Trent Parke: Please Step Quietly Everyone Can Hear You in Paddington, Australia

TRENT PARKE
PLEASE STEP QUIETLY EVERYONE CAN HEAR YOU

October 28 - November 28, 2009 at Stills Gallery

This year Magnum photographer Trent Parke, one of Australia's best-known and most original photographers, was commissioned by Sydney Opera House, as an artist in residence, to shoot behind the scenes. With his characteristic originality and imagination Parke takes us with him backstage. Working amidst the darkness, with strictly choreographed logistics, bizarre props and long hours, he captures, with frankness and affection a side of Sydney Opera House few of us have ever seen. The images that have resulted from this exciting collaboration will be on show in complementary exhibitions at Sydney Opera House and at Stills Gallery.

Whilst it is an architectural masterpiece and Australian icon, it is easy to forget that for some, Sydney Opera House is also a workplace. Behind the architectural statement, the grand operas and the thousands of tourists, there are electricians setting up lights, stage-hands moving props, opera singers eating lunch in the greenroom and people waiting to let the final curtain fall.

Parke's eye is drawn to the many details that may, ordinarily, be overlooked. The electric blues and oranges, kilometres of cabling, lines of tape and graphic arrows present a beautiful, if baffling (for the uninitiated) picture. We see wigs without actors, blood-stained props from tragedies, walls grafittied over years of waiting and the intestinal ducts of air conditioning. His wonderfully observant images capture layers of life and time that have accumulated over the years.

All those who visit Sydney Opera House will be able to view the free outdoor exhibition on the Forecourt from 22 October until February 2010. It will be a great opportunity for visitors to see both the inside and the outside of the house at the same time.

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Trent Parke, the first Australian to become a Full Member of the renowned photographers' cooperative Magnum Photo Agency, is considered one of the most innovative and challenging young photographers of his generation. Whilst working as a press photojournalist during the first years of his career, he received numerous national and international awards, including five Gold Lenses from the International Olympic Committee, World Press Photo Awards in 1999, 2000 and in 2005.

His latest and much-anticipated body of work - The Christmas Tree Bucket, is humour of the blackest hue. In a dazzling display of virtuoso storytelling Parke snaps the family ritual of Christmas with the in-laws and builds a gritty gothic tale of a nightmare lurking in the suburban shadows. Operatic in its vision and darkly satirical in its style, The Bucket is a photographic masterpiece destined for cult status. In 2008, The Christmas Tree Bucket was launched at The Australian Centre for Photography and was also premiered at ParisPhoto by Stills Gallery.

Welcome to Nowhere, which was included in Magnum's 60th Anniversary show New Blood, and exhibited at Stills Gallery in 2007, firmly establishes his ability to work with spectacular results in colour as well as his signature powerful black and white. Following the series Coming Soon, an exploration of urban spaces in colour, Welcome to Nowhere focuses on Australian backwaters, shot on medium format film to maintain fine detail even when printed large-scale. With Welcome To Nowhere Parke continues to create arresting tableaus that are magical in the stories they tell. Often absent of human presence the strong colours and formal composition, convey a stillness with surreal affect. Conversely, the humorous Man Vomiting testifies to Parke's ability to capture unforeseen moments of human behaviour, or in the case of the iconic Sharkbay WA, it is a bizarre gang of emus who seem to think they own the town.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, acquired a selection of works from Welcome To Nowhere in 2007. This is a wonderful addition to the institutions he is held in, which include the National Gallery of Victoria, Gold Coast City Art Gallery, Art Gallery of NSW, and the National Gallery of Australia.

