of Australia Trove website and online, I cannot find it anywhere. But I thought I recognised the figure in the middle of the photograph. Some research ensued…

Firstly, according to Alan Davis’ seminal 1985 book The mechanical eye in Australia: photography 1841-1900 William Bardwell, photographer, operated from 21 Collins Street East, Melbourne between 1880-88. But Bardwell was at 21 Collins Street from at least 1877, and may well have been there earlier, as he was listed as insolvent there in 1879 before reopening his business. It could have been the case that Bardwell took the photograph in the early 1870s and that he only issued it as a cabinet photograph after he recovered from bankruptcy.

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Secondly, and I might be mistaken, but I thought I recognised the distinctive countenance and piercing stare of that inspirational Indigenous leader, William Barak (c. 1824 – 15 August 1903) in the centre of the image. We can see he is wearing a roughly hewn jacket with waistcoat, stripped shirt and zigzag patterned necktie. His presence dominates the photograph – central, frontal, tallest and flanked by two sitting people, all placed idyllically against a lush backdrop of trees and an Arcadian stone fence. “Those who knew Barak described him unanimously as wise and dignified, with penetrating eyes and firm principles.”

If it is Barak, dating the photograph is something of a conundrum since Bardwell was known to be at 21 Collins Street officially from 1877 onwards but he could have taken this photograph much earlier. If we compare this cabinet card to other images of Barak from 1866 and 1875 and 1876 (see below), Barak’s hair and beard colour, with tinges or grey in the 1866 image and our cabinet card – compared to the grey bearded man in the 1875 images – leads us to the supposition that this image was taken between approximately 1866-1870(?). Florence Ada Fuller’s oil painting of Barak dated 1885 (LaTrobe Picture Collection) also shows his hair as being slightly grizzled but his beard as being fully white. What also supports the dating of the cabinet card to the mid-late 1860s is a comparison of the hair and beard of the other person we definitely know is in the photograph, that of Alfred William Howitt. If you compare Batchelder & O’Neill’s portrait of Alfred William Howitt (below) with the cabinet card, we can see that the hair and beard in both are very similar. Barak did travel to Gippsland in 1882 and 1884 to meet up with Howitt, so it is possible they knew each other much earlier.

My initial identification that the Indigenous Australian in the cabinet card was Barak was made on a comparison of the shape of the beard; the strong flared nose; the fact that the beard comes down over his cheek bones in both the 1866 and cabinet card images; the furrowed shape of the brow which to me is very distinctive; and those penetrating eyes. Admittedly the hair is slightly different and we also cannot see the scar on the right hand cheek of Barak which is present in the 1866 image, because of the size of the enlargement of the cabinet card. But I still stand by my recognition of Barak until we can prove substantially otherwise.

At the time this photograph was taken, Barak would have been anywhere between 42-46 years old, depending on the exact year it was taken.

Ahead in Barak’s life would be leadership, creativity … and heartache. From 1874 onwards, Barak would have been the sole ngurungaeta (clan-head) of the Wurundjeri-balluk clan of Woi wurrung,2 and would lead his people living on the Coranderrk Station, near Healesville. But there were unsettling times ahead. In 1866, sixty people were evicted from the station and the station lost half its land in 1893. So much for the Aboriginal Protection Board, what a misnomer the title of that organisation turned out to be. As Barak famously said, “Me no leave it, Yarra, my country. There’s no mountains for me on the Murray.”

All of this was happening when Barak was going through the most tremendous personal hardship as well. In 1882, his son David (see photograph by Fred Kruger below) fell ill from tuberculosis and arrangements were made to admit him to hospital in Melbourne. These were thwarted by Captain Page, secretary of the Aboriginal Protection Board, and Barak had to carry his sick child all the way from Coranderrk to Melbourne and the home of his supporter Anne Bon. David was admitted to hospital but died soon after, with his father not even allowed to be by his bedside. After David’s death there is a heavy sadness noticeable in Barak’s eyes (see the book First Australians by Rachel Perkins, Marcia Langton, p. 104).

I have much admiration for this man, for the hardships he personally endured and which his people went through, and continue to go through to this day.

