Exhibition: ‘Joel-Peter Witkin – Photographs 1980-2016’ at William Mora Galleries, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 3rd – 25th August, 2017

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, 1939-) 'Arms Broken By A Window, New Mexico' 1980 from the exhibition 'Joel-Peter Witkin – Photographs 1980-2016' at William Mora Galleries, Melbourne, August 2017

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939)
Arms Broken By A Window, New Mexico
1980
Tirage argentique
64 x 64cm
Courtesy Baudoin Lebon and William Mora Galleries
© Joel-Peter Witkin

“I think this whole conversation can be compressed into one thing. It’s that life is joyous and wonderful and it’s meant for us to grow as individuals, as citizens, as human beings and spirits. The terrible thing is that we have a choice and usually the negative choice is the easy way. That’s what we regret because we know we’ve harmed and we’re not meant to harm. We’re meant to heal and grow and share and if I had a knife at my neck or a gun to my head I’d say the same thing.”

Joel-Peter Witkin

Magical momenti mori

This will be short and sweet because I am on holiday in Europe.

It was a privilege to visit William Mora Galleries to see the first ever exhibition in Australia of the work of the renowned American photographer Joel-Peter Witkin. To be able to spend time with these photographic constructions in such a tranquil space truly was a blessing.

While it is possible to read all sorts of influences into the work – running from Diane Arbus (masks) through Surrealism, collage and homages to still-life “Vanitas” style paintings from the 1600s, the ‘Storyville’ prostitue photos of E.J. Bellocq, carte-de-visite and the conversant arched form of the window cut-outs of Victorian photo albums, mythological themes, ars moriendi (“The Art of Dying”), post-mortem photography, et al – what makes Witkin’s photographs so unique is that they could only, ever, be the work of this artist. When you look at these beautiful photographs they bear his unmistakable signature.

Witkin is able to construct in a performative space placed before the lens, engaging narratives which often have an allusive mystery embedded in them. I for one do not pretend to understand all that is going on within the images in terms of their symbolism – but this is not necessary. What I can feel is the profound love and affection that the artist has towards his subjects and his craft. Witkin is not afraid: of life, of death, of ambiguities of sexuality, identity and disability, that confront each and every one of us throughout life. He is not afraid to make bold moves in his art, scratching into the surface of the negative, bleaching into the print, collaging over the top of the base print, never afraid of high key moments in the mise-en-scène, all to create the affect that he wants in order to tell the story. He directs his imagination through the presence and physicality of the final print.

Witkin’s allegories, his mediations on the universality of death as memento mori, or meme/n/to (a meme is an element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another, as in the multiple rituals of death) mori, remind people of the fragility of their lives and how vain are the glories of earthly life. His imaginative renditions posit this: no matter one’s station in life, the Dance of Death unites us all.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to Anna and William Mora for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. All installation photographs © Dr Marcus Bunyan, William Mora Galleries, Melbourne and the artist. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)
‘Leda and the Swan’

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939) 'The Great Masturbator And The Country He Rode In On, New Mexico' 2017 from the exhibition 'Joel-Peter Witkin – Photographs 1980-2016' at William Mora Galleries, Melbourne, August 2017

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939)
The Great Masturbator And The Country He Rode In On, New Mexico
2017
Tirage argentique
35 x 32cm
Courtesy Baudoin Lebon and William Mora Galleries
© Joel-Peter Witkin

“Trump is a child living in a narcissistic hollow man – with the power to destroy the world…

Trump is not qualified to be President. His election to that office represents the ignorance of the American electorate and the corruption of our political representatives. Ours is not an intellectual culture in which thought and reason are unselfishly presented. It is a “Pop Culture” of materialistic escapism which has elected an autocratic, draft dodging, corrupt business man, who has made this country the laughing stock of the world.

The Great Masturbator And The Country He Rode In On took several months to create. The Trump model was willing to pose nude. In his right hand is the nuclear button. On his extended left arm is written: “The Only Conquest Left Is Ivanka.” On his right arm, he is wearing the symbol of Communism, the secret agenda Russia is promoting today under Putin. And for reasons yet unknown, all of us look forward to know why Trump is Putin’s marionette.

I made this photograph because I am involved in mankind. As a citizen of this formally great country, and as an artist, I made this photograph to help defeat the Republican party in the 2018 elections for its cowardice in putting their party ahead of their country. Where are our elected leaders, the Lincoln’s, the Kennedy’s of today? Where are our citizen’s hero’s, the César Chávez’s, the Martin Luther King’s, the Rosa Parks of today?

What ever happened to morality, courage and integrity?”

