Re-constructed Vision
Contemporary work with photography 25th July-23rd August, 1981
Essay by Gael Newton AM
This is an online version of the original catalogue essay for the Art Gallery of New South Wales 1981 exhibition. The main text is largely as originally published with notes for context. The attached catalogue of the fifty six works has been slightly reworked with images inserted if they could be found. Please note that dates and information on the artists is as published in 1981 - there has been no updating of CVs and Bios.
John F Williams: Sandra, Tom, Ariel, Rose (the Cat), Kittens-Newtown December 1979
The original concept for a Project show on manipulated photography arose from the Australian Pictorial Photography 1898-1938 exhibition, mounted by the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1979.
The Pictorialists wished to establish photography as an expressive art, which shared the concerns of contemporary artists of their day. In order to achieve an artist's freedom to manipulate reality or express purely imaginative visions, Pictorial photographers developed a wide range of processes which extended photography beyond factual documentation. Most of these processes involved the suppression of realistic detail, or the addition of picturesque elements, colours and tones not possible with the photographic technology at the turn of the century.
A later generation of 'modern' photographers rejected both the 'impure' techniques and idealised imagery of the Pictorialists in favour of a doctrine of photographic realism. It was not until the 1970s that the Pictorialists were re-examined as legitimate photographers. Renewed acquaintance with their work suggested that the potential of photography as an art should not be limited to the conventional black and white or colour print.
Manipulation has been part of photography since its invention. Julia Margaret Cameron's photographs of the 1870s of figures posed to enact scenes from Alfred Tennyson's poetry, the use of montage by Man Ray in the 1920s, and more recently Wynn Bullock's or Duane Michals' use of double exposure are part of a long tradition of manipulated work.
Photography has become synonymous with naturalistic records or interpretations by the photographer of some existing reality. It should be remembered that the principle of photography is the fixing of images formed by the action of light or heat.
The camera and lens which provide recognisable images of real objects are a part, but not the whole, of photographic practice. Indeed, a lens system will provide many different perspectives on reality, from panoramic to 'bird's eye' views. A lens forms light rays into circular images from which most cameras select the rectangular section favoured by Western image-making traditions.
There is a current concern with the 'truth' of anything photographed, reflecting the camera's ability to transform or aestheticise reality. This debate on the 'objectivity' of naturalistic photographs, and the revived interest in Pictorialist work has perhaps contributed to a new wave of manipulated work in contemporary photography.
In 1979 when the concept for Project 38 was first proposed as an exhibition of manipulated photography, insufficient local work could be found that was more than experimentation. When revived as a proposal early in 1981, it was obvious that a growing number of contemporary photographers were moving away from the single image and the 'slice of life' approach to photography.
The exhibition was re-titled Re-Constructed Vision to stress a function of manipulated imagery rather than processes as such. The criteria for selection of works sought the creation of imagery in which a significant degree of intervention had occurred between an existing reality and the final print. This definition embraced a range of work from assemblages of straight photographs, through montage and collage techniques to works in which hand-work almost obscures the photographic base.
No photograms were located – ie. images made by placing objects directly onto photographic paper. However, panoramas, made by assembling separate sequential photographs or with a panorama camera, have been included as in each case some additional manipulation was involved. The most naturalistic of these, Kathryn Paul's, Fernglade Gully II, involves the re-use of an early process which results in a mat pigmented surface like an etching. It seems ironic that any panorama could be included on the grounds that this type of photograph is rarely used today but is closer to the way we see than the narrower perspectives of conventional camera lenses. Thus, a panorama now seems an artificial construction despite the naturalism of the image.
Within the exhibition Ed. Douglas' Inner/Outer Revelations, night landscapes distorted by extended exposure and flash light, are closest to the tradition of poetic transformation of the familiar, which has supported much classic pure photography such as that of Edward Weston or Minor White. At the other end of the spectrum extensive hand-work by Micky Allan, Warren Breninger or Cathy Brooks seems to carry photography into the context of painting/collages or printmaking. For this reason, it was decided to include printmakers' work which involved photographic techniques in the exhibition.
