ACP Photofile

Post-Feminism?

ACP — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:08:00 +1100

Editor: Ashley Crawford

In 1975, the date of the United Nations International Women's Year, American arch feminist guru, Lucy Lippard visited Australia, and helped galvanise artists such as Bonita Ely, Elizabeth Gower and the Women's Art Movement, which had been founded the year before. Now, in the new millennium, with the plethora of female figures working as artists, curators, critics and dealers, it's hard to imagine women having to battle to be heard. But such were the times.

Those times have, without doubt, changed. The almost militant necessity of a feminist stance in the visual arts world in the '70s was felt globally and, at least in a number of Western countries, to considerable success. That is not to say that in broader societal terms there are not major issues still to be addressed. But today, at least within the boundaries of the Australian art world, it seems the issue is not so much one of being 'feminist' in its strictest terms, as one of what it means to be 'feminine.'

These are, of course, thorny terms. The Encarta World English Dictionary definition of 'feminist' remains perfectly apt for any age: "belief in women's rights: belief in the need to secure rights and opportunities for women equal to those of men, or a commitment to securing these." However the definition of 'feminine' makes one cringe: "conventionally associated with women: conventionally thought to be appropriate for a woman or girl." Indeed, 'conventional' and 'appropriate' are two classic terms that refute what many would consider to be the core of feminist ideology.

Featuring such artists as Belle Bassin, Jane Burton, Pat Brassington, Tacita Dean, Chantal Faust, Mimi Kelly, Justine Khamara, Hannah Raisin and Kellie Wells, this issue of Photofile explores the extremes of the female as both subject and practitioner, and touches upon both the psychology and physiology of the feminine. To be sure, clich'es of the dictionary definition of 'feminine' run through many of these artists' works - lipstick, underwear, the pretty dress - but the 'feminine' in this context often takes a decidedly 'inappropriate' and 'unconventional' twist.

Kellie Wells' initially seductive video work portraying a meticulously coifed model - the artist herself - is at first beguiling. The sense that there is something wrong about the image is bluntly explained by the title: Trying to look beautiful while my hand is burning. Wells shares with Raisin and Kelly the notion of artist as (tortured) protagonist - as Phip Murray notes they have achieved the self-empowerment of taking over the maxim of 19th Century French playwright, Victorien Sardou, who was famous for advising aspiring writers to "Torture the women!"

And indeed it is difficult to look at some of the 'self-portraiture' of Mimi Kelly who at times looks overtly corpse-like, her perfect body clearly having succumbed to forms of abuse only barely concealed. Similarly Pat Brassington's strange morphings of the figure in her recent series, A Perfect Day, distend and deconstruct the body in extremis.

At their extremes, artists such as Jane Burton and Chantal Faust are no less kind to their subjects. There are times in Jane Burton's oeuvre when the body is bruised and engulfed in fetid, strangling growth and Faust's abstracted (self) portraits are entombed beneath the glass of the flat-bed scanner. This is very much the prerogative of the artist and this in itself is testimony to the potent effects of the feminist movement of the 1970s. Women have long been the muse of the male artist, but in recent decades, and most especially in the new millennium, it is women who have taken the reigns.

That is not to say the battle is over. Statistic presented on the website http://countesses.blogspot.com/ suggest that statistically women remain seriously under-presented in both editorial coverage and curatorial representation. Indeed, when Photofile recently established an editorial board, the initial list of advisors were all male - clearly the result of complacency and a matter that is being addressed as of this issue.

Whether it is the hand or the heart burning, or at times the licentious burn of the libido, the artists featured in this edition of Photofile are, amongst other things, exploring what femininity means in what might be dubbed a post-feminist (art)world.

IMAGE © Jane Burton Ivy #10 2009

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The Portrait Issue

ACP — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:21:52 +1000

Editor: Ashley Crawford

And the winner is... A funny thing happened on the way to the deadline of this issue of Photofile; three writers; almost simultaneously, wanted to write about the plethora of photographic awards that seem to have swamped the genre of late. Both Anne Marsh and Maurice O'Riordan took The National Photographic Portraiture Prize as a springboard for highly incisive discussions on the stature of photography today; the blurring lines between high and low art, between popular and elitist culture and the simple fact that photography in our national institutions is by now well and truly entrenched.

Andrew Quilty as the judge of the 2009 Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize took a more personal position, delving into the process of that most arduous of tasks - being The Judge. What is striking is the sheer multitude of artists taking up the camera to capture a person's likeness, and the seemingly never fading desire to pin the portrait. The Moran Prize of course is not exclusively portraiture, but it is intriguing that Quilty cites the landscape image of the Murray-Darling Basin, Dean Sewell's A Dry Argument as one of the more powerful images in the prize show. He quotes the famous landscape photographer, Ansel Adams, who stated: "a great photograph" is "a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense and is, thereby, a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety."

