Category: quotation

Exhibition: ‘Cecil Beaton: Portraits’ at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

Exhibition dates: 26th June – 31st August, 2009

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980) 'Greta Garbo, Plaza Hotel, New York, April 1946' 1946 from the exhibition 'Cecil Beaton: Portraits' at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, June - August, 2009

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Greta Garbo, Plaza Hotel, New York, April 1946
1946
Gelatin silver print
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

 

Until you are reminded by the photographs you sometimes forget what a fantastic auteur Cecil Beaton was.

Marcus


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

 

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980) 'Greta Garbo, Plaza Hotel, New York, April 1946' 1946 from the exhibition 'Cecil Beaton: Portraits' at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, June - August, 2009

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Greta Garbo, Plaza Hotel, New York, April 1946
1946
Gelatin silver print
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

Cecil Beaton (British, (1904-1980) 'Greta Garbo' 1946

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Greta Garbo
1946
Gelatin silver print
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

Cecil Beaton (British, (1904-1980) 'Audrey Hepburn' 1960

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Audrey Hepburn
1960
Gelatin silver print
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980) 'Barbara Hutton in Tangier, Morocco' 1961

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Barbara Hutton in Tangier, Morocco
1961
Gelatin silver print
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980) 'Charles James Gowns by Cecil Beaton, Vogue, June 1948' 1948

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Charles James Gowns by Cecil Beaton, Vogue, June 1948
1948
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

 

A stunning exhibition of nearly 50 portraits by Cecil Beaton, one of the most famous photographers of the 20th century, captures the glamour and excitement of some of the world’s greatest celebrities.

Cecil Beaton: Portraits 26 June – 31 August 2009 brilliantly reflects the astonishing talents of the photographer who was also a writer, artist, designer, actor, caricaturist, illustrator and diarist.

He photographed a dazzling array of superstars and leading personalities ranging from the Queen to Mick Jagger, Marilyn Monroe to Audrey Hepburn and Winston Churchill to Lucian Freud.

Beaton (1904-1980) was himself a charismatic character who could charm and cajole, amuse and flirt, electrify and calm. He was known for his elegant sartorial style which exactly matched and reflected the circles he moved in.
His long career covered an era of great change from the Roaring Twenties to the dawn of the New Romantics.

Jessica Feather, Walker curator, says:

“Cecil Beaton had a remarkable gift of bringing out the personalities and flair of his sitters so that he created some of the great iconic images of the age. The portraits still cast a spell with their timeless appeal, giving deep insights into the extraordinary people who came before his camera.”

Beaton’s career as a photographer began with his earliest portraits of his sister Baba taken in 1922, when he was a teenager.

After Cambridge, his early photographs were published in society magazines The Sketch, Tatler and Eve from 1925 onwards. In 1927, 23-year-old Beaton secured a contract with Vogue to provide portraits, caricatures and social commentary. His career – with the exception of two short breaks – continued with Vogue for the rest of his life.

In the 1930s he published books packed with glamorous portraits and artwork and photographed the wedding of the Prince of Wales to Wallis Simpson. Beaton also took a striking series of romantic studies of Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother).

His work took on a grittier aspect during the war and post-war years when he worked for the Ministry of Information and as an official war photographer.

Beaton reached the height of his powers in the 1950s and 60s when he became a household name. As well as creating great portraits of a new generation of film actresses such as Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe, he won Oscars for his design work in the blockbuster films Gigi and My Fair Lady.

Knighted in 1972, Beaton had a stroke in 1974 but returned to photography three years later. Among his subjects in his final years were fashion designers and international celebrities.

Press release from the Walker Art Gallery website [Online] Cited 05/08/2009. No longer available online

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980) 'Francis Bacon' 1951

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Francis Bacon
1951
Bromide print on white card mount
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980) 'Marilyn Monroe, New York, February 22, 1956' 1956

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Marilyn Monroe, New York, February 22, 1956
1956
Gelatin silver print
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980) 'Maria Callas' 1957

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Maria Callas
1957
Gelatin silver print
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980) 'Kyra Nijinsky' 1935

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Kyra Nijinsky
1935
Gelatin silver print
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

Kyra Vaslavovna Nijinsky (19 June 1913 – 1 September 1998), was a ballet dancer of Polish and Hungarian ancestry, with a Russian dance and cultural heritage. She was the daughter of Vaslav Nijinsky and the niece of Bronislava Nijinska. In the 1930s she appeared in ballets mounted by Ida Rubinstein, Max Reinhardt, Marie Rambert, Frederick Ashton, Antony Tudor.

Her father Vaslav (1889-1950) was a truly world-famous dancer with Ballets Russes in Paris. Her aunt Bronia (1891-1972) also excelled in dance and was a leading choreographer, initially with Ballets Russes. Her mother Romola de Pulszky was a socialite and author. Romola’s mother, Kyra’s grandmother, was Emilia Márkus, a popular Hungarian actress. …

“We also met Nijinsky’s daughter, Kyra, who is fascinating. Sturdily built and full of exuberance, she has the most engaging smile and what must be her father’s eyes, of an unusual grey-green, or is it green-brown? She is an artist and uses bright colours. Her father is a frequent subject, but I noticed all her paintings show him in ballet roles, never as himself. When she was describing a Russian dance she made a momentary gesture of her right arm across her brow, and I could see Nijinsky exactly. There was something in her movement and her face that expressed all there is to say about dancing in that one instant, and I can never forget it.”

Dame Margot Fonteyn on meeting Kyra in San Franciso in 1951

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980) 'Marilyn Monroe' 1956

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Marilyn Monroe
1956
Gelatin silver print
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980) 'Mick Jagger, Marrakesh' 1967

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Mick Jagger, Marrakesh
1967
Gelatin silver print
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

 

This major retrospective exhibition brings together captivating images from Cecil Beaton, one of the most celebrated photographers of the 20th century. Renowned for his images of elegance, glamour and style, Beaton’s work has inspired many famous photographers including David Bailey and Mario Testino.

The exhibition reflects the astonishing talents of the photographer who was also a writer, artist, designer, actor, caricaturist, illustrator and diarist. There are four sections in the exhibition covering Beaton’s career and capturing 50 years of fashion, art and celebrity:

The Early Years: London to Hollywood, 1920s and 1930s

Photographs of Hollywood stars such as Marlene Dietrich and Fred Astaire and artists including John (Rex) Whistler, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali.

The Years Between: The War and Post-War Arts, 1940s

Featuring Greta Garbo, Vivian Leigh and Laurence Olivier as well as Princess Elizabeth and Sir Winston Churchill.

The Strenuous Years: Picturing the Arts, 1950s

Portraits of Queen Elizabeth II, Francis Bacon, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Lucian Freud and Marilyn Monroe.

Partying and the Partying Years: Apotheosis and Retrospection, 1960s and 1970s

Includes images of Audrey Hepburn, Prince Charles, Harold Pinter, Katherine Hepburn, Mick Jagger, Barbara Streisand
and Elizabeth Taylor.”

Text from the Walker Art Gallery website [Online] Cited 23/03/2019 no longer available online

 

Cecil Beaton (British, (1904-1980) 'Miss Nancy Beaton as a Shooting Star' 1928

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Miss Nancy Beaton as a Shooting Star
1928
Gelatin silver print
49 x 38.8cm
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

Cecil Beaton (British, (1904-1980) 'Fred and Adele Astaire at a piano' 1930

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Fred and Adele Astaire at a piano
1930
Gelatin silver print
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

Cecil Beaton (British, (1904-1980) 'Gary Cooper' 1931

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Gary Cooper
1931
Gelatin silver print
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

Cecil Beaton (British, (1904-1980) 'Gwili Andre' 1932

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Gwili Andre
1932
Gelatin silver print
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

Gwili Andre (born Gurli Andresen, 4 February 1908 – 5 February 1959) was a Danish model and actress who had a brief career in Hollywood films.

 

Cecil Beaton (British, (1904-1980) 'Salvador Dali and Gala' 1936

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Salvador Dali and Gala
1936
Gelatin silver print
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

Cecil Beaton (British, (1904-1980) 'Cecil Day-Lewis' 1942

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Cecil Day-Lewis
1942
Gelatin silver print
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

Cecil Day-Lewis (or Day Lewis) CBE (27 April 1904 – 22 May 1972), often writing as C. Day-Lewis, was an Anglo-Irish poet and the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1968 until his death in 1972. He also wrote mystery stories under the pseudonym of Nicholas Blake.

During World War II, Day-Lewis worked as a publications editor in the Ministry of Information for the UK government, and also served in the Musbury branch of the British Home Guard. He is the father of Sir Daniel Day-Lewis, a noted actor, and Tamasin Day-Lewis, a documentary filmmaker and television chef.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Cecil Beaton (British, (1904-1980) 'Orson Welles resting on a sculpture' 1942

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Orson Welles resting on a sculpture
1942
Gelatin silver print
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

Cecil Beaton (British, (1904-1980) 'Marlon Brando' 1954

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Marlon Brando
1954
Gelatin silver print
© The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive

 

 

Walker Art Gallery
William Brown Street
Liverpool L3 8EL

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 6pm

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Review: ‘John Brack’ retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria, NGV Australia, Federation Square, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 24th April – 9th August, 2009

 

John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'The chase' 1959 from the 'John Brack' retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria, NGV Australia, Federation Square, Melbourne, April - August, 2009

 

John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
The chase
1959
Oil on composition board
100.2 x 121.8 cm
Grishin, o94
Private collection, Melbourne
© Helen Brack

 

 

“One either has a subject, or one has not.”

John Brack

 

This is a solid retrospective of the work of the Australian artist John Brack (1920-1999) presented by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. John Brack is, quintessentially, an Australian and more specifically a Melbourne artist. Melbournians have a love hate relationship with his work – loving the earlier paintings that view the working classes of 1950s Melbourne through a nostalgic, humorous, sardonic lens (when originally the popularity of the work in the 1950s/60s was, as Robert Nelson has observed, mistakenly identified with ridicule of the subject matter)1 while finding the later work of massed pencils, postcards, deities and wooden people mystifying, cold and elusive.

Brack saw his paintings of suburbia as honest portrayals of the new milieux. His sparse, graphic style evidenced the emotionally distanced relationships between space and people in the new cityscapes and best suited his cerebral approach to the subject matter. Men become mannequins with skeletal faces that hover menacingly behind the barmaid in The bar (1954, above), an amorphous mass of brown-suited humanity. Two women are portrayed in all their high-collared stiffness in the painting ‘Two typists’ (1955, above), their stylised faces, black hat and hair surmounted by hanging, disembodied legs at the top of the painting. These two women then reappear at bottom right in one of Brack’s most famous paintings, Collins St, 5p.m. (1955, above) subsumed into the two lines of people wearily trudging home from a day’s work at the office.

Brack’s early paintings are full of stylised metaphor – for example the clinical emptiness of space, the implied threat of hanging ‘instruments’ in ‘The block’ (1954, above) or the decapitated bird-like alienation of the fish head in The fish shop (1955, above) – offer comment on the nature of suburban life: ordered, dead, soulless surfaces, facades behind which life seethes. Brack recognises the slightly macabre beauty of these industrial spaces, their form and purpose, where no one had recognised them before. There are oversized teeth (The veil, 1952), large hands, the fleshy pink of faces (The barbers shop, 1952) and the tribal mask of a face in Man in pub (1953) where man becomes fragment. Above all there is a simplicity and eloquence in line and form grounded in a limited palette of ochres, yellows, greys, blacks, whites and browns. These are the colours of the early cave painters and it’s poignant that Brack uses them so effectively to anchor his subject matter both in history, memory and the present of contemporary life, a life we still recognise intimately over fifty years later.

Here is the ‘Human Condition’ writ large (with capitals!), the humility of professions such as butchers, seamstresses, typists and barmaids (with their limited control of the environment) portraying the body of the worker, as in Satre’s ‘Nothingness’,2 living the tedium of suburban life whilst wanting to flee the anguish of this existence into the desirable light of the future toward which man projects himself. This a theme that Brack develops in the later paintings with their stilted, cerebral investigation of existentialism. These paintings offer a more general contribution to a view of the human condition – love and hate, we, us, them, pros and cons – a view originally grounded in the suburbs of Melbourne but elevated to the ethereal, paintings that seem to lack material substance but offer a hyper-refined conceptual aesthetic.

