NewNorth Prize for Photography 2011

Wednesday, 19 October 2011

I worked today on the NewNorth Prize for Photography 2011, processing innumerable entry forms and cataloguing details of photographs entered into the competition.

Now in its third edition, the Prize is taking place annually at the specialist photography space, New North Gallery, in Fairfield. Although it is slightly more modest as compared to the Bowness Prize at the Monash Gallery of Art, it guarantees that all entries will be displayed, and the winner receives, as a part of the Prize, a free, all-expenses-paid, fully curated exhibition at New North Gallery the following year.

It accordingly attracts a wide cross-section of photographers from across Australia, emerging and professional, artistic and documentary, who are working in a variety of photographic processes and styles, and who are looking to gain a wider exposure through their participation in the Prize. Talking to the prize entrants makes one realise how special it is to see one’s works presented and hung in a gallery environment, and increase one’s visibility and profile beyond the confines of a studio or a  website.

Given my passion for portraiture in all its forms, I have instituted from the very inception of the New North Prize a modest cash award for Portraiture, which is matched dollar-for-dollar by the management of Prize. My very first ‘award’ went to Sean O’Carroll, who went on to produce striking and widely-publicised bodies of work, including Boys, Guns, Etc and Ritalin (the winning image illustrated above); and the last year’s winner was the talented Jenny Hodge (the winning image illustrated below).

As more photographic portraits have marched through the doors of the gallery today, I am thrilled to witness that in my own modest way I am contributing to the continuous discourse on portraiture in contemporary art and photography. The judging is taking place this weekend, and the awards will be announced and presented on Sunday afternoon. I can’t wait to see who the judges choose as the next recipient of my little portraiture award. Good luck to all!!!

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. Where applicable, images are courtesy of the artists and their galleries.]

Brett Graham and Lisa Reihana @ Fehily Contemporary

Tuesday, 21 June 2011

Brett Graham and Lisa Reihana @ Fehily Contemporary

I finally made a pilgrimage to the new space of Fehily Contemporary in Glasshouse Road, Collingwood, which is just around the corner from James Makin and Catherine Asquith. There is a large exhibition area on the ground floor, the L-shape of which is slightly reminiscent of the Tolarno Galleries. Its spacious high walls are perfectly designed for the display of contemporary art, which will be the mainstay of Fehily’s exhibition program.

Currently on display are works by two New Zealand artists, which showcase the gallery’s ambition to stage exhibitions not only by Australian but also international artists. Large-format photographs by Lisa Reihana, Nga Hau E Wha (Four Wind Goddesses) feature the artist’s nieces, and blend together high fashion photography with traditional Maori lore. Despite the excellent quality of these works and striking appearances of the four young women, they somewhat lack the iconicity of the Marae series, which were recently shown at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Brett Graham’s large scale wooden sculptures from the Rikuhia series, the shape of which is based on deep-sea scanners, are ornately carved with traditional Maori designs. The pieces are quite impressive due to their size and the sheer amount of work that went into them, yet I could not help but feel that they lacked the intricacy and ingenuity of Robert Bridgewater’s large scale biomorphic wooden sculptures of the late 1990s.

There is a smaller gallery upstairs, perfect for staging intimate and small-scale exhibitions. Currently on display is a selection of works under $1,000 by gallery artists in a variety of media. Most galleries around Melbourne intermittently put together exhibitions of their lower priced artworks under the banner of ‘affordable’, ‘small treasures’, and the like. The Fehilys have picked up the idea and repackaged it as their “Young Collectors’ Program”, which displays an enviable flair for marketing and re-branding. I have to give it to the Fehilys ingenuity: instead of making one feel like a cheap-skate who can only afford to shop at the lower end of the market, they make their entry-level collectors feel a part of a special and exclusive group. The works on offer include pieces by Ash Keating, Sonia Payes, Gosia Wlodarczak, and many others.

www.fehilycontemporary.com.au

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but full or partial use is welcome with proper acknowledgement. Where applicable, images are courtesy of the artists and their galleries.]

Sue Ford @ MGA

Thursday, 12 May 2011 

Sue Ford @ MGA

The exhibition of works by the late photographer Sue Ford spans a period of nearly forty years, and contains at a glance nearly 100 works by the artist, encompassing several periods, genres, and photographic streams within her oeuvre. The exhibition opens with a set of eight pairs of portraits taken by Sue of the same individuals (including herself), although several years and even decades apart. It is an interesting exercise, very much along the line of the Seven Up series. It is quite remarkable in the way it reflects the changes not only in fashions and aesthetics of the respective eras within which these photographs were taken, but also, very frequently, the changing personal and socio-political environment of her subjects.