In this A Dry Argument becomes a portrait of the inner thoughts of any environmentally conscious Australian. Quilty sums this image up by saying it: "reveals life as it is in reality, in its purest form, unfettered by extraneous influence, manipulation or concept." Eschewing computer trickery, Sewell's is a powerful portrait of a dying land.

The environment is also the core concern of Ash Keating's work. One of the key images of his oeuvre reveals the artist dressed in rubbish on the streets of Korea; an unlikely and disturbing sight indeed and one that hammers home his commentary that excessive waste comes with considerable power. At heart Keating's photographs are documentary archives of live performances.

Bernhard Sachs' work also at times strays into documentary approach, but the bulk of his recent work - a melding of photographs taken by his father and his own - seems to border on almost fetishistic self examination. Physically Sachs is rarely the subject (occasional dinner-performances being the exception) but psychologically these works are clearly self-portraiture.

The contrast between approaches - from strict portraiture to documentary to self-exploration is given another twist in the works of Daniel Crooks, a multi-media artist extraordinaire who seems determined to manipulate time itself. Here Kirsten Rann places Crooks on a firmly modernist trajectory. This issue also introduces a new national editorial advisory board in order to ensure broader Australia-wide coverage. Accordingly I would like to welcome on board David Broker, Robert Cook, Michael Edwards, Steve Eland, Ross Wolfe and Nick Mitzevich to help us steer Photofile into broader waters.

Regulars:

Editorial
Contributors
Debut: Wiebke Brix
Previews: Dennis Hopper, Albert Tucker and Vanity Fair
Rant: Personal Space by Steve Eland

Features:

The Judge: The Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize by Andrew Quilty
Wonders in Portraitland: The National Portrait Gallery by Maurice O’Riodan
Photography Now: The National Portrait Prize 2009 by Anne Marsh
Imaginary Homelands from Singapore: by Lesley Chow

Portfolios:

Between Bacchanalia and Melancholia: Bernard Sachs by Ashley Crawford
All That Is Solid Melts: Daniel Crooks by Kirsten Rann
Trans-Garbage Aesthetics: Ash Keating by Melissa Amore

Exhibition Reviews:

Bernadette Keys' Odalisque by Ruth Learner
And the Difference Is by Leon Goh
Anne Ferran by Anne Kirker
Corin Hewitt, Seed Stage by Ingrid Periz
Narelle Autio, The Summer of Us by Virginia Baxter
The Pictures Generation by Ingrid Periz
Jill Orr by Kirsten Rann

Book Reviews:

Rhys Lee by Tom Fantl
Love Faith Death by Tom Fantl
Photography Between Poetry and Politics by Tom Fantl

IMAGE © Sam Ruttyn Brian Ebersole - Cage Fighter (detail) 2008

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Innocence UNCuT:

ACP — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 02:41:08 +1100

Editor: Ashley Crawford

When colonial-era scientists sent a platypus to England it was considered a cleverly devised practical joke. What kind of mammal lived in the water and had a duck’s beak? In many ways Australia, both in its very nature and in its culture can be looked at the same way; a bizarre melting pot of desert and forest, of cultures from here and afar.

Australia, in this issue of Photofile, is portrayed in numerous ways. Brendon Lee’s ‘remaking’ of aspects of Australian culture suggests just how malleable our own self-perception can be. As Veronica Tello notes of Lee’s imagery: “There is a distinct ethnographical quality in Lee’s work: an ability to excavate and sieve through difficult yet essential aspects of the Australian character, facets of which, Lee believes, have long been discarded.”

While Paul Batt’s work is in essence a commentary on surveillance in contemporary society his imagery also acts as an illustration of the palimpsest of cultural backgrounds that Australia carries. The genesis of the works in this issue has a somewhat mundane birth – as Batt says, the simple “observation of the constant parade of people stopping at the service station opposite my apartment.” But the results say multitudes about our racial perceptions and suspicions.

One place that will never see a parade of people is Lake Eyre. From Batt’s somewhat claustrophobic inner-city aspect, we travel to the great salt lake as captured by Murray Fredericks. Here both sky and surface meld in delirious aquamarine slashed by a bright and vibrant crimson as the sun sets over the perfect horizontal divide of heaven and earth. At other times the heat haze eradicates the horizon line entirely, creating a other-worldly cloud-like minimalist planet seemingly disconnected from any earthly environment. Almost terrifying in their minimalism, Fredericks captures the extremes of Australia’s natural environment.

