Exhibition dates: 12th November – 6th December 2009
Alex Lukas (American, b. 1981) Untitled 2009 Acrylic and silk screen on two book pages
These are terrific – I want one!
A big thank you to Alex for allowing me to reproduce the images.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Alex Lukas (American, b. 1981) Untitled 2009 Acrylic and silk screen on two book pages
Glowlab is pleased to present The Eventuality of Daybreak, a solo exhibition by Alex Lukas featuring a new series of post-apocalyptic urban landscapes that blur the visual boundaries of fiction and reality.
Lukas’ work explores the existence of disaster, be it realised or fictitious, in contemporary society. Hyper-realistic motion pictures and unforgiving news footage depict seemingly identical – and equally riveting – facades of tragedy. The artist recognises that relentless visual bombardment has resulted in society’s desensitisation to the aesthetics of destruction.
For The Eventuality of Daybreak, Lukas has selected photographic spreads of well-known metropolises from vintage publications and uses them dually as canvas and unlikely subject. Through a deft handling of paint and carefully placed screen-printed passages, the artist pushes these ageing illustrations in futuristic contexts. Submerging these cities conceptually and physically, Lukas inundates images of American cities with layers of media representing cataclysmic floods and crippling overgrowth.
Also included in the exhibition are works on paper depicting near-future scenes of devastated landscapes – crumbling infrastructure, overturned trucks and telling signs of human despair. As a counterpoint to the underwater cities, these darkly atmospheric and barren vistas signal devastation through an unsettling sense of absence.
Lukas’ intentional use of dated imagery presented in tandem with contemporary situations forces the viewer to reconcile two differing ideologies of urban space. The artist’s work calls into question society’s collective acceptance of the urban environment as an arena of destruction, once thought unthinkable and now seemingly inevitable.
The Eventuality of Daybreak is Lukas’ first solo exhibition with Glowlab. Lukas’ work has also been exhibited in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Stockholm and Copenhagen as well as in the pages of Swindle Quarterly, Proximity Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Village Voice, The Drama and The New York Times Book Review. Lukas is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and currently lives and works in Philadelphia, where he is a member of the artist collective Space 1026.
Press release on the Glowlab website [Online] Cited 20/11/2009 no longer available online
Alex Lukas (American, b. 1981) Untitled 2009 Acrylic and silk screen on two book pages
Alex Lukas (American, b. 1981) Untitled 2009 Acrylic and silk screen on two book pages
Alex Lukas (American, b. 1981) Untitled 2009 Acrylic and silk screen on two book pages
Alex Lukas (American, b. 1981) Untitled 2009 Acrylic and silk screen on two book pages
Atget, one of my all time favourite photographers; Paris, a city that stirs the heart – what more can one ask!
Many thankx to the Frist Museum of Art (formerly the Frist Center for the Visual Arts) for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Ilse Bing (German, 1899-1998) French Can Can Dancers, Moulin Rouge 1931 Gelatin silver print
Andre Kertesz (Hungary, 1894-1985) Eiffel Tower, Paris 1929 Gelatin silver print
The Frist Center for the Visual Arts [now the Frist Museum of Art] will present Twilight Visions: Surrealism, Photography, and Paris, opening Sept. 10, 2009, in the Upper-Level Galleries. The show, which offers a unique perspective on Surrealism by examining the intersection of documentary photography, manipulated photography and film, will be on exhibition through Jan. 3, 2010, when it will travel to the International Center of Photography in New York followed by the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, Ga.
Guest Curator Therese Lichtenstein, Ph.D., New York-based art historian and photography scholar, has organised the exhibition, working with Frist Center Curator Katie Delmez.
The exhibition of more than 150 works, which features a preponderance of photographs but also includes films, books and period ephemera, explores the city of Paris as the literal and metaphoric base of Surrealism in the wake of the World War I. It was believed by the Surrealists that unconscious dreams, chance encounters and actions and automatism freed “pure thought,“ from all constraints imposed by conscious thought, reason or morals.
In conjunction with the exhibition, the Frist Center will partner with Nashville’s Belcourt Theatre and Vanderbilt University’s International Lens and the school’s French and film departments to present a Surrealism film series which will include the classic Un Chien Andalou (The Andalusian Dog) directed by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí and several other rarely screened period films.
Paris was a hotbed of creative activity at the dawn of the 20th century, attracting artists and writers to its vibrant and wildly fertile art scene. Numerous galleries flourished during this period, fuelling the immigration of many of the world’s most talented artists. During the 1920s and 1930s, a number of photographers associated with Surrealism, including Man Ray, Brassaï, André Kertész, Ilse Bing and Germaine Krull, turned their lenses on the city of Paris with its dance halls, cafés and characters. These seemingly ordinary people and places not only had social histories but also became psychologically charged “found objects.“ In exploring the city’s commonplace as well as its monuments, these photographers used unusual viewpoints, manipulative lighting techniques and innovative technical processes to expose and examine “the marvellous“ in the everyday.
As Dr Lichtenstein writes, “The images in Twilight Visions form a collection of views of various urban spaces, filled with cultural artefacts. The viewer is invited to slowly contemplate the city – its architecture, its monuments, its public spaces and its denizens – as an ephemeral ruin, at once both of the past and the present.”
The Exhibition
Twilight Visions comprises five sections: images of the city at night and in the day, the transformation of well-known public monuments, the influence of Eugène Atget on the Surrealists; Parisian nightlife after hours and surreal figures.
The first section, “Marvellous Encounters”, includes photographs of city streets, shop windows, ordinary people and found objects that invite viewers to discover “the marvellous“ in common objects and familiar places. Many of the works in this section look both familiar and strange, as subjects were photographed from unexpected angles, using dim lighting, soft focus and abstracted views to create dreamlike images. Among the works in this section are photographs by Brassaï, Man Ray, Ilse Bing, André Kertész, Germaine Krull, Dora Maar and Joseph Breitenbach.
The second section of the exhibition, entitled “Photography’s Transformation of the Monument”, looks at the monuments of Paris, particularly the Eiffel Tower, to examine the ways they shape connections to past and future. Included in this section are works by André Kertész, Ilse Bing, Germaine Krull and Man Ray. The Eiffel Tower, constructed from 1887-1889, was designed to serve as the entry to the Paris World’s Fair commemorating the centennial anniversary of the French Revolution. The skeletal iron structure also was designed to be a radio transmitter and a beacon for commercial advertisements in the form of illuminated signs. In 1931 Man Ray created a series of photographs that were reproduced in a portfolio by the Paris Electric Company for an advertising booklet called Èlectricité, which was used to promote personal use of electricity. That same year, he photographed the tower at night and used the image as the basis for La Ville (The City, 1931 – see photograph below), a multiple-exposure print and one of the images used in Èlectricité. The Eiffel Tower, built as a utilitarian homage to the past, is transformed. The magic of electricity makes the tower visible at night, but in so doing, renders it unstable and non-architectural. Ray’s photograph turns the magnificent Eiffel Tower into indecipherable electrified text. In addition to Man Ray’s work, there are photographs by Ilse Bing, Georges Hugnet, André Kertész, Germaine Krull, Raoul Ubac and various postcards of the city that interrupt traditional heroic views of the monument.
