Review: ‘Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild’ at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 9th March – 12th May 2019

part of the CLIMARTE Festival: ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2019

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian, born Germany 1945-96) 'Morning mist, Rock Island Bend, Franklin River, Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, Tasmania' 1980

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996)
Morning mist, Rock Island Bend, Franklin River, Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, Tasmania
1980
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia and the Estate of Peter Dombrovskis

 

 

A little too perfect

A few ideas that struck me at this exhibition.

1/ The large format 4 x 5″ colour transparencies must be near absolute perfect exposures…. everything is there in the exposure. It’s as though the transparency is the finished print. Everything that Dombrovskis wanted to capture, he did. He was a perfectionist.

His previsualisation of the scene was exceptional. He knew what he wanted to capture, he was so focused on it. The beauty is there, but how do you make it sing? Only in a few images was I swept off my feet.

2/ His use of ‘near far’ is noticeable, taken from Ansel Adams most likely. In photographs like Morning light on Little Horn (1995), Cushion plants, Mount Anne (1984) and Mount Geryon from the Labyrinth (1986) your eye is led from the detailed foreground to the magnificent vista beyond.

3/ In photographs such as Lichen on dead eucalypt, Lake Dixon (1979) and Rock platform, Tarkine Wilderness (1995) the subject seems to dissolve into Abstract Expressionist compositions.

4/ The wall colours of the exhibition utterly failed the work, especially with the line colour change running through the image.

5/ I never really felt the “sublime” nature of the Tasmanian wilderness in these photographs. I wanted to be transported to the place that was pictured but it never happened.

6/ I suspect this has to do with a/ the perfection of the transparency b/ the size at which these contemporary photographs were printed, and c/ the almost scientific, analytical nature of the contemporary printing.

 

I had no sense or feeling for place or “atmosphere” that emanates from a truly great photograph. These large prints were wholly disappointing in that regard. They were nearly all printed at the same size, too big, with the same monotonous clarity of composition and balancing of print, one to the other. Almost a clinical printing with too much colour saturation with no room for chaos or vibration of energy.

When printing, I was taught to rack the enlarger up and down to find when the print becomes like a jewel. This is a felt response to the negative, and an image can have several positions or print sizes when this may occur. To print the bulk of these digital images at the same size goes against this very intuitive response to the work.

There are so many moves that can be justified by an objective argument when making a fine art print – but which still don’t add up when you view the whole. Oh! to see five vintage prints in this exhibition, to see how Dombrovsksi would have printed them himself.

I really wanted to like these photographs but when you try and force something, it ain’t ever going to happen.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


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

 

 

‘When you go out there, you don’t get away from it all. You get back to it all. You come home to what’s important. You come home to yourself.’


Peter Dombrovskis

 

‘… we moved in a glittering, sun-splashed world where living assumed a clarity and intensity unknown in ordinary city-bound existence. Our bodies became attuned to rock and rapid, our senses easily absorbed the roar of white-water, the silent greens of the rainforest. My steadily growing skill at negotiating obstacles bolstered my self-confidence and eased the shyness of adolescence.’


Peter Dombrovskis in Jane Cadzow, ‘A lasting image’, Sydney Morning Herald, Good Weekend magazine, 22 March 1997

 

‘An ethic of the land is needed because the remaining wilderness, that which makes this island truly unique, is threatened by commercial exploitation that will destroy its value to future generations. Machines are already shattering the silence of ages, invading the last forests and damming and drowning the wild rivers and gorges.’


Peter Dombrovskis, ‘The quiet land’ (Peter Dombrovskis Pty Ltd., Hobart 1977)

 

‘We must try to retain as much as possible of what still remains of the unique, rare and beautiful. Is there any reason why … the ideal of beauty could not become an accepted goal of national policy? Is there any reason why Tasmania should not be more beautiful on the day we leave it than on the day we came? … if we can accept the role of steward and depart from the role of conqueror; if we can accept the view that man and nature are inseparable parts of the unified whole, then Tasmania can be a shining beacon in a dull, uniform and largely artificial world.’


Olegas Truchanas in Max Angus, ‘The world of Olegas Truchanas’ (Olegas Truchanas Publication Committee, Hobart 1975)

 

The photograph [at the top of the posting], Morning mist, Rock Island Bend, Franklin River, Tasmania (1979), is one of the most celebrated landscape photographs in Australian history. Commissioned by Bob Brown (later to become leader of the Greens Party), this image became synonymous with the successful campaign of the 1980s to prevent the damming of the Franklin River for hydro-electric development. It appeared on posters with the memorable yellow, triangular slogan ‘NO DAMS’ and showed Australians what would be lost under the waters of a dam should the hydroelectric scheme go ahead. Using his camera as a tool, Dombrovskis shared with society the riches that they would forgo if the environment was not protected.

The photograph below, Mount Geryon from the Labyrinth Cradle, Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania (1986) is an image that Bob Brown had in his office at a similarly large scale to provide an immediate and memorable talking point with visitors.

Many Australians encountered these images for the first time in prosaic settings: in a newspaper campaign advertisement, a diary used at work, a calendar on the side of the fridge, or a poster in a waiting room. Most of us will never visit the places he photographed, but into our ordinary everyday lives his images bring something of the beauty and the power of the wild places of Tasmania. Seldom in the history of photography has there been such a clear example of visual culture having such a political sway.