In 2003 Parke was awarded the prestigious international W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his series Minutes to Midnight. Parke documented his journey around Australia over a two-year period, examining 'the current and changing state of the Australian nation'. Capturing the mood of a still young and emerging nation, Parke examined the disjuncture between the perception of the Australian 'way of life', with its nostalgia and romanticism, and the more complex reality. Minutes to Midnight was exhibited for the first time at the Australian Centre for Photography as part of the Sydney Arts Festival in 2005. Works from the series were also included in the 2005 Noorderlicht Traces and Omens Photo Festival in the Netherlands and were featured by Magnum at Paris Photo in November 2005. In 2006 The National Gallery acquired Parke's thirty-piece suite of Minutes to Midnight. The suite was included in the Australian Art Gallery's exhibition Shoot: Five Australian Photographers in Focus and more recently (2009), was part of the Children's Gallery at the NGA.

Parke's Dream/Life & Beyond, exhibited in 2001 at Stills Gallery, presented a city seemingly peopled with spirits and shrouded in the mythical. The play of light and shade, individuals and crowds, reality and dream, elevates his works beyond the documentary. His book, Dream/Life, was awarded second place in the 2000 American Picture of the Year awards for photography books.

During 2000, Parke collaborated with Narelle Autio to exhibit The Seventh Wave at Stills Gallery. Their powerful and lyrical images of bathers captured the drama and otherworldliness that lies beneath the surface of the water.

The Seventh Wave and Dream/Life were exhibited in 2004 at Ariel Meyerowitz Gallery in New York, and at Foto Freo in Western Australia. In 2003, works from The Seventh Wave were selected to be part of the Summer Life exhibition at Alice Austin House Museum in Long Island, New York.

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STILLS is a leading Australian gallery with a focus on contemporary photography and multimedia art. The gallery, established in 1991, is housed in a converted warehouse with a large exhibition and printroom space in Paddington, Sydney's main gallery precinct. STILLS represents both emerging and established artists, and has a long history of fostering artists who work at the forefront of contemporary photo media practice. The gallery's annual program consists of nine exhibitions, and an extensive collection of works held in the stockroom can be viewed by appointment. STILLS also organises artist talks throughout the year to promote discussion and understanding of the exhibited work.

36 Gosbell Street, Paddington, Australia

http://www.stillsgallery.com.au/

Me-Take: Christian Thompson, Dianne Jones and Tony Albert at Perth Centre for Photography in Perth, Australia

ME-TAKE: CHRISTIAN THOMPSON, DIANNE JONES AND TONY ALBERT
October 31 – December 13, 2009 at Perth Centre for Photography

Curated by Eva Fernandez

Bringing together the work of Christian Thompson, Dianne Jones and Tony Albert, this exhibition focuses on self-representation which examines, challenges and subverts notions of Indigenous representations.

Christian Thompson, 'untitled' 'Black Gum-2'

PCP’s focus is on promoting all forms of photo media in Western Australia, particularly new photography and emerging talent. The program features over 15 exhibitions a year, with solo or group shows from emerging and established artists as well as touring shows from interstates and overseas. For photographers interested in developing their skills, PCP offers workshops focusing on basic camera techniques and digital programs.

PCP organises discussions about photography and has created the IRIS Award, a national prize for contemporary portraiture and the CLIP Award, a national prize for contemporary landscape photography. PCP has established strong links with Universities and TAFE Colleges offering students a chance to broaden their view of Australia-wide and international photography.

Perth Centre for Photography
91 Brisbane St. Perth, Australia

http://pcp.org.au/

SIMRYN GILL: INLAND AT CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY IN AUSTRALIA

SIMRYN GILL: INLAND
October 10 - December 13, 2009

Simryn Gill: Inland is a survey of photography and takes place in a photography gallery. It is important to declare at the outset, that while photography forms a significant and wondrous part of her practice, Simryn Gill does not consider herself a photographer; “For me, the taking of photographs is another tool in my bag of strategies, in that awkward pursuit of coherence we sometimes call art”.1 Simryn Gill: Inland embraces this conundrum as an entry point for considering Gill’s photography, and how photography might function more broadly as a way of engaging with the world.

