CURRENT EXHIBITION
Further images can be viewed under artists
Outreach / touring exhibitions are posted further down this page
Kin: contemporary photographers look to their immediate family
JOYCE CAMPBELL
Te Taniwha
August 6 - 27
Te Taniwha , like Campbell 's two previous photographic series, Crown Coach Botanical and Last Light: Antarctica , is a meditation on gothic and sublime aesthetic traditions, nineteenth century spiritualist photography and ecosystems in a state of crisis. With these latest photographs Campbell 's attention was drawn homeward, to the waterways between Te Urewera and Wairoa, the region where she grew up and to which she has deep personal connections.
Te Taniwha is an ongoing project, of which this exhibition is the first manifestation. Spun from multiple threads, drawing on the mythology, history and ecology of Waikaremoana and its many tributaries and outlets, it traces the search for two great, serpentine water species: the Taniwha and the giant longfin eel.
Joyce Campbell has been working onsite in a field darkroom to produce ambrotypes and daguerreotypes at Te Reinga, home of the Taniwha Hinekörako. Contemporary cameras do not lend themselves to the depiction of mystery. Digital cameras have made photography an increasingly descriptive medium and also one that is open to greater manipulation than ever before. By contrast, the nineteenth century techniques of ambrotype and daguerreotype provide the photographer with extraordinarily detail, depth and richness while also having an innate tendency to produce artifacts from silver and ether that are spontaneous, open to interpretation and often extraordinarily beautiful. Campbell has taken photographs of caves, gullies, pools and cascades but her hope is that in the silver we might catch a glimpse of the Taniwha as well.
1. I am looking for the Taniwha Hinekōrako
Daguerreotype
2. Who lives at Te Reinga and is an ancestor of everyone in the village
3. She has a home where the two rivers meet
4. She has another home under a rock called Hinekuia at the base of the falls
5. Sometimes I think she shows herself
6. As a serpent
7. As a woman
8. (look at her basking)
9. As a waterway
10. As an eel
Suite of nine Daguerreotypes
11. I imagine that she hides her huge body in the caves that line the gorge
Pair of Ambrotypes
The Daguerreotype plates are 4 ¼ x 7 inches and are developed using the Becquerel process*
The Ambrotype plates are 4 ¼ x 6 inches
All works 2010
*Becquerel process, a variant Daguerreotype technique that replaces development by mercury vapour with exposure to amber light.
Outreach exhibition
Kin: contemporary photographers look to their immediate family
an exhibition developed by McNamara Gallery for:
The New Zealand Portrait Gallery / Te Pukenga Whakaata
Laurence Aberhart, Janet Bayly, Alan Bekhuis, Peter Black, Rhondda Bosworth, Fiona Clark, Richard Collins Margaret Dawson, Bruce Foster , Joseph Griffen, Paul Johns, Nikolai Kokx, Anne Noble, Fiona Pardington
Peter Peryer, Clive Stone, Olivia Taylor, John B. Turner & Ans Westra
[63 works / 1973–2009]
Shed 11, Queens Wharf Wellington
29 July – 12 September, 2010
Opening: Wednesday 28 July 5.30 – 7.30 pm
Speaker: Geoffrey Batchen
Victoria University 's recently appointed Professor of Art History
REVIEWS:
RADIO NZ Arts on Sunday 1.8.10
Athol McCredie [Curator of Photography, Te Papa] takes a look at new work by some of the country's most well know and celebrated photographers. LINK
Peter Ireland EyeContact 16.8.10 LINK
Exhibition introduction
The connections between the family and photography have been evident since the invention of the medium. A photograph has that sense of presence, that trace of the real, and photographs sometimes make appear what we never see in a real face, a genetic feature.
We all make portraits photographs of family members and this exhibition looks at work made by currently active ‘creative photographers' who look to their first- & second- degree relatives. However, rather than being the mirrors of the soul of the subjects, these portraits may reflect more the personality of the photographer.
Exhibition notes
‘The connections between the family and photography have been evident since the invention of the medium' [1], and the role of photography in connecting the self to others
.‘…now all adults can know exactly how they and their parents and grandparents looked as children - a knowledge not available to anyone before the invention of cameras…' [2]
‘…more
insidious, more penetrating than likeness: the Photograph sometimes
makes appear what we never see in a real face (or in a face reflected
in a mirror): a genetic feature, the fragment of oneself or of
a relative which comes from some ancestor.