Exhibition label

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill

 

Installation views of the opening of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian, born Germany 1945-96) 'Mount Geryon from the Labyrinth, Du Cane Range, Tasmania' 1986

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996)
Mount Geryon from the Labyrinth, Du Cane Range, Tasmania
1986
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia and the Estate of Peter Dombrovskis

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, 'Coastline north of the Pieman River, Tarkine wilderness, Tasmania' (1992); at centre 'Kelp detail, Macquarie Island, Tasmania' (1984); and at right 'Drying kelp at Sandy Bay, Macquarie Island, Tasmania' (1984)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, Coastline north of the Pieman River, Tarkine wilderness, Tasmania (1992); at centre Kelp detail, Macquarie Island, Tasmania (1984); and at right Drying kelp at Sandy Bay, Macquarie Island, Tasmania (1984)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, 'Kelp detail, Macquarie Island, Tasmania' (1984); and at right 'Drying kelp at Sandy Bay, Macquarie Island, Tasmania' (1984)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, Kelp detail, Macquarie Island, Tasmania (1984); and at right Drying kelp at Sandy Bay, Macquarie Island, Tasmania (1984)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian, born Germany 1945-96) 'Drying kelp at Sandy Bay, Macquarie Island, Tasmania' 1984

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996)
Drying kelp at Sandy Bay, Macquarie Island, Tasmania
1984
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia and the Estate of Peter Dombrovskis

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, ''Macrocystis' and 'Hormosira' seaweed, Tasmania' (1987); and at right 'Giant kelp, Hasselborough Bay, Macquarie Island, Tasmania' (1984)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, ‘Macrocystis’ and ‘Hormosira’ seaweed, Tasmania (1987); and at right Giant kelp, Hasselborough Bay, Macquarie Island, Tasmania (1984)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill

 

Installation views of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, 'Douglas Gorge, Douglas-Apsley National Park, Tasmania' (1989); and at right, 'Waterfall Valley, Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania' (1990)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, Douglas Gorge, Douglas-Apsley National Park, Tasmania (1989); and at right, Waterfall Valley, Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania (1990)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation detail of Peter Dombrovskis' photograph 'Waterfall Valley, Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania' (1990)

 

Installation detail of Peter Dombrovskis’ photograph Waterfall Valley, Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania (1990)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, 'Lichen on dead eucalypt, Lake Dixon, Tasmania' (1979); and at right, 'Rock platform, Tarkine Wilderness, Tasmania' (1995)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, Lichen on dead eucalypt, Lake Dixon, Tasmania (1979); and at right, Rock platform, Tarkine Wilderness, Tasmania (1995)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation detail of Peter Dombrovskis' photograph 'Lichen on dead eucalypt, Lake Dixon, Tasmania' (1979)

 

Installation detail of Peter Dombrovskis’ photograph Lichen on dead eucalypt, Lake Dixon, Tasmania (1979)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation detail of Peter Dombrovskis' photograph 'Rock platform, Tarkine Wilderness, Tasmania' (1995)

 

Installation detail of Peter Dombrovskis’ photograph Rock platform, Tarkine Wilderness, Tasmania (1995)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

Peter Dombrovskis (1945-1996) was one of the world’s foremost wilderness photographers. His powerful, reflective and deeply personal images of the unique Tasmanian wilderness had a lasting impact, changing the way Australians think about their environment by making remote nature accessible through images.

Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild draws together a vast sweep of nearly 80 images, shown for the first time in Victoria. The exhibition was initially developed by the National Library of Australia from their comprehensive collection of Dombrovskis’s work.

Through their use in environmental campaigns, Dombrovskis’s images have become shorthand for environmental concerns in Australia. Particularly memorable was the image Morning Mist, Rock Island Bend that Bob Brown (later to become Leader of the Greens Party) used in the ‘No Dams’ campaign to save the Franklin River.

Seldom in the history of photography has there been as clear an example of visual culture bearing such political sway and prompting such passion in communities.

‘Dombrovskis’s ability to capture the sublime beauty of the Tasmanian wilderness led to his work becoming synonymous with the Tasmanian Wilderness conservation movement. Dombrovskis once commented “photography is, quite simply, a means of communicating my concern for the beauty of the Earth.” His work was his voice and it powerfully evoked his passion for the environment which inspired the nation to work for its protection. MGA is thrilled to have an opportunity to showcase Dombrovskis’s practice to Victorian audiences, and to inspire a new generation to embrace his unique vision and celebrate his legacy.’ ~ Anouska Phizacklea, MGA Director

This exhibition was initially developed by the National Library of Australia, Canberra. In 2007, the Library acquired over 3000 colour transparencies that make up the Dombrovskis archive. The photographs on display here, which are also part of the Library’s Pictures Collection, were printed by Les Walkling on Canson Platine Fibre Rag paper by an Epson SureColor P20070.

Monash Gallery of Art and the National Library of Australia would like to acknowledge Peter’s widow, Liz Dombrovskis, and thank her for her guidance and support for this project.