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And thirdly, the pith helmet was the give away to the identity of the person sitting at left in the photograph: Alfred William Howitt (1830-1908), explorer, natural scientist and pioneer authority on Aboriginal culture and social organisation. As an explorer, Howitt led the relief exhibition (June 1861) to rescue Robert O’Hara Burke, William Wills, John King and Charley Gray, to find only King alive and bring him back to Melbourne. He then returned a second time to Cooper’s Creek to repatriate the bodies of Burke and Wills (December 1861).

In 1863 he began a distinguished career of thirty-eight years as a public official, twenty-six of them as magistrate. In 1889 he became acting secretary of mines and water supply and in 1895 commissioner of audit and a member of the Public Service Board. But his real passion was as an anthropologist, his work stretching through fours phases between 1861-1907 (see the full biography for details).

“On his expedition to the Barcoo Howitt had met members of the Yantruwanta, Dieri and other tribes while they were uninfluenced by Europeans. He learned, though inexpertly, something of their ecology, languages, beliefs and customs. The experience confirmed in him a dissociation between the Aboriginals as an object of scientific interest and as a challenge to social policy. Family letters show that he went to central Australia sharing the racial and social prejudices of the day. His attitudes softened later but nothing in his writings suggests that he ever agreed with the condemnation of Europeans for their treatment of native peoples expressed in his father’s polemical Colonization and Christianity (1838). Even in official roles – he was for a time a local guardian of Aboriginals in Gippsland and in 1877 sat on the royal commission which inquired into their whole situation – his attitude appears always to have been that of the dispassionate scientist. His view of their problems did not extend beyond charitable paternalism and segregated training in institutions. His dealings with Aboriginals were cordial and appreciative if somewhat calculated, and he had no difficulty in finding long-serving helpers among them in all his inquiries. But he saw them as a people doomed to extinction by an extraordinary primitivity, and this quality aroused his scientific interest…

“More appreciative eyes … now recognise that Howitt greatly widened the base, improved the methods and deepened the insights of a nascent science. He wrote in a careful, informed way on a wealth of empirical topics – boomerangs, canoes, name-giving, cannibalism, migrations, wizardry, songs, message-sticks, sign-language – but most valuably on the kinship structures and intergroup relations of social life.”2

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This is a fascinating cabinet card for its cultural implications… and for what it leaves unsaid of the attitudes and history of the men pictured in this bucolic scene. William Barak was a man, a leader and an elder who kept the flame of his people and his culture alive. Who after all of his travails, turned to creativity and painting to record his culture for future generations. Culture and creativity in any language is a powerful healing force in what is an ongoing story of injustice and persecution. I would have very much liked to have meet this wise man.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Box 1053/2 (b/c), ‘Notes by Howitt on the Kulin nation from information provided by William Barak’ c. 1882 quoted in Ian D. Clark. “The A.W. How Papers,” in La Trobe Journal No 43, Autumn 1989, p. 30 on the La Trobe Journal website [Online] Cited 06/10/2021.

2/ W. E. H. Stanner. “Howitt, Alfred William (1830-1908),” on the Australian Dictionary of Biography website Volume 4, (MUP), 1972 [Online] Cited 09/04/2016.

Carl Walter (Australian, 1831-1907)
William Barak – age 42 – Yarra Yarra Tribe
1866
Albumen silver photograph
Approx. 10.0 x 6.7cm
State Library of Victoria

Carl Walter (c. 1831 – 7 October 1907), also known as Charles Walter, was a German-born botanist and photographer who worked in Australia. Walter was born in Mecklenburg, Germany in about 1831 and arrived in Victoria in the 1850s.

Walter set up a photographic studio in Melbourne, promoting himself as a “Country Photographic Artist” or “Landscape Photographic Artist”. For a twenty-year period starting from about 1862, he would periodically travel to eastern and alpine regions of Victoria with camera equipment and camping gear in a backpack.