Seven major series wind almost chronologically through the gallery—in this first survey of Gill’s photography—following a path, quite literally, from outside to inside, from found in nature to found in culture and back. Commencing with three series located outdoors, Forest (1996–1998), Rampant (1999) and Vegetation (1999), the survey moves to Gill’s sweeping interior series Dalam (2001). On the cusp of outside and inside is Power station (2004), which makes a curious and visceral analogy between the interior of her childhood home in Port Dickson, Malaysia and the interior of an adjacent power station. Like a medieval Book of Hours, the hand-sized concertina work Distance (2003–2009) is an attempt by Gill to convey the interior of her home in Marrickville, Sydney to someone residing outside Australia.

Gill’s most recent work Inland (2009), commissioned for this survey and photographed during a road trip from northern New South Wales to South Australia and across the bight to Western Australia, is at the heart of the exhibition. Gill’s only moving image work, Vessel (2004), commissioned for SBS Television, closes the exhibition’s journey with the almost imperceptible passage of a small fishing vessel across the horizon. To ground the exhibition, or perhaps to oversee our journey, one image is selected from Gill’s highly regarded series, A small town at the turn of the century (1999–2000).

Seeking an understanding of the politics of place informs her recent series. Inland confounds what is normally expected from photographs of Australia’s interior and eschews decorous landscapes, vast horizons or smiling rugged people, for modest interiors of homes. Indeed there are no people present, only the houses they have inhabited as evidence of their subjectivity.

Inland consists in piles of small jewel-like Cibachrome and black and white prints sitting on a table for viewers to peruse, heightening the provisional nature of its description, leaving open-ended the question of what can be known through photographic representation.

Presented by Centre for Contemporary Photography and Melbourne International Arts Festival, Simryn Gill: Inland is curated by Naomi Cass. Selections from Simryn Gill: Inland will tour to five regional Victorian venues in 2010 and 2011 with NETS Victoria and support from Melbourne International Arts Festival.

Centre for Contemporary Photography
404 George St, Fitzroy

Victoria 3065, Australia

http://www.ccp.org.au/

EXHIBITIONS FOR HIRE: THE AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PHOTOGRAPHY

I would like to see these exhibitions in Toronto. One of the bonuses of writing a blog is finding other artists that interest me. I admit I am selective; I don't post about every show that I have come across. The following exhibitions display the uncanny and humorous side of life. The exhibitions are available for touring. Information is available online.

The Australian Centre for Photography always has one or two exhibitions that interests me. I highly recommend visiting the site. I have provided information below about the centre.

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PIETER HUGO: NOLLYWOOD

The Nigerian film industry is the third largest film industry in the world, releasing between 500 and 1000 movies every year. Low budget, violent and excessive, most Nollywood productions take just 10 days to make, yet they are wildly popular in the lucrative African VCD market - an average film sells 50,000 copies. Nollywood movies now outsell Hollywood films in Nigeria and many other African countries.

For this series of portraits, Pieter Hugo collaborated with Nollywood actors to recreate the stereotypical scenarios that characterise their productions. His assortment of characters includes mummies, satanic demons and decomposing corpses, casually posing in the backlots of Enugu. With an eye for the absurd, he pays tribute to a unique industry that has stood up to the giants of the entertainment industry and come out on top.

Accompanying this exhibition will be a selection of Nollywood movie trailers in Gallery 2.

Images courtesy of Michael Stevenson, Cape Town and Yossi Milo, New York

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THE CHRISTMAS TREE BUCKET: TRENT PARKE'S FAMILY ALBUM

"It was there - while staring into that bright red bucket, vomiting every hour on the hour for fifteen hours straight - that I started to think how strange families, suburbia, life, vomit and, in particular, Christmas really was..." Trent Parke

So began Trent Parke's latest and much-anticipated new body of work. The Christmas Tree Bucket is humour of the blackest hue. In a dazzling display of virtuoso storytelling Parke snaps the family rituals of Christmas with the in-laws and builds a gritty gothic tale of a nightmare lurking in the suburban shadows. Operatic in its vision and darkly satirical in its style, The Christmas Tree Bucket is a photographic masterpiece destined for cult status. World premiere.