Press release from the Monash Gallery of Art website [Online] Cited 13/03/2019

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, 'Cushion plant mosaic, Tasmania' (1980); at middle, 'Macquarie Island cabbage at Finch Creek, Macquarie Island, Tasmania' (1984); and at right, 'Web and dew, Waterfall Valley, Tasmania' (1985)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, Cushion plant mosaic, Tasmania (1980); at middle, Macquarie Island cabbage at Finch Creek, Macquarie Island, Tasmania (1984); and at right, Web and dew, Waterfall Valley, Tasmania (1985)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing 'Myrtle tree in rainforest at Mount Anne, Southwest National Park, Tasmania' (1984)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing Myrtle tree in rainforest at Mount Anne, Southwest National Park, Tasmania (1984)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian, born Germany 1945-96) 'Myrtle tree in rainforest at Mount Anne, Southwest National Park, Tasmania' 1984

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996)
Myrtle tree in rainforest at Mount Anne, Southwest National Park, Tasmania
1984
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia and the Estate of Peter Dombrovskis

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, 'Icicles near Big Bend, Mount Wellington, Tasmania' (1992); at middle, 'Ice patterns on the Labyrinth, Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania' (1986); and at right, 'Ice patterns, Lake Elysia, Du Cane Range, Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania' (1987)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, Icicles near Big Bend, Mount Wellington, Tasmania (1992); at middle, Ice patterns on the Labyrinth, Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania (1986); and at right, Ice patterns, Lake Elysia, Du Cane Range, Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania (1987)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation views of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing 'Morning light on Little Horn, Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania' (1995)

 

Installation views of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing Morning light on Little Horn, Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania (1995)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996) 'Morning light on Little Horn, Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania' 1995

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996)
Morning light on Little Horn, Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania
1995
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia and the Estate of Peter Dombrovskis

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, 'Snow gum on the Labyrinth, Du Cane Range, Tasmania' (1988); and at right 'Shore lichen on granite, east Freycinet, Freycinet National Park, Tasmania' (1989)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, Snow gum on the Labyrinth, Du Cane Range, Tasmania (1988); and at right Shore lichen on granite, east Freycinet, Freycinet National Park, Tasmania (1989)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation detail of 'Peter Dombrovskis' photograph Shore lichen on granite, east Freycinet, Freycinet National Park, Tasmania' (1989)

 

Installation detail of Peter Dombrovskis’ photograph Shore lichen on granite, east Freycinet, Freycinet National Park, Tasmania (1989)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing 'Ancient 'Nothofagus gunnil', Cradle Mountain, Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania' (1986)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing Ancient ‘Nothofagus gunnil’, Cradle Mountain, Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania (1986)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill with, at right, 'Polished quartzite above Irenabyss, Franklin River, Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, Tasmania' (1979)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill with, at right, Polished quartzite above Irenabyss, Franklin River, Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, Tasmania (1979)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation detail of Peter Dombrovskis' photograph 'Polished quartzite above Irenabyss, Franklin River, Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, Tasmania' (1979)

 

Installation detail of Peter Dombrovskis’ photograph Polished quartzite above Irenabyss, Franklin River, Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, Tasmania (1979)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian, born Germany 1945-96) 'Pencil pine at Pool of Siloam, Walls of Jerusalem National Park, Tasmania' 1982

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996)
Pencil pine at Pool of Siloam, Walls of Jerusalem National Park, Tasmania
1982
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia and the Estate of Peter Dombrovskis

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing, at middle left, 'The rocking stone, south Mount Wellington, Tasmania' (1995); and at right, 'Dolerite tors on Mount Wellington plateau, Hobart, Tasmania' (1990)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing, at middle left, The rocking stone, south Mount Wellington, Tasmania (1995); and at right, Dolerite tors on Mount Wellington plateau, Hobart, Tasmania (1990)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing, at left, 'The rocking stone, south Mount Wellington, Tasmania' (1995); and at right, 'Dolerite tors on Mount Wellington plateau, Hobart, Tasmania' (1990)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing, at left, The rocking stone, south Mount Wellington, Tasmania (1995); and at right, Dolerite tors on Mount Wellington plateau, Hobart, Tasmania (1990)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing 'Dolerite tors on Mount Wellington plateau, Hobart, Tasmania' (1990)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing Dolerite tors on Mount Wellington plateau, Hobart, Tasmania (1990)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996) 'The rocking stone, south Mount Wellington, Tasmania' 1995

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996)
The rocking stone, south Mount Wellington, Tasmania
1995
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia and the Estate of Peter Dombrovskis

 

Peter Dombrovskis. 'Dolerite tors on Mount Wellington plateau, Hobart, Tasmania' 1990

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996)
Dolerite tors on Mount Wellington plateau, Hobart, Tasmania
1990
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia and the Estate of Peter Dombrovskis

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing, at left, 'Painted cliffs, Maria Island National Park, Tasmania' (1991); and at right, 'Painted cliffs, Maria Island, Tasmania' (1991)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing, at left, Painted cliffs, Maria Island National Park, Tasmania (1991); and at right, Painted cliffs, Maria Island, Tasmania (1991)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill with, at left, 'Beach detail with shells, Louisa Bay, Southwest National Park, Tasmania' (1993); at middle, 'Abalone shell at New Habour, southwest Tasmania' (1988); and at right, 'Native pigface, Tarkine Wilderness, Tasmania' (1995)

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill with, at left, 'Beach detail with shells, Louisa Bay, Southwest National Park, Tasmania' (1993); at middle, 'Abalone shell at New Habour, southwest Tasmania' (1988); and at right, 'Native pigface, Tarkine Wilderness, Tasmania' (1995)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill with, at left, Beach detail with shells, Louisa Bay, Southwest National Park, Tasmania (1993); at middle, Abalone shell at New Habour, southwest Tasmania (1988); and at right, Native pigface, Tarkine Wilderness, Tasmania (1995)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing 'Rock and rapid below Pine Camp, Franklin River, Tasmania' (1979)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing Rock and rapid below Pine Camp, Franklin River, Tasmania (1979)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian, born Germany 1945-96) 'Rock and rapid below Pine Camp, Franklin River, Tasmania' 1979