Section three, entitled “Looking at Atget”, examines the powerful work of Eugène Atget, a photographer who was “discovered“ in the 1920s by Man Ray. Following a stint as a sailor, a brief career as an actor and an attempt at becoming a painter, he turned to photography. Working quietly and modestly, Atget documented the loss of “old“ Parisian culture after the turn of the 20th century. But in so doing, his “poetry of the everyday“ also became a personal expression of nostalgia for the world that was disappearing before his lens. His work was straightforward yet magical. Works include Pont Neuf (1902-1903), The Wine Seller, 15 Rue Boyer (c. 1910) and Boulevard de Strasbourg (1926) (see photographs above).
Section four, “Portraits After Hours”, explores the Bohemian avant-garde culture of Paris. In the 1920s and 1930s, the cafés and cabarets of Montparnasse and Montmartre were a part of the transition to modernity taking place in the city. The antibourgeois, often seedy places that were the comfortable haunts of Parisian artists and intellectuals were becoming tourist destinations … fetishised places of fantasy and desire. As these locales metamorphosed into tourist sites where “regular“ folk could rub elbows with Parisian characters, increasingly, these locales became stage sets where the “actors“ relived the past for the cameras of the tourists. Ilse Bing’s photographs of Cancan dancers at the famed Moulin-Rouge capture the colour, flourish, nostalgia and exhilaration of the dance (see photographs above). Photographers represented in section four include: James Abbe, Ilse Bing, Brassaï and Man Ray.
“Mutable Mirrors”, the fifth section of the exhibition, investigates the subject of shifting identities that was a part of the Surrealists’ desire to alter consciousness and transform concepts of personal, social and group identity. Issues of gender and sexuality and the roles of masquerade and play are examined in the works of Lee Miller, Nusch Eluard, Dora Maar, Claude Cahun, Raoul Ubac, Hans Bellmer, Georges Hugnet, André Kertész, Man Ray and Brassaï who experimented with techniques of doubling, distorting, multiplying and fragmenting their images. Included in this section are André Kertesz’s Distortions (1933) a series of photographs of nude women reflected in distorting mirrors that transform them into dreamlike creatures (see photographs below). The series was commissioned by the editor of the Parisian humour magazine, Le Sourire (The Smile).
Text from the Frist Museum of Art (formerly the Frist Center for the Visual Arts) website [Online] Cited 11/11/2009. No longer available online
Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927) The Wine Seller, 15 Rue Boyer 1910-1911 Gelatin-silver print (printed by Berenice Abbott) Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA.
Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927) Boulevard de Strasbourg 1926 Albumen print
Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927) Rue du Figuier 1924 Albumen print 9 x 7 in. Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. by Exchange, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA.
Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927) Pont-Neuf 1902-03 Albumen print 8 7/8 x 7″ (22.6 x 17.8cm)
Andre Kertesz (Hungary, 1894-1985) Distortion 144, Paris 1933 Gelatin silver print
Andre Kertesz (Hungary, 1894-1985) Distortion 147, Paris 1933 Gelatin silver print
The Distortions were made with a glass plate view camera and Kertesz used two particular female models for the series, Najinskaya Verackhatz and Nadia Kasine. Kertesz began this surrealist experimentation with mirrors in the late 1920’s with most of the exhibited images being attributed to 1932-33. The series was first exhibited in Paris in 1932 causing a sensation that helped catapult Kertesz to international fame in the art world. In 1936 they were exhibited in New York at the Museum Of Modern Art, again causing a furore. Kertesz had “fun house” mirrors installed in his studio to experiment and create the landmark series.
By the 1960’s the entire series of original glass plate negatives was thought to be permanently lost due to deterioration and oxidation. In the early 1970’s a highly trained restoration specialist was employed to salvage these innovative pieces of art history. Using a newly discovered technique for removing oxidation, he meticulously and painstakingly laboured on the plates until this masterpiece collection was perfectly restored to its original beauty…
Andre Kertesz (Hungary, 1894-1985) Distortion 38, Paris 1933 Gelatin silver print
Andre Kertesz (Hungary, 1894-1985) Distortion 40, Paris 1933 Gelatin silver print
Frist Art Museum 919 Broadway, Nashville, Tennessee, 37203
Many thankx to the Neue Nationalgalerie for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
The Nationalgalerie presents Thomas Demand’s show National Gallery Berlin. From September 18, 2009, the Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin devotes a comprehensive solo show to one of the internationally most influential artists of our time: Thomas Demand. It is so far the largest presentation of his work in this country. However, the exhibition National Gallery is not designed as an overall retrospective but it is firmly dedicated to only one subject, which is perhaps the most important in Demand’s multi-facetted oeuvre: Germany.
Living in Berlin since 1996 Thomas Demand is an artist known for his large-format photographs, which explore the blank domain between reality and the ways it is being represented. He is undoubtedly regarded as one of the most renowned artists of his generation. Using paper and cardboard he builds three-dimensional, usually life-size models of places which often make references to pictures found in the mass media. By taking photographs of the scenery created in this way, he produces artefacts of a kind of their own which play with the beholder’s ideas of fiction and reality.
Until January, 17, 2010, about 40 works by the artist will be on display in the glass hall of the Neue Nationalgalerie built by Mies van der Rohe. There is hardly a location which is more suitable to convey to the beholder the panorama of a nation’s history than the large glass hall of the Neue Nationalgalerie, which is not only regarded as an incunabulum of post-war architecture but also as a symbol for the self-image of the Federal Republic of Germany at the former border between East and West. The exceptional exhibition architecture of the firm, Caruso St. John, London, forms an ideal link between Demand’s works and Mies van der Rohe’s bright hall.
Each picture shown in the exhibition is accompanied by a specific caption written by Botho Strauß which does not so much explain or define Demand’s work but rather creates a space between the pictures and the texts to allow new versions of interpretation.