The photograph gives a little
truth, on condition that it parcels out the body. But this truth
is not that of the individual, who remains irreducible; it is
the truth of lineage.' [3]
We all make portraits photographs of family members in the vernacular tradition, but what distinguishes those made by ‘creative photographers', destined for a wider audience?
‘By photographing his family, the artist turns his back on remote, public subjects in order to investigate kinship.
…this photography usually expresses positive feelings: love for the members of one's family and its expression through the scenes that are selected.' [1]
‘This… is an exhibition that can deal with only one aspect of photographic experience - what Roland Barthes terms the studium or cultural knowledge. The photograph's punctum, 'that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me)', is, in the end, a wholly private matter'.[4]
Permission for this collaboration is [generally] a given, rather than by negotiation, or as an act of voyeurism.
But how do family relationships and dynamics impact on the subject's ‘personal space' and gaze?
What notice is given to the subject that the photograph is about to be taken?
What is the level of intimacy, or psychological distance, between photographer and subject?
In this exhibition we address the range of portraiture in New Zealand Photography via books in a virtine, but the photographs exhibited cover only a small aspect of the overall practice; that by currently active photographers whose formal codes pay particular attention to the personal and the private, in an attempt to convey some sense of a subject's character. ‘…the evocation of mood or state of being is all-important … '[4]
These unique qualities, and a sense of belonging, may be highlighted by photographing family members in their natural settings; in familiar interiors and exteriors.
‘….settings, or objects that inhabit them, sometimes become motifs illustrating some aspect of family intimacy'. [1]
Careful staging and lighting may introduce theatrical, cinematic or even allegorical elements, thereby suggesting a pictorial narrative.
The photographer ‘seizes seemingly indifferent [rather than conventionally ritualized -] moments, paying little attention to the calendar of family celebrations. In this sense he distances himself from the traditional family photograph.' [1].
‘In my portrait of Grace, even though you don't see her face, the way she is standing with her head tilted, how she looks out the window, the way the handkerchief is crumpled in her hand, tells a story' [5].
These approaches could be regarded as an attempt, as pointed out by Geoffrey Batchen, ‘ ,… to address the dilemma at the heart of all photographic portraiture, a tension between the easy mechanical resemblance that a photograph provides and something-more-than-resemblance that the word portrait seems to promise. [6]
But…a… photograph has...that sense of presence, that trace of the real girl, sitting there in time and space before the camera and now on this silvered plate of copper [daguerreotype] in the warming embrace of the viewer's hand. Roland Barthes says it best: 'From a real body, which was there, proceed radiations which ultimately touch me, who am here ... A sort of umbilical cord links the body of the photographed thing to my gaze: light, though impalpable, is here a carnal medium, a skin I share with anyone who has been photographed'[6]
Internationally, there is a reinvigorated tradition of portraiture; being intensely photographic works that gain their power from the sense of unselective precision that still accompanies the medium, but looking at this exhibition one notes an attempt to locate the person[s] [subjects] within a ‘cultural' context;
a contextualised identity. This is at variance with much contemporary international work where only the person, or their face, is the subject, against a neutral background [highlighting the uniqueness of each human being and exploring themes of identity; expressing confidence and doubt, self-control and disclosure, familiarity and alienation, remembering and forgetting, thereby revealing the complex personality possessed by every single human being]
‘…future generations will judge our way of life, our culture and our inner world on the basis of photographs.'[7]
However, ‘if the conviction that photography "robbed" the soul reigned in the 19th century, in the 20th century photography would become the soul's mirror.'
Things then shifted ‘to what Barthes has described as the battle of two identities with distinct domains: on the one hand, there is the photographer-voyeur, and on the other the photographed subject which elaborates its social masquerade to back up its image. In this new age, rather than being the "mirrors of the soul" of the sitters, portraits reflected the personality of the photographer' [8]
The title Kin may restore some nobility to the notion of family, which has become somewhat politicized, and places it alongside Whanau
Photographic portraiture has a broad reach. In order to grasp something of its nature, and to avoid the Family of Man breadth, I have limited the subject matter in this exhibition to the artist's first - & second–degree relatives, produced during the period 1973 – 2009. The use of portraiture to reflect the image of ‘power' and ‘authority' has been subverted.