The next section is solely devoted to an extensive display of Ford’s self-portraits. Ford pictures herself either alone, or with children and friends; at home, or within her studio environment. The photographs veer between artistic and documentary approaches, some of them no more than casual snapshots. It is an intriguing and intimate insight into her life, an illustrated biographical narrative that makes words virtually unnecessary. I was a bit perplexed to read the accompanying wall text, which basically posited that Ford’s interest in self-portraiture reflects the fact that she was a woman, wife, and mother; and as such, given her domestic commitments, was stuck for time and subjects, and therefore resorted to photographing herself.

Not having known the photographer personally, I do not know whether the statement is true or false. However, when we consider this body of work against the background of current scholarship, which examined the genre of self-portraiture within psychological and psychoanalytical contexts, not to mention the stand-alone validity of the genre as profiled in numerous publications and exhibitions (including the recent one at the NGV), such simplistic dismissal of the intent behind Ford’s numerous self-portraits is baffling to say the least.

The wall text to the third section of the exhibition emphasises Sue Ford as the feminist photographer. I carefully looked at the images within this section, and came away baffled once again. The word ‘feminism’ emphasises a certain ideological, almost militant stance regarding gender inequality and women’s rights issues. As hard as I looked, I could not see an expression of feminist theories in her photographs. The women in her photographs enjoy shopping for dresses and nick-knacks; they expose their beautiful bodies; wear  fashionable clothes; and attend to their beauty routines; they raise children and grandchildren, and proudly display their pregnant bellies. I suggest that the curators confused the words feminist and feminine, for Sue Ford definitely focuses on femininity rather feminism.

Of course, every exhibition, especially the one in a public gallery space, has to justify its curatorial choices. Unfortunately, in many cases, it seems that public galleries cannot leave the recognition of the importance of this or that artist or photographer to its visiting public, who might be able to make an informed judgement for themselves, based on the quality of the works on display. The point about the perceived importance has to be drilled with a verbal hammer-head. The MGA’s wall text boldly proclaims Sue Ford as “… one of Australia’s most important,… a leading feminist,… key role, … highly significant,… major legacy”, and so on and so forth.

Unfortunately, after such a bombastic marketing preamble, the exhibition falls rather short. I acknowledge the fact that it is the first important posthumous survey of Ford’s work (the photographer died in 2009), but it is by no means a block-buster type of exhibition, filled with iconic images. It eschews any of Ford’s colour photography; or anything completed within the last decade or so, when she produced a number of important bodies of work. The show is about quiet contemplation, an intimate dialogue between the photographer and the viewing public through the medium of her camera, rather than a challenging, ground-breaking, earth-moving experience, or a veritable call to arms for women’s rights the wall text would lead you to believe.

And this is what I have done in the end: stopped reading the marketing spin on the walls, and lost myself in Sue Ford’s silent images, the most magnificent of which to mind’s eye is Marlene at Cottes Bridge of 1964, a beautiful and soulful portrait of Clifton Pugh’s wife seated in profile in a chair in front of one of her husband’s (?) portraits. The image is beautifully composed. Marlene’s slim silhouette virtually blends with the darkened atmosphere of the picture. She is unaware of the camera, and faces away from the viewer. She is lost in contemplation of her thought, or perhaps of the featured portrait, the sinuous hands within which echo and interplay the outlines of her own limbs emerging from the darkened sweater.

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]

The Blake Prize 2011 – Part II

Saturday, 23 April 2011 

The Blake Prize 2011 – Part II 

As discussed in the previous post, the inclusion of random artworks with very tenuous connections to religious subject matter devalues the nature of the Blake Prize as an award for religious art, and dilutes its message and directive.

Landscape artists are among the ‘worst’ culprits in this sense. We all have a spiritual experience when we commune with nature; but even the least artistically-aware among us know the difference between a work of art on a religious subject matter and a landscape painting. For example, I personally admire works by Mary Tonkin, but I question the validity of including her painting as a finalist in the prize, for it is no different to the works that are currently on display at the Australian Galleries. Same comment applies to the entries by Martin King; Janine Mackintosh; or Kate Briscoe.

