A Small Project on Australian Cinemas: Part Two

Rivolio, Melbourne, Victoria. Still in use as a cinema



Palais Theater, Melbourne, Victoria. No longer in use as a cinema



Palace Brighton Bay, Melbourne. Still in use as a cinema



The Astor, Melbourne. Still in use as a cinema

Melbourne Mist

Sydney Nights

Laurenze Berges

A small selection of Laurenz Berges' photography is currently exhibited at the Monash Gallery of Art as part of: presentation/representation: photography from Germany

Berges' large colour prints focus on the details of living space that are no longer inhabited. The spaces photographed are of abandoned homes in former coal mining towns in Germany; as the coal mining industry was closed down, essentially, so was the town. Berges' employs a formalist aesthetic to document these empty living spaces, which highlight the absence of the human life where signs indicate there once life. It is as if the emptiness within the image is attempting to speak of an existence that was previously present, but is dissolving with time.

Laurenz Berges is a former student of Bernd Becher at the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf.

presentation/representation: photography from Germany is on show at the Monash Gallery of Art, Victoria, Australia until 30 August 2009.

Laurenze Berges


Laurenze Berges


Laurenze Berges

A Small Project on Australian Cinemas: Part One

Theater Royal, Castlemaine, Victoria. Still in use as a cinema



The Palais, Hepburn Springs, Victoria. No longer in use as a cinema



The Rex, Daylesford, Victoria. No longer in use as a cinema



Alpha Hall, Daylesford, Victoria. No longer in use as a cinema

Tacita Dean

Still from Prisoner Pair, 16mm colour film, Tacita Dean 2008.

Tacita Dean makes beautiful films. Her small observation speak in such a way that you taste, feel, hear and see the subject matter of her film making. Tacita Dean's films are about the past, the present and the future all at the same time. They are the about the materiality of the film they are made on, they are about the light that is reflected and refracted off the surface of the objects that her gaze falls upon. The repeated long takes within her films tell us she is in no rush. Time just takes its course; stillness stays still.

A major survey of Tacita Dean's work appeared at the Australia Centre of Contemporary Art (ACCA) from 6 June - 2 August 2009.

Len Lye: an artist in perpetual motion

Len Lye (1901-1980) was an experimental filmmaker, sculptor, photographer and writer originating from New Zealand; he move to London in the 1920's and later to New York in the 1940's.

Many of Lye films are made without a camera, rather applying paint marks (and later scratching) directly onto the film's surface to make abstract imagery. This imagery was often combined with fast paced jazz music to create works of vibrant colour and rhythmic beats. Movement, light and sound all combine in Lye's films making them dynamic forerunners in the structural film movement that would soon emerge in the 1960's and 70's.



Len Lye: an artist in perpetual motion, is showing at the Australian Center for the Moving Image, in Melbourne until mid October.

Melbourne, when I arrive

Light
28th July 2009.

London, before I leave

A reflection on Les Rencontres d'Arles photography festival

I attended Les Rencontres d'Arles photography festival in the south of France during it's opening week: 7th - 12th July. This is one of the largest photography festivals in the world and attracts a varied crowd both in terms of those actively participating, be that photographers exhibiting their work, publishers looking for the next new talent or those attending portfolio reviews hoping to be discovered as the next new talent. For many others visiting Les Roncontres it is to see a plethora of work from both familiar and unfamiliar names in the word of photography. During the opening week Arles becomes a town that is unable to hide from an onslaught of cameras; every time you turn a corner someone is photographing something. The festival and those attending became a spectacle - framed by the medium it is celebrating.

The image appears highly privileged at Les Rencontres. An image which is frequently detached from the context of it's making. It seems an image that relies on itself alone and without desire for much self-reflexivity.

Can we really put this much trust or emphasis in the image alone? Should we not expect some critical investigation of the who/why/where of it's making? I know that I expected this to be the case for a photography festival who states in its strap-line celebrating 40 year of its existence, that it is also a festival offering '40 years of disruption'. I wonder about this claim, as surely the act of disruption is also in its nature questioning the thing it is attempting to unsettle? Yet very little is questioned here.

The countless images depicting people's hardship and distress, displayed as prints on the exhibition walls and massively projected onto the external walls of the disused railway sheds in the Parc des Ateliers during what is called the 'Night of the Year' - are unsettling to me. I feel repeatedly bombard with snippets of people's lives that are divorced from reality of the situation they were made in. It feels as the most important matter here is the production and display of powerful images. But these powerful images, which many of them are without a doubt, seem presented as entertainment, designed to create an emotional response so brief and digestible that it can be quickly replaced by the next photograph in the production line of image consumption.

Not all the work at Les Rencontrs d'Arles left me feeling this way, much of the work curated by Nan Goldin, along with her own work on show, were notable exceptions; as was the insightful photographs of Eugene Richard's new colour work: The Blue Room, which thoughtfully details abandoned houses across America. Other work that stays in my mind is Paulo Nozolino's Far Cry and Michal Ackerman's Half Life, both of which were displayed as slideshows with sonic accompaniment.

Whilst I enjoyed Les Rencontres d'Arles photography festival, I did leave wondering where I fit in this world - if at all.