Joel-Peter Witkin

Installation photographs

Installation views of the exhibition Joel-Peter Witkin – Photographs 1980-2016 at William Mora Galleries, Melbourne
© Dr Marcus Bunyan, William Mora Galleries, Melbourne and the artist

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939)
Man With Dog, Mexico
1990
Tirage argentique
95 x 72cm
Courtesy Baudoin Lebon and William Mora Galleries
© Joel-Peter Witkin

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939)
Self Portrait Reminiscent As A Self Portrait As A Vanity
1995
Tirage argentique
42 x 34cm
Courtesy Baudoin Lebon and William Mora Galleries
© Joel-Peter Witkin

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939)
Beauty Had Three Nipples
1998
Tirage argentique
55 x 63cm
Courtesy Baudoin Lebon and William Mora Galleries
© Joel-Peter Witkin

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939)
Monsieur Baguette As Orpheo
2004
Tirage argentique
72 x 65cm
Courtesy Baudoin Lebon and William Mora Galleries
© Joel-Peter Witkin

Orpheus is a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centred on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music, his attempt to retrieve his wife, Eurydice, from the underworld, and his death at the hands of those who could not hear his divine music. As an archetype of the inspired singer, Orpheus is one of the most significant figures in the reception of classical mythology in Western culture, portrayed or alluded to in countless forms of art and popular culture including poetry, film, opera, music, and painting.

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939)
Mother Of The Future
2004
Tirage argentique
67 x 76cm
Courtesy Baudoin Lebon and William Mora Galleries
© Joel-Peter Witkin

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939)
Ars Moriendi
2007
Tirage argentique
66 x 71cm
Courtesy Baudoin Lebon and William Mora Galleries
© Joel-Peter Witkin

“It happened on a Sunday when my mother was escorting my twin brother and me down the steps of the tenement where we lived. We were going to church. While walking down the hallway to the entrance of the building, we heard an incredible crash mixed with screaming and cries for help. The accident involved three cars, all with families in them. Somehow, in the confusion, I was no longer holding my mother’s hand. At the place where I stood at the curb, I could see something rolling from one of the overturned cars. It stopped at the curb where I stood. It was the head of a little girl. I bent down to touch the face, to speak to it – but before I could touch it someone carried me away.”

Joel-Peter Witkin

Ars Moriendi

The Ars moriendi (“The Art of Dying”) are two related Latin texts dating from about 1415 and 1450 which offer advice on the protocols and procedures of a good death, explaining how to “die well” according to Christian precepts of the late Middle Ages. It was written within the historical context of the effects of the macabre horrors of the Black Death 60 years earlier and consequent social upheavals of the 15th century. It was very popular, translated into most West European languages, and was the first in a western literary tradition of guides to death and dying. There was originally a “long version” and a later “short version” containing eleven woodcut pictures as instructive images which could be easily explained and memorised. …

Ars moriendi consists of six chapters:

1/ The first chapter explains that dying has a good side, and serves to console the dying man that death is not something to be afraid of

2/ The second chapter outlines the five temptations that beset a dying man, and how to avoid them. These are lack of faith, despair, impatience, spiritual pride and avarice

3/ The third chapter lists the seven questions to ask a dying man, along with consolation available to him through the redemptive powers of Christ’s love

4/ The fourth chapter expresses the need to imitate Christ’s life

5/ The fifth chapter addresses the friends and family, outlining the general rules of behaviour at the deathbed

6/ The sixth chapter includes appropriate prayers to be said for a dying man

…

Allegorically the images depicted the contest between angels and demons over the fate of the dying man. In his dying agony his soul emerges from his mouth to be received by one of a band of angels. Common themes portrayed by illustrators include skeletons, the Last Judgement, corpses, and the forces of good and evil battling over souls.

Text from Wikipedia website

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939)
Bad Student
2007
Tirage argentique
86 x 70cm
Courtesy Baudoin Lebon and William Mora Galleries
© Joel-Peter Witkin

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939)
Myself As A Dead Clown
2007
Tirage argentique
93 x 99cm
Courtesy Baudoin Lebon and William Mora Galleries
© Joel-Peter Witkin

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939)
La Giovanissima
2007
Tirage argentique
87 x 76cm
Courtesy Baudoin Lebon and William Mora Galleries
© Joel-Peter Witkin

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939)
The Scale, Bogota
2008
Tirage argentique
77 x 88cm
Courtesy Baudoin Lebon and William Mora Galleries
© Joel-Peter Witkin

I was born and grew up with this sexual controversy enduring ridicule and insults and humiliations. My family took advantage of me for being joto. And I’m not to blame for being born so tired of so much reproach I left my house to study and fight against everything. I made my life and I’m happy. I hope you catch me sometime and to Saint Sebastian I thank that I left with the good of this operation that changed my life. Bogota 2008

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, 1939-) 'Model At The End Of Art School' 2009

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939)
Model At The End Of Art School
2009
Tirage argentique
72 x 65cm
Courtesy Baudoin Lebon and William Mora Galleries
© Joel-Peter Witkin

Beauty for some provides escape,
Who gain a happiness in eyeing
The gorgeous buttocks of the ape
Or Autumn sunsets exquisitely dying.

