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PART
1 DRESSING UP
Curated
by Alasdair Foster
PETER BURKE,
RAY COOK,
BERNARD FAUCON,
MARCUS LEATHERDALE,
GEORGE PLATT LYNES,
CHRISTOPHER MAKOS,
RALPH EUGENE MEATYARD,
POLIXENI PAPAPETROU,
MAN RAY,
LUKE ROBERTS,
LUCAS SAMARAS,
CINDY SHERMAN
While the concept of the realist document
established itself as the dominant virtue of
photography in the 20th century the practice of
constructing and staging images for the camera has
enjoyed a series of vogues.
The photograph is essentially a fiction - a
two-dimensional arrangement of particles that we
have learned to relate to our lived
four-dimensional world of perception. However, the
apparent verisimilitude of the photograph and the
sense that it is "something directly stenciled off
the real", as Susan Sontag described it, has
engendered an essential duality in the medium. In
the early decades of photography, it was understood
as an extension of the art of drawing and so
questions of whether or not an image was set-up
before the camera or relied on effects achieved
using tricks such as multiple negatives was not
considered of great significance. Towards the end
of the century, the increasing affluence brought
about by industrialisation and the decreasing
stability of European politics saw the medium
developing on one front as a dispassionate tool of
science and on the other looking longingly back to
the aesthetic forms of the beaux arts and a
romantic notion of the past.
It took almost a century to disentangle the new
medium from the concepts of the older visual arts
and, like the child who makes his way in the world,
while it struck out on its own path, it carried
within it the traces of its antecedence.
In focusing on the past 100 years this exhibition
draws on works which, for the most part, grew out
of the modernist ideals that dominated the
disillusionment and forward-looking dynamic that
followed the carnage of World War I. In the period
between the two world wars the anarchic and
anti-authoritarian tenets of Dada and later the
Surrealist fascination with the unconscious and the
irrational fueled a new form of avant-garde
photography. The works of Sigmund Freud offered a
platform from which to break free of the double
standards of the 19th century bourgeoisie to more
openly explore and celebrate sex and particularly
the female body, while the archetypes of classical
mythology found fresh application through the
theories of Carl Jung and a more circumspect
expression for less acceptable erotic foci.
In the fifties and early sixties, a period of rapid
economic growth coupled with a broadly conservative
moral and political attitude seemed to subdue the
artistic aspirations of photographers. The medium
became, primarily, an instrument of information
rather than change, illustrating the achievements
of an increasingly affluent society (as it was
described by the economist John Kenneth Galbraith)
and the wider world opening up through the nascent
industry of tourism.
The period from the mid-sixties and through the
seventies was one of idealism, experimentation and
the struggle for personal liberty. There was an
unprecedented focus on the individual, especially
when defined as part of a minority counter culture,
and a newfound interest in the subconscious, this
time in terms of the hallucinogenic and the
spiritual. These were heady decades for photography
as it hitched its cart to the art-world wagon once
more, initially reveling in the rediscovery of the
photo-art of the past and optimistically exploring
the potential of the medium before negotiating the
somewhat bumpy byways ahead.
Within the paradox of postmodern thinking meaning
became highly relativistic, subject to context and
interpretation, while counter-culture idealism
congealed into a series of increasingly
doctrinaire, and at times mutually conflicting,
political stances. Constructed images became either
the tools of instruction - illustrating literary
ideas of the time and thus lending themselves to
easy written deconstruction - or assertions of
diversity from a variety of competing singular
perspectives.
With the shift from colonialism to globalization at
the turn of the millennium, the rapid growth of
computing technology and communications networks,
and the eclipsing of the products of consumption by
an abstract notion of the brand, the mores and
preoccupations of the most recent generational
cohort have changed again. With the breakdown of
any clear divide between the real and the hyperreal
(virtual gaming, reality TV, high-concept brands
and on-line relationships), the dual qualities of
photographic realism and artifice have ceased to
seem paradoxical. They have simply become a
manifestation of the norm. At the same time the
pursuit of meaning which, in postmodernism
all-to-often became didactic, has been overtaken by
a fascination with the affective and the abridged
accelerated impressionistic narrative format of the
movie trailer and the video clip. And where
critique remains, it is focussed not so much on
material of world affairs as on its mediation.
The practice of an individual artist does not, of
course, fit neatly into the tidy generational
demarcations and socio-cultural currents mapped out
above. But, taken collectively, the styles and
preoccupations can be seen as they ebb and flow
across the photomedia tableaux of the past century.
More importantly, what these works reveal, aside
from the passage of social conditions and
philosophical paradigms, is the variety of
often-complex sometimes-subtle human experiences
that can resonate in the gap between the convention
of photographic realism and the intrinsic nature of
photographic artifice.
Man
Ray (1890-1976)
from
Résurrection des Mannequins 1938/1966
artist book Collection of the National Gallery of
Australia
Man Ray worked in a variety of media including
painting, crafted objects, photography and film,
and was greatly influenced Dada and later
Surrealism. He was fascinated by the female body
and eroticism in general, spurred on by the
surrealists' valorizing of the work of de Sade and
the new ideas on psychology described by Freud and
Jung. The decorated mannequins photographed here
combine this fascination with a range of bizarrely
random fashion accoutrements from dining forks to a
birdcage. In one image, the trappings of soldiery -
the spirit stove, the tin helmet etc - parody war
in an echo of the earlier Dadaist anarchic reaction
against World War I.