Sticks and Stones Will Break My Bones But Pencils Will Never Hurt Me

As early as Knives and forks (1958) and The playground (1959) we can observe the beginnings of the spaces of his later pencil paintings with their uniting of form, line and plane (think the planes of Cezanne). The later work is literally much colder, the palette now blues instead of the warmer ochres and yellows and this change is very obvious when you walk around the exhibition. There is an emotional distance here – from human contact and the warmth of company. Ronald Miller observed in 1970 that Brack’s work is about the rituals of life, about states of uneasy poise and vulnerability, about realities behind facades but in the later work the paintings become the facades: gone are the ambiguities and vulnerabilities to be replaced by an altogether different ‘order’ of existence.

We see in paintings such as Souvenirs (1976), We, Us, Them (1983), The pros and cons (1985) and Watching the flowers (1990-91 – see all below) how the canvas has become a stage set replete with turned up edges, spaces of ritual performance containing generalised metaphors for the nature of human existence, metaphors with universal themes. In his investigation of the universal Brack looses sight of the personal. His towers made of playing cards, his thrusting planes, the military precision of his opposing armies of goose-steeping pencils lack empathy for the thing that he was searching to be attuned with: the nature of existence, the human condition.

As Sartre observed,

“To apprehend myself as seen is, in fact, to apprehend myself as seen in the world and from the standpoint of the world. The look does not carve me out in the universe; it comes to search for me at the heart of my situation and grasps me only in irresolvable relations with instruments. If I am seen as seated, I must be seen as “seated-on-a-chair,” … But suddenly the alienation of myself, which is the act of being-looked-at, involves the alienation of the world which I organise. I am seated on this chair with the result that I do not see it at all, that it is impossible for me to see it …”3


This is the point that John Brack reached: through his desire to paint universal themes he was unable to visualise and apprehend himself as seen in the world from the standpoint of the world. It feels (yes feeling!) that he was alienated from the very thing he sought to portray – how the personal and the universal are one and the same.

Brack’s ‘failure’ as an artist (if indeed it can be called that) is not, as Robert Nelson has suggested, “because he didn’t talk enough or wisely enough to negotiate his way out of a misunderstanding” (that his work was sardonic). On the contrary I believe his ‘success’ as an artist is that he painted exactly what he wanted to paint in the time and place that he wanted to paint it. His later work might strike some as cold and impenetrable but if one looks clearly, with a steady eye, there still beats a heart under that chill exterior, a heart grounded in the life of suburban Melbourne. In the end Brack returns to the beginning, still exploring, still searching.

As T.S. Eliot wrote in one of The Four Quartets,4

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

 Dr Marcus Bunyan


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

 

1/ Nelson, Robert. The Age newspaper. Melbourne, Friday 24th April, 2009

2/ “We learn that Nothingness is revealed to us most fully in anguish and that man generally tries to flee this anguish, this Nothingness which he is, by means of “bad faith.” The study of “bad faith” reveals to us that whereas Being-in-itself simply is, man is the being “who is what he is not and who is not what he is.” In other words man continually makes himself. Instead of being, he “has to be”; his present being has meaning only in the light of the future toward which he projects himself. Thus he is not what at any instant we might want to say he is, and he is that towards which he projects himself but which he is not yet.”
Barnes, Hazel. Introduction to Jean-Paul Satre’s Being and Nothingness. London: Methuen, 1966, pp. xvii-xix

3/ Satre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. (trans. Hazel Barnes). London: Methuen, 1966, p. 263

4/ Eliot, T.S. “Little Gidding” from The Four Quartets (1942)

     

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'The barber’s shop' 1952 from the 'John Brack' retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria, NGV Australia, Federation Square, Melbourne, April - August, 2009

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    The barber’s shop
    1952
    Oil on canvas
    63.7 × 76.3 cm
    National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
    Purchased, 1953
    © Helen Brack

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Two Typists' 1955 from the 'John Brack' retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria, NGV Australia, Federation Square, Melbourne, April - August, 2009

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Two typists
    1955
    Oil on canvas
    51.0 × 61.5 cm
    National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
    The Joseph Brown Collection. Presented through the NGV Foundation by Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor, 2004
    © Helen Brack

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Collins St, 5p.m.' 1955

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Collins St, 5 p.m.
    1955
    Oil on canvas
    114.8 × 162.8 cm
    National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
    Purchased, 1956
    © National Gallery of Victoria

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'The bar' 1954

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    The bar
    1954
    Oil on canvas
    97.0 × 130.3 cm irreg.
    National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
    Purchased with the assistance of Peter Clemenger AM and Joan Clemenger, Elena Keown Bequest, Spotlight Foundation, NGV Foundation, Ross Adler AC and Fiona Adler, Bruce Parncutt and Robin Campbell, Marc Besen AO and Eva Besen AO, the Bowness Family, Lindsay Fox AO and Paula Fox, Dorothy Gibson, Rino Grollo and Diana Ruzzene Grollo, Ian Hicks AM, the NGV Women’s Association and donors to the John Brack Appeal, 2009
    © Helen Brack

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'The conference' 1956

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    The conference
    1956
    Oil on canvas

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'The block' 1954

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    The block
    1954
    Oil on canvas
    59.0 × 71.5 cm
    National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
    Presented through The Art Foundation of Victoria by Dr Joseph Brown, AO, OBE, Honorary Life Benefactor, 1999
    © Helen Brack

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'The fish shop' 1955

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    The fish shop
    1955
    Oil on canvas

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'The new house' 1953

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    The new house
    1953
    Oil on canvas on board
    127.0 x 55.8 cm
    Private collection, Brisbane
    © Helen Brack

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Self-portrait' 1955

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Self-portrait
    1955
    Oil on canvas
    81.4 × 48.3 cm
    National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
    Purchased with the assistance of the National Gallery Women’s Association, 2000
    © Helen Brack

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'The unmade road' 1954

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    The unmade road
    1954
    Oil on canvas

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Subdivision' 1954

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Subdivision
    1954
    Oil on canvas

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Nude in an armchair' 1957

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Nude in an armchair
    1957
    Oil on canvas
    127.6 × 107.4 cm
    National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
    Purchased, 1957
    © National Gallery of Victoria

     

     

    “What I paint most is what interests me most, that is, people; the Human Condition, in particular the effect on appearance of environment and behaviour… A large part of the motive is the desire to understand, and if possible, to illuminate …”

    John Reed, New Painting 1952-62, Longmans, Melbourne, 1963, p. 19.

     

    Opening 24 April, the National Gallery of Victoria will present a major retrospective of the work of John Brack, the first in more than twenty years. This exhibition will survey John Brack’s complete career, incorporating over 150 works from all of his major series. John Brack will bring together a significant body of the artist’s paintings and works on paper, including pictures that have developed ‘icon status’ and others that have rarely, if ever, been seen publicly since they were first exhibited.

    Kirsty Grant, Senior Curator Australian Art, NGV said that more than any other artist of his generation, John Brack was a painter of modern Australian life.

    “John Brack painted images which explored the social rituals and realities of everyday life. Long considered the quintessential Melbourne artist, Brack’s images of urban and suburban Melbourne painted during the 1950s drew attention for their novelty of subject and instantly recognisable references. His work is much broader however and in this exhibition we will see the continuity throughout his career of his fundamental interest in people, human nature and the human condition,” said Ms Grant.

    Frances Lindsay, NGV Deputy Director said John Brack was widely considered one of Australia’s greatest twentieth century artists.

    “The NGV has enjoyed a long association with John Brack: he worked as an assistant frame maker at the gallery in 1949, became head of the National Gallery School in 1962, and the NGV was also the first public institution to purchase one of his works. Brack’s iconic works are certainly the highlight for many visitors to the Gallery. We are thrilled to be continuing this special relationship by presenting this important and timely retrospective.”

    The exhibition will be displayed chronologically, beginning with some rare early student works. Each phase of Brack’s practice will be explored, from his well-known urban scenes of the 1950s to the highly symbolic paintings from the 1970s. Many of Brack’s most familiar paintings are included in the exhibition such as Collins St, 5p.m, The bar and The Old Time.

    Brack produced compelling pictures which captured the essential characteristics of his subjects involved in everyday activities and, in some of his most engaging series, he depicted the characters of the racecourse, children at school and professional ballroom dancers. Throughout his career Brack also painted the nude, still life subjects and portraits, both of family and friends – including artists Fred Williams and John Perceval – as well as commissioned subjects, such as Barry Humphries as his alter-ego Edna Everage. During the 1970s Brack replaced the human figure with an assortment of everyday implements including cutlery, pens and pencils which he used as metaphors for the complexities of human behaviour and relationships.

    Press release from the NGV website [Online] Cited 26/07/2009. No longer available online

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Inside and outside (The shop window)' 1972

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Inside and outside (The shop window)
    1972
    Oil on canvas

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Latin American Grand Final' 1969

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Latin American Grand Final
    1969
    Oil on canvas
    167.5 x 205.0 cm
    National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
    Purchased, 1981
    © Helen Brack

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Portrait of Fred Williams' 1979-1980

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Portrait of Fred Williams
    1979-1980
    Oil on canvas

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'The pros and cons' 1985

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    The pros and cons
    1985
    Oil on canvas

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)' The Battle' 19181-1983

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    The Battle
    19181-1983
    Oil on canvas

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'We, Us, Them' 1983

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    We, Us, Them
    1983
    Oil on canvas
    183.4 × 122.4 cm
    National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
    Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of Mr Philip Russell, Fellow, 1983
    © Helen Brack

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Kings and Queens' 1988

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Kings and Queens
    1988
    Oil on canvas

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Souvenirs' 1976

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Souvenirs
    1976

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999) 'Watching the flowers' 1990-1991

     

    John Brack (Australian, 1920-1999)
    Watching the flowers
    1990-1991
    Oil on canvas

     

     

    The Ian Potter Centre:
 NGV Australia 
Federation Square
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Flinders Streets, Melbourne

    Opening hours:
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    Exhibition: ‘Gay Icons’ at the National Portrait Gallery, London

    Exhibition dates: 2nd July – 18th October 2009

     

    Jill Furmanovsky (British, b. 1953) 'K.D. Lang, Le Meridien Hotel, London' 1992

     

    Jill Furmanovsky (British, b. 1953)
    K.D. Lang, Le Meridien Hotel, London
    1992
    Gelatin silver print
    © Jill Furmanovsky

     

     

    “How I wish this selection had been available to me when I was young and trying to make sense of my reactions to the world. How inspirational to have had portraits of the great and the good staring out at me telling me that I was not by any measure on my own.”

    “… it is her [K.D. Lang’s] androgynous good looks and tendency to strut on the stage which warms many lesbian hearts.”

    ~ Sandi Toksvig


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

     

     

    Fergus Greer (English, b. 1961) 'Quentin Crisp' 1989

     

    Fergus Greer (English, b. 1961)
    Quentin Crisp
    1989
    Bromide fibre print
    10 1/2 in. x 10 3/8 in. (267 mm x 264 mm)
    Given by Fergus Greer, 2006
    © National Portrait Gallery, London
    © Fergus Greer

     

     

    The first portrait exhibition to celebrate the contribution of gay people and gay icons to history and culture. 60 photographs selected by Waheed Alli, Alan Hollinghurst, Elton John, Jackie Kay, Billie Jean King, Ian McKellen, Chris Smith, Ben Summerskill, Sandi Toksvig and Sarah Waters.

    An important photography exhibition, Gay Icons, at the National Portrait Gallery (2 July – 18 October 2009) will celebrate the contribution of gay people – and the significance of the gay icon – to history and culture. Ten selectors have worked with the Gallery to make their own personal choices of six individuals, their ‘icons’. Not only does this exhibition include many well-known icons, who may or may not be gay themselves, it also reveals some surprises and will encourage a wide audience to think about familiar faces in new ways.