Text from the New National Gallery website [Online] Cited 01/11/2009 no longer available online
Archiv / Archive, 1995, C-Print/ Diasec, 183,5 x 233 cm Attempt, 2005, C-Print/ Diasec, 166 x 190 cm Badezimmer / Bathroom, 1997, C-Print/ Diasec, 160 x 122 cm Balkone / Balconies, 1997, C-Print/ Diasec, 150 x 128 cm Brennerautobahn, 1994, C-Print/ Diasec, 150 x 118 cm Büro / Office, 1995, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 240 cm Campingtisch / Camping Table, 1999, C-Print/ Diasec, 85 x 58 cm Copyshop, 1999, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 300 cm Drei Garagen / Three Garages, 1995, C-Print/ Diasec, 108 x 223 cm Fabrik (ohne Namen), 1994, C-Print/ Diasec, 120 x 185 cm Fassade / Facade, 2004, C-Print/ Diasec, 178 x 250 cm Fenster / Window, 1998, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 286 cm Fotoecke, 2009, C-Print/ Diasec, 180 x 198 cm Gangway, 2001, C-Print/ Diasec, 225 x 180 cm Grube / Pit, 1999, C-Print/ Diasec, 229 x 167 cm Haltestelle, 2009, C-Print/Diasec, 240 x 330 cm Heldenorgel, 2009, C-Print/Diasec, 240 x 380 cm Hinterhaus, 2005, C-Print/ framed, 26.9 x 21.5 cm Kabine, 2002, C-Print/ Diasec, 180 x 254 cm Kinderzimmer /Nursery, 2009, C-Print/Diasec, 140 x 230 cm Klause 1 / Tavern, 2006, C-Print/ Diasec, 275 x 170 cm Klause 2 / Tavern, 2006, C-Print/ Diasec, 178 x 244 cm Klause 3 / Tavern, 2006, C-Print/ Diasec, 199 x 258 cm Klause 4 / Tavern, 2006, C-Print/ Diasec, 103 x 68 cm Klause 5 / Tavern, 2006, C-Print/ Diasec, 197 x 137 cm Labor (77-E-217), 2000, C-Print/ Diasec, 180 x 268 cm Lichtung / Clearing, 2003, C-Print/ Diasec, 192 x 495 cm Modell / Model, 2000, C-Print/ Diasec, 164,5 x 210 cm Paneel / Peg Board, 1996, C-Print/ Diasec, 160 x 121 cm Parlament / Parliament, 2009, C-Print/ Diasec, 180 x 223 cm Raum / Room, 1994, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 270 cm Sprungturm / Diving Board, 1994, C-Print/ Diasec, 150 x 118 cm Spüle / Sink, 1997, C-Print/ Diasec, 52 x 56.5 cm Studio, 1997, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 349.5 cm Rasen / Lawn, 1998, C-Print/ Diasec, 122 x 170 cm Terrasse / Terrace, 1998, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 268 cm Treppenhaus / Staircase, 1995, C-Print/ Diasec, 150 x 118 cm Wand /Mural, 1999, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 270 cm Zeichensaal / Drafting Room, 1996, C-Print/ Diasec, 183.5 x 285 cm
Demand’s work is based on pre-existing images from the media, often of sites of political or cultural interest. He translates these images into life-size models using paper and cardboard, and photographs the resulting tableaux. These five photographs [of which the above is just one] depict a tavern in the German village of Burbach where a young boy was kidnapped, held hostage and ultimately murdered in 2001. His body was never recovered. The case was covered extensively in the German press, and images of the tavern became imbued with the public’s horrified imagination of the crime. Demand’s photographs investigate the traces these mediated images leave in the collective memory.
Exhibition dates: 24th September – 13th December, 2009
Curators: Wang Huangsheng, An Ge and Hu Wugong
Many thankx to the China Institute in America for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Hao Junchen (Chinese) Hugging a portrait of his wife deceased wife, an elderly man fulfils their dream of visiting Beijing 2003 Gelatin silver print
Feng Jianxin (Chinese) A soldier bids farewell to his wife and child who have just visited him and are now returning home Weichang, Hebei Winter 1987
Hu Wugong (Chinese) Migrant wheat farmer in the field in Guanzhong 1998 Gelatin silver print
Wei Dezhong (Chinese, b. 1934) At the Red Flag Canal construction project, suspended labourers cut a channel 1960 Gelatin silver print
Liu Jun (Chinese) A Parent-Official Like This 1985 Gelatin silver print 51 × 40.7cm
A new exhibition of documentary photography, Humanism in China: A Contemporary Record of Photography, will be on view at China Institute Gallery from September 24 through December 13, 2009, revealing a glimpse of China never before seen in the U.S. The photographs, dating from 1951 though 2003, offer intimate portraits of rural and urban daily life in China, beyond the glossy veneer of the economic boom. A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition.
Much in the way that The Family of Man, the 1955 landmark photography exhibition curated by Edward Steichen at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, explored the universality of the human experience, Humanism in China: A Contemporary Record of Photography offers rare insight into ordinary and extraordinary human experiences – in this case, taking place in China over the last 50 years.
Humanism in China: A Contemporary Record of Photography was organised by the Guangdong Museum of Art and represents the first large-scale collection of photography acquired permanently by any museum in China. Opening at the Guangdong Museum in 2003, the exhibition has since travelled to seven venues in China, Germany and Scotland. The curators, Wang Huangsheng, An Ge and Hu Wugong, visited photographers’ homes and studios in more than 20 provinces and viewed an estimated 100,000 photographs before selecting 600 images by 248 photographers. The exhibition at China Institute Gallery will offer a more tightly focused selection – 100 photographs by more than 80 photographers – chosen by Dr. Jerome Silbergeld, Professor of Chinese Art History at Princeton University.
Together the images present an unvarnished, starkly realistic view of the hardships and rewards of social modernisation. “These photographs are not just about society and history but are equally about photography itself and the history of documentary photography in China,” Silbergeld writes in the catalogue essay.
Willow Hai Chang, the Director of China Institute Gallery, notes “The medium and language of photography provide an exceptional opportunity to foster a dialogue, enhancing communication and understanding about everyday life in China. Growing up in China and returning there often, I have witnessed the transforming relationship the Chinese have experienced with photography – from the fear that the camera could steal one’s soul that still exists in some remote regions to the urban proliferation of cell-phone cameras and social-networking sites filled with portraits. Photography also provides a most compelling method of recording history, and Humanism in China: A Contemporary Record of Photography creates a contextual framework for both the traditional and modern elements of life in China.”
The emerging themes from the exhibition span an enormous range of human emotions. Tragedy can be seen in the eyes of a man holding a portrait of his deceased wife, while fear is evident as victims flee rising floodwaters. There is also a graceful patience on view as a couple awaits their country wedding, and utter joy is clearly evident as a man displays his wads of cash after winning the lottery.
One of the most striking images in the exhibition is Iron Rice Bowl (see below), Hei Ming’s 2000 portrait of a Muslim chef squatting in front of a crude construction workers’ restaurant, his skullcap mimicking the customers’ rice bowls hanging on the restaurant’s facade. Another notable image, Geng Yensheng’s painterly photograph Miners at Wumeng Mountain (see below), 2003, depicts the harsh working conditions in the mountainous district where Yunnan, Sichuan and Guizhou provinces come together. As Silbergeld writes, the photograph of the young bathing miners “brings social bitterness and formal beauty into a perfectly fused relationship.”
One of the images, A Parent-Official Like This (see above), became well known in China. In May 1985, Liu Jun had his camera ready when he witnessed a rural deputy chief from the Baishui region in Shaanxi province forcefully push a 60-year-old villager to the ground in a dispute over migration. The resulting photograph captures the horrific arrogance of the authority figure as he towers over the powerless villager whose mouth is contorted in pain. The award-winning image is considered the foremost work of photographic social criticism since the 1949 revolution.
Press release from the China Institute in America website [Online] Cited 20/10/2009 no longer available online
Installation view of the exhibition Humanism in China: A Contemporary Record of Photography at the China Institute in America, New York, September – December, 2009
Wu Jialin (Chinese, b. 1926) Having a Chat, Cheng Du 1999 Gelatin silver print
Hei-Ming (Chinese, b. 1964) Iron Rice Bowl 2000 Gelatin silver print
Li Dan (Chinese) Tourists at the Wenshu Temple in Chengdu taking a souvenir photograph 1983 Gelatin silver print
Max Pam (born Australia 1949, lived in Brunei 1980-1983) Road from Bamiyan 1971 Gelatin silver photograph 20.1 x 20.1cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1979
Long Distance Vision is a disappointingly wane exploration of travel photography at NGV Australia. With the exception of the work of Max Pam the exhibition lacks insight into the phenomena that the curators want the work to philosophically investigate: namely how photographs shape our expectations of a place (even before we arrive) and how photographs also serve to confirm our experience – the picture as powerful mnemonic tool.