In 1866 Walter took 106 photographs of Aboriginal people at Coranderrk east of Melbourne, which were exhibited at the Intercolonial Exhibition of Australasia in Melbourne in 1866-67.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Fred Kruger (Australian born Germany, 1831-1888)
William and Annie Barak with their son, David, at Coranderrk Aboriginal Station
c. 1875

Fred Kruger (Australian born Germany, 1831–1888)
William and Annie Barak with their son David at Coranderrk Aboriginal Station
c. 1875
Yarra Ranges Regional Museum, 9499

Fred Kruger (born Johan Friedrich Carl Kruger, 18 April 1831 – 15 February 1888) was a German-born photographer noted for his early photography of landscape and indigenous peoples in Victoria, Australia. …

In 1866, Kruger first registered his photography business at 133 Cardigan Street, Carlton, Melbourne, before moving it in August 1867 to High Street, Prahran, Melbourne, continuing there until 1871, then relocating in Preston to High Street and again to Regent Street in that suburb.

During this period, Kruger was achieving international recognition for his landscape photography, including the award of medals from both the 1872 Vienna Exhibition and the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. He became the first photographer to take group photos of the first Aboriginal cricket team in 1866, which became one of his most recognised images, and was subsequently commissioned in 1877 by the Aboriginal Protection Board to create a collection of work including portraits of the Aboriginal residents of the Coranderrk reserve, an Aboriginal reserve run by the colonial government of Victoria, which was made public in 1883. Kruger won more awards; a gold medal for the best collection of landscape views and another, for the best panoramic view of Geelong, at the Geelong Industrial and Juvenile Exhibition in 1879.

In March 1879 Kruger was photographing groups of Geelong residents, ensuring each person could easily be identified in his detailed views, as he did when photographing the Corio Bay rowing crew in November 1879. …

Kruger then settled in Geelong permanently, and his photography studio is registered on 29 December 1887 at Skene Street, in the Geelong suburb of Newtown. He created a collection in 1880 of twelve views of the streets and buildings of Geelong, winning him an award at the Melbourne International Exhibition (1880). The government of Victoria engaged him to photograph the Yan Yean Waterworks for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London. Kruger gained commissions from house owners to photograph their homes, most famous of which was from Lady Loch, the wife of the Governor.

Kruger made three visits to the Queenscliff region in 1881, 1882 and 1885, capturing views to include the buildings of the settlement and its marine setting. On 15 February 1888, Kruger died of peritonitis (inflammation of the membranes of abdominal wall and organs). Large holdings of his work have been showcased at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Text from the Wikipedia website

William Barak (c. 1824-1903) and Coranderrk

William Barak (or Beruk), was the last traditional ngurungaeta (elder) of the Wurundjeri-willam clan, first inhabitants of present-day Melbourne, Australia. He became an influential spokesman for Aboriginal social justice and an important informant on Wurundjeri cultural lore.

Barak was born in the early 1820s at Brushy Creek near present-day Croydon, in the country of the Wurundjeri people… Barak attended the government’s Yarra Mission School from 1837 to 1839. When he joined the Native Mounted Police in 1844, he was given the name of William Barak. He was Police Trooper No.19. In early 1863, Barak moved to Coranderrk Station, near Healesville, Victoria with about thirty others… Upon the death of Simon Wonga in 1875, Barak became the Ngurungaeta of the clan. He worked tirelessly for his people and was a successful negotiator on their behalf. He was a highly respected man and leader, with standing amongst the Indigenous people and the European settlers.

Coranderrk Station

Coranderrk Station ran successfully for many years as an Aboriginal enterprise, selling wheat, hops and crafts on the burgeoning Melbourne market. Produce from the farm won first prize at the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1881; and other awards in previous years, such as 1872. By 1874, the Aboriginal Protection Board (APB) was looking for ways to undermine Coranderrk by moving people away due to their successful farming practices. Neighbouring farmers also wanted the mission closed as the land was now deemed ‘too valuable’ for Aboriginal people to occupy. Photographer Fred Kruger was commissioned to document the site and its inhabitants.

Coranderrk Petition

In the 1870s and ’80s, Coranderrk residents sent deputations to the Victorian colonial government protesting their lack of rights and the threatened closure of the reserve. A Royal Commission in 1877 and a Parliamentary Inquiry in 1881 on the Aboriginal ‘problem’ led to the Aborigines Protection Act 1886, which required ‘half-castes under the age of 35’ to leave the reserve.