    The Gay Icons shown in the exhibition will include those people, living or dead, whatever their sexual orientation or interests, who the ten individual selectors regard as inspirational, or as a personal icon. Gay Icons brings together portraits of those people who are regarded as especially significant to each of the selectors, alongside those of the selectors themselves, all prominent gay figures in contemporary culture and society.

    Coinciding with the fortieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York, this exhibition focuses on portraits of both historical and modern figures. The choices provide a fascinating range of inspiring figures – some very famous, some heroic, others relatively unknown. Each icon is presented with information about their personal, and sometimes public, significance, some of it relating to the sitter but much of it linked to the selectors who have been prepared to share their experiences and feelings in their own exhibition texts.

    Themes running through the exhibition include inspiration and how the ‘icons’ have inspired each selector in an extremely personal sense to realise their full potential, human rights, stemming from the specific consideration of sexuality, and how this might lead us to consider parallels between the struggles of different minority groups, re-discovery, or rescuing the reputations of figures who might otherwise have been forgotten or, worse, actively disregarded and surprise at some of the perhaps unexpected choices.

    The project was developed from an initial proposal made by Bernard Horrocks, Copyright Officer, at the Gallery. The concept quickly evolved to include invitations to ten gay people – each distinguished in different fields – to act as selectors. They were chosen in consultation with their Chair, Sandi Toksvig.

    Each selector could freely choose six ‘icons’, although the Gallery decided to limit the choices to photographic portraits, and therefore to subjects who had lived, more or less, within the last 150 years. This also seemed appropriate because within this same period homosexuality was gradually accepted and made legitimate in Britain.

    The selectors are Lord Waheed Alli, Alan Hollinghurst, Sir Elton John, Jackie Kay, Billie Jean King, Sir Ian McKellen, Lord Chris Smith, Ben Summerskill, Sandi Toksvig and Sarah Waters.

    Sitters include artists Francis Bacon and David Hockney, civil rights campaigner Harvey Milk, writers Quentin Crisp, Joe Orton, Dame Daphne Du Maurier, Patricia Highsmith and Walt Whitman, composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky, musicians k.d. lang, Will Young and Village People, entertainers Ellen DeGeneres, Kenneth Williams and Lily Savage, and Nelson Mandela and Diana, Princess of Wales. Their fascinating stories will be illustrated by sixty photographic portraits including works by Andy Warhol, Linda McCartney, Snowdon, Polly Borland, Fergus Greer, Terry O’Neill and Cecil Beaton.

    Sandy Nairne, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London, says: “Gay Icons is an exhibition in which inspiring stories – both private and public – are shared. These are stories of brave lives and significant achievements, told through iconic photographic images chosen by selectors who are themselves icons.

    Text from the National Portrait Gallery website [Online] Cited 10/07/2009. No longer available online

     

    Gisèle Freund (French born Germany, 1908-2000) 'Virginia Woolf' 1939

     

    Gisèle Freund (French born Germany, 1908-2000)
    Virginia Woolf
    1939
    © Gisèle Freund

     

    Gisèle Freund (born Gisela Freund; December 19, 1908 in Schöneberg District, Berlin – March 31, 2000 in Paris) was a German-born French photographer and photojournalist, famous for her documentary photography and portraits of writers and artists. Her best-known book, Photographie et société (1974), is about the uses and abuses of the photographic medium in the age of technological reproduction. In 1977, she became President of the French Association of Photographers, and in 1981, she took the official portrait of French President François Mitterrand.

    She was made Officier des Arts et Lettres in 1982 and Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur, the highest decoration in France, in 1983. In 1991, she became the first photographer to be honoured with a retrospective at the Musée National d’art Moderne in Paris (Centre Georges Pompidou).

    Freund’s major contributions to photography include using the Leica Camera (with its 36 frames) for documentary reportage and her early experimentation with Kodachrome and 35 mm Agfacolor, which allowed her to develop a “uniquely candid portraiture style” that distinguishes her in 20th century photography.

    She is buried at the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris, France near her home and studio at 12 rue Lalande.

    See her full entry on the Wikipedia website

     

    Harper & Brothers. 'Patricia Highsmith' 1942 

     

    Harper & Brothers
    Patricia Highsmith
    1942
    Gelatin silver print
    © Patricia Highsmith Collection, Swiss National Library / Swiss Literary Archives, Bern

     

    “… is a significant writer by any standard, but she deserves honouring as a lesbian and gay icon on the strength of one novel alone, The Price of Salt, a wonderfully complex and upbeat representation of lesbian love.”

    ~ Sarah Waters

     

    Patricia Highsmith (January 19, 1921 – February 4, 1995) was an American novelist and short story writer best known for her psychological thrillers, including her series of five novels featuring the character Tom Ripley. She wrote 22 novels and numerous short stories throughout her career spanning nearly five decades, and her work has led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Her writing derived influence from existentialist literature, and questioned notions of identity and popular morality. She was dubbed “the poet of apprehension” by novelist Graham Greene.

    Her first novel, Strangers on a Train, has been adapted for stage and screen numerous times, notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951. Her 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley has been adapted numerous times for film, theatre, and radio. Writing under the pseudonym “Claire Morgan,” Highsmith published the first lesbian novel with a happy ending, The Price of Salt, in 1952, republished 38 years later as Carol under her own name and later adapted into a 2015 film.

    Text from the Wikipedia website

     

    Paul Morrissey (American, 1938-2024) 'Joe Dallesandro' 1968

     

    Paul Morrissey (American, 1938-2024)
    Joe Dallesandro
    1968
    Gelatin silver print
    © Paul Morrissey, 1968

     

    Joseph Angelo D’Allesandro III (born December 31, 1948), better known as Joe Dallesandro, is an American actor and Warhol superstar. Having also crossed over into mainstream roles like mobster Lucky Luciano in The Cotton Club, Dallesandro is generally considered to be the most famous male sex symbol of American underground films of the 20th century, as well as a sex symbol of gay subculture.

    Dallesandro starred in the 1968 film produced by Andy Warhol, Flesh, as a teenage street hustler. Rolling Stone magazine in 1970 declared his second starring vehicle, Trash, the “Best Film of the Year”, making him a star of the youth culture, sexual revolution and subcultural New York City art collective of the 1970s. Dallesandro also starred in 1972’s Heat, another Warhol film that was conceived as a parody of Sunset Boulevard. …

    Underground film career

    Dallesandro met Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey in 1967 while they were shooting Four Stars, and they cast him in the film on the spot. Warhol would later comment “In my movies, everyone’s in love with Joe Dallesandro.”

    Dallesandro played a hustler in his third Warhol film, Flesh (1968), where he had several nude scenes. Flesh became a crossover hit with mainstream audiences, and Dallesandro became the most popular of the Warhol stars. New York Times film critic Vincent Canby wrote of him: “His physique is so magnificently shaped that men as well as women become disconnected at the sight of him”

    As Dallesandro’s underground fame began to cross over into the popular culture, he appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone in April 1971. He was also photographed by some of the top celebrity photographers of the time: Francesco Scavullo, Annie Leibovitz, Richard Avedon.

    Dallesandro appeared in Lonesome Cowboys (1968), Trash (1970), Heat (1972), Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, and Andy Warhol’s Dracula (both 1974), also directed by Morrissey. These last two films were shot in Europe. After filming was complete, he chose not to return to the U.S. He appeared in Serge Gainsbourg’s Je t’aime moi non plus (France, 1976), which starred Gainsbourg’s wife, British actress Jane Birkin.

    Text from the Wikipedia website

     

    Lewis Morley (Australian born Hong Kong, 1925-2013) 'Joe Orton' 1965

     

    Lewis Morley (Australian born Hong Kong, 1925-2013)
    Joe Orton
    1965
    Bromide print
    20 in. x 16 1/8 in. (508 mm x 410 mm)
    Given by the photographer, Lewis Morley, 1992
    © Lewis Morley Archive/National Portrait Gallery, London

     

     

    Gay Icons explores gay social and cultural history through the unique personal insights of ten high profile gay figures, who have selected their historical and modern icons.

    The chosen icons, who may or may not be gay themselves, have all been important to each selector, having influenced their gay sensibilities or contributed to making them who they are today. They include artists Francis Bacon and David Hockney; writers Daphne du Maurier and Quentin Crisp; composers Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Benjamin Britten; musicians k.d. lang, the Village People and Will Young; entertainers Ellen DeGeneres, Lily Savage and Kenneth Williams; sports stars Martina Navratilova and Ian Roberts and political activists Harvey Milk and Angela Mason.

    Their fascinating and inspirational stories will be illustrated by over sixty photographic portraits including works by Andy Warhol, Snowdon and Cecil Beaton together with specially commissioned portraits of the selectors by Mary McCartney. McCartney. All are set in a striking exhibition design conceived by renowned theatre designer, Robert Jones …

    This exhibition brings together ten selectors, chaired by Sandi Toksvig, each of whom is a prominent gay figure in contemporary culture and society. Each selector was asked to name six people, who may or may not be gay, whom they personally regard as inspirational, or an icon for them.

    Their choices provide a fascinating range of figures – some heroic, some very famous, others less well known. In the exhibition the selectors write about their choices and share their own convictions, experiences and feelings. The display also features specially commissioned portraits of the selectors by Mary McCartney.

    Anonymous text. “Gay Icons,” on the National Portrait Gallery website [Online] Cited 18/06/2022. No longer available online

     

    Ian Berry (English, b. 1934) 'Nelson Mandela' 1994

     

    Ian Berry (English, b. 1934)
    Nelson Mandela
    1994
    Gelatin silver print
    © Ian Berry/Magnum Photos

     

    “He has touched my heart, just as he has influenced the hearts and minds of people all over the world.”

    ~ Billie Jean King

    “The great single picture is emotionally satisfying, whereas getting a good journalistic story is more about being a professional”

    ~ Ian Berry

     

    Ian Berry was born in Lancashire, England. He made his reputation in South Africa, where he worked for the Daily Mail and later for Drum magazine. He was the only photographer to document the massacre at Sharpeville in 1960, and his photographs were used in the trial to prove the victims’ innocence.

    Henri Cartier-Bresson invited Ian Berry to join Magnum in 1962 when he was based in Paris. He moved to London in 1964 to become the first contract photographer for the Observer Magazine. Since then assignments have taken him around the world: he has documented Russia’s invasion of Czechoslovakia; conflicts in Israel, Ireland, Vietnam and the Congo; famine in Ethiopia; apartheid in South Africa. The major body of work produced in South Africa is represented in two of his books: Black and Whites: L’Afrique du Sud (with a foreword by the then French president François Mitterrand), and Living Apart (1996). During the last year, projects have included child slavery in Ghana and the Spanish fishing industry.

    Important editorial assignments have included work for National Geographic, Fortune, Stern, Geo, national Sunday magazines, Esquire, Paris-Match and LIFE. Ian Berry has also reported on the political and social transformations in China and the former USSR.

    Anonymous text. “Ian Berry,” on the Magnum website [Online] Cited 16/03/2019

     

    Unknown photographer. 'Bessie Smith' c. 1920s

     

    Unknown photographer
    Bessie Smith
    c. 1920s
    Gelatin silver print
    Frank Driggs Collection/Getty Images
    © 1925 Getty Images

     

    “A feisty woman who always stood up for herself… She was bisexual and practically an alcoholic – the perfect icon.”

    ~ Jackie Kay

     

    Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer. Nicknamed the Empress of the Blues, she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s. She is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and was a major influence on fellow blues singers, as well as jazz vocalists.

    Read her full entry on the Wikipedia website

     

    Howard Coster (British, 1885-1959) 'Sylvia Townsend Warner' 1934

     

    Howard Coster (British, 1885-1959)
    Sylvia Townsend Warner
    1934
    Half-plate film negative
    Transferred from Central Office of Information, 1974
    © National Portrait Gallery, London

     

    Sylvia Townsend Warner (6 December 1893 – 1 May 1978) was an English novelist and poet. She also made a contribution to musicology as a young woman.

     

    Bertram Park (British, 1883-1972) 'Ronald Firbank' 1917 (detail)

     

    Bertram Park (British, 1883-1972)
    Ronald Firbank (detail)
    1917

     

    “He [Ronald Firbank] is celebrated as a master of high camp, but he was also a radical technician and radical homosexualiser of the novel.”