I wish to see more contemporary interpretations of the Old and New Testaments, like those in the works by Robert Dickerson and Christopher O’Doherty; more interpretations of the lives of the Saints such as those by Andrew Mezei and Peter Neilson; or such truly inspiring and meditative installations like those by Janine Whitling and Heather Elyard. As I mentioned above, it is great to see works by Indigenous artists included; but where are representations of other religions from the Middle East, Asia, andSouth-East Asia, who all have rich and diverse iconographic traditions? Last but not least, where are any depictions of Australian or international religious leaders – or does the prize specifically proscribe the inclusion of portraits of the very people who ensure the survival and perpetuation of religion and spirituality?

One of the biggest problems that I see with this Prize is its pointlessness. It only encourages creation of religious art (or pretending that you make some) for the sole purpose of enticing works into the competition with a promise of a cash award. There is no life for religious artworks beyond the prize, and that’s perhaps one of the biggest reasons why so many artists eschew the challenge of creating an artwork especially for the Blake.

When we consider portrait prizes, such as Archibald, Moran, or others, chances are paintings that were created especially for these exhibitions (and many are) might be acquired by national and state institutions, or by the sitters, their families and friends, or crazed and cashed-up fans. Landscape, still-life, and general art prizes have likewise a broader appeal with a likelihood of the works by winners or finalists being acquired by public and institutions, or, in the case of an acquisitive award, even by the prize-giving entity itself (i.e. Doug Moran, Arthur Guy, Savage Club, etc).

When it comes to religious art, we may have to think back to the nineteenth-century France, where a revival of religious art was experienced between 1830s and 1870s, precisely because the government offered a wide support for religious painting and sculpture, and spent substantial amounts of money on acquiring religious artworks either from the annual Salon or directly from artists’ studios, which were then placed with a religious institution (unless specifically acquired for a public collection).

I pray someone would prove me wrong, but there is no such program in existence inAustralia. Furthermore, religious institutions and places of worship are very unlikely to acquire anything from exhibitions like these, filled with half-hearted transmutations on the subject of religion (though they do commission ‘proper’ works on religious subject matter from artists like this year’s winner, Leonard Brown, or stained-glass artist and sculptor Janusz Kuzbicki).

So, once again, what is the purpose of the Blake Prize, in its current form, apart from a self-serving and self-perpetuating exercise that is not being treated seriously and with due respect by the artists who submit their works to it, or by the judges who seem to accept so blindly and indiscriminately anything that is thrown their way – as the current exhibition of the finalists shows?

www.blakeprize.com.au

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]

Bill Henson @ Tolarno Galleries

Wednesday, 20 April 2011 

Bill Henson @ Tolarno Galleries

I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition of recent photographs by Bill Henson at Tolarno Galleries. It features a cross-section of the artist’s favourite subjects, including nudes, landscapes, and photographs of the crowds. The latter consists of two images undoubtedly taken by the artist at the State Hermitage in St Petersburg, in front of two remarkable Rembrandts from their collection – The Return of the Prodigal Son and Danae. These two works reference some of the earliest photographs of the crowds taken by Bill Henson back in the 1970s. They witness an unmistakeable influence of Italian cinematographers, especially Federico Fellini, for there is always someone who unsettlingly stares directly into the camera.

It is tempting to think that in the aftermath of that most ridiculous debacle of 2008, Bill Henson is now taking more care to contextualise his works and educate the viewing public about his images. By including photographs of people in a gallery in front of classical Old Master nudes, he creates a semantic context within which his own nudes ought to be viewed, examined, and considered – as iconographic descendants and inheritors of a rich and diverse artistic tradition of the female nude, one of the most pivotal elements of Western European art. Furthermore, these photographs parallel our own experience of viewing Bill Henson’s contribution to – and interpretation of – the genre.

Rembrandt references also point towards main influences on Henson’s photography – Old Masters paintings of the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Henson’s nudes are overlayed with bluish and purplish tinges, which make contemporary models barely distinguishable from their seventeenth-century ancestresses. The skin tones are desaturated; the marbling of the veins and capillaries is emphasised; the positioning of bodies is structured and sculpturally formalised.

