Posts Tagged ‘Bill Henson’
SPOWART: One of Bill Henson’s ‘WILDCARDS’
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The exhibition WILDCARDS at the Monash Gallery of Art closed today. I was wanting to prepare a post that gave some backstory to my work that was selected by Henson to be in the show. I’ve been very busy, so I have not been able to prepare the full story. Later …
For the first time Bill Henson curated an exhibition of Australian photography.
Drawing on MGA’s collection, Henson selected around 100 photographs which have gripped, intrigued, or otherwise engaged him. This selection of photographs was arranged throughout MGA in an experience that will be as intriguing as it will be revealing of Henson’s sensibilities. The exhibition includes many rarely seen photographs, covering the history of Australian photography.
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The Monash Gallery of Art WILDCARDS Exhibition – The walls were painted black!
”All environments are immersive and so my intention, in so far as I am able, is to simply modulate the space, including changing the wall colour, the lighting and, of course, the placement of works so that enough ‘sympathetic’ space opens up for an unexpected intimacy to develop and, ideally, for the experience for others to be one which is powerfully apprehended but not necessarily fully understood.” Bill Henson about WILDCARDS.
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My work between two 1880s Fred Kruger photographs from the outback of Indigenous people.
My photograph …
Doug Spowart photograph
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South of the border, Woomera 1983
sepia-toned gelatin silver print, printed 1986
Monash Gallery of Art, City of Monash Collection
acquired 1986
MGA 1986.44
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Hensons WILDCARD List of works
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Images: Courtesy of the Monash Gallery of ArtP. Photographs: Katie Tremschnig
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XMAS STREET NOCTURNE: A new site project
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On the road and in the street
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In past years after a day’s travelling doing fieldwork we usually aim for an overnight stay in a country town to rest for the night before attacking the road again. On arrival in the town we drive down the main street to inspect the available/affordable accommodation options. By nightfall we are usually ensconced in the motel room: organising our day’s imaging, catching up with emails, dinner and so on. The next day we move on . . .
This year during our summer field trip, motivated by the results of our recent Wooli Nocturne Project, we decided to document at twilight an aspect of each town where we stayed. This meant arriving early so that we could walk down the main street before sunset. Our objective was to survey the site-specific arrangement of town’s Xmas display, (whether present or absent), and identify features that at dusk would also be artificially illuminated. Returning later we would shoot under the deep blue/magenta skies of the early evening and the night lights.
In this work we are not alone, as photographers across the history of the art have used this montage of artificial and natural light effects to document urban environments. The development of this work has been influenced over time by a sustained interest in artists like Edward Hopper and Jeffrey Smart, and the photographers Eugène Atget, Brassaï, William Eggleston, Joel Meyerowitz, Gregory Crewdson and Brian Brake. More recently in Australia, artists and photographers notably Bill Henson and Mark Kimber have also explored aspects of this genre.
Recognising that the inherent nature of this transient light evokes the uncanny, an unseen presence or the interstitial filmic moment captured as a still is fundamental to our project. In this work the documentary photograph is not just a record of the idiosyncratic nature of each town’s main street and its Xmas light show as in these lighting conditions everyday objects are transformed from their daytime function. The prosaic nature of these towns, when photographed in the dusk light, becomes part of a found aesthetic: a site-specific monument to nocturnal light; a visual narrative of light, colour and form.
Xmas Street Nocturne: A site-specific project by Victoria Cooper + Doug Spowart
5 January 2013
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Towns and cities imaged:
- Albury
- Bright
- Coonabarabran
- Cowra
- Narrabri
- Narrandera
- Toowoomba
wotwedid 