    ~ Alan Hollinghurst

     

    Bertram Park (British, 1883-1972) 'Ronald Firbank' 1917

     

    Bertram Park (British, 1883-1972)
    Ronald Firbank
    1917

     

    Bertram Charles Percival Park, OBE, (1883-1972) was a portrait photographer whose work included British and European royalty. Engravings of his photographs were widely used on British and British Commonwealth postage stamps, currency, and other official documents in the 1930s. His theatrical portraits were the source for two paintings by Walter Sickert. With his wife Yvonne Gregory, he also produced a number of photographic books of the female nude. He was an expert in the cultivation of the rose and the editor of The Rose Annual.

    Text from the Wikipedia website

     

    Arthur Annesley Ronald Firbank (17 January 1886 – 21 May 1926) was an innovative English novelist. His eight short novels, partly inspired by the London aesthetes of the 1890s, especially Oscar Wilde, consist largely of dialogue, with references to religion, social-climbing, and sexuality.

     

    Unknown Photographer. 'Winifred Atwell' c. 1950s (detail)

     

    Unknown photographer
    Winifred Atwell (detail)
    c. 1950s
    Courtesy of Getty Images

     

    “Winifred Atwell’s piano performances were simply captivating. She showed me what was possible and was a total inspiration.”

    ~ Elton John

     

    Una Winifred Atwell (27 February or 27 April 1910 or 1914 – 28 February 1983) was a Trinidadian pianist who enjoyed great popularity in Britain and Australia from the 1950s with a series of boogie-woogie and ragtime hits, selling over 20 million records. She was the first black person to have a number-one hit in the UK Singles Chart and is still the only female instrumentalist to do so.

    Read the full entry about this amazing women on the Wikipedia website

     

    Elliott and Fry. 'Alan Turing' 1951 (detail)

     

    Elliott and Fry
    Alan Turing (detail)
    29 March 1951
    © National Portrait Gallery, London

     

    Elliott & Fry was a Victorian photography studio founded in 1863 by Joseph John Elliott (14 October 1835 – 30 March 1903) and Clarence Edmund Fry (1840 – 12 April 1897). For a century the firm’s core business was taking and publishing photographs of the Victorian public and social, artistic, scientific and political luminaries. In the 1880s the company operated three studios and four large storage facilities for negatives, with a printing works at Barnet.

    The firm’s first address was 55 & 56 Baker Street in London, premises they occupied until 1919. The studio employed a number of photographers, including Francis Henry Hart and Alfred James Philpott in the Edwardian era, Herbert Lambert and Walter Benington in the 1920s and 1930s and subsequently William Flowers. During World War II the studio was bombed and most of the early negatives were lost, the National Portrait Gallery holding all the surviving negatives. With the firm’s centenary in 1963 it was taken over by Bassano & Vandyk.

    Text from the Wikipedia website

     

    Elliott and Fry. 'Alan Turing' 29 March 1951

     

    Elliott and Fry
    Alan Turing
    29 March 1951
    Vintage bromide print on photographer’s mount
    6 3/8 x 4 5/8 in. (162 mm x 117 mm)
    Given by the sitter’s mother, Ethel Sara Turing (née Stoney), 1956
    © National Portrait Gallery, London

     

    “Turing was one of the most brilliant men of the first half of the twentieth century, but the refusal of post-war society to accept his sexuality drove him to commit suicide… We can and should honour him now.”

    ~ Chris Smith

     

     

    National Portrait Gallery
    St Martin’s Place
    London WC2H 0HE

    Opening hours:
    Closed until 2023

    National Portrait Gallery website

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    Review: ‘Double Infinitives’ by Marco Fusinato at Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne

    Exhibition dates: 25th June – 25th July, 2009

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964) 'Double Infinitive 3' 2009

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964)
    Double Infinitive 3
    2009

     

     

    Double Infinitives by Marco Fusinato at Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne is an excellent exhibition of large UV ink on aluminium images sourced by Fusinato from the print media.

    The images are made up of a dot pattern familiar to those who have examined photographs in the print media closely. Larger and smaller clusters of dots form the light and shade of the image. As you move closer to the works they dissolve into blocks of dots and become and optical illusion like Op Art from the 1960s. Fusinato contrasts this dot structure with the inclusion of flat panels of black ink to the left and right hand side of the images. The section lines that run through the images (for they are not one single image but made up of panels) also adds to the optical nature of the work as the lines cut the conflagrations, literally stitching the seams/scenes together.

    Each image contains an individual holding a rock enclosed in the milieu and detritus of a riot; the figures are grounded in the earth and surrounded by fire but in their obscurity, in the veiling of their eyes, the figures seem present but absent at one and the same time. They become ghosts of the fire.

    Fire consumes the bodies. The almost cut out presence of the figures, their hands clutching, throwing, saluting become mute. Here the experience of the sound, colour and movement of an actual riot is silenced in the flatness and smoothness of the images. The images possess the intensity of a newspaper reality ‘blown up’ to a huge scale by Fusinato (see the installation photograph below to get an idea of the effect). The punctum of the riot, that prick of consciousness that Barthes so liked, is translated into a silenced studium of the aluminium surface; an aural history (the sound) / oral history (the telling of the story) trapped in the structure of silence.

    There is a double jeopardy – the dissolution of the image into dots and the disintegration of the body into fire. In one of the images the upraised arm and hand of one of the rioters holds a rock with what appears to be a figure on it, surrounded by fire. To me the arm turned into one of the burning Twin Towers with smoke and fire pouring from it (see the first photograph in the installation photograph below).

    My only concern about the images were the black panels, perhaps too obvious a tool for the purpose the artist intended. Maybe the needed some small texture, like a moire pattern to reference the contours of a map and continue the topographical and optical theme. Perhaps they just needed to be smaller or occasionally placed as thin strips down the actual image itself but these are small quibbles. Overall this is an fantastic exhibition that I enjoyed immensely. The images are literally ripped from the matrix of time and space and become the dot dot dot of the addendum. What Fusinato does so excellently is to make us pause and stare, to recognise the flatness of these figures and the quietness of violence that surrounds us.

    Music – Noise  – Silence
    Flatness – Advertising – Earth – Fire
    Rock – Space – Memory

    Dr Marcus Bunyan


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

     

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964) 'Double infinitive I' 2009

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964)
    Double infinitive 1
    2009

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964) 'Double Infinitive 4' 2009

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964)
    Double Infinitive 4
    2009

     

    A selection of images from the print media of the decisive moment in a riot in which a protagonist brandishes a rock against a backdrop of fire. Each image is from a different part of the world, from the early twenty-first century, and is blown up to history-painting scale using the latest commercial print technologies.

    Text by Marco Fusinato on his website

     

    Installation of Marco Fusinato 'Double Infinitives' exhibition at Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne

     

    Installation of Marco Fusinato Double Infinitives exhibition at Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne

     

     

    Double Infinitives

    “Unheard music is better than heard.”

    Greek proverb of late antiquity

     

    “That music be heard is not essential – what it sounds like may not be what it is.”

    Charles Ives, Essays Before a Sonata

     

    “The proposition of Jacques Attali’s Noise is different. He says that while noise is a deadly weapon, silence is death.”

    David Rattray, “How I Became One of the Invisible,” Semiotext(e), 1992.

     

    The explosive communal act of rioting is most commonly delivered to an audience suspended in the stillness and silence of a photographic image. Noise is not removed in this process, it is almost amplified: the sound and action that deliver this singularly captured moment into existence are infinite, as all things remain while they are imagined, before they are anchored down by express articulation.

    Photographic representation can easily be accused of subverting the truth of events, not because what is seen in the image has not transpired, but because static images leave so much space around them for multiple narratives to be constructed. The still image is totally contingent on the consciousness that confronts it. By contrast, the near-totality of videos can give too much away …

    Sourced by Fusinato from print media published in the last few years, these images of rioting all contain an individual clutching a rock, bathed in the refractory glow of a nearby fire. The image has become prototypical, so much so that it lacks the sensation of spontaneity requisite to produce a riot. (Apropos to this predictability, Fusinato would check global newspapers after every forum or conference of global financial authorities, often finding the image he was looking for).

    Double Infinitives is a succinct allegory for the reluctance to compromise comfort overpowering radical impulses. Conversations suggest this is a conflict frequently experienced by artists. Deprived of a volatile political reality, we experience radicalism through images that act as small ruptures, reminders that the world we live in might be more severely charged than our individual experiences allow. Fusinato’s works flatten these images of volatility onto a smooth slate: they are similar and radiate with the vexed beauty of sameness. A riot is a mad and brutal spectacle, a theatre that is often documented as if it were a play. Hugely expanded in scale and rendered in the suffused gloss of advertising, the real possibility of violence that these works infer deepens the layers of the fiction rather than comprising an indicator of human concern. Those things with which we come into such gentle contact that their thorns barely prick …

    Liv Barrett
    June 2009

    Text from the Anna Schwartz Gallery website [Online] Cited 10/07/2009. No longer available online

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964) 'Double Iinfinitive 2' 2009

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964)
    Double Iinfinitive 2
    2009

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964) 'Double Iinfinitive 2' 2009 (detail)

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964)
    Double Iinfinitive 2 (detail)
    2009

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964) 'Double Iinfinitive 5' 2009

     

    Marco Fusinato (Australian, b. 1964)
    Double Iinfinitive 5
    2009

     

     

    Anna Schwartz Gallery
    185 Flinders Lane
    Melbourne, Victoria 3000

    Opening hours:
    Tuesday – Friday 12 – 5pm
    Saturday 1 – 5pm

    Anna Schwartz Gallery website

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    Exhibition: ‘Ricky Maynard: Portrait of a Distant Land’ at Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Sydney

    Exhibition dates: 4th June – 23rd August, 2009

     

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

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953) 'Coming Home' 2005

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953)
    Coming Home
    2005
    From the series Portrait of a Distant Land
    Gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned
    37.4 × 54.1cm
    © Ricky Maynard

     

    I can remember coming here as a boy in old wooden boats to be taught by my grandparents and my parents. I’ll be 57 this year and I have missed only one year when my daughter Leanne was born. Mutton birding is my life. To me it’s a gathering of our fellas where we sit and yarn, we remember and we honour all of those birders who have gone before us. Sometimes I just stand and look out across these beautiful islands remembering my people and I know I’m home. It makes me proud to be a strong Tasmanian black man. This is something that they can never take away from me.

    Murray Mansell, Big Dog Island, Bass Strait, 2005

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953) 'The Healing Garden, Wybalenna, Flinders Island, Tasmania' 2005

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953)
    The Healing Garden, Wybalenna, Flinders Island, Tasmania
    2005
    From the series Portrait of a Distant Land
    Gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned
    34.0 x 52.0 cm
    © Ricky Maynard

     

     

    This winter the Museum of Contemporary Art presents a major survey of photographic works by documentary photographer Ricky Maynard, encompassing more than two decades of the artist’s practice.

    Portrait of a Distant Land features more than 60 evocative and captivating photographic works, drawn from six bodies of work, which document the lives and culture of Maynard’s people, the Ben Lomond and Cape Portland peoples of Tasmania.

    The exhibition is curated by MCA Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Programs Keith Munro and is presented at the MCA from 4 June until 23 August 2009. Born in Launceston, Tasmania in 1953 Maynard is a self taught documentary photographer now based on Flinders Island in the Bass Strait between Tasmania and mainland Australia.

    Maynard first came to prominence in the late 1980s with a photographic essay about Aboriginal mutton bird farmers and he has continued to document physical and social landscapes which form a visual record and representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia.

    “For me, photographs have always been personal and I hope to convey the intimacy of a diary. Photography has the ability to tell stories about the world and how the photograph has power to frame a culture,” said Maynard, describing his practice.

    The works presented in Portrait of a Distant Land survey a broad range of themes and issues facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people today. It includes photographs which document sites significant to Maynard’s people: ranging from serenely beautiful landscapes which follow the song lines, tribal movements and historical displacement routes of his ancestors, to the confrontational and emotionally-charged images of Indigenous people incarcerated in the South Australian prison system.