I would see an exhibition of self-portraits [ Self ] being a companion exhibition for a later date.
Portraits of the spouse as subject has been eminently covered by Erika: a portrait by Peter Peryer [ Dunedin Public Art Gallery , and toured nationally] and this work is firmly established as part of the cannon within NZ art history.
Each of these subject areas reveals some special characteristics of the medium.
[1] Henri Peretz in Family: Photographers photograph their families , Phaidon, 2005
[2] Susan Sontag On Photography , 1977 p165
[3] Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida , 1980, page103
[4] Helen Ennis Mirror with a Memory: Photographic portraiture in Australia , National Portrait Gallery, 2000
[5] Erwin Olaf exhibition notes, Flatland Gallery at Art Paris. 2008
[6] Geoffrey Batchen Mirror with a Memory: Photographic portraiture in Australia , National Portrait Gallery, 2000
[7] Antanas Sutkus, exhibition notes, White Space Gallery London, 2009
[8] Kowasa Gallery exhibition notes, The Vision of the Other: Modernity and the Photographed Face , 2009
PREVIOUS EXHIBITIONS
JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2002
Peter Black Moving Pictures
MARCH
Nicholas Twist and Burton Bros / Muir
& Moodie Photographs of Southern
New Zealand-two views
APRIL
Paul Johns A Perfect Childhood
MAY
Peter Peryer Significant Early Photographs
JUNE
Gordon H. Burt & Fiona Clark In
the Pursuit of Beauty and Perfection
JULY
Laurence Aberhart The Interior
AUGUST
Gordon H. Brown Hotel North America series
Robin Neate Photographs
SEPTEMBER
Rhondda Bosworth 44 Photographs 1974 - 1999
OCTOBER
Wayne Wilson Popular Dance Culture 2001 - 2002
NOVEMBER
Wayne Barrar STRAUMUR: Photographs from Southern
Iceland
DECEMBER
John Johns A Life's Work: a selection of
photographs 1950 - 1996
JANUARY 2003
THE CARAVAN group show 28 artists
...toured to: Pataka
[Porirua], The Suter [Nelson] 2003 & Lake Taupo Museum &
Art Gallery [Taupo] 2004
FEBRUARY
Jono Rotman Chambers Project
Laurence Aberhart Interior
MARCH
Ben Cauchi New Ambrotypes & Building
the Empire
APRIL
Fiona Pardington Whakakitenga / Revelation
MAY
Hamish Tocher Scenes from the Life of Christ
JUNE
Peter Peryer www.peryer.co.nz
JULY
Ava Seymour New Work & Heartlands
AUGUST
Neil Hamon [UK] living history
David van Royen [Australia] himself
SEPTEMBER
Ross T. Smith Stations of the Cross & selected
photographs 1998 - 2000
OCTOBER
John Daley Big Smoke
NOVEMBER
Laurence Aberhart Mission Heliographique Extracts:
1999 - 2003
DECEMBER
TRACING POLAROID SX-70 Janet Bayly, Gary
Blackman, Rhondda Bosworth, Dinah Bradley, Greg Burke, Belinda
Fowler,
Paul Gilbert, Paul Hartigan, Paul Johns, Nikolai
Kokx, Belinda Lodge, Len Wesney, Jane Zusters.