The exhibition deserves to be seen in the flesh, so to speak, as no amount of digital online imagery or printed reproductions can relate the physical sensation and quality of these works. It is only in their presence that one can truly appreciate the depths of the enveloping darkness, into which Henson’s figures dissolve; marvel at the artist’s ability to pick out flashes of the model’s bright auburn hair; and fully experience the emotional weight of his compositions.

www.tolarnogalleries.com

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]

Deutscher and Hackett April 2011

Monday, 18 April 2011 

Important Australian and International Art @ Deutscher and Hackett, April 2011 

Deutscher and Hackett are holding a preview this weekend of their forthcoming auction of Australian and International art, which is due to take place on Wednesday, 20 April 2011. Their offering comprises of almost 200 lots, and features paintings, works on paper, photographs, and sculpture from the Colonial period to the present day.

The collection seems strangely lack-lustre as compared to a much tighter offering by the Menzies group a month earlier. Thus, for example, it does not have outstanding pieces by such important artists as Brett Whiteley, Arthur Boyd, or Sidney Nolan; and while the auction does have a representative smattering of works by Albert Tucker, Russell Drysdale, Fred Williams, and Gary Shead, they likewise do not compare to large-scale museum-quality pieces at Menzies’ earlier auction.

Nevertheless, the auction does offer a number of choice pieces. There is a striking selection of John Brack’s watercolours spanning several decades of the artist’s oeuvre, including his iconic pencil pieces (est. up to $120,000); several large scale works on paper by John Olsen (est. $50,000-$70,000);  a good Jeffrey Smart from the late 1970s (est $700,000-900,000); and an iconic portrait of Joy Hester by Albert Tucker (est. $100,000-$150,000).

For the collectors of the 19^th and early 20^th Century art, there are small but masterfully executed landscapes by Haughton Forrest (est. $8,000-$12,000) and Henry Johnstone (est. $8,000-$12,000); two outstanding flower still lives by Arthur Streeton from the 1930s (est. $35,000-$55,000); and a good quality pastoral by the talented but underrated Horace Trenerry (est. $15,000-$20,000).

The auction does have a few surprises up its sleeve, such as an outstanding roundel by Leonard French (est. $30,000-$40,000); several works by Edwin Tanner (est. $40,000-$50,000); and a striking and dramatic late Clifton Pugh (est $10,000-$15,000).

It is, however, in the contemporary section, that the auction really shines. They have on consignment an excellent and large scale Lin Onus (est. $140,000-$200,000); a classic Stephen Bush, The Lure of Paris (est. $30,000-$40,000), with comparable examples in public collections; a selection of up to five large-scale photographs by Bill Henson, some of which are comparable to the works currently on view at the Tolarno Galleries (est. up to $20,000); an excellent shimmering Jon Cattapan (est.  $15,000-$20,000), as well as works by Tim Maguire, Del Kathryn Barton, Andrew Browne, Brent Harris, Tim McMonagle, David Rosetzky, and numerous other contemporary artists. Presence of works by these artists at auction is quite important, as it establishes a secondary market precedent and profile for their works, and attracts a fresh generation of art collectors.

Perhaps Deutscher and Hackett’s biggest surprise is an original painting by Vladimir Tretchikoff, who is perhaps more known for his prints of boldly-coloured oriental ladies. Russian art as well as South-East Asian art are very much in demand at the moment, and it would be interesting to see whether the combination of the two would produce an outstanding result on the night (est. $100,000-$150,000).

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]

Australian and International Fine Art @ Menzies

Monday, 14 March 2011

Australian and International Fine Art @ Menzies

For their first auction of the 2011 season, which takes place in Sydney on March 24, Menzies pulled together a tight (only 100 lots) but strong group of paintings, works on paper, sculptures, and photography. Although the collection lacks significant 18^th, 19^th, and early 20^th Century works (the market for which is dominated by Sotheby’s at the upper end and Leonard Joel at the lower end), the only notable exception is perhaps the lyrical Art Nouveau female nude by Arthur Loureiro (est $8-12,000), a rare and therefore institutionally significant work.

It is undoubtedly within the Modern masters that Menzies has its strengths, and the March offering is replete with representative selection of works by Arthur Boyd, John Brack, Russel Drysdale, Sydney Nolan, Jeffrey Smart, Albert Tucker, Brett Whiteley, and Fred Williams. As the catalogue meticulously indicates, a number of works by the above-mentioned artists have been around the block a few times, having frequently appeared on the art market within the last decade. However, the auction contains a number of outstanding items which are fresh to the market, and which according to the auction staff, have been extremely popular at the Melbourne preview: the market can smell fresh meat!