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996)
Rock and rapid below Pine Camp, Franklin River, Tasmania
1979
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia and the Estate of Peter Dombrovskis

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill

 

Installation views of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, 'Snow on pencil pine, Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania' (1990); and at right, 'Fruiting lichen and ice, the Labyrinth, Du Cane Range, Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania' (1987)

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, 'Snow on pencil pine, Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania' (1990); and at right, 'Fruiting lichen and ice, the Labyrinth, Du Cane Range, Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania' (1987)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, Snow on pencil pine, Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania (1990); and at right, Fruiting lichen and ice, the Labyrinth, Du Cane Range, Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania (1987)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, 'Cradle Mountain from Hounslow Heath, Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania' (1982); at middle, 'Snow-encrusted shrubbery, Central Highlands, Tasmania' (1990); and at right, 'Icicles on fire-killed snow gums, south of Mount Wellington, Tasmania' (1990)

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, 'Cradle Mountain from Hounslow Heath, Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania' (1982); at middle, 'Snow-encrusted shrubbery, Central Highlands, Tasmania' (1990); and at right, 'Icicles on fire-killed snow gums, south of Mount Wellington, Tasmania' (1990)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, Cradle Mountain from Hounslow Heath, Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania (1982); at middle, Snow-encrusted shrubbery, Central Highlands, Tasmania (1990); and at right, Icicles on fire-killed snow gums, south of Mount Wellington, Tasmania (1990)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing 'Dunes and granite near Interview River, Tarkine Wilderness, Tasmania' (1990)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing Dunes and granite near Interview River, Tarkine Wilderness, Tasmania (1990)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Dombrovskis

Peter Herbert Dombrovskis was born in a World War II refugee camp in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 1945 to Latvian parents. His father, Karl, went missing at the end of the war and in 1950 his mother, Adele, moved the pair of them to Hobart, Tasmania; as far from the war-torn Europe and the war as imaginable. Adele was a keen naturalist and encouraged Peter’s photography, buying him a 35mm Zeiss camera to experiment with when he was just six.

In the early 1970s, Dombrovskis established a working pattern of making five or six two-week journeys into the wilds of Tasmania each year. His first calendar was produced in 1972, his first diary in 1976 and his first book The quiet land in 1977. He set up his own publication company, West Wind Press, in 1977. His second wife Liz, continued to run West Wind Press, producing calendars, books and diaries, until 2009. In 1996, while hiking and photographing near Mount Hayes in south-west Tasmania’s Western Arthur Range, Dombrovskis suffered a heart attack and died. He was 51 years old.

The sublime

The photographs of Dombrovskis carry on a rich tradition of depicting the wild places of Tasmania as Romantic landscapes. Romanticism was a cultural movement in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries that emphasised the senses, emotion and spontaneity at the expense of order, rationality and intellect. Particularly influential was the Romantic idea of the sublime. Unlike the picturesque landscape, which was attractive and charming but tame and unthreatening, the sublime landscape dramatises nature’s overwhelming power and grandeur. It shows the natural world untouched and uncompromised by human intervention, provoking feelings of awe, even fear, and reminding the viewer that wilderness is a valuable resource to respect, not exploit. Dombrovskis’s images demonstrate nature’s powerful splendour but they also have a quiet, reflective quality that draws the viewer into an intimate conversation with the natural world. This is, perhaps, achieved through his habit of including the unexpected and sensitive details within a landscape, as well as the marvellous and dramatic vistas. Dombrovskis was passionate about the vast and rugged beauty of his adopted home, but also curious about nature, seeing it as both mysterious and welcoming.

Influences

The photographer most often connected with Dombrovskis is Olegas Truchanas. The two men shared backgrounds as refugees from war-torn Central Europe. Together the two would explore Tasmania, marvelling at and photographing the beauty of their natural surroundings. They were adventurers and photographers in equal measures and both died in pursuit of these passions. It was Truchanas who introduced Peter to the political nature of landscape photography. In the 1960s, he would stage slide-shows in the Hobart City Hall, pairing his images with classical music and speaking about society’s responsibility for the natural planet. Many of Truchanas’s slides were lost in a bushfire that took his home in 1967, and it was in 1972, when he was out rebuilding his archive of images of the south-west that he drowned in the Gordon River. It was Peter who found Truchanas’s body in the water after days of searching.

“I like to think I’m carrying on where Olegas left off, in my own way, finishing the work that he started.”

Dombrovskis’s photographic style was also influenced by the great American landscape photographers:

“I enjoy Ansel Adams for his finely controlled and logical composition; Edward Weston for his intense identification with subject matter; Brett Weston for his strikingly graphic structural forms; Paul Caponigro for images that intimate the mysterious and the unknowable; and Eliot Porter for compositional subtlety and delicate colour harmony.”

Legacy

Dombrovskis’s contribution to the environmental movement is profound but his technical ability and artistry as a photographer are equally celebrated. In February 2003, he was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, an honour afforded to only 76 other innovators in the art form’s history. He is the only Australian to be honoured in this way and sits alongside those who influenced him, such as Ansel Adams and Edward and Brett Weston and Eliot Porter. Dombrovskis’s work has been acquired by several of Australia’s major cultural institutions and is part of the collections of the National Library of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and Monash Gallery of Art.

Equipment

Dombrovskis’s preferred camera was the Linhof Master Technika. Requiring 4 x 5 inch film, almost 16 times larger than that used in a standard 35mm camera, the Linhof was heavy and cumbersome, forcing Dombrovskis to take more care and time in setting up his shots and making each of these images the result of physical and mental endurance, as well as involved decision-making.