Firstly a quick story: when travelling in America to study at the Kinsey Institute I boarded a train from Chicago to what I thought was Bloomington, Indiana only to arrive many hours later at Bloomington, Illinois. Unbeknownst to me this Bloomington also had a motel of the same name as I was staying at in Indiana! After much confusion I ended up at the local airport trying to catch a single seater aircraft to Bloomington, Indiana with no luck – at the end of my tether, fearful in a foreign country, in tears because I just had to be at this appointment the next morning. Riding to my rescue was a nineteen year old kid with no shoes, driving an ex-cop car, who drove me across the Mid-West states stopping at petrol stops in the dead of night. It was a surreal experience, one that I will never forget for the rest of my life … fear, apprehension, alienation, happiness, joy and the sublime all rolled into one.
I tell this story to illustrate a point about travel – that you never know what is going to happen, what experiences you will have, even your final destination. To me, photographs of these adventures not only document this dislocation but step beyond pure representation to become art that re-presents the nature of our existence.
Matthew Sleeth‘s street photographs could be taken almost anywhere in the world (if it were not for a building with German writing on it). His snapshot aesthetic of caught moments, blinded people and dissected bodies in the observed landscape are evinced (to show in a clear manner; to prove beyond any reasonable doubt; to manifest; to make evident; to bring to light; to evidence – yes to bring to light, to evidence as photography does!) in mundane, dull, almost lifeless prints – ‘heavy’ photographs with a lack of shadow detail combined with a shallow depth of field. His remains, the people walking down the street and their shadow, are odd but as as The Age art critic Robert Nelson succinctly notes in his review of this exhibition, “To become art, the odd cannot remain merely quaint but has to signify an existential anomaly by implication.”1
If we look at the seminal photographs from the book The Americans by Robert Frank we see in their dislocated view of America a foreigners view of the country the artist was travelling across – a subjective view of America that reveals as much about the state of mind of the artist as the country he was exposing. No such exposition happens in the works of Matthew Sleeth.
Christine Godden‘s photographs of family and friends have little to do with travel photography and I struggle to understand their inclusion in this exhibition. Though they are reasonable enough photographs in their own right – small black and white photographs of small intimacies (at the beach, in the garden, at the kitchen table, on the phone, on the porch, on the float, etc…) Godden’s anthropomorphist bodies have nothing to do with a vision of a new land as she had been living in San Francisco, New York and Rochester for six years over the period that these photographs were taken. Enough said.
The highlight of the exhibition is the work of Max Pam. I remember going the National Gallery of Victoria in the late 1980s to view this series of work in the collection – and what a revelation they were then and remain so today. The square formatted, dark sepia toned silver gelatin prints of the people and landscapes of Tibet are both monumental and personal at one and the same time. You are drawn into their intimacies: the punctum of a boys feet; the gathering of families; camels running before a windstorm; human beings as specks in a vast landscape.
“If the world is unfair or beyond our understanding, sublime places suggest it is not surprising things should be thus. We are the playthings of the forces that laid out the oceans and chiselled the mountains. Sublime places acknowledge limitations that we might otherwise encounter with anxiety or anger in the ordinary flow of events. It is not just nature that defies us. Human life is as overwhelming, but it is the vast spaces of nature that perhaps provide us with the finest, the most respectful reminder of all that exceeds us. If we spend time with them, they may help us to accept more graciously the great unfathomable events that molest our lives and will inevitably return us to dust.”2
The meditation on place and space that the artist has undertaken gives true insight into the connection of man and earth, coming closest to Alain de Botton’s understanding of the significance of sublime places. Through a vision of a distant land the photographs transport us in an emotional journey that furthers our understanding of the fragility of life both of the planet and of ourselves.
While the National Gallery of Victoria holds some excellent photography exhibitions (such as Andreas Gursky and Rennie Ellis for example) this was a missed opportunity. The interesting concept of the exhibition required a more rigorous investigation instead of such a cursory analysis (which can be evidenced by the catalogue ‘essay’: one page the size of a quarter of an A4 piece of paper that glosses over the whole history of travel photography in a few blithe sentences).
Inspiration could have easily been found in Alain de Botton’s excellent book The Art of Travel. Here we find chapters titled “On Anticipation”, “On Travelling Places”, “On the Exotic”, “On Curiosity”, “On the Country and the City” and “On the Sublime” to name but a few, with places and art work to illustrate the journey: what more is needed to excite the mind!
Take Charles Baudelaire for example. He travelled outside his native France only once and never ventured abroad again. Baudelaire still dreamt of going to Lisbon, or Java or to the Netherlands but “the destination was not really the point. The true desire was to get away, to go, as he concluded, ‘Anywhere! Anywhere! So long as it is out of the world!'”3
Heavens, we don’t even have to leave home to create travel photography that is out of the world! Our far-sighted vision (like that of photographer Gregory Crewdson) can create psychological narratives of imaginative journeys played out for the camera.
Perhaps what was needed was a longer gestation period, further research into the theoretical nuances of travel photography (one a little death, a remembrance; both a dislocation in the non-linearity of time and space), a gathering of photographs from collections around Australia to better evidence the conceptual basis for the exhibition and a greater understanding of the irregular possibilities of travel photography – so that the work and words could truly reflect the title of the exhibition Long Distance Vision.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
1/ Nelson, Robert. “In blurred focus: le freak c’est chic,” in The Age newspaper. Friday, October 23rd 2009, p. 18
2/ de Botton, Alain. The Art of Travel. London: Penguin, 2002, p. 178-179
“The National Gallery of Victoria will celebrate the work of Christine Godden, Max Pam and Matthew Sleeth in a new exhibition, Long Distance Vision: Three Australian Photographers opening 28 August.
Long Distance Vision will include over 60 photographs from the NGV Collection exploring the concept of the ‘tourist gaze’ and its relationship with the three artists.
Susan van Wyk, Curator Photography, NGV said the exhibition provides a fascinating insight into the unusual perspective brought by the three photographers to their varied world travel destinations.
“There’s a sense in the works in the exhibition that the photographers are not from the places they choose to photograph, and that each is a visitor delighting in the scenes they encounter.
“What is notable about the photographs in Long Distance Vision is that rather than focussing on the well known scenes that each artist encountered, they have turned their attention to the ‘little things’, the details of the everyday,” said Ms van Wyk.
From the nineteenth century, photography has been a means by which people could discover the world, initially through personal collection and albums, and later via postcards, magazines, books and the internet.
Dr Gerard Vaughan, Director, NGV said that both contemporary photographers and tourists use the camera as a means to explore and capture the world.
“Through their photographs, the three artists featured in Long Distance Vision show us highly individual ways of seeing the world. This exhibition will surprise and delight visitors as our attention is drawn to not only what is different but what remains the same as we travel the world,” said Dr Vaughan.
Born in Melbourne in 1949, Max Pam began his career in various commercial photography studios in the 1960s. After responding to a university notice for assistance to drive a Volkswagen from Calcutta to London in 1969, Pam got his first taste of being a traveller. The body of Pam’s work in this exhibition is from the series The Himalayas, which was photographed over a number of early visits to India.