These include an outstanding beach nude by Brett Whiteley from 1985, Washing Out the Salt (est $1,250,000-1,750,000); a strong work by Albert Tucker, Gamblers and Parrots from 1968 (est $180-240,000), featuring his iconic Etruscan-inspired heads and abounding with colourful darting parrots; and a very extensive collection of sculptures by Robert Klippel, from early, small, delicately whimsical construction pieces (est $30-36,000), to later large-scale edition bronzes ($110-160,000). I also must mention another two pieces by Brett Whiteley, both relatively ‘fresh’ to the market that (if nothing else) are likewise worthy of a closer look: his brightly coloured Feeding the Doves from 1979, constructed along the dominant contrasts of purples and oranges (est $450-550,000); and a slightly earlier Bondi, which is remarkable for the shapes of houses deliciously blocked out in thick, square slabs of rich impastos ($85-100,000).

There is plenty for more contemporary-focused art collectors to feast their eyes on, including at least two significant works by Garry Shead, both of which haven’t seen the market since they were purchased from their respective galleries: Revelation (Royal Suite), from 1997, remarkable for its sheer size and compositional simplicity (est $250-320,000); and Artist and Muse (Velazquez), 2000, an exceptional and dreamlike composition from an important series of artist’s works (est $80-120,000). There are also strong representative pieces by Jon Cattapan, Aida Tomescu, and Ken Whisson.

Those with a taste for younger artists might equally be drawn to paintings and photographs by Julia Ciccarone, Alexander McKenzie, Tim McMonagle, Darren Sylvester, and David Wadelton. None of them are offered at bargain basement prices, but the works are still offered below their retail value. Exceptional among them are perhaps Tim McMonagle’s Princess Park (est $8-12,000) and David Wadelton’s Move on Up (est $10-15,000), very strong pieces by worthy contemporary artists.

As always, should I have been blessed with an unlimited bank account, my three picks for the auction would be the above-mentioned Brett Whiteley beach nude; a very important early Arthur Boyd’s Death of a Husband, painted in 1958 and belonging to an important group of paintings with comparable examples in public collections (est $650-850,000); and a sharp, engaging, and brightly coloured with yellows, purples, and accents of reds, yet minimalist in its aesthetics Lysterfield Hillside II by Fred Williams from 1974, a representative work from the artist’s important period (est $400-500,000). The last two works have been bandied about the auction rooms all too frequently, so there’s a hope that with this auction these worthy paintings would acquire a ‘more’ permanent home.

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgment]

Four Elements: Water @ New North Gallery II

Wednesday, 9 February 2011

Four Elements: Water @ New North Gallery [Part II]

In the adjoining room, Alan Attwood presents his witty and humorous observations of water in Melbourne’s everyday life – whether it is a silhouette of a stranger seen through the National Gallery’s famous water wall window, or a pair of toes sticking out in the foreground of the colourful and iconic beach boxes. For Susan Henderson, the water is readily associated with Australia being ‘girt’ by sea – both its rocky beaches as well as salt water swimming pools, where the geometric patterns of white concrete are masterfully juxtaposed with the deep emerald of sea water. Emerald is also a key colour for Heather Peters, whose quietly contemplative Through the Looking Glass captures an image of a drowned tree, the whitish, sediment-coloured silhouette of which is showing through the reflective stillness of a forest lake.

As usual, Julie Millowick’s images are among the most poignant ones, especially her photograph of a drowned kangaroo, which reminds one of the devastating effect the floods had on Australia’s flora and fauna (one could not possibly think of a stronger contrast between this image, and the paintings of animal carcasses bleached-out by the drought in works of such artists as Russell Drysdale or Clifton Pugh). Carly Michael, on the other hand, presents a beautifully and carefully studied suite of photographs capturing the gentle colouring of the Lake Eyre, which for the first time after so many years once again is filling up with water. Printed on a beautifully textured paper, the subtle pink, blue, grey and white hues of Michael’s photographs create a sensation of a watercolour suite.

Michael Silver focuses his lenses on water and its effect on the built, urban environment. He creates an otherworldly, futuristic vision with his photograph of the Melbourne University’s flooded car park; while his photograph of Harlem Tango provides an interesting comparison to Joyce Evans’ photographs of Chapel Street, likewise showing the attitude of people caught in a downpour within an urban setting whether locally or on the other side of the world.

