Exhibition dates: 3rd April – 8th June 2014
Exhibition and book launch: 3-5 pm Saturday 5th April 2014
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
Fully equipped, Albert Park Beach
c.1981, printed later
Digital colour print
© Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
I saw a digital preview of the new book Rennie Ellis – Decadent 1980-2000, shown to me by the delightful Director of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive, Manuela Furci – and I must say I was mighty impressed… it was absolutely, colourfully, outrageously FAB !
My god Rennie Ellis was a fantastic artist, what an eye, and what a sense of humour he imparts in his work. And in colour this time. The exhibition draws work from BOTH books – Decade 1970-1980 and Decadent 1980-2000. The colour images in the posting are from the Decadent book and are also in the exhibition. Do come along to the opening and book launch… it will be a solid gold event!
Marcus
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Many thankx to Manuel Furci and the Rennie Ellis Archive for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“Without my photography life would be boring. Photography adds an extra dimension to my life. Somehow it confirms my place in the world”
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Rennie Ellis
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
Berlin Party, Inflation, Melbourne
c. 1981, printed later
Digital colour print
© Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
Rennie Ellis Decade 1970-1980 and Decadent 1980-2000
The photographer Rennie Ellis (1940-2003) is a key figure in Australian visual culture. Ellis is best remembered for his effervescent observations of Australian life during the 1970s-90s, including his now iconic book Life is a beach. Although invariably inflected with his own personality and wit, the thousands of social documentary photographs taken by Ellis during this period now form an important historical record.
The Rennie Ellis Show highlights some of the defining images of Australian life from the 1970s and ’80s. This is the period of Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Paul Keating and Bob Hawke; AC/DC and punk rock; cheap petrol and coconut oil; Hare Krishnas and Hookers and Deviant balls.
This exhibition of over 100 photographs provides a personal account of what Ellis termed ‘a great period of change’. Photographs explore the cultures and subcultures of the period, and provide a strong sense of a place that now seems worlds away, a world free of risk, of affordable inner city housing, of social protest, of disco and pub rock, of youth and exuberance.
Text from the MGA website
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
Dining Out, Inflation
1980, printed later
Selenium-toned silver gelatin print
© Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
At the Pub, Brisbane
1982, printed later
Selenium-toned silver gelatin print
© Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
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Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive
Level 1 / 26 Acland Street
St Kilda 3182
Victoria, Australia
Phone: +61 3 9525 3862
E: info@RennieEllis.com.au
Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive website
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Monash Gallery of Art
860 Ferntree Gully Road, Wheelers Hill
Victoria 3150 Australia
Phone: + 61 3 8544 0500
Opening hours:
Tue – Fri: 10am – 5pm
Sat – Sun: 10pm – 4pm
Mon/public holidays: closed
Art Blart _ art and cultural memory archive 
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