Terence Hogan also uses nature as a springboard, in essence the gradual drying out of his inner-suburban garden during Victoria’s ongoing year of heat. He documents, with intimate detail, the mesmerising shifts of one small patch of garden detritus.

And as we know all too well, this dry detritus is the stuff of fire, one of Australia’s most potent weapons against human settlement. Fire and its aftermath are at the core of Samantha Small’s chilling works, what Damian Smith describes as “Gothic capitulation.”

“...in choosing a subject, which in essence is one of darkest domestic horror, indeed there is nothing to compare with death by immolation, Small has created artworks both horrific and poetic,” Smith writes.

“Horrific and poetic” could also apply to the works by our cover artist, Van Sowerwine. As Darren Tofts writes in this issue: Sowerwine’s work “synaesthetically shortcircuits our comfortable, cathartic distance from the character as our gaze becomes something far more intimate, invoking the physical, consoling caress of touch. We have gone beyond the valley of the dolls.”

The tendency of Australian artists to dwell in dark places of the imagination is perhaps unsurprising when one considers where we live – a land of desert and fire. A vision, perhaps, of hell: Samantha Small’s burnt-out home, Murray Fredericks’ barren, featureless void. And yet in these harsh and rugged environs we can carve out images of beauty and poetry.

Ashley Crawford

Regulars:

Editorial
Debut: Sonia Payes by Melissa Amore
Previews: Lou Hubbard by Amy Marjoram
Previews: John Bodin by Ashley Crawford
Rant: The B Factor by Ashley Crawford

Features:

Smoke Gets in My Eyes: Gothic Capitulation in the Work of Samantha Small, Pat Foster & Jen Berean by Damian Smith
Everything You've Got: The Body in Recent Japanese Photography by Lesley Chow
Body Trouble: Interview with Michiko Kasahara by Lesley Chow
Meaning in the Void: Murray Fredericks' Mission by Ashley Crawford

Portfolios:

Hoon Bricolage: Brendan Lee by Veronica Tello
Innocence Uncut: Van Sowerwine by Darren Tofts
Everyone Is a Suspect: Paul Batt by Ashley Crawford
(out the back): Terence Hogan by Kirsten Rann

Exhibition Reviews:

Dark Dreams + Fluorescent Flesh, SASA Gallery, South Australian School of Art
Visual Reminiscence: Anne Wilson, Arc1 Gallery, Melbourne

Book Reviews:

Facades by Tom Fantl
Harold Cazneaux by Tom Fantl
Half Light by Anne Kirker
Portraits From a Land Without People by Maurice O'Riordon
Maslen and Mehra by Maurice O'Riordan

IMAGE © Van Sowerwine Sophie 2005

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Post Punk

ACP — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:24:29 +1100

Editor: Ashley Crawford

I must say that I have had an interesting few months since the last Photofile appeared. First off there was a long lunch with the infamous performance artist Stelarc, whose latest endeavour has seen a third ear grow on his left arm. It was a warm day in a moderately crowded restaurant and when Stelarc removed his jacket a gradual hush filled the room. It's not every day that you dine with a man with three ears.

That led to talking with Stelarc's partner, photographer Nina Sellars who had been on hand to document the operation. The somewhat gory results are featured in this issue and seem strangely in tune with our CSI culture at the current moment.

Then it was off to Tokyo for eight days courtesy of Asialink to see two curated exhibitions of Japanese and Australian artists. Trace Elements at the Tokyo Opera City Gallery was co-curated by Bec Dean from Sydney's Performance Space and Shihoko Iida from Tokyo Opera City while Diorama of the City: between site and space at the Tokyo Wonder Site was co-curated by Reuben Keehan from Artspace, Sydney, and Hisako Hara of Wonder Site. Trace Elements will tour to Performance Space while Diorama will tour to Artspace in Sydney in 2009. In this issue we speak to four of the Australian artists involved - Jane Burton, Philip Brophy, Sophie Kahn and Tim Silver about their experiences.

The Asian focus continued as Maurice O'Riordan travelled through the various concurrent art events, taking in the Singapore, Taipei, Kwangju and Shanghai Biennales, finding particularly striking photographic work in Singapore with its aptly titled theme, Wonder.

Back in Australia the Melbourne Festival was in full flight and gave us an opportunity to talk to two international stars about their photographic and mixed media work - the poet laureate of punk, Patti Smith and the high-tech hip-hop maestro Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky. In many respects they could not be more extreme - Smith's work is essentially romantic in the 19th Century amateur style while Miller embraces new technologies with technofeverishness. Miller's Terra Nova Sinfonia Antarctica highlights the perils facing the icy continent while Smith's work, at heart, is a homage to her former lover and long-term collaborator Robert Mapplethorpe.

