I have been watching the great ABC TV series where Edmund Capon tells the story of
the Art of Australia. Given that the series is only in three parts it is not surprising that the works
presented are just a snippet of what was going on, albeit a handpicked subset that tries to represent the import works that bought change. However it was watching the discussion of the intense group of artist in the
Heide Circle that bought home to me one very important aspect of photography for artist, often overlooked. That is the important task of just recording what is going on, establishing
provenance, where did the works come from? why where they created? or simple what is the work behind the artist’s shoulder? Not every one will be famous and have future gallery curators forensically combing through their old photo collection, perhaps it will be more like someone interested in your art checking the social web. Galleries of your works are probably not going to please them as much as a picture of you working of some important piece (especially the work they want to buy!)
These are a couple of photos of me working on the clay pattern for one of my bas-reliefs of John Monash for my next exhibition “
In Search of Sir John Monash” to be held at
The Highway Gallery, Mt. Waverley, 2nd to 15th November 2013.
I’ve just been to the 25th birthday party of the monash gallery of art and shared some of the yummy birthday cake. Best of all the place was buzzing and not just with friends of the gallery, lots of kids where enjoying the photobooth and other activities or just running around in the wonderful surrounding outside. Not a soul with their eyes glued to their phone or iPad.The current exhibitions brings together some highlights of the mga photographic collection, which in turns includes many key photos in the Australian photography. The photos are hung in salon style and their physical presence is very powerful, and yet they display much originality and clarity in the essence of the subject captured. This is a very welcome change when so much of what is promoted as art is gobbled up on social media and small screens. Yet it is dominantly just look at me, wanna-be celebrity, copy cat stuff. It is a pleasure to step back a pace or two and contemplate good photography hung large (well 10” by 8” up) on a wall.