    The six photographic series by Maynard which are featured in the exhibition are The Moonbird People (1985-1988), No More Than What You See (1993), Urban Diary (1997), In The Footsteps of Others (2003), Returning To Places That Name Us (2000) and Portrait of a Distant Land (2005- ). Together these works create a form of visual diary of multiple landscapes derived from collective oral histories of Maynard’s people.”

    Press release from the MCA website [Online] Cited 05/07/2009. No longer available online

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953) ‘Arthur, Wik elder’ from the series ‘Returning to places that name us’ 2000

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953)
    Arthur, Wik Elder
    2000
    From the series Returning to Places that Name Us
    Gelatin silver photograph
    96.1 x 121.4cm
    © Ricky Maynard

     

    The owner of an enviable collection of antique cameras, Maynard is a lifelong student of the history of photography, particularly of the great American social reformers Jacob Riis, Lewis Hines, Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. He is interested in the power of the uninflected image – of sheer veracity – as an agent of record and change. Maynard’s images cut through the layers of rhetoric and ideology that inevitably couch black history (particularly Tasmanian history) to present images of experience itself. ‘To know the meaning of a culture you must recognise the limits and meaning of your own,’ the artist explains. ‘You can see its facts but not its meaning. We share meaning by living it.’ Maynard’s photographs are, he says, about ‘leaving proof’ – about ‘… life in passing and in complicated times’.

    The word ‘Wik’ has come to denote a historic decision of the High Court of Australia rather than the name of the Indigenous peoples from the western Cape York Peninsula in northern Queensland. In his intimate portraits of elders from these communities, Maynard aims to unpick this abstraction. Etched on each face is the complexity of an unspoken life story, delineated, one imagines, by hardship, perseverance and the burden – and wealth – of an extraordinary living memory. As he wrote in his artist’s statement for the exhibition Returning to Places that Name Us in 2001, ‘… I wanted a presence and portraits that spoke, and through this process to present an idea, rather than preach messages’. In this series, Maynard achieves his aim of capturing meanings that no other medium could convey.

    Hannah Fink in ‘Tradition today: Indigenous art in Australia’, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2004

    © Art Gallery of New South Wales. Text from the Art Gallery of New South Wales website [Online] Cited 14/03/2019

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953) 'Gladys Tybingoomba' 2001

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953)
    Gladys Tybingoomba
    2001
    From the series Returning To Places That Name Us
    Gelatin silver photograph
    © Ricky Maynard

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953) 'Custodians' from the series 'Portrait of a Distant Land' 2005

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953)
    Custodians
    2005
    From the series Portrait of a Distant Land
    Gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned
    43.0 x 41.2cm
    © Ricky Maynard

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953) 'Vansittart Island' from the series 'Portrait of a Distant Land' 2007

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953)
    Vansittart Island
    2007
    From the series Portrait of a Distant Land
    Gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned
    33.9 x 52.1cm
    © Ricky Maynard

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953) 'The Spit' from the series 'Portrait of a Distant Land' 2007

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953)
    The Spit
    2007
    From the series Portrait of a Distant Land
    Gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned
    41.8 x 50.4cm
    © Ricky Maynard

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953) 'The Mission' 2005 From the series 'Portrait of a Distant Land'

     

    Ricky Maynard (Australian, b. 1953)
    The Mission
    2005
    From the series Portrait of a Distant Land
    Gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned
    43.0 x 41.2cm
    © Ricky Maynard

     

    Maynard is a lifelong student of the history of photography, particularly of the great American social reformers Jacob Riis, Lewis Hines, Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. Maynard’s images cut through the layers of rhetoric and ideology that inevitably couch black history (particularly Tasmanian history) to present images of experience itself. His visual histories question ownership; he claims that ‘the contest remains over who will image and own this history… we must define history, define whose history it is, and define its purpose as well as the tools used for the telling it’.

    In Portrait of a distant land Maynard addresses the emotional connection between history and place. He uses documentary style landscapes to illustrate group portraits of Aboriginal peoples’ experiences throughout Tasmania. Each work combines several specific historical events, creating a narrative of shared experience – for example The Mission relies on historical records of a small boy whom Europeans christened after both his parents died in the Risdon massacre. This work highlights the disparity between written, oral and visual histories, as Maynard attempts to create ‘a combination of a very specific oral history as well as an attempt to show a different way of looking at history in general’.

    Text from the Art Gallery of New South Wales website [Online] Cited 14/03/2019

     

     

    Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA)
    140 George Street
    The Rocks, Sydney, Australia

    Opening hours: 10am – 5pm daily

    MCA website

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    Exhibition: ‘Gilbert & George: Jack Freak Pictures’ at Arndt & Partner, Berlin

    Exhibition dates: 16th June – 18th September, 2009

     

    Artist duo George (left) and Gilbert (right) pose in front of their work "The Church of England" in Berlin, Germany

     

    Artist duo George (left) and Gilbert (right) pose in front of their work “The Church of England” in Berlin, Germany

     

     

    That pair of agent provocateurs are at it again!

    Marcus


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

     

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942) 'Dating' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    DATING
    2008
    Mixed media

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942) 'BRITISHISM' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    BRITISHISM
    2008
    Mixed media

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942) 'JESUS JACK' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    JESUS JACK
    2008
    Mixed media

     

    Gilbert & George. 'ROUND FLAG' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    ROUND FLAG
    2008
    Mixed media

     

     

    As the international tour of the last Gilbert & George retrospective (2007-2009) did not include Berlin, Arndt & Partner are now presenting a solo exhibition of the celebrity artist duo in its gallery rooms behind the Hamburger Bahnhof. It is the first Gilbert & George solo show in Berlin for 14 years. The exhibition features a selection of 20 large-scale pieces from the Jack Freak Pictures, the largest Gilbert & George group of pictures to date. The thrust of the content is given by the colours and shapes of the Union Jack flag that dominate the bulk of the pictures as well as the recurring motive of medals, emblems and trees. In the Jack Freak Pictures the artist duo explores aspects of nationhood and of the sentient individual in the nets of society. In his essay published in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition the British writer Michael Bracewell describes these pictures as “the most iconic, philosophically astute and visually violent works that Gilbert & George have ever created …”

    Gilbert & George, who met as students of sculpture at St. Martin’s School of Art in London 42 years ago, embarked on a joint artistic career that was to encompass a wide range of media from drawing to video and their trademark pictures. Further, the pair revolutionised the concept of sculpture by presenting themselves as “living sculptures” dressed in the quintessentially British tailored suit, shirt and tie. But it was their monumental trademark pictures composed of a grid like array of smaller images which they began to create in the early 70s that first brought them international fame. Figures, cityscapes, symbols, plants, bodily fluids, excrements and text interlock in pictorial messages as visually powerful as their content is provocative. The pictures, which started out in black and white and later assumed increasingly luminous, bold colours, generally also depict portraits of the artists themselves and seize on taboo subjects like sexuality, race, religion and national identity with a brash and fearless candour.

    The Jack Freak Pictures again feature the bodies and/or faces of the artists. In these compositions, their bodies function as stylised representatives of the individual in society, whose relationship to social norms and categories, to national, religious and sexual identification processes is relentlessly explored and commented upon. Departing from their earlier oeuvre, some of their new pictures split the raw images into much smaller fragments before merging them into new forms. The result is a fascinating kaleidoscopic mix of the monstrously grotesque with an intricate ornamental structure reminiscent of sacred art. In ever new variations, Gilbert & George order the signs and fragments of social life they find in their neighbourhood – the multicultural East End of London – where solidarity and friendship are as visible as intolerance and marginalisation.

    Press release from the Arndt & Partner website [Online] Cited 04/07/2009. No longer available online

     

    Gilbert & George installation photograph of their exhibition 'Jack Freak Pictures' at Arndt & Partner, Berlin

    Gilbert & George installation photograph of their exhibition 'Jack Freak Pictures' at Arndt & Partner, Berlin

    Gilbert & George installation photograph of their exhibition 'Jack Freak Pictures' at Arndt & Partner, Berlin

    Gilbert & George installation photograph of their exhibition 'Jack Freak Pictures' at Arndt & Partner, Berlin

     

    Gilbert & George installation photographs of their exhibition Jack Freak Pictures at Arndt & Partner, Berlin

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942) 'JESUS SUITS' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    JESUS SUITS
    2008
    Mixed media

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942) 'CHURCH OF ENGLAND' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    CHURCH OF ENGLAND
    2008
    Mixed media

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942) 'POSTER DANCE' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    POSTER DANCE
    2008
    Mixed media

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942) 'REALM' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    REALM
    2008
    Mixed media

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942) 'SPIDER' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    SPIDER
    2008
    Mixed media

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942) 'UNION WALL DANCE' 2008

     

    Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch, English born Italy, b. 1943) (George Passmore, English, b. 1942)
    UNION WALL DANCE
    2008
    Mixed media

     

     

    Arndt Fine Art

    This gallery has now closed.

    Arndt website

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    Exhibition: ‘Fourteen Places to Eat: A Narrative Photographing Rural Culture in the Midwest’ by photographer Kay Westhues at the Snite Museum of Art, Notre Dame, Indiana

    Exhibition dates: 31st May – 19th July, 2009

     

    Kay Westhues (American) 'CSX railroad building, Walkerton' 2005

     

    Kay Westhues (American)
    CSX railroad building, Walkerton
    2005

     

     

    I really like this work. An insightful eye, sensitive, tapped into the community that the artist is documenting. Attuned to its inflections and incongruities, the isolation and loneliness of a particular culture in time and place. There are further strong photographs from the series on the Kay Westhues website. It’s well worth your time looking through these excellent photographs. And observing the wonderful light!

    There is an interview with Kay Westhues on the Daily Yonder website.

    Dr Marcus Bunyan


    All photographs © Kay Westhues with permission and thanks, used under Creative Commons 2.5 License with proper attribution. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

     

     

    Kay Westhues (American) 'Man with patriotic cast, Original Famous Fish of Stroh' 2005

     

    Kay Westhues (American)
    Man with patriotic cast, Original Famous Fish of Stroh
    2005

     

    Kay Westhues (American) 'Knox laundromat' 2005

     

    Kay Westhues (American)
    Knox laundromat
    2005

     

     

    The Snite Museum of Art announces the opening of the exhibition: Fourteen Places to Eat: a Narrative: Photographing Rural Culture in the Midwest, opening on Sunday, May 31,2009.

    Kay Westhues is a photographer who is interested in documenting the ways in which rural tradition and history are interpreted and transformed in the present day. Kay shares her intention for this series of work:

    “For the past five years I have been working on a series of photographs depicting rural culture in Indiana and the Midwest. This project was inspired by my memories of growing up on a farm in Walkerton, Indiana, and observing first hand the shifting cultural identity that has occurred over time and through changing economic development. I moved back to Walkerton in order to help care for my ageing parents in 2001.

    These photos mirror my personal history, but I am also capturing a people’s history grounded in a sense of place. My intention is to celebrate rural life, without idealising it.

    The overall theme since the project’s inception is the effect of the demise of local economies that have historically sustained rural communities. Many of my images contain the remains of an earlier time, when locally owned stores and family farms were the norm. Today chain stores and agribusiness are prevalent in rural communities. These communities are struggling to thrive in the global economy, and my images reflect that reality.

    Most recently I have focused on the complex relationship between farmers and domesticated animals. I make many of my images at Animal Swap Meets and sale barns, places where animals are bought and sold. Family farms are quickly being replaced by large-scale food production, and these events still draw smaller farmers and the local people who support them.”

    Why fourteen places to eat?

    “One of my biggest complaints after moving to Walkerton was that there were not enough places to eat out. Or, rather, practically no places to eat out. So I was happy when news arrived that a new restaurant was opening there. Imagine my surprise when I read a letter to the editor in the local paper against the new restaurant. The letter stated we already had enough places to eat in this town. The writer counted a total of fourteen places to eat, which included four restaurants, three gas stations, four bars, a truck stop, a convenience mart, and a bowling alley.”