Activist William Barak and others sent a petition on behalf of the Aboriginal people of Coranderrk to the Victorian Government in 1886, which reads: “Could we get our freedom to go away Shearing and Harvesting and to come home when we wish and also to go for the good of our Health when we need it … We should be free like the White Population there is only few Blacks now rem[a]ining in Victoria, we are all dying away now and we Blacks of Aboriginal Blood, wish to have now freedom for all our life time … Why does the Board seek in these latter days more stronger authority over us Aborigines than it has yet been?”

As a result of the Aborigines Protection Act of 1886, around 60 residents were ejected from Coranderrk on the eve of the 1890s Depression. Their forced departure crippled Coranderrk as an enterprise, with only around 15 able-bodied men left to work the hitherto successful hop gardens. Almost half the land was reclaimed by government in 1893, and by 1924 orders came for its closure as an Aboriginal Station, despite protests from Wurundjeri returned servicemen who had fought in World War I.

Barak is now best remembered for his artworks, which show both traditional Indigenous life and encounters with Europeans. Most of Barak’s drawings were completed at Coranderrk during the 1880s and 1890s. They are now highly prized and exhibited in leading public galleries in Australia. His work is on permanent display in the National Gallery of Victoria Ian Potter Centre at Federation Square, Melbourne.”

Text from the “William Barak” and “Coranderrk” Wikipedia web pages.

Fred Kruger (Australian born Germany, 1831-1888)
David Barak at Coranderrk Aboriginal Station
c.1876
Museum Victoria

“This small, carte de visite sized photograph says more to me than most of the other photographs in the exhibition put together. It is almost as though the photographer had a personal attachment and connection to the subject. This poignant (in light of following events) dark, brown-hued photograph shows the son of elder and leader William Barak about the age of 9 years old in 1876. In 1882, David fell ill from tuberculosis and arrangements were made to admit him to hospital in Melbourne. These were thwarted by Captain Page, secretary of the Aboriginal Protection Board, and Barak had to carry his sick child all the way from Coranderrk to Melbourne and the home of his supporter Anne Bon. David was admitted to hospital but died soon after, with his father not even allowed to be by his bedside. After David’s death there is a heavy sadness noticeable in Barak’s eyes (see the book First Australians by Rachel Perkins, Marcia Langton, p. 104).

Unlike other photographs of family groups taken at Coranderrk, Kruger places David front on to the camera in the lower 2/3 rds of the picture plane on his own, framed by the symmetry of the steps and door behind. David glasps his hands in a tight embrace in front of him (nervously?), his bare feet touching the earth, his earth. The only true highlight in the photograph is a white neckerchief tied around his throat. There is an almost halo-like radiance around his head, probably caused by holding back (dodging) during the printing process. Small, timid but strong, in too short trousers and darker jacket, this one image – of a child, a human being, standing on the earth that was his earth before invasion – has more intimacy than any other image Kruger ever took, even as he tried to engender a sense of intimacy with the environment.”

Dr Marcus Bunyan. Review of “‘Fred Kruger: Intimate Landscapes” at the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Melbourne” on the Art Blart website 01/07/2012 [Online] Cited 08/04/2016.

Fred Kruger (born Germany 1831, arrived Australia 1860, died 1888)
Aboriginal cricketers at Coranderrk
c.1877
albumen silver photograph
13.3 x 18.6cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Mrs Beryl M. Curl, 1979

Unknown photographer
[A group of Aboriginal men at Coranderrk Station, Healesville]
Nd [perhaps c. 1895-1900 looking at the age of Barak]
Silver gelatin photograph
15.6 x 20.1cm
Collection of the State Library of Victoria

Studio portrait of sixteen Aboriginal men, five standing, five seated on chairs, the rest on the ground, all except two full face, wearing European dress. Barak back row 2nd left. Information provided by Aunty Joy Murphy, Wurundjeri Senior Elder confirming that Barak is correctly identified. Preferred title supplied by the Aboriginal Liaison Officer, Museum of Victoria.

Talma & Co. (1893-1932) 119 Swanston St. Melbourne
Barak, Chief of the Yarra Yarra Tribe [Barak drawing a corroboree]
c. 1895-98
Gelatin silver photograph
13.3 x 8.5cm., on mount 22.7 x 16.5cm
Inscribed in ink on mount l.l.: From Mrs. A. Bon, / “Wappan”.
Collection of the State Library of Victoria

Barak working on a drawing attached to the wall of a vertical slab hut. There is a wooden picket fence at the right hand side.