Christine Godden also travelled the popular overland route between Europe and India in the early 1970s, returning to Sydney in 1978. In 1972, after a period of travelling, Godden found her home in the US where she remained for six years. Godden’s photographs in this exhibition were taken between 1972 and 1974 during her stay in the US.
Born in Melbourne in 1972, Matthew Sleeth is another seasoned traveller. During the late 1990s, Sleeth settled in Opfikon, an outer suburb of Zurich, Switzerland. The series of photographs in Long Distance Vision were taken during this time, showing Sleeth’s interest not only in street photography, but also in the narrative possibilities in everyday scenes. Dotted with garishly coloured playhouses, naive sculptures and whimsical arrangements of garden gnomes Sleeth’s photographs go beyond the ‘picture-perfect’ scenes of typical tourist photography.
Long Distance Vision: Three Australian Photographers is on display at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Federation Square from 28 August 2009 to 21 February 2010.”
Text from the National Gallery of Victoria press release
Exhibition dates: 12th September – 8th November, 2009
Many thankx to the Morris Museum of Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) Green Warehouse, Newbern, Alabama 1997 Dye coupler print
Widely recognised as a pioneer in the field of colour photography, William Christenberry has used this expressive medium to explore the American South for forty years. While pursuing this artistic quest he has drawn inspiration from Walker Evans, and influenced a generation of emerging photographers. William Christenberry: Photographs, 1961-2005 surveys his poetic documentation of southern vernacular architecture, signage, and landscape using a wide range of cameras, from his earliest Brownie photographs of the early 1960s to his later work with a large-format camera. Combining never-before-seen photographs, both old and new, with images that are now iconic, this exhibition comprises fifty vintage photographic works and one sculpture. Together, they convey the breadth of his singular photographic vision. Discuss the artistic objectives of his long-term interpretation of the Southern landscape with Michelle Norris of National Public Radio, Christenberry explained: “What I really feel very strongly about, and I hope reflects in all aspects of my work, is the human touch, the humanness of things, the positive and sometimes the negative and sometimes the sad.”
Text from the Morris Museum of Art website [Online] Cited 15/10/2009. No longer available online
William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) House and Car, near Akron, Alabama 1981
William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) Kudzu with Storm Cloud, near Akron, Alabama 1981
“William Christenberry Photographs, 1961-2005, a phenomenal retrospective exhibition of Christenberry’s photographs, opens to the public at the Morris Museum of Art on September 16, 2009. The Morris Museum is the only Georgia venue hosting this exhibition.
“‘William Christenberry Photographs, 1961-2005’ is an overview of the career of one of the South’s most important living artists,” said Kevin Grogan, director of the Morris Museum of Art. “Organised by the Aperture Foundation, this exhibition brings to Augusta a body of work like no other. No one has so scrupulously and attentively captured a sense of place and time in quite the way that Bill Christenberry has. He is a remarkable artist, as is proven by this extraordinary body of work. He is America’s Proust.”
Since the early 1960s, William Christenberry has plumbed the regional identity of the American South, focusing his attention primarily on his childhood home, Hale County, Alabama. Widely recognised as a pioneer in the field of colour photography, Christenberry draws inspiration from the work of Walker Evans, while paralleling the work of such international practitioners as Bernd and Hilla Becher. Ranging from his earliest Brownie photographs to his later work with a large-format camera, William Christenberry Photographs, 1961-2005 is a survey of the artist’s poetic documentation of the Southern landscape and vernacular architecture that surrounded him as he grew up. The exhibition, coupling never-before-seen photographs with images that are now iconic, reveals how the history, the very story of place, is at the heart of Christenberry’s ongoing project. While the focus of his work is the American South, it touches on universal themes related to family, culture, nature, spirituality, memory, and ageing. Christenberry photographs real things in the real world – ramshackle buildings, weathered commercial signs, lonely back roads, rusted-out cars, whitewashed churches, decorated graves. Dutifully returning to photograph the same locations annually – the green barn, the palmist building, the Bar-B-Q Inn, among others – he has fulfilled a personal ritual and documented the physical changes wrought by every single year. Straddling past and present, Christenberry’s art suggests the gravity and power of the passage of time.
The exhibition is accompanied by a stunning monograph entitled William Christenberry, published by Aperture in cooperation with the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The book, a comprehensive survey, presents all aspects of the artist’s oeuvre as he intended it to be viewed and considered. More than half the work reproduced has not been previously published.”
Text from the press release on the Morris Museum of Art website [Online] Cited 15/10/2009. No longer available online
William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) Sprott Church in Alabama 1971
William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) T.B. Hick’s Store, Newbern, Alabama 1976
William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) Farmhouse, Hale County, Alabama 1977
William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) House and Car, near Akron, Alabama 1978
William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) Palmist Building, Havanna, Alabama 1980
The Palmist Building is one of the most iconic structures in Christenberry’s extensive body of work. When he was a child, the clapboard building was a general store operated by his great uncle, but it was later home to a palm reader. The inverted hand-painted sign that covers a broken window initially enticed him to photograph the building in 1961. His earliest photographs pinpoint the sign itself and the peeling whitewash around it. As he became more engrossed in the project, Christenberry carefully examined the relationship of the building to its surroundings, particularly the chinaberry tree that eventually engulfed it.
Text from the High Museum of Art website
William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) Rabbit Pen, near Moundville, Alabama 1998
William Christenberry (American, 1936-2016) Old House, near Akron, Alabama 1964
Morris Museum of Art 1 Tenth Street Augusta, Georgia 30901 Phone: 706-724-7501
Opening Hours: Tuesday – Saturday: 10.00am – 5.00pm Sunday: 12 – 5.00pm Closed Mondays and major holidays
Media crowd at the Ricky Swallow exhibition The Bricoleur at NGV Australia with Alex Baker, Senior Curator, Contemporary Art, NGV fourth from left with clasped hands. Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Hot off the press straight to you here at Art Blart!
Photographs of the exhibition Ricky Swallow: The Bricoleur at the National Gallery of Victoria Australia, Federation Square. The photographs are in the chronological order that I took them, walking through the three spaces of the exhibition. A spare, visually minimalist aesthetic to the show, where every vanitas, every mark (in)forms the work as transcendent momenti mori. Review to follow.
“I’ve always been interested in how an object can be remembered and how that memory can be sustained and directed sculpturally, pulling things in and out of time, passing objects through the studio as a kind of filter returning them as new forms.”