    Ms. Westhues studied photography at Rhode Island School of Design and Indiana University, Bloomington. She has a BS degree in Photography and Ethnocentrism from the Indiana University Individualised Major Program (1994), and an MS in Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana University (1998). She currently lives in Elkhart, Indiana, and is completing a five-year project photographing rural culture in the Midwest. This series is a visual exploration of the ways rural identity is defined in contemporary society.

    Press release from the Snite Museum of Art Cited 20/06/2009. No longer available online

     

    Kay Westhues (American) 'Chicken bingo, Francesville Fall Festival' 2005

     

    Kay Westhues (American)
    Chicken bingo, Francesville Fall Festival
    2005

     

    Kay Westhues (American) 'Patriotic hammers ($3.00)' 2005

     

    Kay Westhues (American)
    Patriotic hammers ($3.00)
    2005

     

    Kay Westhues (American) 'Parked trailer, Ligonier' 2006

     

    Kay Westhues (American)
    Parked trailer, Ligonier
    2006

     

    Kay Westhues (American) 'Lunch at the Crockpot, Walkerton (The Young and the Restless)' 2007

     

    Kay Westhues (American)
    Lunch at the Crockpot, Walkerton (The Young and the Restless)
    2007

     

    Kay Westhues (American) 'Momence Speed Wash, Momence IL' 2007

     

    Kay Westhues (American)
    Momence Speed Wash, Momence IL
    2007

     

    Kay Westhues (American) 'Mary Ann Rubio, Family Cafe, Knox' 2007

     

    Kay Westhues (American)
    Mary Ann Rubio, Family Cafe, Knox
    2007

     

     

    The Snite Museum of Art
    at University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana

    Opening hours:
    Tuesday – Friday 10.00am – 5pm
    Saturday 12.00 – 5.00pm
    Closed Sundays and Mondays

    The Snite Museum of Art website

    Kay Westhues website

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    Review: ‘Modern Times: The Untold Story of Modernism in Australia’ at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

    Exhibition dates: 21st March – 12th July, 2009

     

    Roy de Maistre (Australian, 1894-1968) 'Colour Composition derived from three bars of music in the Key of Green' 1935 from the exhibition 'Modern Times: The Untold Story of Modernism in Australia' at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, March - July, 2009

     

    Roy de Maistre (Australian, 1894-1968)
    Colour Composition derived from three bars of music in the Key of Green
    1935
    Oil and pencil on composition board
    Private Collection

     

     

    Despite some interesting highlight pieces this is a patchy, thin, incoherent exhibition assembled by the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney now showing at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne. Featuring a hotchpotch of work ranging across fields such as drawing, architecture, photography, painting, film, graphic design, craft, advertising, Australiana and aboriginal works the exhibition attempts to tell the untold story of Modernism in Australia to little effect. Within the exhibition there is no attempt to define exactly what ‘Modernism’ is and therefore an investigation into Modernism in Australia is all the more confusing for the visitor as there seems to be no stable basis on which to build that investigation. Perhaps reading the catalogue would give a greater overview of the development of Modernism in Australia but for the average visitor to the exhibition there seems to be no holistic rationale for the inclusion of elements within the exhibition which, much like Modernism itself, seems eclectically gathered from all walks of life with little regard for narrative structure.

    With work spanning five decades from 1917-1967 we are presented with, variously, Robert Klippel’s kitsch Boomerang table from 1955, Robin Boyd’s ‘House of Tomorrow’ from 1949, Wolfgang Sievers ‘new objective’ photographs, Berlei’s scientific system for calculating beauty in woman in use till the 1960s, swimsuits from the 1920s-1940s, Featherston chairs from the Australian pavilion at the 1967 Expo, a recreation of Australian architect Harry Seidler’s office (the most interesting part of this being the books he had in his office library: Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van de Rohe and Concerning Town Planning by Le Corbusier) and the wind tunnel test model of the Sydney Opera House in wood from 1960. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera …

    Highlight pieces include the above mentioned test model of the Sydney Opera House which is stunning in its scale and woodenness, in it’s simplicity of shape and form. Other highlight pieces are the colour music compositions of Roy de Maistre which were the tour de force of the show for me, true revelations in their rhythmic synchronic Moebius-like construction with layered planes of colour swirling in purples, greens and yellows. The large vintage photographic print of Sunbaker (1934) by Max Dupain was also a revelation with it’s earthy brown tones, the blending of the atmospheric out of focus foreground with the clouds behind, the architectural nature of the outline of the body almost like the outline of Uluru, the darkness of the head with the sensuality of the head and shoulders framed against the largeness of the hand resting on the sand. Lastly the two paintings and one rug by French artist Sonia Delaunay are a knockout. It says something about an exhibition when the best work in the show are two paintings by a French artist seemingly plucked at random to show external influences on Australian artists and designers.

    While the exhibition does attempt to portray the breadth of the development of Modernism in Australia ultimately it falls well short in this endeavour. The most striking example of this shortcoming is the true star of the exhibition – the building that is Heide II itself. Commissioned by John and Sunday Reed and designed by the Victorian architect David McGlashan of the architectural firm McGlashan and Eversit in 1963 the building epitomises everything that is good about architectural Modernism and it’s form overshadows the exhibition itself. In this building we have beautiful spaces and volumes, an amazing staircase down into the lower area, suspended decking overlooking gardens, the blending of inside and outside areas, large expanses of glass to view the landscape, nooks and studies for privacy and the simplicity and eloquence of form that is Modernist design. With money one can indulge in the best of elitist Modernism. With position, position, position one can side steep the alienation of the city and the spread of surburbia where the dream of Australians owning a home of their own still continues in the vast, tasteless expanses of McMansion estates.

    Robert Nelson in his review of this exhibition sees the car as creating the suburbs and Modernism as the emptying of the city after 6pm, the lessening of community and the devaluing of space he insists that there is little difference between a Californian bungalow in the suburbs and a utopian geometric neo-Corbusian box by Harry Seidler because they were equally shackled to motor transport.1 This is to miss the point.

    Although Modernism in its basic form influenced most walks of life in Australia from swimsuit design to milk bars, from cinema to naturism, from bodies to advertising the most effective expressions of Modernism are architectural (as evidenced by Heide II) and were only open to those with money, power and position. Although Le Corbusier’s concept of public housing was a space ‘for the people’ the most interesting of his houses were the private commissions for wealthy clients. And so it proves here. One can imagine the parties on the deck at Heide II in the 1960s with men in their tuxedo and bow ties and woman in their gowns, or the relaxation of the Reed’s sitting in front of their fire in the submerged lounge. For the ordinary working class person Modernism brought a sense of alienation from the aspirational things one cannot buy in the world, an alienation that continues to this day; for the privileged few Modernism offered the exclusivity of elitism (or is it the elitism of exclusivity!) and an aspirational alienation of a different kind – that of the separation from the masses.

    Go to Heide for the glorious gardens, the wonders of Heide II but don’t go to this exhibition expecting grand insights into the basis of Australian Modernism for that story, as Robert Nelson rightly notes, remains as yet untold.

    Dr Marcus Bunyan


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

    An excellent review of the exhibition by Jill Julius Matthews, “Modern times: The untold story of modernism in Australia,” (reCollections Volume 4 number 1) can be found on the Journal of the National Museum of Australia website [Online] Cited 20/02/2019

     

    1/ “Emanating from Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum, Modern Times “explores how modernism transformed Australian culture from 1917 to 1967.” But something is missing. The overwhelming modern development in these 50 years was the proliferation of automotive transport, which redefined the layout and function of Australian cities.The cars created the suburbs; and as the individual bungalow drew out the vast dormitories of Sydney and Melbourne, the city centre was spiritually drained, dedicated to bureaucratic and commercial premises.The story at Heide emphasises the gradual triumph of the tall buildings of the CBD. It doesn’t really reflect how these abstract monuments didn’t contain a soul after 6pm.Although the project makes such a big deal of being interdisciplinary, the social history doesn’t have a robust geographical basis. And because of this, the exhibition and book fail to handle the new alienation that modernism brings: the evacuation of the city and the insularity of suburban people in bungalows with little street life and roads increasingly deemed unsafe for children.

    What does it really matter if a house looks like a Californian bungalow or a utopian geometric neo-Corbusian box by Harry Seidler? In social terms, they’re structurally the same, equally retracting from a sense of community and equally shackled to motor transport. In this sense, the styles are immaterial, except that one of them gives you a feeling of intimacy while the other has a bit more light and is easily wiped with a sponge.

    At the end of the chosen period, the folly of the dominant suburban pattern came to be understood in its dire ecological consequences. Alas, it was too late. The modernist devaluation of space had already occurred, and our whole society had been reorganised around petrol.”

    Robert Nelson. The Age. Wednesday 6th May, 2009

     

     

    Roy de Maistre (Australian, 1894-1968) 'Arrested Movement from a Trio' 1934 from the exhibition 'Modern Times: The Untold Story of Modernism in Australia' at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, March - July, 2009

     

    Roy de Maistre (Australian, 1894-1968)
    Arrested Movement from a Trio
    1934
    Oil and pencil on composition board
    72.3 × 98.8cm
    National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

     

    Roy de Maistre (Australian, 1894-1968) 'Rhythmic composition in yellow green minor' 1919

     

    Roy de Maistre (Australian, 1894-1968)
    Rhythmic composition in yellow green minor
    1919
    Oil on paperboard
    85.3 x 115.3cm
    Art Gallery of New South Wales
    © Caroline de Mestre Walker

     

    In late 1918, Roy de Maistre collaborated with fellow artist Roland Wakelin in exploring the relationship between art and music. Their experiments produced Australia’s first abstract paintings, characterised by high-key colour, large areas of flat paint and simplified forms. The works received critical acclaim, but modernist developments were largely derided by the conservative establishment.

    This painting exemplifies de Maistre’s theory of colour harmonisation based on analogies between colours of the spectrum and notes of the musical scale. It is also aligned with de Maistre’s search for spiritual meaning through abstraction, akin to other artists such as Kandinsky who were interested in the ideas of the theosophy and anthroposophy movements, spiritualism and the occult.

    Text from the Art Gallery of New South Wales website

     

    Roy de Maistre (Australian, 1894-1968) 'Colour chart' c. 1919

     

    Roy de Maistre (Australian, 1894-1968)
    Colour chart
    c. 1919
    30.5 x 40.5cm
    Oil on cardboard
    Gift of the executors of the artist’s estate 1968
    Art Gallery of New South Wales
    © Caroline de Mestre Walker

     

    Sonia Delaunay (Ukraine, b. 1885 moved Paris 1905-1979) 'Rhythm' 1938

     

    Sonia Delaunay (Ukraine, b. 1885 moved Paris 1905-1979)
    Rhythm
    1938
    Oil on canvas

     

    Wolfgang Sievers (German Australian 1913-2007) '"House of Tomorrow" exhibition at Exhibition Building, Melbourne' 1949

     

    Wolfgang Sievers (Australian born Germany, 1913-2007)
    “House of Tomorrow” exhibition at Exhibition Building, Melbourne
    1949
    Gelatin silver print
    National Library of Australia

     

    Stanislaus Ostoja-Kotkowski (Australian born Poland, 1922-1994) 'Nymphex' 1966

     

    Stanislaus Ostoja-Kotkowski (Australian born Poland, 1922-1994)
    Nymphex
    1966
    Gelatin silver photograph from electronic image
    50.6 x 60.8cm
    Gift of Dr George Berger 1978
    Art Gallery of New South Wales
    @ Estate of Stanislaus Ostoja-Kotkowski

     

    Rayner Hoff (Australian born United Kingdom, 1894-1937) 'Decorative portrait - Len Lye' 1925

     

    Rayner Hoff (Australian born United Kingdom, 1894-1937)
    Decorative portrait – Len Lye
    1925
    Marble
    30.5 x 22.5 x 16.5cm
    Purchased 1938
    Art Gallery of New South Wales

     

    Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992) 'Sunbaker' 1934 printed 1937

     

    Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
    Sunbaker
    1934 printed 1937
    Gelatin silver print

     

    Grace Cossington Smith (Australia, 1892-1984) 'Rushing' c. 1922

     

    Grace Cossington Smith (Australia, 1892-1984)
    Rushing
    c. 1922
    Oil on canvas on paperboard
    65.6 x 91.3cm
    Art Gallery of New South Wales
    © Estate of Grace Cossington Smith

     

    Cossington Smith captures the drama of a crowd in Rushing, which depicts commuters clamouring down to the ferries of Circular Quay to get home after work. The flying scarf and fallen hat emphasise the speed at which the travellers are moving and the peril and claustrophobia of a, mostly faceless, city crowd. The steep gangplank and diagonal composition accentuates the dynamism of the painting.