Julian Huxley (1887-1975)
Ninth Philosopher’s Song (1920)

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939)
The Paris Triad: Venus in Chains, Paris
2010
Tirage argentique
123 x 95cm
Courtesy Baudoin Lebon and William Mora Galleries
© Joel-Peter Witkin

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939)
The Green Princess, Paris
2011
Tirage argentique
82 x 73cm
Courtesy Baudoin Lebon and William Mora Galleries
© Joel-Peter Witkin

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939)
A History Of The White World
2011
Tirage argentique
67 x 76cm
Courtesy Baudoin Lebon and William Mora Galleries
© Joel-Peter Witkin

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939)
Presenter Of The End Of Time Award
2013
Tirage argentique
113 x 103cm
Courtesy Baudoin Lebon and William Mora Galleries
© Joel-Peter Witkin

Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939)
Imperfect Thirst
2016
Tirage argentique
67 x 54cm
Courtesy Baudoin Lebon and William Mora Galleries
© Joel-Peter Witkin

The symbolism of food and drink [in European painting 1400-1800] has roots in classical literature. Fruits, nuts, herbs, and grain are discussed in treatises on farming and natural history, and appear widely in mythology as attributes of gods and goddesses – grapes for Bacchus, god of wine; a sheaf of corn or wheat for Ceres, the grain goddess – and in metaphors for virtue and vice. Early religious writings such as the Bible and the Apocrypha, and Christian texts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance are also rich in this imagery, often borrowing from pagan symbolism and occasionally supplanting it. The pomegranate, for example, is depicted in mythological paintings as an attribute of Venus and a symbol of desire, fertility – because of its many seeds – and marriage, but appears as frequently in sacred images of the Virgin and Child. There are several legends of the pomegranate’s creation, contributing to its symbolic potency; according to one, it grew out of blood streaming from the wounded genitals of the lustful Acdestis. The pomegranate is perhaps best known, however, for its fateful role in the myth of Proserpina. Ovid tells in the Metamorphoses of Proserpina’s abduction by Pluto, ruler of the Underworld. Proserpina’s mother, Ceres, secured her release from Hades, but, before leaving Proserpina, ate the seeds from a pomegranate and, because she had consumed food in the Underworld, was compelled to spend part of every year there. Proserpina’s cyclical descent to Hades and rise to Earth was believed to bring about the changing of seasons, and the pomegranate was thus seen as a symbol of resurrection and immortality.

Jennifer Meagher. “Food and Drink in European Painting, 1400-1800,” on The Met website [Online] Cited 06/08/2017

William Mora Galleries
60 Tanner Street, Richmond
Victoria, Australia 3121

Opening hours:
Wednesday – Friday 10am – 4pm

William Mora Galleries website

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Exhibition: ‘Girls In Our Town: Women in the Shadow of ‘The Magnificent Empire’, Florina Prefecture & Region, Macedonia Greece 1900-1917, 2017′ at William Mora Galleries, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 13th July – 27th July, 2017

Elizabeth Gertsakis (Australian, b. 1954) 'Children Playing' 2017 (detail) from the exhibition 'Girls In Our Town: Women in the Shadow of 'The Magnificent Empire', Florina Prefecture & Region, Macedonia Greece 1900-1917, 2017' at William Mora Galleries, Melbourne, July 2017

Elizabeth Gertsakis (Australian, b. 1954)
Children Playing (detail)
2017
Digital prints on metallic silver acrylic
39 x 163cm

Conquering Orientalism

A beautiful, sensitive, sensual even, exhibition by the wonderful Elizabeth Gertsakis at William Mora Galleries. The artist forms a living relationship with early images of women and children from the Prefecture of Florina – mostly taken from that most vernacular form of photograph, the postcard – something that was sold as souvenir to the tourist trade, or posted to loved ones overseas.

Gertsakis identifies with their ethnicities and beliefs and physical appearances, transmuting their identities and narratives by printing these ephemeral objects on steel, that most durable of substances, which makes them shine under the gallery lights. The photographs both transcend time and transcend the physicality of the actual photograph… making their hidden histories a precious, and contemporary, thing. Like their protagonists, the steel makes the images and the people in them hardy enough to survive the vicissitudes thrust upon these communal people.

Gertsakis observes, “My voice is in placing myself between the present and the past as it has been generated by the cameras of others.” Beautifully enunciated. With her deep familial roots in the area – one that endured nearly five hundred years of Islamic rule and culture, as well as multiple ethnic communities and religions; Christian Greeks, Slavs, Bulgarians, Jews, Turkic and Albanian Moslems, Vlachs and Gypsies – Gertsakis creates witness and testament to her own communal familial past.

