AIDS 2014: 20th International AIDS ConferenceArt Blart

Exhibition preview: ‘Vital Signs – Interpreting the Archive’ at Blindside, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: Wednesday 9th – Saturday 26th July 2014

Opening: Thursday 10th July 6 – 8pm

Artists: Marcus Bunyan, Penny Byrne, Ray Cook, Deborah Kelly, Peter Lambropoulos, Salote Tawale
Curated by: Angela Bailey and Nick Henderson

Nite Art Melbourne: Wednesday 23rd July 6 – 11pm

Short and sharp – on the hour, every hour – featuring artists and curator talks, music and performance. As part of the Nite Art CBD program Blindside is one of many galleries staying open late.

Queering the Archive panel discussion: Saturday 12th July 2.30 – 4pm

A panel discussion on GLBTQI representation in collections and its interpretations with: Susan Long (Artist and SLV Librarian); Nick Henderson (Archivist, AQuA Committee Member); Peter Lambropoulos (Vital Signs Artist). All welcome.

Penny Byrne (Australian)
Badge of Honour (installation view detail)
2014

Vital Signs presents a unique opportunity for contemporary artists to engage with and creatively interpret the collection of the Australian Queer Archives (AQuA). Each of the artists have a rich art practise that considers social justice, activism and GLBTQI cultures and will engage with different aspects of the collection to inform their work.

The Archives (until 2020 the Australian Gay and Lesbian Archives) were established in 1978 and for the last 35 years has actively collected and preserved GLBTQI material from across Australia and actively sought to educate a wider audience about Australian GLBTQI history. The Archives is a community-orientated organisation committed to preserving and sharing the rich and diverse histories of the GLBTQI communities for future generations. The exhibition is presented as part of the Cultural Program of the 2014 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne and considers the shared histories of the GLBTQI and HIV communities in a contemporary representation.

Vital Signs is supported by the National Association of People Living with HIV Australia (NAPWHA), Australian Queer Archives and the Victorian AIDS Council.

Press release from the Blindside website. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Peter Lambropoulos (Australian)
Side A (video still)
2014
Duration 31 minutes
Digital video on iPad (continuous loop)

Peter Lambropoulos (Australian)
Side A, Side B and Master (still)
2014
Digital video on iPad (continuous loop)

Salote Tawale (Australian born Fiji)
Pocari Sweat (video still)
2014
Video

Ray Cook (Australian, b. 1962)
Arm
2009
Photograph
80 x 80cm
Image courtesy the artist

Ray Cook (Australian, b. 1962)
Untitled from the series Conversations with Ancestors
2014
(Lottie, Melbourne 1960’s from the ALGA collection)
Digital photograph

Deborah Kelly (Australian, b. 1962)
Acting up (in memory of the Floral Clock action, 1991)
2014
Paper collage on Stonehenge cotton paper with pigment ink
56 x 76.5cm

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Untitled from the series Deep Water
2014
Digital photograph on archival rag paper
70 x 97cm

Blindside
Level 7, Room 14, Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street, Melbourne
VIC 3000 Australia
Phone: (+61 3) 9650 0093

Opening hours:
Wednesday to Saturday, 12 – 6pm (during exhibition program)
Closed on public holidays

Blindside website

LIKE ART BLART ON FACEBOOK

Back to top

Exhibition preview: ‘Out of the closets, into the streets: gay liberation photography 1971-73’ at Edmund Pearce Gallery, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: Tuesday 22nd July – Saturday 26th July, 2014

Opening: Tuesday 22nd July 6-8pm
Nite Art: Wednesday 23rd July until 11pm
Artists represented: Philip Potter, John Storey, John Englart, Barbara Creed, Ponch Hawkes, Rennie Ellis

Curated by Dr Marcus Bunyan and Nicholas Henderson

Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
Confrontation, Gay Pride Week Picnic, Botanical Gardens 1973
1973, printed 2014
Silver gelatin photograph
© Rennie Ellis

Five days, that’s all you’ve got! Just five days to see this fabulous exhibition, so make a note of it now in your diaries…

The exhibition Out of the closets, into the streets: gay liberation photography 1971-73 pictures the very beginning of the gay liberation movement in Australia through the work of Philip Potter, John Storey, John Englart, Barbara Creed, Ponch Hawkes and Rennie Ellis. The exhibition examines for the first time images from the period as works of art as much as social documents. The title of the exhibition is a slogan from the period.

As gay people found their voice in the early 1970s artists, often at the very beginning of their careers, were there to capture meetings in lounge rooms, consciousness raising groups and street protests. The liberation movement meant ‘being there’, putting your body on the line. “It was a key feature of the new left that this embodied politics couldn’t stop in the streets: that is, the public arena as conventionally understood. ‘Being there’ politically also applied to households, classrooms, sexual relations, workplaces and the natural environment.”1

Curated by Dr Marcus Bunyan and Nicholas Henderson and with a catalogue essay by Professor Dennis Altman, the show is a stimulating experience for those who want to be inspired by the history and art of the early gay liberation movement in Australia.

The exhibition coincides with AIDS 2014: 20th International AIDS Conference (20-25 July 2014) and Nite Art which occurs on the Wednesday night (23rd July 2014). The exhibition will travel to Sydney to coincide with the 14th Australia’s Homosexual Histories Conference in November at a venue yet to be confirmed.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Connell, Raewyn. “Ours is in colour: the new left of the 1960s,” in Carolyn D’Cruz and Mark Pendleton (eds.,). After Homosexual: The Legacies of Gay Liberation. Perth: UWA Publishing, 2013, p. 43.

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

From a series of photographs of the very first gay rights demonstration which attracts 70 people outside NSW Liberal Party headquarters in support of the pre-selection of Tom Hughes against a right wing challenge following his support for homosexual law reform.

Unknown artist
Cricket is homosexual!
Melbourne, c. 1971-1973, printed 2014
Giclee print on Hahnemuhle william turner 310gsm
© Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives

Barbara Creed (Australian, b. 1943)
Stills from a Super 8mm film of a Women’s Liberation march
Melbourne, 1973, printed 2014
Still from a Super 8mm film
Digital C type print on Kodak Endura Matte
© Barbara Creed

Still from a super 8mm movie of a Women’s Liberation march, Melbourne, 1973.

John Storey (Australian, 1950-2019)
I am a Lesbian and Beautiful
1971, printed 2014
Digital C type print on Kodak Endura Matte
© John Storey

Phillip Potter (Australian)
Policeman reading ‘Camp Ink’ magazine
1971, printed 2014
Digital C type print on Kodak Endura Matte
© Phillip Potter