    A brilliant colourist, Cossington Smith’s work of the early 1920s adopts a darker palette than the vivid colours she is usually associated with. Inspired by a visit to Sydney in 1920 by the tonalist painter and teacher Max Meldrum, her paintings became studies in tone, rather than colour, a practice she had abandoned by 1925.

    Text from the Art Gallery of New South Wales website

     

    Robert Klippel (Australian, 1920-2001) 'Boomerang' coffee table 1955

     

    Robert Klippel (Australian, 1920-2001)
    Boomerang coffee table
    1955

     

     

    The Powerhouse Museum travelling exhibition Modern times: the untold story of modernism in Australia explores how modernism transformed Australian culture from 1917 to 1967, a period of great social, economic, political and technological change. From the ideals of abstraction and functionalism to the romance of high-rise cities, new leisure activities and the healthy body, modernism encapsulated the possibilities of the twentieth century. This exhibition is the first interdisciplinary survey of the impact of modernism in Australia, spanning art, design, architecture, advertising, photography, film and fashion.

    Modern times is presented at Heide across all four of the Museum’s gallery spaces. It unfolds in thematic sections highlighting key stories about international exchange, the modern body, modernist ‘primitivism’, the city, modern pools, and the Space Age. Comprising over 300 objects and artworks, it showcases works by major artists including Sidney Nolan, Margaret Preston, Albert Tucker, Grace Cossington Smith, Max Dupain, Wolfgang Sievers, and Clement Meadmore, key architects Robin Boyd, Roy Grounds and Harry Seidler, and designers Fred Ward and Grant and Mary Featherston. An installation, Cannibal Tours, by Madrid-based Australian artist Narelle Jubelin is a contemporary adjunct to the exhibition.

    Inspired by the futurist visions of various European avant-gardes, modernist ideas were often controversial and shaped by many competing positions. Modern times reveals how these ideas were circulated and took hold in Australia, via émigrés, expatriates, exhibitions, films and publications. Australian contact with significant international modernist sources, such as the Bauhaus school in Germany, occurred through figures such as influential artist and teacher Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, who taught Bauhaus principles at Geelong Grammar, and renowned architect Harry Seidler, who played a central role in shaping the modern city in Australia. Hirschfeld-Mack’s extraordinary film Colour Light Play of 1923 is shown for the first time in Australia, and Seidler’s 1948 studio, designed on his arrival from New York, has been re-created for the exhibition.

    While modernism was international in character, an ‘Australian modernism’ was first championed in the 1920s by artist Margaret Preston, whose promotion of Aboriginal forms and motifs was important to the understanding of their artistic value. Preston’s designs, Len Lye’s stunning animation Tusalava (1929), Robert Klippel’s boomerang table (c. 1955) and other works show the development of a vernacular modernism.

    Other highlights of Modern times include works from the visionary experiment in colour theory by Roy de Maistre and Roland Wakelin in 1919, a model of Robin Boyd’s innovative House of Tomorrow (1949), the iconic Featherston wing sound chairs from the Australian pavilion at the 1967 Montreal Expo, and a large wooden model for Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House.

    Text from the Heide Museum of Art website [Online] Cited 06/06/2009. No longer available online

     

    Athlete and movie-star Annette Kellerman's 'Modern Kellerman Bathing Suit for Women' which became commercially available by the mid-1920s. The one-piece bathing suit became Kellerman's trademark.

     

    Athlete and movie-star Annette Kellerman’s Modern Kellerman Bathing Suit for Women which became commercially available by the mid-1920s. The one-piece bathing suit became Kellermans trademark
    Gift of Dennis Wolanski Library, Sydney Opera House, 2000
    Photo: Powerhouse Museum

     

    'On hot summer days cool off with Tooth's KB Lager', advertising poster (about 1940)

     

    On hot summer days cool off with Tooth’s KB Lager
    About 1940
    Advertising poster
    Colour and process lithograph, artist name “Parker” in image lower right
    100.4 x 75.4cm
    Sydney Living Museums

     

    Grant Featherston (Australian, 1922-1995) and Mary Featherston (Australian, b. London 1943, migrated to Australia 1952) 'Expo mark II sound chair' 1967

     

    Grant Featherston (Australian, 1922-1995) and Mary Featherston (Australian, b. London 1943, migrated to Australia 1952)
    Expo mark II sound chair
    1967
    Aristoc Industries
    Polystyrene, polyurethane foam, Dunlopillo foam rubber, Pirelli webbing, fibreglass, hardwood, sound equipment, upholstery fabric
    Powerhouse Collection

     

    The Expo Mark II sound chair, adapted for the Australian domestic market after Expo 67 in Montreal.

    A cloth-covered high back winged chair with a circular base. The chair has a circular orange cloth covered cushion in the base and an integral full-width headrest. Two 125mm diameter inserts are pressed into the top of the back of the chair where speakers are fitted inside it. There is a cylindrical knob on the side of the chair.

     

    National Archives of Australia. 'A modernist vision of Australia - The interior of the Australian Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal' 1967

     

    National Archives of Australia
    A modernist vision of Australia: Grant and Mary Featherston’s wing sound chairs were a feature of the Australian Pavilion, designed by architect James Maccormick with exhibits selected by Robin Boyd, at Expo 67 in Montreal, 1967
    1967

     

    In 1967 Australia participated in the International and Universal Exposition held in Montreal, Canada. Australia’s Expo ’67 theme was the ‘Spirit of Adventure’. In the 30,000 square feet glass-walled Australian Pavilion, developed by the Australian Government and designed by Robin Boyd, exhibits explored Australian science, arts, people and development. The pavilion was designed as a ‘haven’ of ‘space and tranquillity’ floating above an Australian bushland setting. Inside, 240 innovative sound chairs offered ‘foot-weary Expo visitors’ the chance to hear the voices of famous Australians describing the exhibits, in French as well as English. The Great Barrier Reef was re-created in a lagoon beneath the pavilion while wallabies and kangaroos could be viewed in a sunken enclosure.

    Text from the National Museum of Australia website [Online] Cited 20/02/2019

     

    James Birrell (Australian, 1928-2019) 'View of the elevated restaurant, Centenary Pool, Brisbane' Nd

     

    James Birrell (Australian, 1928-2019)
    View of the elevated restaurant, Centenary Pool, Brisbane
    Nd
    Powerhouse Museum

     

     

    “A major exhibition opening for Sydney Design 08 in August, Modern times looks closely at the transformation of modern city life. The advent of cars, freeways, skyscrapers and new entertainment such as cinemas, milk bars, swimming pools, cafes and pubs are all legacies of modernism as revealed through the exhibition. The exhibition spans five decades from 1917 to 1967 – a tumultuous period marked by global wars, economic depression, a technological revolution and major social changes – out of which a modern cosmopolitan culture was shaped.

    “The modernist movement was inspired by various European avant-gardes that projected visions of a better future, shaped by many competing positions. It was through émigrés, expatriates, exhibitions and publications that modernism become known in Australia,” Ann Stephen said. Encompassing art, design and architecture, Modern times focuses on seven themes: 1. the human body, image and health; 2. international influences and exchanges; 3. Indigenous art and modernism; 4. Interdisciplinary projects with retailers; 5. city landscapes and urban life; 6. public pools and milk bars; and 7. the space age.

    Several great modern public pools were designed in Australia initially as part of an international swimming boom in the 1930s and boosted by the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. These will be shown on a large, immersive, panoramic audio visual screen celebrating the most Australian of past-times, being poolside. The earliest 1920s swimming costumes by silent film star Annette Kellerman, several decades of Australian icon ‘Speedo’ cossies and an early bikini will also be on display.

    The much-loved corner milk bar from the 1930s will also be recreated in the exhibition for visitors to enter, complete with lolly jars, milkshakes and a juke box.

    Other story highlights in the exhibition include Robin Boyd’s ‘House of Tomorrow’ that featured at the 1949 Modern Home Exhibition in Melbourne; and Boyd’s memorable Australian pavilion at the 1967 Montreal Expo that showcased Australian design including the iconic Featherston wing sound chairs and hostess uniforms designed by Zara Holt, wife of then prime minister Harold Holt.

    Modernism also inspired new forms of public art and design like the abstract fountains by Tom Bass on Sydney’s former P&O building and Robert Woodward’s El Alamein Memorial Fountain, a popular tourist site in Sydney’s Kings Cross. Modernism shaped an exultant explosion of experiment as part of the Space Age informing such spectacular architectural feats as Roy Grounds’ dome for the Australian Academy of Science in Canberra and Jørn Utzon’s internationally-acclaimed Sydney Opera House, both featured in the exhibition.”

    Ruzan Haruriunyan, “Modern Times: Untold Story Of Modernism In Australia,” on the Huliq News website [Online] Cited 20/02/2019

     

    Heide II exterior

    Heide II interior

     

    Hedie II photographs by Rory Hyde. More photos of Heide are on his Flickr photoset

    Heide II – commissioned by John and Sunday Reed 1963, designed 1964, constructed 1964-1967

    Designed by Melbourne architect David McGlashan of McGlashan Everist, it was intended as “a gallery to be lived in” and served as the Reeds’ residence between 1967 and 1980. The building is considered one of the best examples of modernist architecture in Victoria and awarded the Royal Institute of Architects (Victorian Chapter) Bronze Medal – the highest award for residential architecture in the State – in 1968. It is currently used to display works from the Heide Collection and on occasion projects by contemporary artists.

    Text from the Wikipedia website

     

    Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992) 'Australia Square Tower' 1968

     

    Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
    Australia Square: a keyhole to the future [Australia Square Tower]
    1968
    Gelatin silver print
    49.9 × 39.2cm
    Courtesy of Max Dupain and Associates

     

    Jeff Carter (Australian, 1928-2010) 'At the Pasha Nightclub, Cooma' c. 1957-1959

     

    Jeff Carter (Australian, 1928-2010)
    At the Pasha Nightclub, Cooma
    c. 1957-1959
    Gelatin silver print

     

     

    Modern Times: The Untold Story of Modernism in Australia, edited by Ann Stephen, Philip Goad and Andrew McNamara, Powerhouse Publishing, 2008 (paperback).

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

    Opening hours:
    Tuesday – Sunday
    Public holidays
    10am – 5pm

    Heide Museum of Art website

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    Review: ‘John Beard: After Image’ paintings at John Buckley Gallery, Melbourne

    Exhibition dates: 20th May – 6th June, 2009

     

    John Beard (Australian born Wales, b. 1943) 'Darwin' 2009 from the exhibition 'John Beard: After Image' paintings at John Buckley Gallery, Melbourne, May - June, 2009

     

    John Beard (Australian born Wales, b. 1943)
    Darwin
    2009

     

     

    The final exhibition of the afternoon were the ephemeral images of John Beard at John Buckley Gallery, Melbourne. This was an enthralling show that I enjoyed tremendously. Beard draws in a multitude of cultural sources for his paintings often referencing painters, scientists, animals and evolution. His work has an intimate sense of knowing, a meditative mediation on the essence of the object being painted, the very presence of the thing itself. The marks on the canvas may be intuitive but it is an informed intuition that results in works that hover at the edge of consciousness. As much as the works are after images, or ghost images, they are also about the persistence of vision, the persistence of the artists vision in addressing issues of collective memory and cultural history that draw emotive responses from the viewer.