In fact, such unintended “dialogues” between works by various photographers occur throughout the exhibition. Greg Scullin and Geoff Strong, similarly to Susan Henderson and Alan Attwood, focus on Australia’s beach and surf culture; water as a ‘living space’ is addressed in the works of Kaye Dixon (floating turtle) and Margie McClelland (Japanese water pond); and similarly to Margie McClelland, George Mifsud also turns his camera to the cloud formations in the sky. Just like Alan Attwood with his pictures taken through the NGV’s water wall, Lynden Nicholls focuses on the intricate visual distortions of objects as seen through the running waters of the Tambo River. Nicholls is perhaps one of the very few photographers in the exhibition, who extends her interest and interpretation of water beyond the confines of the image: the frames are made from detritus found in the river, while the photographs are printed on hand-made paper, produced with Tambo river reeds and grasses.

Prior to the exhibition, Susanne Silver confided in me her concern about having an exhibition of homogenous images. Four Elements: Water shows that her concerns were unfounded due to the power of imagination of photographers within this exhibition, and the many interpretation a single subject of water can take within their creative vision and the ingenious focus of their camera lens.

www.newnorth.com.au

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is welcome with the full and proper acknowledgement.]

 

Four Elements: Water @ New North Gallery I

Tuesday, 8 February 2011

Four Elements: Water @ New North Gallery [Part I]

When Susanne Silver proposed in October 2010 that the theme for the next Four Elements exhibition at the New North Gallery should be water, there was no way one could have foreseen the devastating floods that the nature would unleash on the water-starved and drought-stricken Australia. The same sentiment was expressed at the opening of the exhibition last Sunday by ABC reporter Tim Lee, who mentioned that hitherto most of his stories for the Landline program were focused on the drought, and it is only recently that he had to switch his investigative reporting to interviewing people about the consequences of the floods in Queensland, Victoria, and New South Wales.

The exhibition gathered together works by seventeen photographers, including Melissa Powell, Peter Casamento, Gary Streer, Lynden Nicholls, George Mifsud, Margie McClelland, Michael Norton, Greg Scullin, Geoff Strong, Joyce Evans, Kaye Dixon, Michael Silver, Alan Attwood, Susan Henderson, Heather Peters, Julie Millowick, and Carly Michael. The sheer variety and diversity of approach of these photographers to the subject matter of WATER in their works is astounding, both from the point of view of their interpretation of the subject as well as artistic, aesthetic, genre, and production point of view.

The renowned aerial photographer Melissa Powell presented four images of recent floods in central Victoria, one of which conceptualises the incongruous dichotomy of the current weather situation: it shows dead trees (their trunks bleached out by sun and drought) are standing amid the chocolate sludge of flood waters. For Peter Casamento, water is associated with swimming pools, exercise, and health, or with the rain, which gives a perfect chance to read and reflect. Margie McClelland travelled the width and breadth of the world to capture water in all of its three states – solid (Argentinean glaciers), liquid (Brazilian waterfalls), and gas (clouds over her property in New South Wales). She also took an fresh initiative to consider at water as living habitat for fish – either in a Cowra fish pond, or more imaginatively still as a “Nemo”- themed float in a Rio carnival. Michael Norton’s installation of six photographs is perhaps among the most “artistic” and poetic within this group. He used his craft to interpret water as a site of reflection (in both physical and psychological sense), or capture the physicality of its movement. The printing and production of his delicately-coloured circular images is more reminiscent of hand-painted watercolour tablets than photographs.

Joyce Evans used this opportunity to present within her recent works as well as her classic images. In a suite of four recent photographs, Evans captured the light-hearted attitude of Australians as they stroll and wade almost unperturbed through the neon jungle of the deluged Chapel Street. The timeless quality of her classic images is quite remarkable. The isolation of the solitary jogger in her Hamilton Island photograph is even more palpable for the sheer immensity of the landscape that surrounds him. The photograph of the flooded Nathan River, with green crowns of drowned trees sticking out from the pinkish water, is readily reminiscent of David Rankin’s immense abstracted landscape compositions. The last photograph of Menindee Lake at sunset is not only remarkable for its saturated colour effects, but also for the dialogue it creates with another work in this exhibition, Gary Steer’s Thirsty Meanders. His photograph, taken nearly fifteen years after that of Joyce Evans, shows the same lake dried out, with a tiny creak weaving its way through the dry river bed.