Ricky Swallow
Ricky Swallow (Australian, b. 1974) The Bricoleur 2006 Jelutong 48 x 9.75 x 9.75 inches Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ricky Swallow (Australian, b. 1974) Unbroken Ways (for Derek Bailey) 2006 English Limewood 5 x 30 x 7 inches Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ricky Swallow (Australian, b. 1974) One Nation Underground 2007 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ricky Swallow (Australian, b. 1974) One Nation Underground (detail) 2007 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ricky Swallow (Australian, b. 1974) Tusk 2007 Bronze with white patina, brass fixtures 19.75 x 41.25 x 2.25 inches Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ricky Swallow (Australian, b. 1974) Tusk (detail) 2007 Bronze with white patina, brass fixtures 19.75 x 41.25 x 2.25 inches Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ricky Swallow (Australian, b. 1974) Rehearsal for Retirement (detail) 2008 English Lime Wood, Poplar Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ricky Swallow (Australian, b. 1974) Rehearsal for Retirement (detail) 2008 English Lime Wood, Poplar Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ricky Swallow (Australian, b. 1974) Bowman’s record (detail) 2008 Bronze Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ricky Swallow (Australian, b. 1974) Bowman’s record (detail) 2008 Bronze Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ricky Swallow’s sculptures address fundamental issues that lie at the core of who we are. Things have lives. We are our things. We are things. When all is said and done it is our things – our material possessions – that outlive us. Anyone who has lost a family member or close friend knows this: what we have before us once that person is gone are the possessions that formed a life. Just as we are defined and represented by the things that we collect over time, we are ultimately objects ourselves. When we are dead and decomposed what remains are our bones, another type of object. And then there is social science. Archaeology, a subfield of anthropology, is entirely based on piecing together narratives of human relations based on material culture, that is, objects both whole and fragmentary. It may seem obvious but it is worth stressing here that our understanding of cultures from the distant past, those that originated before the advent of writing, is entirely based on the study of objects and skeletal remains. Swallow’s art addresses these basic yet enduring notions and reminds us of our deep symbiotic relationship to the stuff of daily life.
Like the bricoleur put into popular usage by anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss in his seminal book The Savage Mind, Ricky Swallow creates works of art often based on objects from his immediate surroundings. His method, however, is more of a second order bricolage: his sculptures are not assemblages of found objects, but rather elegantly crafted things. Hand carved from wood or plaster or cast in bronze, these humble objects are transformed into memorials to both the quotidian and the passage of time.
Still life
The still life has been an important touchstone throughout Swallow’s recent practice as it is an inspired vehicle for the exploration of how meaning is generated by objects. Several sculptures in the exhibition reference the still-life tradition in which Swallow updates and personalises this time-honoured genre, in particular the vanitas paintings of 17th century Holland. Vanitas still lifes, through an assortment of objects that had recognisable symbolism to a 17th-century viewer, functioned as allegories on the futility of pleasure and the inevitably of death. Swallow’s embrace of still life convention, however, is non-didactic, secular and open-ended. Swallow is not obsessed by death. On the contrary, his focus on objects is about salvaging them from the dust bin of history and honouring their continued resonance in his life.
Killing time, 2003-2004, and Salad days, 2005, depict animals that Swallow and his family either found or caught when he was young and best highlight how the artist reclaims the still life genre to explore personal narrative. Killing time, which depicts a bounty of fish and crustaceans spread across a table modelled after the Swallow family kitchen table of the artist’s youth, is rife with autobiographical association. It not only references an object from Swallow’s past, but also the profession of his father, a fisherman, and the fact that Swallow was raised by the sea. Salad days is another autobiographical work depicting a range of animals such as birds, a rabbit, mice and a fox skull. Like many boys growing up in rural environments, Swallow recalls shooting magpies, encountering nesting birds in his garage or discovering dead lizards or trapping live ones in an attempt to keep them as pets.
While not an overt still life, History of holding, 2007, suggests the genre in its fragmentary depiction of a musical instrument and the appearance of a lemon with falling rind. The hand holding / presenting a peeled lemon as the rind winds around the wrist in bracelet-like fashion is based on a cast of Swallow’s own hand, insinuating himself into this antiquated tradition. It is as if Swallow is announcing to us his deep interest in the temporality of objects through the presentation of the peeled lemon, which symbolises the passing of time and also appears in Killing time. The second component of History of holding is a sculptural interpretation of the Woodstock music festival icon designed by Arthur Skolnick in 1969, which still circulates today. History of holding, then, also references music, a leitmotif in Swallow’s art that appears both within the work itself, and also through Swallow’s use of titles.
Body fragments
Tusk, 2007 among several other works in the exhibition, explores the theme of body as fragment. Much has been discussed about Swallow’s use of the skeleton as a form rich in meaning within both the traditions of art history as well as popular culture (references range from the Medieval dance macabre and the memento mori of the still life tradition to the skeleton in rock music and skateboard art iconography). Tusk represents two skeletal arms with the hands clasped together in eternal union. A poignant work, Tusk is a meditation on permanence: the permanence of the human body even after death; the permanence of the union between two people, related in the fusion of the hands into that timeless symbol of love, the heart.
Swallow calls his watercolours “atmospheric presentations”, in contradistinction to his obviously more physical sculptures, and he sees them as respites from the intensity of labour and time invested in the sculptural work. They also permit experimentation in ways that sculpture simply does not allow. One nation underground, 2007, is a collection of images based on rock / folk musicians, several who had associations to 1960s Southern California, Swallow’s current home. Most of the subjects Swallow has illustrated in this work are now deceased; several experienced wide recognition only after their deaths. Like many of his sculptures, this group of watercolours tenderly painted with an air of nostalgia has the sensibility of a memorial – or as Swallow has called it “a modest monument”. The title of the work is based on a record album by another under-heralded rock band from the 1960s, Pearls Before Swine, and is a prime example of Swallow’s belief in the importance of titles to the viewing experience as clues or layers of meaning. In this case, the title hints at the quasi-cult status of the musicians and singers depicted. The featured musicians are Chris Bell (Big Star), Karen Dalton (a folk singer), Tim Buckley (legendary singer whose style spanned several genres and father to the late Jeff Buckley), Denny Doherty (The Mamas & the Papas ), Judee Sill (folk singer), Brian Jones (Rolling Stones), Arthur Lee (Love), John Phillips (The Mamas & the Papas ), Skip Spence (Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape) and Phil Ochs (folk singer).
Installation views of Ricky Swallow: The Bricoleur second space at NGV Australia Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Ricky Swallow (Australian, b. 1974) Caravan (detail) 2008 Bronze Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ricky Swallow (Australian, b. 1974) Salad days c. 2005 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ricky Swallow (Australian, b. 1974) Killing time 2003-2004 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ricky Swallow (Australian, b. 1974) Killing time (detail) 2003-2004 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ricky Swallow (Australian, b. 1974) Killing time 2003-2004 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Ricky Swallow (Australian, b. 1974) Killing time (detail) 2003-2004 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
A new exhibition featuring the work of internationally renowned Australian artist Ricky Swallow will open at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia on 16 October 2009.
Ricky Swallow: The Bricoleur is the artist’s first major exhibition in Australia since 2006. This exhibition will feature several of the artist’s well‐known intricately detailed, carved wooden sculptures as well as a range of new sculptural works in wood, bronze and plaster. The exhibition will also showcase two large groups of watercolours, an aspect of Swallow’s practice that is not as well known as his trademark works.
Salad days (2005) and Killing time (2003-2004), which were featured in the 2005 Venice Biennale and are considered Swallow icons, will strike a familiar chord with Melbourne audiences.
Sculptures completed over the past year include bronze balloons on which bronze barnacles seamlessly cling (Caravan, 2008); a series of cast bronze archery targets (Bowman’s Record, 2008) that look like desecrated minimalist paintings; and carved wooden sculpture of a human skull inside what looks like a paper bag (Fig 1, 2008).
A highlight of the show will be Swallow’s watercolour, One Nation Underground (2007), recently acquired by the NGV. The work presents a collection of images based on 1960s musicians including Tim Buckley, Denny Doherty, Brian Jones and John Phillips.