    These images may be ‘on the verge of disappearance’ as an after-image but they are also pre-images as well, conjured from the mind of the artist and layered with complexity, presence and holistic wholeness. Their seduction, if I may use that word, is that they draw from the viewer peripheral memories and emotions that flit at the edges of consciousness. As Portugese curator Isabel Carlos has noted, “… Beard recreates a ‘figural’ space where the essence of the thing represented lies beyond its singular physical evidence.”1

    Beard’s fragmented surfaces form a rhizomic web of dissolved pixellation, their structure almost fractal like in their linked hyper-real intimacies. These in between spaces open up the possibility of subversive commentaries that, on one level, bring a sense of disquiet to the holistic presence of the work. As Mark Poster has noted of the work of Deleuze and Guittari and which can be aptly applied to the work of John Beard,

    “Deleuze and Guittari configure the social as a complex of bodily intensities in a state of continuous nonlinear movement. The logic they present is multidimensional, shifting, discontinuous. They speak of strata, assemblages, territorializations, lines of flight, abstract machines, a congerie of terms that disrupts the function of concepts to control a field through discursive articulations. Their categories cut through the normal lines of comprehension, the binary logic that governs modern social theory to present a picture of reality from the perspective of a sort of primitive life force. It is as if the earth itself were to describe the changes on its surface in the course of human history, a vantage point quite remote from the ego of the individual or from the disciplined consciousness of the social scientist.”2


    Nonlinear, logical, shifting territorializations in multidimensional environments that hover below the edge of consciousness, investigations into the binary of presence / absence in the dreams of the imaginary. Powerful and poetic these works irradiate the viewer with their visceral presence.

    Dr Marcus Bunyan

     

    1/ Isabel Carlos quoted in Wright, William. HEADLANDS: John Beard works 1993-2008. Catalogue essay

    2/ Poster, Mark. The Mode of Information: Poststructuralism and Social Context. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990, pp. 135-137


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

     

     

    John Beard (Australian born Wales, b. 1943) 'Gorilla' 2007 from the exhibition 'John Beard: After Image' paintings at John Buckley Gallery, Melbourne, May - June, 2009

     

    John Beard (Australian born Wales, b. 1943)
    Gorilla
    2007

     

    Installation view of John Beard's exhibition 'After image' at John Buckley Gallery, Melbourne

     

    Installation view of John Beard’s exhibition After image at John Buckley Gallery, Melbourne

     

    John Beard (Australian born Wales, b. 1943) 'Hand 6' 2009

     

    John Beard (Australian born Wales, b. 1943)
    Hand 6
    2009

     

    John Beard (Australian born Wales, b. 1943) 'Head SP3' 2004

     

    John Beard (Australian born Wales, b. 1943)
    Head SP3
    2004

     

    “Beard’s paintings often convey an overpowering sense of brooding stillness, but equally this volatile effervescence of light-reverberant phenomena, where head, headland, the Adraga rock, are no longer object so much as apparition, a painted parallel existence, a material presence invoking nature’s own organic processes …

    There is a distinctive sense when encountering a body of John Beard’s works of entering into a site of composure, withheld, of images silently bespeaking truths both personal and historical; hovering presences each conveying some species quality of time-less recognition.”

    William Wright 
from the catalogue essay HEADLANDS: John Beard works 1993-2008 [Online] Cited 29/05/2009. No longer available online

     

    John Beard (Australian born Wales, b. 1943) 'Rose' 2007

     

    John Beard (Australian born Wales, b. 1943)
    Rose
    2007

     

    John Beard (Australian born Wales, b. 1943) 'Einstein 2' 2009

     

    John Beard (Australian born Wales, b. 1943)
    Einstein 2
    2009

     

    John Beard (Australian born Wales, b. 1943) 'Rembrandt' 2009

     

    John Beard (Australian born Wales, b. 1943)
    Rembrandt
    2009

     

     

    John Buckley Gallery

    This gallery is now closed.

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    Exhibition: ‘Inheritance’ at the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney

    Exhibition dates: 1st May – 6th June, 2009

    Artists: Bindi Cole, Tamara Dean, Lee Grant, June Indrefjord, Bronek Kozka, Ka-Yin Kwok, Tracey Moffatt, Fiona Morris, Aaron Seeto, Martin Smith and Toni Wilkinson

    Installation photographs of the exhibition can be found on the Lee Grant – Photography blog website


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

     

     

    June Indrefjord. 'Piano' from the series 'Landaas' 2005

     

    June Indrefjord
    Piano
    2005
    From the series Landaas

     

    Aaron Seeto (Australian) 'Oblivion' 2006

     

    Aaron Seeto (Australian)
    Oblivion
    2006
    From the series Oblivion
    Daguerreotype

     

    Aaron Seeto makes alternate historical positions and experiences visible through an exploration of archives, family photo albums and photographic records. In recent bodies of work Fortress and Oblivion, Seeto has utilised the daguerreotype, one of the earliest and most primitive photographic techniques, to highlight the malleability of narratives within archive records. Not only is the chemical process itself highly toxic and temperamental but the daguerreotype’s mirrored surface means the image appears as both positive and negative, depending on the angle of view. For Seeto, this mutability captures the essence of our experience of history and memory, reflecting how images degrade, how stories are formed and privileged, how knowledge and history are written. …

    For his ongoing series Oblivion Seeto sourced details from images of the Cronulla riots – beachside riots around race and territory – of 2005 found on the internet. In reproducing these as daguerrotypes he seeks less to represent the incident than to look at how it was reported, understood and remembered. The instability of the virtual information found online is echoed in the photographic process.

    Text from the Stills Gallery website [Online] Cited 14/02/2019

     

    Tracey Moffatt (Australian, b. 1960) 'Useless 1974' 1994 from the exhibition 'Inheritance' at the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney, May - June, 2009

     

    Tracey Moffatt (Australian, b. 1960)
    Useless 1974
    1994
    From the series Scarred for Life

     

    Useless, 1974 is a photo-lithograph by the Australian artist Tracey Moffatt. The work shows a girl stooping down to wash a car, with one hand wiping a headlight with a sponge and the other resting on the bonnet. She looks towards the camera rather than at the car, her face bearing a serious and potentially hurt or angry expression. The caption accompanying the photograph explains that ‘Her father’s nickname for her was “useless”‘. Despite this, it seems that in this picture she is being put to use, and perhaps the car she washes is her father’s. The caption, her expression and the direction of her gaze may suggest that the viewer occupies the position of the girl’s father looking down on and supervising his daughter while she carries out her chore. …

    The work’s title is a reference to the cruel nickname given to the girl in the photograph, and the date in the title, 1974, suggests the year according to which the photograph has been styled by Moffatt, who employs actors and constructed scenes to create her photographs. Curator Filippo Maggia has compared Moffatt’s photographic method to that of a film director, stating that she ‘often does not take the photographs herself but directs a sort of bona fide movie set that she organises and controls after having pictured it in her mind again and again, meticulously decomposing and recomposing it’ (Maggia 2006, p.12). As the artist has stated, ‘I often use technicians when I make my pictures. I more or less direct them. I stand back and call the shots.’ (Quoted in Maggia 2006, p.12.)

    Moffatt’s photographic series often deal with themes such as race, gender and the politics of identity. Drawing on memories from the artist’s childhood, the Scarred for Life series mimics photo spreads from the American magazine Life, with their explanatory captions and focus on the family environment. The captions’ terse descriptions hint at the traumatic stories behind the images. Moffatt has commented: ‘a person can make a passing comment to you when you are young and this can change you forever. You can be “scarred for life” but it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The photographs can be read as both tragic and comic – there is a thin line between both.’ (Quoted in display caption, Tracey Moffatt, Birth Certificate 1994, Tate P78101, accessed 28 August 2015.) Furthermore, Maggia has argued that the Scarred for Life series ‘gives us life as it is, the harshness and aridity of human relations, adolescence with its fears of not being accepted’ (Maggia 2006, p.13).

    Louise Hughes
    August 2015

    Filippo Maggia, Tracey Moffatt: Between Dreams and Reality, exhibition catalogue, Spazio Oberdan, Milan 2006, p. 13, reproduced p. 117.

    Extract from Louise Hughes. “Useless, 1974,” on the Tate website [Online] Cited 14/02/2019

     

    Lee Grant (Korean-Australian, b. 1973) 'The Day Meg Wore a Dress '2007 from the exhibition 'Inheritance' at the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney, May - June, 2009

     

    Lee Grant (Korean-Australian, b. 1973)
    The Day Meg Wore a Dress from the series Brothers and Sisters
    2007

     

    “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family.”

    From the tight nuclear unit to the multi-generational extended family, from refuges for the homeless to middle class suburbia, Inheritance examines the way our families shape the person we become; for better or for worse.

    Taking Tracey Moffatt’s acclaimed series Scarred for Life as a starting point, the exhibition includes the work of eleven Australian artists who explore the modern family through a range of photographic disciplines, including documentary, portraiture and video. Sometimes serious and sometimes satirical, Inheritance is a family album that celebrates the skeletons and the psychodramas alongside the newborns and the nuptials.

    Text from the Australian Centre for Photography website [Online] Cited 20/05/2009. No longer available online

     

    Lee Grant (Australian, b. 1973) 'Nathan & Mac, BMX bros' 2009

     

    Lee Grant (Australian, b. 1973)
    Nathan & Mac, BMX bros
    2009
    Archival pigment print
    60 x 60cm
    Edition of 8 + 2 AP

     

    Bindi Cole Chocka (Australian / Wathaurung, b. 1975) 'Wathaurung Mob' 2008

     

    Bindi Cole Chocka (Australian / Wathaurung, b. 1975)
    Wathaurung Mob
    2008
    From the series Not really Aboriginal
    Pigment print on rag paper
    1035 x 1235cm

     

    Our Past Is Our Strength – Culture and Identity

    I’ve always been told that l was Aboriginal. I never questioned it because of the colour of my skin or where I lived. My Nan, one of the Stolen Generation, was staunchly proud and strong. She made me feel the same way. My traditional land takes in Ballarat, Geelong and Werribee and extends west past Cressy to Derrinallum. I’m from Victoria and I’ve always known this. All the descendants of traditional Victorian Aboriginal people are now of mixed heritage. I’m not black. I’m not from a remote community. Does that mean I’m not really Aboriginal? Or do Aboriginal people come in all shapes, sizes and colours and live in all areas of Australia, remote and urban?

    Bindi Cole Chocka, Wathaurung text from the Culture Victoria website [Online] Cited 14/02/2019

     

    Wathaurung Mob is a group portrait depicting members of Cole’s family sitting in their lounge room, their faces blackened with minstrel paint, and wearing red headbands traditionally worn by indigenous elders. The controversial practice of “blackfacing” refers to the populist minstrel shows of the 19th and 20th centuries in which a white actor put on blackface, then performed a racist caricature.

    As we stand before the work, Alessi says he finds it confronting and uncomfortable. “Wathaurung Mob is quite powerful because what stands out are the eyes of each sitter; they look directly at the viewer, so you can’t help but feel challenged by that,” he says.

    “There is also something quite uncomfortable about the work because, in some ways, you are being implicated in Andrew Bolt’s view, as white Australians having to own up to the broader history of the relationship between white and indigenous Australia.

    “And more broadly it is about coming to grips with what is still a major issue in Australia around reconciliation and the way that we treat indigenous people. In one single frame this photograph captures 200 years of history, and I think it is an area that people like Bindi Cole are really courageous to navigate through because they have been open to criticism by people like Andrew Bolt, which is completely unfounded.”

    Extract from Bronwyn Watson. “Facing up to the stereotypes,” on The Australian website November 16, 2013 [Online] Cited 14/02/2019

     

    Fiona Morris. 'Sean and Jade, Wesley Mission' 2006

     

    Fiona Morris (Australian)
    Sean and Jade, Wesley Mission
    2006

     

    Sean with his daughter Jade outside their tempoary accomodation provided by Wesley Mission. They can only stay their for a maximum of two months. Leah and Sean became homeless with their children after increasing rent rises in Sydney and the cost of living.

     

    Tamara Dean (Australian, b. 1976) 'Alex and Maeve' 2006

     

    Tamara Dean (Australian, b. 1976)
    Alex and Maeve
    2006

     

     

    Australian Centre for Photography

    This gallery has now closed.

    Lee Grant website

    Tracey Moffatt on the Rosyln Oxley9 Gallery website

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