Barak (Yarra Yarra chief, 1824-1903)
Aboriginal ceremony
c. 1880 – c. 1890
Brown ochre and charcoal on cardboard
73.2 x 55.5cm
Collection of the State Library of Victoria

William Barak (Yarra Yarra chief, 1824-1903)
Aboriginal ceremony, with wallaby and emu
c. 1880 – c. 1890
Brown ochre and charcoal on cardboard
73.0 x 56.0cm
Collection of the State Library of Victoria

Alfred William Howitt (1830-1908)

Alfred William Howitt (1830-1908), explorer, natural scientist and pioneer authority on Aboriginal culture and social organization, was born on 17 April 1830 at Nottingham, England, the oldest surviving son of William Howitt and his wife Mary, née Botham. He was educated in England, Heidelberg and University College School, London. In 1852, under the press of family needs, he went with his father and brother Charlton to Melbourne where they had been preceded in 1840 by William’s youngest brother Godfrey. A reunion was one purpose of the visit but William and his sons also intended to try their fortunes on the new goldfields. They did so with modest success at intervals in the next two years. The experience turned the course of Alfred’s life. He learned to live with confidence in the bush, and its natural phenomena, so strange and as yet so little studied, stimulated his mind to their scientific study. In 1854 his father and brother returned to England but Howitt elected to remain, thoroughly at home in the Australian scene.

Young and handsome, of short and wiry build and notably calm and self-possessed, he fulfilled his mother’s prophecy that ‘someday Alfred will be a backwoodsman’. For a time he farmed his uncle’s land at Caulfield but, unattracted by the life, turned again to the bush and as a drover on the route from the Murray to Melbourne made the passing acquaintance of Lorimer Fison. An experienced bushman and ardent naturalist, Howitt was sent in 1859 by a Melbourne syndicate to examine the pastoral potential of the Lake Eyre region on which Peter Warburton had reported rosily. He led a party with skill and speed from Adelaide through the Flinders Ranges into the Davenport Range country but found it desolated by drought and returned to warn his sponsors. His ability as a bushman and resourceful leader came to public notice when, after briefly managing a sheep station at Hamilton and prospecting in Gippsland, he took a government party through unexplored alpine country to gold strikes on the Crooked, Dargo and Wentworth Rivers. He was an obvious choice as leader when in 1861 the exploration committee of the Royal Society of Victoria decided to send an expedition to relieve or, as the worst fears sensed, to rescue Robert O’Hara Burke, William Wills, John King and Charley Gray. Howitt’s discharge of this assignment was exemplary. Without blunder or loss he twice led large parties on the long journey to Cooper’s Creek. He soon found King, the only survivor, and took him to a public welcome in Melbourne but avoided the limelight for himself. Then, at request, he returned to bring the remains of Burke and Wills to the capital for interment. On the second expedition he had explored a large tract of the Barcoo country.

For his services Howitt was appointed police magistrate and warden of the Omeo goldfields, and in 1863 began a distinguished career of thirty-eight years as a public official, twenty-six of them as magistrate. In 1889 he became acting secretary of mines and water supply and in 1895 commissioner of audit and a member of the Public Service Board. He retired in January 1902 on a pension but served on the royal commission which in 1903 examined sites for the seat of government of the Commonwealth, and was chairman of the royal commission on the Victorian coal industry in 1905-06.

Such a career would have sufficed an ordinary man but Howitt attained greater things within it. Physical and intellectual fatigue seemed unknown to him. ‘What are they?’ he asked drily at 75 when Fison inquired if he never felt the infirmities of old age. In his long magistracy he travelled enormous distances annually (in one year, it was said, 7000 miles [11,265 km]) on horseback throughout Victoria. He read while in the saddle and studied the natural scene with such assiduous care that from 1873 onward he began to contribute to official reports, scientific journals and learned societies papers of primary value on the Gippsland rocks. He pioneered the use in Australia of thin-section petrology and chemical analysis of rocks. His fundamental contribution was his discovery and exploration of the Upper Devonian series north of Bairnsdale. He also made important studies of the Lower Devonian volcanics in East Gippsland and compiled magnificent geological maps of the area. In botany his Eucalypts of Gippsland (1889) became a standard authority and he collected hundreds of varieties of ferns, grasses, acacias and flowering plants. But his greatest eminence came from his work in anthropology, which was his main interest and relaxation after 1872…

Read the full biography by W. E. H. Stanner. “Howitt, Alfred William (1830-1908),” on the Australian Dictionary of Biography website Volume 4, (MUP), 1972 [Online] Cited 09/04/2016.