“… because sheet film is expensive and loading it is slow and tedious, I seldom take more than one exposure of each subject. This occasionally leads to bitter regret when I misjudge exposure after spending, perhaps, an hour on a single image.”

Smaller 35mm or contemporary digital cameras would have allowed Dombrovskis ease of use and immediacy, but this would have come at the expense of the extraordinary detail he could achieve with his Linhof. When walking for a week in the wilderness, Dombrovskis carried the required supplies, as well as the camera and around 50 sheets of film; a heavy pack in rugged terrain.

Tasmania

“I took photographs for the simple pleasure of recording objects and places that were important to me, and because the discipline of photography increased my awareness of Tasmania’s beauty and made me appreciate more clearly the value of its wilderness.”

The work of Dombrovskis helped to change perceptions of the Tasmanian wilderness. In 1982 the area that he photographed was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. His photograph Morning Mist, Rock Island Bend, Franklin River, Tasmania (1979), which is located at the beginning of this exhibition, was integral to the successful campaign to prevent the Tasmanian Hydro Electric Commission damming the Gordon and Franklin rivers.

Dombrovskis’s photographs showed Australians what would be lost under the waters of a dam should the hydroelectric scheme go ahead, and many credit this image as helping to sway the Federal election in favour of Bob Hawke’s Australian Labor Party, which promised to save the Franklin River. It is rare and noteworthy that a photograph might carry such social and political sway.

Exhibition label text

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing, at right, 'Rock lichen (Crustose lichen), Lake Rodway, Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania' (1981)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing, at right, Rock lichen (Crustose lichen), Lake Rodway, Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania (1981)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996) 'Rock lichen (Crustose lichen), Lake Rodway, Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania' 1981

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996)
Rock lichen (Crustose lichen), Lake Rodway, Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania
1981
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia and the Estate of Peter Dombrovskis

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, 'Bark of snow gum, Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania' (1987); and right, 'Red phase of deciduous beech, 'Nothofagus gunnii', Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania' (1988)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, Bark of snow gum, Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania (1987); and right, Red phase of deciduous beech, ‘Nothofagus gunnii’, Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania (1988)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996) 'Red phase of deciduous beech, 'Nothofagus gunnii', Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania' 1988

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996)
Red phase of deciduous beech, ‘Nothofagus gunnii’, Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park, Tasmania
1988
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia and the Estate of Peter Dombrovskis

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill

 

Installation views of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996) 'Frost on snow berry (Gaultheria hispida) leaves, Milles Track, Mount Wellington, Tasmania, June 1990' 1990

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996)
Frost on snow berry (Gaultheria hispida) leaves, Milles Track, Mount Wellington, Tasmania, June 1990
1990
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia and the Estate of Peter Dombrovskis

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill

 

Installation views of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, 'Limestone pinnacles on Mount Api, Sarawak, Borneo' (1985); and at right, 'Reflections in mist, Walls of Jerusalem National Park, Tasmania' (1994)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, Limestone pinnacles on Mount Api, Sarawak, Borneo (1985); and at right, Reflections in mist, Walls of Jerusalem National Park, Tasmania (1994)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing 'Limestone pinnacles on Mount Api, Sarawak, Borneo' (1985)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing Limestone pinnacles on Mount Api, Sarawak, Borneo (1985)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996) 'Limestone pinnacles on Mount Api, Sarawak, Borneo' 1985

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996)
Limestone pinnacles on Mount Api, Sarawak, Borneo
1985
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia and the Estate of Peter Dombrovskis

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, 'Reflection pool, Walls of Jerusalem National Park,Tasmania' (1990); and at right, 'Morning mist in myrtle forest, Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania' (1981)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, Reflection pool, Walls of Jerusalem National Park,Tasmania (1990); and at right, Morning mist in myrtle forest, Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania (1981)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996) 'Lake Oberon, Western Arthur Range, Southwest National Park, Tasmania' 1988

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996)
Lake Oberon, Western Arthur Range, Southwest National Park, Tasmania
1988
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia and the Estate of Peter Dombrovskis

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, 'Lake Oberon, Western Arthur Range, southwest Tasmania' (1988); and at right, 'Richea scoparia in bloom below Halls Buttress, Walls of Jerusalem National Park, Tasmania' (1992)

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild' at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, 'Lake Oberon, Western Arthur Range, southwest Tasmania' (1988); and at right, 'Richea scoparia in bloom below Halls Buttress, Walls of Jerusalem National Park, Tasmania' (1992)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Dombrovskis: journeys into the wild at Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill showing at left, Lake Oberon, Western Arthur Range, southwest Tasmania (1988); and at right, Richea scoparia in bloom below Halls Buttress, Walls of Jerusalem National Park, Tasmania (1992)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996) 'Richea scoparia in bloom below Halls Buttress, Walls of Jerusalem National Park, Tasmania' 1992

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996)
Richea scoparia in bloom below Halls Buttress, Walls of Jerusalem National Park, Tasmania
1992
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia and the Estate of Peter Dombrovskis

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian, born Germany 1945-96) 'Cushion plants, Mount Anne, Southwest National Park, Tasmania' 1984

 

Peter Dombrovskis (Australian born Germany, 1945-1996)
Cushion plants, Mount Anne, Southwest National Park, Tasmania
1984
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia and the Estate of Peter Dombrovskis

 

 

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Victoria 3150 Australia
Phone: + 61 3 8544 0500

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Review: ‘Claudia Terstappen: In The Shadow Of Change’ at the Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 9th November 2013 – 19th January 2014

 

Claudia Terstappen. 'After the fire (Northern Territory, Australia)' 2002

 

Claudia Terstappen (Australian, born Germany 1959)
After the fire (Northern Territory, Australia)
2002
From the series Our ancestors 1990-
29 cm x 29cm

 

 

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree…

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”

.
Herman Hesse. Bäume: Betrachtungen und Gedichte (Trees: Reflections and Poems) 1984

 

 

This is the last review of 2013 and what a cracker of an exhibition to finish the year. Without doubt this is the best pure photography exhibition I have seen this year in Melbourne. The exhibition is stimulating and enervating, the image making of the highest order in its aesthetic beauty and visual complexity. The artist explores intangible spaces which define our physical and spiritual relationship with the un/known world.