JANUARY 2004
Tracing Polaroid continued
FEBRUARY
Fiona Amundsen Wooden
MARCH
Bruce Connew Muttonbirds - part of a story
LINK SPAN FESTIVAL EXHIBITION, during NZ International Festival of the Artis, Taranaki Wharf, Wellington
Peter Peryer & Andrew Ross
APRIL
Wayne Barrar Selections from the Home Range
MAY
Hayden Fritchley Lattice of Coincidence
JUNE
Ann Shelton Vacant Possession
JULY
Len Wesney 34 Photographs 1967-1975
AUGUST
Len Wesney continued
SEPTEMBER
Wayne Wilson Three Kings & Downtown
OCTOBER
Natalie Robertson One Hundred Years
True EVERY Word
NOVEMBER
Grant Beran Everyone Says Hi
DECEMBER 04 - JANUARY
2005
FICTION Max Coolahan, Darren
Glass, Lloyd Godman, Gavin Hipkins,
John Johns, Alan Knowles, Ian Macdonald, Tanja Nola
FEBRUARY
Peter Peryer Big
MARCH
Hamish Tocher Reminiscences & El Aspostolado
APRIL
Peter Black Public
MAY
Anne Noble White Lantern Antarctic photographs
2002 - 2005
PHOTO-LONDON 2005
Laurence Aberhart, Mark Adams, Ben Cauchi, Derek Henderson, Paul Johns,
Fiona Pardington, Neil Pardington, Peter Peryer, Ava Seymour
JUNE
Ben Cauchi In a smoke filled room
JULY
Derek Henderson The Terrible Boredom Of Paradise
AUGUST
Joyce Campbell Cellars and Towers
VERBATIM...revelation to oblivion Lopdell House Gallery [Auckland] August -October 2005
National Library Gallery [Wellington] April - July 2006
Laurence Aberhart, Peter Black, Gary Blackman, Rhondda Bosworth, Ben Cauchi Bruce Connew, John Daley,
Hayden Fritchley, Derek Henderson, Anne Noble, Fiona Pardington, Neil Pardington, Peter Peryer, Natalie Robertson,
Ann Shelton, Hamish Tocher, Ans Westra, Wayne Wilson
&
catalogue essay by Peter Simpson
SEPTEMBER
Max Oettli Bringing It All Back Home
OCTOBER
Haru Sameshima Twin Peaks Selected photographs
from eco-Tourism 1988 - 2004
NOVEMBER
Fiona Pardington Without you
DECEMBER 05 - JANUARY 2006
Laurence Aberhart domestic architecture [with catalogue raisonne] & Nine Masonic Lodges in Canterbury
FEBRUARY
Rhondda Bosworth Exhibit A
MARCH
Paul Johns
APRIL
Mark Adams Photographs 1979 - 2002
MAY
Neil Pardington Interiors
JUNE
Victoria Webb Full-length and Front-on
JULY
Ben Cauchi last days
AUGUST
Richard Collins Photographs 1962 - 1997
SEPTEMBER
Fiona Amundsen Garden Place
OCTOBER
Lisa Crowley West
NOVEMBER
Hamish Tocher Unknown Renaissance Portraits
DECEMBER
06 - JANUARY 2007
Peter Peryer Summertime
FEBRUARY
Ann Shelton 26 photographs of a house
MARCH
Elaine Campaner [Australia] Paradise if you can stand it
APRIL
the long view [landscape panoramas]
Laurence
Aberhart
Mark Adams
Wayne
Barrar
NEW
ZEALAND LEGACY Aotearoa
Taonga-tuku-iho
Commissioned by N.Z. Ministry for Culture &
Heritage
April - May Singapore
May Hong Kong
Laurence
Aberhart, Mark Adams, Wayne Barrar, Peter Black, Fiona Clark,
Ian Macdonald,
Fiona
Pardington, Peter Peryer, Ans Westra & Wayne Wilson-Wong
&
catalogue essay by Peter Simpson: Legacy: Fifteen Photographs
from New Zealand
MAY
the long view [continued]
Laurence Aberhart
Mark Adams
Wayne Barrar
AUCKLAND ART FAIR 2007
Mark
Adams, Peter Black, Gary
Blackman, Rhondda Bosworth, Murray Cammick, Ben Cauchi,
Fiona Clark, Richard
Collins,
Bruce Connew, John Daley, John Fields, Frank Hofmann, John Johns,
Anne
Noble, Max
Oettli, Fiona Pardington, Neil Pardington,
Peter Peryer, Hamish Tocher,
Len Wesney & Ans
Westra
JUNE
Fiona
Pardington the heart derelict