Alfred Howitt, the leader of the party to rescue Burke and Wills, circa 1861, from William Strutt album illustrating the Burke and Wills exploring expedition crossing the continent of Australia from Cooper’s Creek to Carpentaria, June 1861, DL PXX 3

Batchelder & O’Neill
Alfred William Howitt
c. 1863
Albumen silver carte-de-visite
9.0 x 5.2cm
Collection of the State Library of Victoria

Howitt full length in the photographers’ studio, leaning on a button-backed chair, wearing a three-piece winter suit, with a watch-chain and holding a pair of gloves in his right hand.

Batchelder & O’Neill
Alfred William Howitt
Nd
Albumen silver carte-de-visite
on mount 10.7 x 6.5cm approx.
Collection of the State Library of Victoria

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Jul

Photographs and text: ‘Quandong, New South Wales, Australia’ 1887

By Dr Marcus Bunyan Leave a Comment

Categories: Australian artist, Australian cabinet cards and cartes de visite, black and white photography, documentary photography, existence, landscape, light, memory, photographic series, photography, portrait, psychological, reality, space, time and works on paper
Tags: At Quandong 1887, Australian colonial history, Australian colonial landscape, Australian colonial photography, Australian history, Australian landscape, Australian Outback, Australian photography, Australian photography in the Victorian era, Australian post-colonial history, Charles Nettleton, Charles Nettleton Seven Creeks Station near Longwood, Charles Nettleton Shearing, Dianne Jones, Dianne Jones Shearing the rams, early Australian photography, Quandong, Quandong from top of barn, Quandong N.S.W., Seven Creeks Station near Longwood, Shearing in Woolshed Quandong, Shearing Quandong, Shearing the Rams, shearing the sheep, Stile at Acme hut Quandong, Tom Roberts, Tom Roberts Shearing the Rams, Unknown photographer At Quandong, Unknown photographer Quandong, Unknown photographer Quandong 1887, Unknown photographer Quandong from top of barn, Unknown photographer Shearing in Woolshed Quandong, Unknown photographer Shearing Quandong, Unknown photographer Stile at Acme hut

Archive for the 'Australian cabinet cards and cartes de visite' Category

December 2021

Season’s Greetings from Art Blart

December 2017

Trompe-l’oeil

Mise en abyme

“An Aboriginal Desperado”

Exhibition dates: 30th September – 12th November 2017

Double take

Footnotes

Unorthodox: a field guide

Exhibition dates: 30th September – 12th November 2017

Installation photographs of the exhibition

Exhibition dates: 24th March – 30th July 2017

Exhibition dates: 31st March – 30th July 2017

Entrance

E

Room 1

Room 2

Here are some examples of how The Museum of There / Not there works:

From Rodin’s marble head without its helmet …

to a sculpture that’s lost its head yet remains holding onto its hair …

and from a broken comb found in an Egyptian tomb to a novelty wig …

it is full of missing parts, surrogates and substitutions, apparitions and disappearing acts.

Every representation is, after all, something of a conjurer’s trick.

Patrick Pound

Passageway

Room 3

Room 4

Room 5

Room 6

April 2016

William Barak (c. 1824-1903) and Coranderrk

Coranderrk Station

Coranderrk Petition

Alfred William Howitt (1830-1908)

July 2015

Here are some examples of how
The Museum of There / Not there works:

From Rodin’s marble head
without its helmet …

to a sculpture that’s lost its head
yet remains holding onto its hair …

and from a broken comb found in
an Egyptian tomb to a novelty wig …

it is full of missing parts,
surrogates and substitutions,
apparitions and disappearing acts.

Every representation is, after all,
something of a conjurer’s trick.