Meanwhile intrepid reporter Darren Tofts donned an Elvis Presley hair-piece and attended a debauched bacchanalia on Photofile's behalf. Hand to Mouth was a one-off art-event-happening conceived by Melbourne based artists Boo Chapple and Adele Varcoe ñ the only thing missing was Stelarc and Nina Sellars in attendance.

Regulars:

Editorial
Debut: Let it slide: Mia Salsjo by Phip Murray
Previews: Upcoming shows
Rant: Pseudo Zeitgeist by Philip Brophy

Features:

Visiting the Infirmary: Patti Smith pays homage to Robert Mapplethorpe by Ashley Crawford
Digital Debauch by Darren Tofts
Found In Translation: Australian art in Tokyo by Ashley Crawford
Why a kiss is an X? An Asian round-up by Maurice O’Riordan
The Sound of Ice: DJ Spooky in the Antarctic by Ashley Crawford

Portfolios:

Oblique Strategies: Nina Sellars by Ashley Crawford
Faustian Fantasies: Chantal Faust by Melissa Amore
Muscular Memories: Simon Terrill by Kirsten Rann

Exhibition Reviews:

Picture Paradise
Huang Xu
Victor Erice & Abbas Kiarostami: Correspondences
Derek Hart: fro and to
Chris Fortescue: naturalism08

Book Reviews:

Heide Smith: Portrait of a people: the Tiwi of Northern Australia
David Campany: The Cinematic

IMAGE © Carla Gottgens Patti Smith 2008

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Distortions

ACP — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:45:21 +1000

Editor: Ashley Crawford

Domesticity can be a strange thing indeed. As filmmaker David Lynch illustrated so wonderfully in his film Blue Velvet, there are many oddities that lie beneath the surface. Three artists in this issue of Photofile certainly seem to back this up.

In Maree Alexander's world, everyday objects take on a mysteriously erotic frisson. A jug pushes a glass into a corner with clearly erogenous intent, fruit squeezers prepare to copulate - the everyday becomes a sensual orgy. Cold, utilitarian glass and plastic are caught out in the heat of the moment, leaving one wondering what happens on the kitchen bench when we are away. "It is the animation of the inanimate that gives rise to an uncanny quality in these works," Joan Cameron-Smith notes in her essay on Alexander. "... we fulfil the moments that may follow within our minds."

Many aspects of this issue could be summarised by the Comte de Lautr'eamont in his classic surrealist novel, Les chants de Maldoror: "Beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissection table."

The strangeness continues when a painter encounters two everyday objects - an old mirror and a mobile phone. While he has dabbled in other media, most especially Super 8 film during the 1980s, Peter Walsh is known foremost for his paintings. In his latest body of work he has shifted gear dramatically: the body distorted via a chance encounter in imagery reminiscent of an old circus carnie.

The carnie continues in yet another chance encounter and another weird semblance of domesticity when Lisa Roet discovered a retired circus clown and his chimpanzee, Mugsy. Roet's work - photography, video, drawing and sculpture - has long focused on the simian as subject. "Are these as they seem, images of domestic normality, of family members in their habitual repose?" William Wright asks in his essay on Roet, Primal Pursuits.

Elements of what Sigmund Freud discussed in his 1919 essay, The Uncanny abound in this issue. In essence Freud describes the Uncanny as something we do not recognise, that is frightening almost purely because we cannot easily classify the object or situation around us. Freud uses the German word unheimlich, which is clearly the opposite of heimlich (homely): "the opposite of what is familiar; and we are tempted to conclude that what is 'uncanny' is frightening precisely because it is not known and familiar."

That we live in strangely conservative times is beyond dispute and, perhaps surprisingly, visual art still has enough punch to make the nightly news and the front pages of newspapers around the country. In early 2008 the painter Sam Leach gained notoriety for his self-portrait in Nazi uniform, which was entered into the Archibald prize. That was rapidly followed by the Bill Henson saga. That in turn was followed by the controversy over the cover of the July issue of Art Monthly, which featured an image by Polixeni Papapetrou of her naked daughter. The eminent art critic, Kevin Rudd, made sure to wade in on both the Henson and the Papapetrou affairs. In keeping with the times, this issue of Photofile has earned an M Rating for the imagery of Paul Quinn. Like Sam Leach's work, Quinn's is a clear warning of the inevitable atrocities of war. Only the tiniest percentage of those in uniform would be guilty of any atrocities whatsoever, but as images that have seeped out of locations such as Abu Ghraib testify, atrocities do occur during war-time.