Alex Baker, Senior Curator, Contemporary Art, NGV said the works in this exhibition explore the themes of life and death, time and its passing, mortality and immortality.
“Swallow’s art investigates how memory is distilled within the objects of daily life. His work addresses the fundamental issues that lie at the core of who we are, reminding us of our deep symbiotic relationship to the stuff of everyday life.”
“The exhibition’s title The Bricoleur refers to the kind of activities performed by a handyman or tinkerer, someone who makes creative use of whatever might be at hand. The Bricoleur is also the title of one of the sculptures in the exhibition, which depicts a forlorn houseplant with a sneaker wedged between its branches,” said Mr Baker.
Gerard Vaughan, Director, NGV, said this exhibition reinforces the NGV’s commitment to exhibiting and collecting world‐class contemporary art.
“The NGV has enjoyed a long and successful relationship with Ricky Swallow, exhibiting and acquiring a number of his works over the years. His detailed and exquisitely crafted replicas of commonplace objects never fail to inspire visitors to the Gallery.”
Ricky Swallow was born in Victoria in 1974 and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. His career has enjoyed a meteoric rise since winning the NGV’s prestigious Contempora5 art prize in 1999. Since then, Swallow has exhibited in the UK, Europe and the United States, and represented Australia at the 2005 Venice Biennale.”
Press release from the NGV website [Online] Cited 10/10/2009. No longer available online
Ricky Swallow facing the media behind his work Killing time (2003-2004) Photos: Marcus Bunyan
The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia Federation Square Corner of Russell and Flinders Streets, Melbourne
Exhibition dates: 30th September – 24th October, 2009
eX de Medici (Australia, b. 1959) Tooth and claw 2009 Pen, ink and mica on archival paper 114.0 x 521.0cm
Is it sinful to say that an Armalite rifle can be voluptuously seductive? Not in the hands of artist eX de Medici!
Taking a variety of contemporary military high-powered weapons (Armalite AR30 Tactical .308 Sniper, Modified AK 47, Blackwater AR15, Patriot Ordinance P45 .223 for example) eX de Medici’s armaments have a steely presence softened and consumed by multitudinous garlands of traditional tattoo ‘flash’ iconography (flowers, skulls, bows, stars, Chinese dragons, waves and swallows repeated in Escher-like patterns) and contorted skeletons. Using individual colour palettes for each of the three large pen, ink and mica on paper works in the exhibition, eX subverts the masculine symbology of gun culture and decomposes it within an ornamentation of deathly desire – new compositions in the dance of death: ‘U hurt me Baby, U Fkd me up gd, the hole tht u made (cross) me Ded …’
In other less skilled artist’s hands the subject matter could become cliched and trite but here de Medici balances the disparate elements in her compositions and brings the subject matter alive – sinuously jumping off the paper, entwining the viewer in their delicious ironies, all of us sweetly complicit in the terror war (send more meat, send more meat!), fighting tooth and nail to keep urban realities at arm’s length. The dark desires that these works contain possess an aesthetic beauty that swallows us up so that we, too, become ‘Barbarians All’. Highly recommended!
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to Karen Woodbury Gallery for allowing me to publish the art work in the posting. Please click on some of the photographs for a larger version of the image.
eX de Medici (Australia, b. 1959) Tooth and claw (detail) 2009 Pen, ink and mica on archival paper 114.0 x 521.0cm
eX de Medici (Australia, b. 1959) Tooth and claw (details) 2009 Pen, ink and mica on archival paper 114.0 x 521.0cm
Installation view of Sweet Complicity by eX de Medici at Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne showing at left, Send more meat (2009) and at right, Tooth and claw (2009) Photo: Marcus Bunyan
eX de Medici (Australia, b. 1959) Send more meat 2009 Pen, ink and mica on archival paper
eX de Medici (Australia, b. 1959) Send more meat (detail) 2009 Pen, ink and mica on archival paper
Sweet complicity is eX de Medici’s first and much anticipated exhibition at Karen Woodbury Gallery. The exhibition will comprise of three monumental pen, ink and mica works on archival paper. These works examine recurring themes in her practice such as power, war, death and violence via a decorative feminine veneer and aesthetic.
The recurrent use of symbolism in the form of weapons, skulls and garlands in her work re-appear with the addition of Chinese imagery (Imperial golden dragons, China’s five-pointed star, and the use of chrysanthemums). These potent works display a latent interest in scientific illustration and allude to de Medici’s characteristic stylised tattoo motifs that stems from her work as a tattooist. The almost obsessive repetition of pattern and immense detailing display eX’s dedication to her practice through the strong mental and physical commitment required to complete such awe-inspiring artworks that seduce the viewer.
There is an unmistaken polemic tone in de Medici’s practice that cannot be ignored. Different cultures, identities, actions and consequences are represented and centred on objects of warfare, allowing for disguised and layered political and moral statements.
de Medici lives and produces much of her work in the nation’s capital Canberra. Streams of influences inform the work; Canberra’s political and physical agendas, research resourced from various national institutions such as the CSIRO Entomological and Taxonomy Division, the National Library of Australia and the Australian War Memorial. She has recently returned from the Solomon Islands where she was chosen as an official war artist.
Text from the Karen Woodbury Gallery website [Online] Cited 05/10/2009. No longer available online
The defining theme in eX de Medici’s paintings is a consistent interrogation of power. The notion of ‘the personal’ doesn’t interest the artist. Instead she investigates authority and dissent through paintings of guns, surveillance devices and gas masks.
eX de Medici (Australia, b. 1959) American Sex/Funky Beat Machine 2009 Pen, ink and mica on archival paper Diptych, 114.0 x 249.0cm
eX de Medici (Australia, b. 1959) American Sex/Funky Beat Machine (detail) 2009 Pen, ink and mica on archival paper Diptych, 114.0 x 249.0cm
Exhibition dates: 22nd September – 17th October, 2009
Kirra Jamison (Australian) Livin’ on a prayer 2009 Gouache, pen and vinyl on paper 160 x 114cm
Hit, Hit, Hit with a Miss
Although all the work in this exhibition is dated 2009 this exhibition can fairly easily be divided into what seems to be two separate bodies of work: the excellent gouache, pen and vinyl works of paper and the ‘other’ less successful large paintings of owls and raccoons and the smaller paintings of hanging flowers and tree branches on dark purple ground.
The latter large and small paintings fail to hit the spot with the exception of Belong to me (2009, below) which has visual and conceptual links to the works on paper, the twin bodies dissolving into a kaleidoscopic dream-like effervescence of life. The paintings of the owl (Last star, 2009 below), raccoons (Can you see my aura 2009, below) together with another fairytale painting With a roof of flint and a floor of chalk (2009) fail to communicate a shared vision being disparate items that conceptually don’t seem to hang well together. They lack a certain spark, that revelatory presence and appear flat both physically and metaphorically.