George
Platt Lynes
(1907-1955)
Various mythical tableux 1936-39 gelatin silver
prints Collection of the National Gallery of
Australia
Made in a similar period in the USA, George Platt
Lynes' camp, anguished evocations of classical myth
and legend stem from an erotic fascination with the
bodies of men. Abandoning youthful literary
aspirations, he opened his first photographic
studio in 1932 and, for a time, became one of the
most sought-after fashion and portrait
photographers in America. However, it is for his
male nudes that he is now best remembered. They
began in the guise of characters from classical
mythology, both veiling their erotic focus and
alluding to the angst of repression. After the war,
Lynes became involved with Alfred Kinsey's
researches into human sexuality and his work took
on a more modern style while nonetheless retaining
its brooding introspection.
Ralph
Eugene Meatyard
(1925-1972)
from The Diary of Lucybelle Crater
1970-72 gelatin silver print Collection of the
National Gallery of Australia
If Lynes looked back to classical Greece, Ralph
Eugene Meatyard's later works are Gothic in style.
Born, ironically enough, in the Illinois town of
Normal, his most celebrated work was made at the
very end of his life. Using the simple device of
dime-store Halloween masks Meatyard posed family
and friends in standard snapshot groupings to
create The Diary of Lucybelle Crater. It's a
creepy evocation of mid-western grotesque that
succeeds despite the very obvious ploy involved,
simply because the poses are so natural and seem so
familiar. Meatyard is sometimes mistakenly claimed
as precursor of postmodernism, but his creative
roots are much more closely allied to the inter-war
fascination with surrealism and exploration of the
subconscious.
Cindy
Sherman (1954-)
four untitled photographs 1981-02 type C prints
Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
Postmodernism is the province of the baby boomers.
And while constructed imagery finds another vogue
in the works of artists such as Cindy Sherman,
Bernard Faucon and Calum Colvin it is with very
different ends in mind. Sherman came to prominence
not long after graduating from art school with her
Untitled Film Stills (1977-80). Presented as
black and white 10 x 8 glossy prints in the manner
of movie publicity, she took on not characters but
female stereotypes of popular culture. In due
course she moved on to larger colour work with less
staging and more focus on lighting and facial
expression, examples of which are included in this
exhibition. Sherman's images operate as both
self-deconstructing object lessons and as a kind of
feminist trap. Stripped of narrative detail the
images lay bare the mannerisms of gender
stereotyping for those with eyes to see, while the
artist reserves her contempt for those
unreconstructed male viewers who simply find the
images sexy.
Bernard
Faucon (1950-)
from Les Grandes Vacances 1979-81 carbon
Fresson prints Collection of the National Gallery
of Australia
Bernard Faucon came to fame in the late seventies
with his beautiful but disquieting images of boys
at play, most of whom are performed by shop
dummies. At first glance, the images are seemingly
nostalgic for childhood past and, indeed, Faucon
remembers his own childhood fondly. But the images
are laced with a sense of the ominous at odds with
childlike innocence and the fixed, overdrawn
expressions painted onto the mannequins seem far
from the spontaneity of youth. A philosopher by
training, Faucon's works suggest a sense of the
poetic and the metaphysical yet the images remain
ambiguous and strangely dislocated from both the
realm of memory and that of direct meaning.
Questions to which no answers come.
Lucas
Samaras (1936-)
Photo-transformations 1973-04 modified
SX-70 Polaroid prints Collection of the National
Gallery of Australia
Born in Greece and living in the United States,
Lucas Samaras began as a sculptor before
discovering the Polaroid - with its unique,
self-developing prints. The works included are all
self-portraits made using the SX70 system which,
because of its envelop construction, permits the
image to be physically modified by pressing hard on
the clear plastic of the upper surface. The
resulting distortions create a grotesquely
expressive effect through direct contact, and while
the resulting Polaroid is certainly a photographic
image, it is also a sculpted object.
Christopher
Makos (1948-)
Altered Image: Five Photographs of Andy Warhol
1982 gelatin silver prints Collection of the
National Gallery of Australia
Christopher Makos played a seminal role in the New
York's art scene in the eighties. He was a close
friend of Andy Warhol who called him "the most
modern photographer in America". As a young man
Makos had worked as an apprentice to Man Ray and in
these stark portraits of Warhol in wig and make-up
one can see the same direct approach and overt use
of props that characterise Man Ray's mannequin
images. Indeed, Warhol presents himself to the
camera as a kind of knowing mannequin both
self-parodic and strangely absent - a bizarre
tabula rasa on which the viewer may write their own
narrative.