One of the masters of the Uncanny was Goya. For most of the readers of Photofile war remains uncanny, unfamiliar except via the sterilised imagery of the television set. Goya's depictions of war are chilling and gruesome indeed, but the harsh realities of a remarkably barbaric present are depicted in ghastly mis-en-scenes by Paul Quinn. These images are not for the faint-hearted and will no doubt shock and horrify many. As Editor I do not apologise for that - one of the realities of war is rape or, at the very least, excessive abuse perpetrated on the victim and Quinn has the guts to reveal that horror in his carefully staged and truly horrible tableaux. Like the United Kingdom's Chapman Brothers, Quinn takes his que from Goya. These works should be a wake-up call to everyone.

Regulars:

Editorial
Third Degree: Anne Marsh
Previews: a critical appraisal of some of the upcoming events nationally and internationally
Debut: Andre Liew
Profile: Criterion Gallery
Interview: Through a glass darkly: Interview with Peter Walsh
Points of View: Polly Borland:Bunny
Rant: Draft Manifesto for a Panphotographic culture

Features:

Double Exposure: Post - photographic Practice by Stephen Haley

Portfolios:

Maree Alexander by Joan Cameron-Smith
Primal Pursuits: Lisa Roet by William Wright
Don't Scream Stupid: Paul Quinn by Phillipa Murray
Apocalypse Noir: Brie Trenerry by

Exhibition Reviews:

Eliza Hutchison: The Ghillie
Paul Ferman: Surface (and recent text based works
Penelope Davis: Fiction-Non-Fiction
Body Language: Contemporary Chinese photography
David Rosetzky: One in Five
A Century in Focus: South Australian Photography, 1840s–1940s
Pete Volich: 2012: E9E10

Book Reviews:

John Conomos: Mutant Media
Nathan Miller: Going Down South
Julia Schauenburg and Ben Grace: Good Old World
Australian Photojournalist

IMAGE © Lisa Roet Caravan Toowoomba 2008

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The Erotic Imagination

ACP — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 06:53:25 +1000

Editor: Ashley Crawford

The body haunts this issue of Photofile. At times, as in the works of Helen Pynor, Peta Clancy, Ben Cauchi, Jacqui Stockdale and Kristian Burford, it is there in all its visceral, and sometimes gory, glory. At times it is morphing into a strange technological presence in Second Life as seen in the works of BABELSWARM. Elsewhere it is hauntingly absent; in a place where the body, and all too often bodies, are an ever-present factor - the realm of war.

There was an eerie co-incidence in the collation of articles in this issue - that of Babel - both the place and the meaning. Babylon was, in the times of the Bible, referred to as Babel and was located at a place we now call Iraq. Indeed the Tower of Babel looms large in the following pages; there is the babel in the language of war and the babel of technology. It is literally one of the key inspirations for Justin Clemens, Chris Dodds and Adam Nash, known in Second Life by their avatar names S1 Gausman, Mashup Islander and Adam Ramona respectively. It is also literally the subject of the work of Australian war artists Charles Green and Lyndell Brown. Given their options in Iraq, they chose the camera as their weapon of choice. The results highlight the extraordinary waste that all wars create, while they also capture the fascinating contrast between an ancient ziggurat and contemporary military technology.

Regulars:

Third Degree: The new director of the Monash Gallery of Art Jason Smith is brought in for questioning.
Previews: a critical appraisal of some of the upcoming events nationally and internationally
Debut: discover Joan Cameron-Smith's Houses of Thought
Profile: The adventurous approach of the Queensland Centre for Photography
Interview: Charles Green & Lyndell Brown in the war zone.
Points of View: Four perspectives on Hari Ho's White Cross Black Land
Rant: Darren Tofts gets cranky with the digerati

Features:

BABELSWARM: Kirsten Rann goes into Second Life
Prizes, prizes, prizes: Martin Jolly investigates the plethora of photography prizes across Australia

Portfolios:

Lips & Lashes: Peta Clancy by Ashley Crawford
The Presence of Absence: Ben Cauchi by Erika Wolf
Visceral Voyeur: Helen Pynor by Ashley Crawford
The Erotic Imagination: Kristian Burford by Jan Tumlir
Behind the Masks: Jacqui Stockdale by Lesley Chow

Exhibition Reviews:

A Century in Focus: South Australian Photography 1840s-1940s at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Motion Pictures at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth
Christian Marclay at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne
Paris Photo at the Carrousel du Louvre, Paris
Salvatore Panatteri; Untitled (to Dan Flavin) at H29, Brussels
Generation C at the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney
Brisbane Sound at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane

Book Reviews:

Helen Ennis: Photography and Australia
Craig Golding Surf Club
Laurence Aberhart: Aberhart
Matt Hoyle: Encounters with the strange and unexplained

IMAGE © Kristian Burford Kathryn 2001

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Guilty Secrets

ACP — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 10:40:41 +1100

Editor: Alasdair Foster

Reality and fiction. Truth and falsehood. The authorisation of meaning. Photography seems forever caught up in the vortex that swirls between these concepts. This issue of Photofile has no formal theme, but these concerns with reality, fiction and authorisation are all here. The traditions of documentary witness are to be found in the work of the artist-run photo agency Oculi and in the harsh realties made evident in Stephen Dupont's ongoing project in Afghanistan. However, Lewis Morley is dismayed that some of the classic photojournalistic shots of the 20th century were in fact staged set-ups.

On the other hand, the imaginative fictions published here cut to the heart of very real situations. Elaine Campaner's tiny tableaux make a biting comment on Australia's detention centres and Graham Miller's dramatised portraits evoke the melancholy of middle Australia. Meanwhile, the serious business of game playing and fantasy is at the heart of Polixeni Papapetrou's practice - she discusses her approach in the main interview. And Li Guangxin's ironic saccharine portraits take a satirical look at the ambivalent mix of vanity and vulnerability felt by China's new consumer generation.

In an incisive and critical article, artist Scott Redford takes on the world’s leading curators. He argues that they have turned their back on the important cultural issues of our age in favour of cosy nostalgia. He makes a powerful argument for greater democracy in the arts and more serious attention to be paid by the art world to phenomena such as YouTube, Facebook and Second Life.

Regulars:

Editorial
The Third Degree: Mr Artlife, Andrew Frost, is brought in for questioning
Previews: a critical appraisal of some of the upcoming events nationally and internationally
Debut: discover the enchanted world of Magdalena Bors
Profile: the rise and rise of FotoFreo
Interview: Polixeni Papapetrou gets serious about dress-ups, art and her critics
Points of View: four perspectives on Tracey Moffatt's sunny new portrait of Eubena Nampitjin
Rant: Lewis Morley demands more honesty in photography

Features:

You Are the Content: Scott Redford calls the über-curators to account
Culture Warriors: David Broker gets to grips with the National Indigenous Art Triennial
The Eyes Have It: Sandy Edwards looks into the work and workings of the artist-run Oculi photo agency

Portfolios:

Lonely Ain't No Eyesore: Robert Cook embraces the deep melancholy in Graham Miller's evocation of dystopian suburbia
Narcostan: images from Stephen Dupont's award-winning documentary project in Afghanistan
Infatuation: Huang Du introduces a rising star of Chinese photomedia, Li Guangxin
Model Society: Maggie Finch finds the harsh realities of Australian politics in Elaine Campaner's tiny tableaux
First Cut: Pat Hoffie considers Martin Smith's incisive synthesis of image and text

Exhibition Reviews:

Christl Berg: Intimate Encounters at Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Inveresk
Living Elvis at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne
Daylesford Photo Biennale
Role Play at National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Selina Ou at Grant Pirrie Gallery, Sydney
New Blood: Magnum Photos 60th Anniversary Exhibition at Stills Gallery, Sydney
Transmission at South Australian School of Art Gallery, Adelaide
Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles

Book Reviews:

Photography: Art Gallery of New South Wales Collection
Matthew Sleeth: Ten Series / 106 Photographs
Christopher Day: Surprise Hard Times
Gary Carsley: Draguerrotypes

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Dream Girls, Strong Women & Bad Boys

ACP — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:42:50 +1000

Editor: Alasdair Foster

The construction of identity and the sense of place are themes that duck and weave their way through this issue of Photofile. The gender gap is addressed variously by Julie Rrap, Samantha Everton, Pat Brassington, Shaun Gladwell and Ray Cook. Meanwhile top of the arts league table this year are the Venice Biennale and Kassel's Documenta; Reuben Keehan reports back on both. Further east, Juha Tolonen finds beauty in the dereliction of wastelands in central Europe and, nearer home, Adelaide's Shoot Collective take to the streets.

Magda Keaney and Gerald Keaney weigh up the benefits of MySpace, YouTube, Facebook and similar sites when they consider do-it-yourself culture. And Pedro Meyer finds democracy on line - at least when viewed from outside the western metropolises. Pursuing new media further Miao Xiaochun has remade Michelangelo's Last Judgement as a 3D virtual space and Daniel Crooks creates elegant imaginary objects as he renders time as a spatial form.