Briefly stated the bulk of the exhibition features small, square, tonally rich black and white medium format landscape images of unspoiled places from around the world taken between the mid-1980s and the early 2000s, images that possess a sense of the sublime and suggest a link to indigenous cultures. These images are hung in rows, sometimes double row grids, that flesh out the narrative that Terstappen seeks to establish. It is a beautiful, enlightening hang and whoever sequenced the work and hung the show should be congratulated for they understood the artist’s narrative and the tonal range of the printing.

In an excellent review in The Age newspaper (Wednesday December 18th 2013) the writer Robert Nelson suggests that these vistas depict something holy to an earlier or parallel civilisation. He observes that Terstappen’s images go beyond the mere picturesque because the artist applies a persistent inquiry to image making no matter where she is in the world, for “she always looks for properties that the environment shares with counterparts elsewhere.” He goes on to state that the photographs have three systematic demands that the artist places on her interpretation of the landscape: 1/ that they express something elemental (earth, air, water, fire); 2/ the scene has to sustain a dark print with a visual weight that is almost contrary to the nature of photography; and 3/ the picture must reconcile the expansive and the intimate. In her world, everything must have presence, no matter how far away, and press up against the picture plane; everything must have a certain density, a thickness of being which is not about light but about the darkness of light.
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“All photographs depend on light; but Terstappen’s sensibility errs to descriptions of the density of things, not their reception or reflection of sunshine or even moonlight. Her scenery is gravid with banks engorged by roots, the bulk of outcrops or the intricate tangle of overlapping forest, which is also what seems to activate the water within the air to express it heaviness… A part of the impetus behind Terstappen’s project is pictorial: how to make the most rigorous sense of multiplicity, to frame big things so that they harmonise with little things, so that everything has an equivalent weight, including the air. The corollary of this consistent investigation is a poetic respect for the natural subject matter…”

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Through images of visual and conceptual beauty and complexity, Terstappen imparts a strange kind of temporality to the work. The artist layers shapes within the photographs and, befitting her training as a sculptor, pushes and pulls at the image plane like a malleable piece of clay, sometimes blocking vision at the surface of the print, sometimes allowing access to a partially accessible (psychological) interiority. For example, look at the last three images before the press release below: Cabbage trees (Queensland, Australia)Curtain fig tree (Queensland, Australia) and Alligator nest (Queensland, Australia) (all 2002). In Cabbage trees the artist creates a visual pattern, like a fabric pattern, that holds the viewer at the surface of the image while still allowing glimpses of what lies beyond; in Curtain fig tree it is as if a curtain has literally descended blocking any access to the interior; while in Alligator nest there is a beautiful, open density to the work that invites contemplation and meditation upon the scene.

In Terstappen’s work, there is always a sense of space moving back, moving from the bottom up or top down and a conscious use of a restricted tonality (no bright whites or blackest blacks). The artist blocks movement, opens it up or swirls it around. Sometimes earth becomes sky as steam turns to cloud, or rock becomes water as the two meld at the base of a waterfall. In this multiplicity, each element is given equal weight within certain atmospheres and an equilibrium is formed, to live at the heart of these images. Each complex, thoughtful image becomes a living and breathing entity.

In Terstappen’s work there is no fixed image and no single purpose, a single meaning, or one singular existence that the images propose. They transcend claims about the world arising from, for example, natural or scientific attitudes or theories of the ontological nature of the world. As the artist visualises, records the feeling of the facts, such complex and balanced images let the mind of the viewer wander in the landscape. In their fecundity the viewer is enveloped in that situation of not knowing. There is the feeling of the landscape, a sensitivity to being “lost” in the landscape, in the shadow of ‘Other’, enhanced through the modality of the printing. Dreamworld vs analytical/descriptive, there is the enigma of the landscape and its spiritual places. Yes, the sublime, but more an invocation, a plea to the gods for understanding. This phenomenological prayer allows the artist to envelop herself and the viewer in the profundity – the great depth, intensity and emotion – of the landscape. To be ‘present’ in the the untrammelled places of the world as (divine) experience.

The only doubt I have about the exhibition is the ex post facto interpretation of the archive as picturing places that are threatened by social and ecological change. As the catalogue text states, “These pictures now form part of an archive of historically significant places that are threatened by social and ecological change. This archive of spiritual sites has, over time, become an environmental archive, reminding us that photography not only has the power to bring places to life, but also to bear witness to the forces that threaten life.” If they are only now forming part of an environmental archive, what memory of sacred place did they initially respond to?