On the flip side of the equation are works that are physically complex, conceptually robust and simply beautiful in their execution: no wonder so many of them have sold already! Using basic graphic patterns repeated and inverted (Jamison has an interest in graphics fostered through textile design), Jamison constructs fantasy worlds, fairytales on paper. In Livin’ on a prayer (2009, above) we have a splendid Carnival of the Animals as monkeys and creatures inhabit a boat sprouting flowers riding upon a sea made of flowers. In Willow weep 2 (2009, above) the tree of life is inhabited by creatures and a human figure (see halfway up on the right-hand side). In Future’s lovecraft (2009, below) incredible creatures again inhabit the imagined biospheric carnivalesque worlds. As Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin notes,
“The carnival offers the chance to have a new outlook on the world, to realise the relative nature of all that exists, and to enter a completely new order of things.”1
Here the new order of things is a thing of beauty to behold; the works draw you in with their colour and detail, their presence. I can’t wait to see what possibilities unfold next for the artist from this starting point for this is the very beginning of the path, a scratching of the surface of what is possible with this technique and themes. It is almost like an emotional texture, the breathe of cool air on your lungs in the early morning mist. I await developments with interest!
Dr Marcus Bunyan
1/ Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and his World (trans. Hélène Iswolsky). Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984, p. 34.
Many thankx to Sophie Gannon Gallery for allowing me to publish the art work in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Kirra Jamison (Australian) Willow weep 2 2009 Gouache and vinyl on paper 160 x 114cm
Kirra Jamison (Australian) Future’s lovecraft 2009 Gouache and vinyl on paper 160 x 114cm
Installation view of Slow down, you move too fast by Kirra Jamison at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Kirra Jamison (Australian) Belong to me (after Delaunay) 2009 Acrylic, gouache and pen on canvas 220 x 183cm
Kirra Jamison (Australian) Last Star 2009 Acrylic, gouache, pen and ink on canvas 185 x 153cm
Kirra Jamison (Australian) Can you see my aura? 2009
Sophie Gannon Gallery 2, Albert Street, Richmond, Melbourne Phone: +61 3 9421 0857
Exhibition dates: 2nd September – 26th September, 2009
Jane Burton (Australian, b. 1966) Ivy #1 2009 Pigment print 89 x 75cm
This is another outstanding body of photographic work on display in Melbourne. Featuring 10 large and 2 small sepia toned, vignetted pigment prints Burton’s work creates dark enchanted worlds of faceless female figures placed in the built environment that balance (meta)physical light and shade creating ambiguous narratives of innocence tinged with a darker edge.
The eponymous photograph Ivy #1 (above) is the seminal image of the series: a dark brooding house, hunched down positioned low in the photographic space, covered in ivy with black windows and dark eves has an ominous almost impenetrable presence and sets the tone for the rest of the work.
There are wonderful references to the history of photography if one cares to look (not simply generic references to Victorian daguerreotypes, postcards and family photographs). Ivy #2 (below) is a powerful photograph where the female figure is blindfolded, unable to see the encroaching tumescence of vegetation that surrounds and is about to engulf her. The placement of the hands is exquisite – unsure, reaching out, doubting her surroundings – with the 3-bladed fan hovering behind ready to devour the unwary. This photograph has resonances of the magical photographs of the garden by the Czech photographer Josef Sudek.
Ivy #3 (below) has echoes of the work of the American photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard and his placement of masked people within built environments. In Burton’s photograph the broken umbrella becomes like insect wings, the faceless whiteness of the three-legged and three-armed creature cocooned among the overhanging predatory ivy, the luminescent sky offering the possibility of redemption. Other photographs such as Ivy #6 (below) and Ivy #7 with their wonderful colours, depth of field, heavy shadows and elegiac romantic feel have references to Eugene Atget and his photographs of the parks of Versailles (see photograph below).
Still further references to the history of photography can be found in the photographs Ivy #9 and Ivy #10 (below). In Ivy #9 the intersection of the two female bodies through double exposure forms a slippage in (photographic) reality and the disappearance of original identity in the layering of the photographs and into the empty non-reflection of the mirror. This non-reflection is confirmed in Ivy #10 where the faceless nude woman holds a mirror with no reflection. These photographs remind me of the photographs of New Orleans prostitutes in the early years of the 20th century by the photographer Bellocq with their masked faces and the ornamentation of the wallpaper behind the figures (see below).
I feel that in these photographs with their facelessness and the non-reflection of the mirror investigate notions of ‘Theoria’ – a Greek emphasis on the vision or contemplation of God where theoria is the lifting up of the individual out of time and space and created being and through contemplative prayer into the presence of God.1 In fact the whole series of photographs can be understood through this conceptualisation – not just remembrances of past time, not a blind contemplation on existence but a lifting up out of time and space into the an’other’ dark but enlightening presence.
The greatest wonder of this series is that the photographs magically reveal themselves again and again over time. Despite (or because of) the references to other artists, the beauty of Burton’s work is that she has made it her own. The photographs have her signature, her voice as an artist and it is an informed voice; this just makes the resonances, the vibrations of energy within the work all the more potent and absorbing. I loved them.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to Karen Woodbury Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Installation views of Ivy by Jane Burton at Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Jane Burton (Australian, b. 1966) Ivy #2 2009 Pigment print 75 x 75cm
Jane Burton (Australian, b. 1966) Ivy #3 2009 Pigment print 75 x 75cm
Jane Burton (Australian, b. 1966) Ivy #5 2009 Pigment print 75 x 75cm
Jane Burton (Australian, b. 1966) Ivy #7 2009 Pigment print 75 x 75cm
Jane Burton’s exhibition, Ivy comprises a series of photographs captured in black and white. The final prints are rendered with a sepia, peach-champagne tone, with many displaying a mottled hand-coloured effect in faded pastels of pink and green. These works hope to suggest an era past, perhaps Victorian. The imagery is evocative of old picture postcards from Europe and old photographs from the pages of family albums.
Central to the series is an image of a house covered with ivy. Depicted as dark and malevolent, the house is ‘haunted’ by the traces and stains of family history, habitation, and the buried secrets of all that occurred within.
Anonymous female figures are seen in garden settings where the foliage is rampant and encroaching and the shadows deep. There is an air of enchantment perceived with unspecified darker edge. The figures are innocent and playful. The viewer is asked to question if the and girls aware of the camera capturing their activity? Are the poses staged or caught spontaneously. In another photograph, a dilapidated male statue stands broken and armless, the texture of stone worn, and bruised with dark lichen and moss.
In the interior photographs, several nudes are depicted in the style of 19th century French daguerreotype photographs. These vignetted images display women against wall-papered backdrops with theatrical props reminiscent of earlier works by Burton such as the series ‘The other side’ (2003). Posed suggestively for the camera and the viewer’s gaze, the subjects themselves are faceless, their own gaze and features hidden behind dark hair. The surface and texture of these particular works suggests the patina of decay and the damage and wear of time.
Text from the Karen Woodbury Gallery website [Online] Cited 20/09/2009. No longer available online
E. J. Bellocq (American, 1873-1949) Untitled [prostitute of Storyville, New Orleans] 1912
Jane Burton (Australian, b. 1966) Ivy #10 2009 Pigment print
Eugene Atget (French, 1857-1927) Versailles, France 1923 Albumen print
Jane Burton (Australian, b. 1966) Ivy #6 2009 Pigment print 75 x 75cm
![E. J. Bellocq (American, 1873-1949) 'Untitled [prostitute of Storyville, New Orleans]' 1912](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/bellocq_1912_g.jpg "E. J. Bellocq (American, 1873-1949) 'Untitled [prostitute of Storyville, New Orleans]' 1912")
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