Marcus
Leatherdale
(1952-)
from NYC Photographs 1985 gelatin silver
prints Collection of the National Gallery of
Australia
Marcus Leatherdale first came to prominence in New
York in the mid-eighties - part of a set of
fashionable artists focusing on the male body that
included Robert Mapplethorpe. Typical of the
period, these images have little interest in the
details of character or narrative, existing
primarily as erotically charged but formally
executed archetypes. The dusty body paint is
characteristic of other photographers of the nude
from this period such as Victor Skrebneski. If
Mapplethorpe's pneumatic, shiny, hairless musclemen
suggest polished metal, then these gritty surfaces
evoke the texture of cold stone or rusty metal.
Luke
Roberts (1952-)
Close Encounters series 2002
lithographic prints Courtesy of the Paul Eliadis
Collection, Bellas Milani Gallery, Brisbane and
Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide
Considerably more involved are the many forms and
strategies of the Australian artist Luke Roberts.
Like Cindy Sherman, he performs the roles central
to his work, but unlike Sherman, his alter egos are
idiosyncratic evolving characters rather than
ideologically charged generic types. In a practice
that spans painting, performance and photomedia he
has taken on various roles including Frida Kahlo,
Andy Warhol and Jesus Christ. Here he portrays his
most famous creation: Pope Alice. An enigmatic
obverse to another of his characters - the
hedonistic voluptuary, Alice Jitterbug - the
extraterrestrial female pontiff hails from the
outer reaches of the solar system. She is the
Spiritual Leader of the Lost Continent of Mu and
self-proclaimed World's Greatest Living
Curiosity.
Polixeni
Papapetrou (1960-)
from Dreamchild 2002-03 type C prints
Courtesy of Stills Gallery, Sydney and Kalli Rolfe
Contemporary Art, Melbourne
While Faucon's images hark back to childhood past,
those of Polixeni Papapetrou explore historical
tastes and ideas through present-day games of
dress-ups with her daughter, Olympia. Here the
tableau becomes a theatre of possibility in a game
of What-If? as different genders, races, historical
stereotypes and characters from fiction are briefly
tried on for size. It is a true collaboration in
the sense that neither participant knows the full
story. The child, while intent upon the game and
the impetus behind many of the sessions, cannot
fully understand what it means to portray these
characters in the context of the artwork as it
passes into the wider world, and the mother can
never fully know the mind of the child. Both act,
as parents and children have throughout the ages,
on trust and intuition. And the images never
completely settle, remaining vivid and open
encouraging us into a silent dialogue.
Ray
Cook (1962-)
from Not With a Bang But a Whimper 2004
toned gelatin silver prints Courtesy of Queensland
Centre for Photography
Brisbane-based artist Ray Cook has made constructed
tableaux imagery for many years. His earlier work
sat somewhere between gothic netherworld of Joel
Peter Witkin and Arthur Tress' theatre of the mind,
but here in his newer images we see a more direct
and personal approach. The works respond to the
changing context in which he finds himself as a gay
man, with AIDS no longer the certain death sentence
it once was and the mass media entertainment
embracing the homosexual male character as
something other than the lonely, diseased outcast,
albeit replacing the stereotype with that of the
affable clown. And, like the rest of us, Cook is
getting older. In these images, he becomes the
self-deprecating tragi-comic clown reflecting upon
his life, survival, vanity and aging.
Peter
Burke (1963-)
Honesty™ and
Relevation™ 2004 billboards Courtesy of
Shelly Innocence™
If Pope Alice inhabits the extraterrestrial and the
pontifical then Peter Burke's creation, Shelly
Innocence™, is firmly a woman of the mass
media. An international athlete, supermodel and
retail in-store demonstrator, Shelly Innocence
takes high concept marketing to the limit with a
range of pre-packaged human experiences ranging
from Happiness™ and Desire™ to
Trust™ and Integrity™ (but not
Commitment™ or Revolution™, which are
both discontinued lines). To bring Shelly Innocence
into the gallery is, in effect, to trap a jet-set
butterfly in a cultural jam jar, for her natural
habitat is the wide world of the billboard, the
glossy magazine spread, the glittering celebrity
event and the e-commerce website
(www.shellyinnocence.com to be precise).
This exhibition is presented under a Partnership
Agreement with the National Gallery of Australia.
The NGA Partnership program aims to provide greater
public access to the Gallery's collection and marks
the continuation of an alliance with ACP.
Image Credits:
• George Platt Lynes Actaeon 1937
Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
• Man Ray from Resurrection des
Mannequins, bound book c 1938 Collection of the
National Gallery of Australia
• George Platt Lynes Cyclopes
1936-39 Collection of the National Gallery of
Australia
• Lucas Samaras Photo-transformation
2/9/74, 1974 Collection of the National Gallery
of Australia
• Luke Roberts CLOSE ENCOUNTERS IV:
Rotorua Aotearoa/New Zealand 2002, 2002
• Polixeni Papapetrou Olympia as
Lewis Carroll's Xie Kitchin as a Chinaman (off
duty), 2003
• Ray Cook Reconfiguring the
Constellation in the Night Sky of My Youth
2004
• Peter Burke, Innocence
™ Revelation ™ - Wake Up to
Yourself 2005 (Photo Cath Barcan)
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