While Terstappen’s work has always focused on a physical encounter with space and an imaging of places that have deep or hidden meanings and mythical / symbolic significance, when I look at this work I do not get a strong sense of these places being under threat. Only through written (not visual) language is this environmental threat enunciated. While archives are always fluid and will always gather new meaning (look at Atget’s “documents for artists”, images that are now acknowledged as some of the most artistic and influential in the whole canon of photography), we must also acknowledge that nothing in this world remains the same, that everything changes all the time, for better or worse. The landscapes that Terstappen photographs are no more “natural” then as they are now, due to the effects of bushfires, human cultivation, erosion, habitation, hunting, farming and natural disaster. Humans cannot appeal to some vision of a world, some garden of Eden, that exists pre humanity. Who is to stay that these places in the world are disappearing or appearing? By the very act of photographing these places, Terstappen labels them, names them as inconsolable places that should never change. This is not the mysterious way of the world. I prefer to look at these places and acknowledge that this is how they looked through the eyes of this artist at this point in time. They have full presence before me, in all their mystery and majesty.

Is this textual analysis necessary for the work to succeed? I do not believe it is, in fact I believe it lessens the inherent quality of these images. Use these images to help people understand what human beings are doing to the planet by all means, but please do not try to retrofit concepts of destruction onto the work.

This minor quibble aside, I say to you that this is the most sophisticated reading of the landscape that I have seen in a long time – not just in Australia but from around the world. This is such a joy of an exhibition to see that you leave feeling engaged and uplifted. Being in the gallery on your own is a privilege that is hard to describe: to see (and feel!) landscape photography of the highest order and by an Australian artist as well. If you grant anything for your New Year’s wish you could do no better than to visit this magnificent exhibition and drink of its atmospheres.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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Many thankx to the Monash Gallery of Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. All installation photographs © Marcus Bunyan and the Monash Gallery of Art. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Claudia Terstappen. 'Bushfire III (Northern Territory, Australia)' 2002

 

Claudia Terstappen (Australian, born Germany 1959)
Bushfire III (Northern Territory, Australia)
2002
From the series Our ancestors 1990-
29 cm x 29cm

 

Claudia Terstappen. 'Sickness country II (Northern Territory, Australia)' 2002

 

Claudia Terstappen (Australian, born Germany 1959)
Sickness country II (Northern Territory, Australia)
2002
From the series Our ancestors 1990-
29 cm x 29cm

 

Claudia Terstappen. 'Cabbage trees (Queensland, Australia)' 2002

 

Claudia Terstappen (Australian, born Germany 1959)
Cabbage trees (Queensland, Australia)
2002
From the series Our ancestors 1990-
29 cm x 29cm

 

Claudia Terstappen. 'Curtain fig tree (Queensland, Australia)' 2002

 

Claudia Terstappen (Australian, born Germany 1959)
Curtain fig tree (Queensland, Australia)
2002
From the series Our ancestors 1990-
29 cm x 29cm

 

Claudia Terstappen. 'Alligator nest (Queensland, Australia)' 2002

 

Claudia Terstappen (Australian, born Germany 1959)
Alligator nest (Queensland, Australia)
2002
From the series Lost world 2002-
21 cm x 21cm

 

 

Over the last thirty years Claudia Terstappen has taken photographs of places throughout the world that have spiritual resonance or associations. The basis of this exhibition is a selection of these landscapes, presented as gelatin silver prints printed by the artist between the 1980s – early 2000s.

The landscapes in this exhibition document places that have spiritual associations or significance for indigenous people, to make sense of their relationship to the land. But I now realise that the archive has taken on another set of meanings or intention. Today, these pictures form part of a vast archive of landscapes and places undergoing significant change. This archive of spiritual places has become an environmental archive.

Terstappen was born in Germany, and her landscapes are in many ways informed by her heritage. Like Australia, Germany has a particular tradition of landscape, where places of nature carry important associations for cultural understanding and a sense of belonging. Terstappen is herself part of a long tradition of German artists to explore this relationship.

Terstappen studied at the Düsseldorfer Kunstakademie, the training ground for many of Germany’s most important contemporary artists. Having been taught by the famous photographer Bernd Becher and then the architect and sculptor Erich Reusch, Terstappen has since exhibited widely throughout Europe, North America and Australia.

Text from the Monash Gallery of Art website

 

Claudia Terstappen originally trained a a sculptor but for over three decades she has worked in the medium of photography. In some respects, her art practice has been developed between these two artistic disciplines. She retains a strong interest in the sculptural sensation of a physical encounter in space, but she uses the two-dimensional medium of photography to document and reiterate these experiences.

Terstappen’s interest in the interplay between depth and surface is also evident in the subjects that she explores. She often photographs places that have deep or hidden meanings. This includes sites of pilgrimage, shrines of worship and landscapes invested with mythic significance. These associations are not always apparent, and often subsist as a type of secret knowledge, but they can be given tangible form through processes of story-telling and ceremonial action. Terstappen engages with these locations in order to give them a tangible photographic form, elaborating a sense of symbolic power or sublime drama across the surface of her images.

This exhibition features 75 photographs depicting places that have been invested with spiritual resonances or mythical associations, from Iceland and southern Europe to the Americas and Australia. The starting point for this exhibition is a selection of gelatin silver prints that were hand-printed by the artist between the mid-1980s and the early 2000s. These pictures now form part of an archive of historically significant places that are threatened by social and ecological change. This archive of spiritual sites has, over time, become an environmental archive; reminding us that photography not only has the power to bring places to life, but also to bear witness to the forces that threaten life.