… to be continued …

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is welcome with the full and proper acknowledgement.]

 

The Naked Face II

Saturday, 15 January 2011

The Naked Face: Exhibition of Self-Portraits at the NGV [Part II]

[... continued from Part I ...]

 

Sadly, what looks good on the pages of a book, does not necessarily translate well into the exhibition design. Grouping and positioning of the works on the gallery’s walls frequently appears to be incongruous and haphazard. For example, there is a seemingly coherent section devoted to self-portraits of artists representing themselves within a studio environment, and yet one finds another body of works on exactly the same subject placed inexplicably elsewhere in the exhibition space.

 

While  self-portrait etchings by Rembrandt and Mike Parr look marvellous side by side on the pages of the catalogue, the same placement does not work within the exhibition space, where Parr’s bold large-scale works overpower Rembrandt’s delicate etchings, which would have been more advantageously displayed next two those of Van Dyck and artists of his era. How much more powerful Chuck Close’s self-portrait would have looked placed beside an equally hyper-realistic, over-life-size self-portrait by Vernon Ah Kee! Other examples can be also cited.

The possibilities of representation and self-representation have undergone considerable changes over the course of the 20^th and 21^st Century, challenging mimetic limitations of the genre. This aspect of (self-)portraiture is explored well within the catalogue with a focus on works by such artists as John Nixon, Mathew Jones, Antony Gormley, Destiny Deacon, Katherine Hattam, Huang Yan, Gareth Sansom, David McDiarmid, and others. However, once again, works by these artists are scattered all over the exhibition space. The impact of this radical shift against purely mimetic representation is diluted and lost.

The inclusion of dresses by Coco Chanel and Zandra Rhodes as “self-portraits” is questionable. It is once again a very interesting supposition that stands up academically within the pages of the book, but looks isolated and out of place within the context of this exhibition. On what authority does the curator decide that these two dresses represent their respective designers better than any other thousands of garments they produced? If we accept these dresses as self-portraits, what was the reason for the exclusion of garments by other designers? Last but not least, their placement against a sickly pink background with works by Warhol and McDiarmid creates such a stereotypically “gay” corner, as to be almost insulting.

Some of the works in the exhibition are not self-portraits at all. The interpretation of works by Claude Mellan, Claude Lorraine, Francisco de Goya, Balthus, Vivienne Shark Le Witt, and Andrew Pyett as self-portraits is tenuous in the extreme, and would have been best relegated to the pages of the catalogue as purely illustrative material. Explaining the notion of “narcissism” in a gallery space lined with mirrors; hanging Julie Rrap’s work “Flying” high up near the ceiling; and creating a “gay” corner smacks of “dumbing down” of the exhibition display.

Any survey of self-portraiture, be it a book or an exhibition, is set by default to be dominated by portraits of white middle-aged men. Gaston attempted to re-address this gendered imbalance by including perhaps every self-portrait by a female artist to be found in the gallery’s collection, including those by Patricia Piccinini, Kate Benyon, Sue Ford, Bea Maddocks, Katherine Hattam, Sybil Craig, Nancy Borlaise, Julie Rrap, Destiny Deacon, Cindy Sherman and others. However, without editing down the inevitable bulk of male portraits, the exhibition space is still overwhelmed by pasty-skinned middle-aged men staring down at the viewer.

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate that the premise of The Naked Face exhibition as an academic and educational exercise that focuses on different aspects and nuances of self-portraiture is intelligent, erudite, and inspired. The accompanying exhibition catalogue is a statement to the curator’s passion and knowledge on the subject. However, given the challenge of drawing the exhibition entirely from the National Gallery of Victoria, which is not a specialist self-portrait collection, perhaps required a differentiation of approach between the book and the exhibition display. It is my opinion that, given the limitations of the collection’s holdings, the display would have benefited from a chronological hang where the Old Masters would have represented an infinitely stronger body of work, and where the impact of the radical shift against the purely mimetic representation in the 20^th and 21^st century would have looked more dramatic by comparison. A tighter editing of the works on view would have likewise addressed the inevitable gendered imbalance of a self-portrait show.

[© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg 2011. This article is copyright, but the full or partial use is WELCOME with the full and proper acknowledgement.]