Regulars:

The Third Degree: CCP's Naomi Cass confesses all
Previews: a critical look at some of this season's shows at home and abroad
Profile: Perth Centre for Photography celebrates 15 years
Debut: the spotlight falls on Canberra's Charlie Sofo
Interview: Australia's leading photo surrealist Pat Brassington talks about desire, uncertainty and recycling her body parts
Points of View: four takes on Miao Xiaochun?s cyber remake of Michelangelo?s Last Judgement
Rant: Mexico's new media master Pedro Meyer finds democracy online

Features:

Venice 52 / Documenta 12 Reuben Keehan checks the score as Europe scrums down for a summer of art
Shoot Collective Samara Mitchell discovers art on the streets of Adelaide
The DNA of DIY: Self-portraiture and the Digital Age Gerald Keaney and Magda Keaney work out what MySpace is good for

Portfolios:

Her Own Woman Joanna Mendelssohn assesses the feisty feminism of artist Julie Rrap
Construction Sites Tony Stephens cracks a tinny with Ray Cook's blokes behaving badly
Wasteland Juha Tolonen finds beauty in recycled and abandoned spaces
Imaginary Objects Daniel Crooks conjures form from the space-time continuum
Childhood Fears Maggie Finch introduces Samantha Everton's haunting evocations of youthful anxiety
Body of Work Robert Cook cuts to the heart of Shaun Gladwell's athletic art

Exhibition Reviews:

Hall of Mirrors: Anne Zahalka Portraits 1987-2007 at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne
Leigh Hobba: Space of Presence at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart
Ishiuchi Miyako: Mother's at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Bill Henson at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane
Lynne Roberts-Goodwin: Random Acts at Sherman Galleries. Sydney
Pete Volich: Tales from the Rear View Mirror Series ... Here We Go Again at 24Hr Art – Northern Territory Centre for Contemporary Art, Darwin
Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award at the Gold Coast City Art Gallery, Surfers Paradise
Reveries: Photography and Mortality at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra

Books Reviews:

Out of Time: Essays Between Photography and Art by Blair French
David Stephenson: Sublime Symmetries
Yvonne Todd: Dead Starlets Assoc.
Ian Dodd ('Contemporary Photographers Australia' series)

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Panic & Paranoia

ACP — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 13:07:34 +1000

Photography and the Law

Editor: Alasdair Foster

Will it soon be illegal to take a photograph in public? Heading up this issue of Photofile Martyn Jolly and Katherine Giles sort out the legal fact from the paranoid fiction. Meanwhile Adam Cuthbert highlights the danger of battlefield photography becoming a pornography of violence and Tarryn Gill and Pilar Mata Dupont satirise the simplistic polarising of good and evil portrayed in wartime propaganda.

Other featured artists include James Geurts who tells of his recent solo trip around the world's equator to create an image that symbolically and conceptually integrates humankind and environment. Closer to home, a poignant series by Angela Blakely and David Lloyd documents the hopes and fears of young Aboriginal people of Mount Isa while experts from various professions argue to pros and cons of US artist Jill Greenberg's controversial images of tearful toddlers. There is, of course, much more besides - an interview with Darren Sylvester, imagery by William Yang, Anne Noble, Bridgit Anderson, Murray McKeich, Joachim Froese and skater-artist guru Ed Templeton. In quieter vein, Helen Ennis reflects upon mortality on the eve of her forthcoming exhibition Reveries.

The Third Degree: we tied William Yang into a chair, shone the desk lamp in his eyes and demanded some answers...

Previews: a critical appraisal of some of the upcoming shows nationally and internationally

Interview: Gen Y oracle Darren Sylvester talks about packaging emotion, risk aversion and the challenge of becoming Kate Bush

Points of View: four perspectives on Jill Greenberg's controversial images of crying children

Features:

Panic and Paranoia: the Law and Photography in Australia Martyn Jolly and Katherine Giles sort the fact from the fiction
90 Degree Equatorial Project James Geurts unfolds the epic story of making of an artwork that frames the world
On Death Helen Ennis reflects on the post-mortem images of Bridgit Anderson, Anne Noble and William Yang

Portfolios:

We're Talking, Anyone Listening? Angela Blakely and David Lloyd give a voice to the Aboriginal children of Mount Isa
Zombie Theory Murray McKeich unleashes a machine-made army of the un-dead
Ed Templeton the world's most famous skater-artist searches for physical and emotional extremes
Heart of Gold Tarryn Gill and Pilar Mata Dupont boost morale during the Australian Civil War
Warporn Adam Cuthbert destroys all to make his art
The Passion of Christ Joachim Froese recreates the great paintings of the Renaissance with his daughter's discarded toy animals