Text from the exhibition pamphlet

 

Claudia Terstappen. 'Turtle Dreaming, Australia (Northern Territory)' 2002

 

Claudia Terstappen (Australian, born Germany 1959)
Turtle Dreaming, Australia (Northern Territory)
2002
from the series Vanishing landscapes 1987-
Gelatin silver print
120 x 120cm
Courtesy of the artist

 

Claudia Terstappen. 'Namandi spirit [Queensland, Australia]' 2002

 

Claudia Terstappen (Australian, born Germany 1959)
Namandi spirit (Queensland, Australia)
2002
from the series Our ancestors 1990-
Gelatin silver print
29 x 29cm
Courtesy  of the artist

 

Claudia Terstappen. 'Cabbage trees [Queensland, Australia]' 2002

 

Claudia Terstappen (Australian, born Germany 1959)
Cabbage trees (Queensland, Australia)
2002
from the series Our ancestors 1990-
Gelatin silver print
29 x 29cm
Courtesy  of the artist

 

Claudia Terstappen. 'Full moon [France]' 1997

 

Claudia Terstappen (Australian, born Germany 1959)
Full moon (France)
1997
from the series I believe in miracles 1997-
Gelatin silver print
80 x 80cm
Courtesy  of the artist

 

Claudia Terstappen. 'Mountain [Brazil]' 1991

 

Claudia Terstappen (Australian, born Germany 1959)
Mountain (Brazil)
1991
from the series Sacred mountains 1989-
Gelatin silver print
37 x 37cm
Courtesy  of the artist

 

Claudia Terstappen. 'Mountain [Las Palmas, Spain]' 1992

 

Claudia Terstappen (Australian, born Germany 1959)
Mountain (Las Palmas, Spain)
1992
from the series Sacred mountains 1989-
Gelatin silver print
49 x 49cm
Courtesy  of the artist

 

Claudia Terstappen. 'Zion Park [USA]' 1996

 

Claudia Terstappen (Australian, born Germany 1959)
Zion Park (USA)
1996
from the series Sacred land of the Navajo Indians 1990-
Gelatin silver print
37 x 37cm
Courtesy  of the artist

 

 

In the shadow of change features almost 100 of Claudia Terstappen’s magnificent landscape photographs. Terstappen is a German-born photographer who studied at the famous Dusseldorf art academy and is now Professor of Photography at Monash University in Melbourne.

For over three decades, Terstappen has been photographing landscapes the world over. Brazil, Colombia, Canada, Japan, USA, Iceland and Spain have been destinations for the artist, who has travelled the world looking for landscapes which have particular spiritual or mythical meanings. This search brought Terstappen to Australia in 2002; the artist now lives in Melbourne as a permanent resident.

Terstappen’s vast archive of landscape photographs has taken on significant environmental associations. As debates about the politics and impact of land use and climate change continue, Terstappen’s landscapes – from intimately scaled views of forests and riverbeds to grand views of mountains and glaciers – present a truly beautiful account of landscape photography and its contemporary significance.

As Terstappen states: ‘There is a moral dimension to looking at and photographing landscape today. Landscape photography has tremendous currency. Many of the landscapes in my photographs will have either completely disappeared or drastically changed by now. I firmly believe we need to re-establish our relationship with nature and landscape and photography can help us to achieve this.’

MGA Director and curator of the exhibition Shaune Lakin states: ‘MGA is very proud to have developed this exhibition with Claudia, which will be accompanied by a beautifully illustrated book. We have timed the exhibition to coincide with the 30-year anniversary of one of the defining moments in Australian photography, when landscape photographs actually brought about significant social and political change. It is now 30 years since Peter Dombrovskis’s now-iconic photographs of the Gordon River helped prevent construction of the Franklin Dam in Tasmania, which to this day remains one of the world’s great wilderness areas.

‘With the election of a new government and promises of a new environmental agenda, it seems a perfect time for us to reconsider the power of landscape photography and the status of environmentalism in Australia today.’

Press release from the Monash Gallery of Art website

 

Installation photographs of the exhibition 'Claudia Terstappen: In The Shadow Of Change' at the Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne

Installation photographs of the exhibition 'Claudia Terstappen: In The Shadow Of Change' at the Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne

Installation photographs of the exhibition 'Claudia Terstappen: In The Shadow Of Change' at the Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne

Installation photographs of the exhibition 'Claudia Terstappen: In The Shadow Of Change' at the Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne

Installation photographs of the exhibition 'Claudia Terstappen: In The Shadow Of Change' at the Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne

Installation photographs of the exhibition 'Claudia Terstappen: In The Shadow Of Change' at the Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne

Installation photographs of the exhibition 'Claudia Terstappen: In The Shadow Of Change' at the Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne

Installation photographs of the exhibition 'Claudia Terstappen: In The Shadow Of Change' at the Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne

Installation photographs of the exhibition 'Claudia Terstappen: In The Shadow Of Change' at the Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne

Installation photographs of the exhibition 'Claudia Terstappen: In The Shadow Of Change' at the Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne

Installation photographs of the exhibition 'Claudia Terstappen: In The Shadow Of Change' at the Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne

Installation photographs of the exhibition 'Claudia Terstappen: In The Shadow Of Change' at the Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne

 

Installation photographs of the exhibition Claudia Terstappen: In The Shadow Of Change at the Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan

 

 

Bob Browns opening speech at artist Claudia Terstappen’s exhibition In the shadow of change at the Monash Gallery of Art (MGA) in Melbourne. Recorded on Saturday 9 November 2013.

 

 

Monash Gallery of Art
860 Ferntree Gully Road, Wheelers Hill
Victoria 3150 Australia
Phone: + 61 3 8544 0500

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Friday 10am – 5pm
Saturday – Sunday 12pm – 4pm
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