The questions raised by the introduction of photographic techniques into printmaking in the 1960s and 1970s concerned the legitimacy of mechanical processes in original art works. This was at a time when use of a camera in creating art works was considered artistic rather than high art. These questions are dealt with at length in Charles Newton's catalogue of the Victoria and Albert Museum, (London) exhibition, Photography in Printmaking held in 1979.
The consideration of the relationship between prints and photographs has led to a similar examination of the role of documentation photographs covering performance or installation art events. The Australian Perspecta 1981 exhibition was notable among contemporary art surveys for its inclusion of a range of photographic work from artists whose first and only medium is photography, through to artists in other mediums who use photography in the production or documentation of their work.
Usually photographers as such are excluded from contemporary art exhibitions, whereas increasingly categories called "artists use of photography" and "documentation" are well catered for. The last Biennale of Sydney held at the Gallery in 1979 had a separate exhibition entitled Uses of Photography in Europe in which few exclusively photographic artists were included. The implicit proposition that there is some difference between contemporary photography and contemporary art is a vital issue. If photography as such is reputedly accepted as an art surely no such category as Uses of Photography should exist.
Documentation photographs are often acquired by museums not only in the place of original, ephemeral art works, but increasingly as second generation, original works in their own right. The planning and preparation of such 'documentation' is tending to become more sophisticated and integral to the concept of the work in its first-generation form. It would seem essential for this type of work to be now examined not only as an original work but as photography.
In Project 38 both artist's use of photography within works considered to be in another medium, and 'documentation' have been included. The most significant inclusion is a selection of photographs by John Delacour of performance artist Mike Parr's Black Box installation.
The black and white prints represent Delacour's free record of the event, and the colour prints the artist's control of views of the work. The collaboration between performance artist and photographer is personal as well as professional and Delacour's contribution is an important one. It is not being suggested that the Black Box is a work by Delacour when it is in the form of 'documentation.' However it is conceivable that some such liaison in the future will result in a set of photographs which can equally be seen in the context of the photographer's oeuvre.
A more pertinent question raised by the sophistication of such 'documentation' photography is that of the critical approach to such photographs and to photography as such within contemporary art. It would seem that photography should be defined by the use of the medium i.e. simply those works which come in the form of photographs. By extension all photographs should be, on a basic level, approached as contemporary art, without distinctions by categories such as "artists' use of" versus "photographers' production of" photographs.
Photography has over the last half century tended to define itself as unique by reason of its realism. Histories of photography tend to cut a totally linear swathe through the years rarely asking where photographic imagery belongs in the total imagery of the visual arts. The work in Project 38 provides an opportunity to view mostly young contemporary photographers' work in context with artists in other mediums whose work involves photography. It also proposes that such art works should also be seen as photography.
The question is whether prints such as Bea Maddock's or documentation of Mike Parr's work is the context in which photographers whose work shares similarity in process should also be seen and assessed. Certainly, different traditions inform different mediums and on the level of consideration of the specific artist such matters must be defined. Ultimately work within any medium must cease to set internal standards and be seen within the context of contemporary art. Historically it may be that photography has arrived at a point where its relationship with contemporary art as a whole should be examined and the field of view opened up to the consideration of all uses of the medium.
Final mention must be made of a work by Bill Henson an untitled sequence of 32 images of European crowds. These were exhibited as an installation in the Australian Perspecta 1981 exhibition. For that reason they were not re-shown just in Project 38 Henson's installation.
Perhaps for the first time in Australian photography was seen within the field of contemporary art in Australia by the critics and artists alike.
The realisation that such a response is rare suggests that photography has gained only a qualified acceptance as significant art.
Gael Newton was the Curator of Photography AGNSW (1974-1985)
Special thanks are due to Kay Johnston, Developed Image Gallery, Adelaide, South Australia, for assistance in gathering works for the exhibition, and to Christine Godden, Director of the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney, New South Wales, for modifying the centre's exhibition program to accommodate both Project 38 and the Australian Perspecta 1981 exhibition held at this Gallery in June 1981.
introduction to the 1981 Re-constructed Vision exhibition
1. essay >>> The 2022 online version of the 1981 Re-constructed Vision essay (this page)
2. catalogue >>> The 2022 online version of the 1981 Re-constructed Vision catalogue
3. review by Max Dupain >>> 1981 Sydney Morning Herald Review
more of Gael Newton's Essays and Articles
|