Exhibition Reviews:
Sam Haskins: Portraits and Other Stories at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra / The Anne Landa Award at the Art Gallery of New South Wales / Centre Pompidou Video Art 1965-2005 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney / The Fifth Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane / Eyes, Lies and Illusions at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne / Zero at Dunedin Public Art Gallery, New Zealand / Chobi Mela IV: Boundaries Dhaka, Bangladesh / Meeting Place Fotofest Beijing 06, China

Book Reviews:
Contact: Photographs from the Australian War Memorial Collection by Shaune Lakin / Paul Thomson: Shards of Silver / Jane Burton: Qui E Li. Here and There / Light Sensitive: Contemporary Australian Photography from the Loti Smorgon Fund by Isobel Crombie

Rant: American writer and academic James Elkins wonders if theorists ever listen to each other

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The Animal Issue

ACP — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:51:09 +1000

Editor: Alasdair Foster

Photofile 79 explores the equivocal relationship between humans and the other sentient species with which we share the planet. Be it myth or monster, wild life or live stock, pedigree pet or rare steak, we construct identities for animals that suit our needs and our fantasies. Pursuing the wild and the domesticated across the terrain of contemporary photomedia practice this issue presents a range of approach from the disquieting black and white images of South Africa's Roger Ballen to the whimsically interactive Disco Puppy at Ipswich Regional Art Gallery. Portfolios span the gamut from the pop-culture extravaganza of the Pet Photo Booth through to Anne Zahalka's ironic inventory of zoological dioramas to the poignant beauty of post-mortem wildlife in an art-historical setting. Peter Hill looks at the fauna to be found in the recent Melbourne International Festival while Susan Bright surveys the current prevalence for furry, feathery and even scaly subjects in the wider international art scene. Meanwhile, non-thematic articles include a re-evaluation of Melbourne's Sharpies and an in-depth interview with the indefatigable Trent Parke.

Previews: The best photomedia exhibitions across Australia

Editorial: Alasdair Foster takes a brisk stroll around the menagerie and wonders at the purity of the duck

Interview: Trent Parke talks about living full-throttle, newspapers, Magnum and the world to come

Features:

Animals are in the Air Susan Bright with a roundup of the current exhibitions and publications internationally
Dog Days Jazmina Cininas considers the pros and cons of being cast as a man's best friend through the work of Marco Bok, Michael Vale and Bronwyn Wright
Unsettled Boundaries Peter Hill casts a critical eye over the visual arts program at the recent Melbourne International Festival
Performing Animal Edward Colless explores the dark and complex world of animality
Snap Darren Tofts goes retro for a walk on the wild side with Melbourne's Sharpies

Portfolios:

Petting and Fluffing Marcus Canning finds some curious pedigrees in the Pet Photo Booth (and the animals are pretty cute too)
Did That Stone Lion Just Wink at Me? Anne O'Hehir reflects on the complex simplicity of Peter Peryer's photographs
Brutal, Tender, Human, Animal Robert Cook introduces the shocking, but ultimately life-affirming, photographs of South Africa's Roger Ballen
Wild Life Karra Rees unveils new work by Anne Zahalka that subtly subverts and exposes the paradox of the museum diorama
Confusion, Noise, Dirt and the Desperate, Desperate Urge to Get Home Rachael Nowak mind-melds with a racing pigeon while viewing Steven Siewert's images
Death Becomes Them Narelle Autio, Marian Drew, Christine Cornish and Beverley Veasey explore the many facets of post-mortem beauty
Disco Puppy Ingrid Hedgcock behind the scenes at the making of a new pop idol

Exhibition Reviews:
Olaf Breuning: Home at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane / Anthony Curtis: Dirty Old Town at Inflight Gallery, Hobart / Fever Variations: 2006 Gwangju Biennale, South Korea / Them at Canberra Contemporary Art Space / Mark Seliger: In My Stairwell at Sandra Byron Gallery, Sydney / Jonas Mekas: Celebrations of the Small and Personal in Times of Bigness at Monash University of Modern Art, Melbourne / Bronwyn Wright: Neverland at 24Hr Art, NT Centre for Contemporary Art, Darwin / Leon Cmielewski and Josephine Starrs: Seeker at the Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide / Ey! Iran: Contemporary Iranian Photography at Gold Coast City Art Gallery

Book Reviews:
Pat Brassington monograph / Faces of the Living Dead: Martin Jolly / Michael Riley: Sights Unseen / Marian Drew: Photographs and Video Works

Rant: The Secret Life of Animals Ondine Sherman wants to know why we never see photographs of factory farming...

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