The rare and unique costumes come from the artists personal collection and when I was in the gallery space there seemed to be this electricity flowing between the images and the cloth. It was almost as though the people in the photographs were dancing again, were speaking to us today of their trials and tribulations, of their energy to survive the turmoil of the first decades of the 20th century.

Elizabeth is first generation… her father and grandfather and grandmothers… were those people…. exactly as they appear. They survived the yoke of the oppressor and conquered Orientalism. These are their valuable, inspiring stories, beautifully told.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to William Mora Galleries and Elizabeth Gertsakis for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. All installation photographs © Marcus Bunyan and Elizabeth Gertsakis

Installation view of the exhibition Girls In Our Town: Women in the Shadow of ‘The Magnificent Empire’ Florina Prefecture & Region, Macedonia Greece 1900-1917, 2017 by Elizabeth Gertsakis at William Mora Galleries, Richmond
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Elizabeth Gertsakis (Australian, b. 1954) 'Florina' 2017 from the exhibition 'Girls In Our Town: Women in the Shadow of 'The Magnificent Empire', Florina Prefecture & Region, Macedonia Greece 1900-1917, 2017' at William Mora Galleries, Melbourne, July 2017

Elizabeth Gertsakis (Australian, b. 1954)
Florina
2017
Digital prints on metallic silver acrylic
39 x 174cm

Elizabeth Gertsakis (Australian, b. 1954)
Dancing Macedonian Girls
2017
Digital prints on metallic silver acrylic
39 x 136cm

I was born in the town of Florina, Macedonia, Greece. This town is in the top north western part of Greece adjacent to Albania, FYROM and Bulgaria. My family migrated to Australia in 1954 and I was educated in Australia

Florina was an oriental (ανατολικό) town belonging to the Ottoman Empire which controlled Greece from 1453 to 1922; the people of Florina were a mesh of multiple ethnic communities and religions; Christian Greeks, Slavs, Bulgarians, Jews, Turkic and Albanian Moslems, Vlachs and Gypsies. These religious groups lived and worked together in close proximity. Florina was a typical Balkan town in the later stages of the decline of Ottoman rule in the Balkans.

From 1903-1918, and including World War One (1914) and the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922 the entire northern territories of the Graeco-Balkan Peninsula (including Serbia) suffered great population losses through wars, cataclysmic population displacements (ethnic cleansing) and population exchanges. Refugee diaspora was moving in all directions, across from east to west in both directions. This vast political re-construction of Europe and the Balkans may have initially started from wars of revolutionary independence from the Ottomans, and subsequent internal Balkan expansionist claims to new territory, but it was the conflagration of the First World War that irreversibly rocked its cultural foundations for the future, beyond any political value in the creation of new national states in the Balkans and Asia Minor.

This history of diaspora and displacement laid down a new pattern for the twentieth century and into the twenty first century; a set of historical problems that had and continue to have irreversible impact on the function of community memory in relation to identity experienced by each succeeding wave of refugees and migrants who abandon everything in the simple need to escape and to survive.

I have chosen to highlight the consequences of cultural uprooting on memory and identity through the images of women from Florina, taken by various known and unknown photographers in the period from 1900-1918. These photographs were taken by people who may have had commercial or political intentions in the first instance but the resulting image does not always remain in the control of its original maker. Gender is important in this exhibition because it has been traditionally the female that carries the symbolic function of ritual and memory in relation to culture and identity, and ultimately, the idea and meaning of where belonging and home is. In other words the responsibility falls on the refugee and migrant woman if there is any question or ambivalence or sense of lack. This responsibility remains a constant memorial and cognitive challenge to the psyche of the female survivor, refugee and migrant.

I have used archival photographic images and reconfigured them to create a narrative representing difference. They have been extracted from their solitary sources from commercial photography, press photography and the archives of the Photographic Section of the French Army (Campaign d’Orient 1916-1918).

The installations invite entry into unknown individual histories and emphasis shared past communal lives even though there were multiple political differences and historical consequences. The original images were the result of various kinds of personal and spatial exploitation, both desired and undesired. Photography as a commercial technology played a profound role in the identification and changing of the global meaning of identity that resulted from death during war, disruption and the re-allocation of populations.

Today this usage of images of diaspora continues in the same way via 24/7 news and the internet. I feel it is important to examine female representation during times of crisis and trauma. My desire is that this exhibition encourages multiple narratives and a focus on recognition and justice for minorities internationally and in Australia, as well as the recognition and diversity of individual authenticity. Within the stereotype I look for authenticity, not for any kind of ethnic purity; and I know this is the case both within multicultural as well as the liberal concerns for justice and human rights issues in regard to minorities in contemporary art. As a woman it is the moment when, through my life in art, history and photography, that I accepted the bequest of my own historically difficult position as being the reality of my own identity.

Elizabeth Gertsakis, July 2017