Trent Parke is represented by Magnum Photos, London, and Stills Gallery, Sydney

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GLENN SLOGGETT: CHEAPER AND DEEPER

There is a dark and off-colour humour at work in Glenn Sloggett's photographs of suburban Australia. Devoid of people, we read the signs and traces of suburban life in his images of dereliction, failed aspiration and abject domesticity. However, these are not pictures of disgust, but a sort of affection. He articulates that quintessential Australian trait, the ability to find the last glimmer of optimism in the midst of inevitable failure.

Glenn Sloggett's offbeat humour and uniquely Australian take on life are sure to be a hit with audiences across the country.

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The Australian Centre for Photography (ACP) is the country's leading arts centre for the exhibition and publication of, and education in photo-based practice. It is also the longest running contemporary art space in Australia, with over 35 years of exhibiting experience.

ACP exhibitions have played an important role in identifying and promoting the major artists of Australian photography as well as supporting new practitioners who have, over time, become mainstream national figures. The ACP initiated the first major retrospectives of work by photographers such as Max Dupain, Olive Cotton and Merv Bishop, and organised the early public displays of photographs by Bill Henson, Tracey Moffatt, William Yang and Trent Parke. The Centre has also presented works by international photo-artists such as Bernd & Hilla Becher, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Larry Clark, Joan Fontcuberta, Nan Goldin, Roni Horn, George Platt Lynes, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Duane Michals, Pierre Molinier, Erwin Olaf, Martin Parr, Man Ray, Cindy Sherman, Wolfgang Tillmans and William Wegman.

Increasingly new media have become another focus for the centre. These technologies have not only transformed the commercial photographic industry, but have contributed to a total redefinition of 'the photographic' and the relationship of art and popular culture. The ACP sees its role as facilitating the development of a vocabulary to understand the impact and potential of these technological and cultural changes and to engage the public through both exhibition and education programs.

The ACP is committed to showing Australian photomedia art alongside international work. It also promotes Australian photography overseas through exhibition and artist exchanges, publication and advocacy of Australian work to foreign curators. Touring exhibitions generated by the ACP have travelled to North America, Europe and South and East Asia. The bulk of the Centre's touring exhibitions, however, are shown in regional art galleries, contemporary art spaces, libraries and community venues all over Australia and in New Zealand.

In 1983 the Australian Centre for Photography launched Photofile - Australia's first publicly funded journal of photography. The publication is a vehicle for national debate and new writing around photography. Photofile has developed into a significant Australian magazine with both national and international content. It remains Australia's leading photomedia art magazine. Photofile is published three times a year. It provides representation, promotion and analysis of current practices in Australian photomedia art, ranging from documentary through to new digital technologies and including non-narrative film, video and computer-based work. Coverage is structured around provocative articles, portfolios of artists' work, short opinion pieces and reviews. Photofile is committed to critical writing that is historically and theoretically informed, presented in a stimulating and accessible way.

The Australian Centre for Photography also publishes catalogues and guides for many of its exhibitions. In 2002 it published Photographica Australis, a catalogue surveying the work of 18 Australian photomedia artists to accompany an exhibition of the same name shown at Sala de Exposiciones del Canal de Isabel II, Madrid for ARCO and subsequently touring. In 2003 the book was reformatted for an Asian market to accompany a revised version of the exhibition which, over the next two years, toured to the National Gallery of Thailand, Singapore Art Museum, 11th Asian Art Biennale, Bangladesh and the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.

The ACP is a not-for-profit organisation, funded jointly by the Australia Council, the Federal Government's arts funding and advisory body, and Arts New South Wales. Since 2004 it has also been in receipt of a major new grant under the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy (a joint Federal, State and Territory initiative) recognising its leading role and international reputation. The ACP earns half of its own revenue from non-government sources.

257 Oxford Street, Paddington NSW 2021

http://www.acp.org.au/