MOVING STILL
Gus Fisher Gallery, The University of Auckland, June
- July
Janet
Bayly, Minerva Betts , Peter Black, Gary Blackman,
Rhondda Bosworth, Elaine Campaner*, Joyce Campbell, Ben Cauchi,
George
Chance, Bruce Connew, Daniel Crooks* , Jennifer French , Hayden
Fritchley , Darren Glass, Murray Hedwig, Gavin Hipkins,
Nikolai Kokx, Len Lye, Anne Noble, Max Oettli, Trent Parke*, Patrick
Reynolds, Lucien Rizos, Natalie Robertson, John Savage,
Ann Shelton & Jane Zusters [* Australia]
&
catalogue essay by Dr Jan Bryant
JULY
Mark Adams Spa Hotel
AUGUST
Ans Westra on reflection
SEPTEMBER
Anne Ferran [Australia] & Anne Noble
our fathers
OCTOBER
Richard Barraud Being for the Benefit of
Mr Kite: Photographs 1965 - 1975
NOVEMBER
Derek
Henderson I go down to the river to pray
DECEMBER - JANUARY 2008
TOOLS OF SURVIVAL: contemporary
photographers using 19C processes
Alan Bekhuis, Joyce Campbell, Ben
Cauchi, Dan Estabrook [USA] & Aaron Seeto [Australia]
A region observed: Hawke's Bay photographs by Laurence Aberhart Hawke's Bay Museum & Art Gallery December 07- March 08
FEBRUARY
Neil Pardington the
vault
MARCH
Wayne Wilson Wong Tamaki Pà
Joyce Campbell - LA Botanical Hawke's Bay Museum & Art Gallery March - October
APRIL
Perter Peryer Voices and Echoes - an on-line exhibition
MAY
Laurence Aberhart AN EXHIBITION OF NEW PHOTOGRAPHS BY LAURENCE ABERHART DISPLAYING A RANGE OF NOT PREVIOUSLY SEEN,
OR RARELY SEEN IMAGES IN BOTH PRE AND POST CONTEMPORARY STYLES
CLOSE-UP: contemporary
contact prints Gus
Fisher Gallery, The University of Auckland, May - July
Ramp Gallery, Waikato Institute of Technology, Hamilton, August
Laurence Aberhart, Mark Adams, Wayne Barrar, Joyce Campbell, Ben Cauchi, Darren Glass, Fiona Pardingto, Andrew Ross, Haruhiko Sameshima
&
catalogue introduction by Athol McCredie, curator of Photography
Museum of NZ Te Papa Tongarewa
JUNE
Hamish Tocher Illuminated Books
JULY
Ann Shelton hall of mirrors
AUGUST
Marian Drew [Australia] Australiana
Richard Orjis Landslide
SEPTEMBER
Peter Black Outskirts
OCTOBER
John Johns Nature as an object for rational study – a thoroughly modernist approach
Selected photographs 1950s - 1993
NOVEMBER
Fiona Amundsen Miracle on the Han River
Frank Breuer [Germany] Poles
DECEMBER - JANUARY 2009
Fiona Pardington Journey of the Sensualist:selected photographs 1987 - 2008
FEBRUARY
Geoffrey Heath North Shore FX
MARCH
Ben Cauchi Epilogue [tintypes]
APRIL gallery closed
MAY
AUCKLAND ART FAIR 2009
Laurence Aberhart, Rhondda Bosworth, Ben Cauchi, Marian Drew [Australia],
Dan Estabrook [USA],Anne Ferran [Australia]
Anne Noble, Fiona Pardington & Ann Shelton
RECENT: work
by ten NZ photographers Tauranga Art Gallery,
May - July
Laurence Aberhart, Fiona Amundsen, Wayne Barrar, Joyce Campbell,
Ben Cauchi, Derek Henderson, Paul Johns, Richard Orjis, Fiona
Pardington & Hamish Tocher
JUNE
Janet Bayly & Nikolai Kokx Dwelling
Te Arawa Matariki Festival exhibition: Ans Westra on relection Rotorua Museum of Art & History June - July
JULY
Laurence Aberhart Heavy metal [platinum prints]
AUGUST
Terry O'Connor Selected photographs 1976–1980s
SEPTEMBER
Paul Johns
* Suite of Landscape genre exhibitions
OCTOBER
Murray Lloyd Scenes in Maoriland *
NOVEMBER
Mark Adams Te Wairoa ~ Clandon Park (Tene Waitere's travels) *
DECEMBER - JANUARY 2010
A serious kind of beauty: the heroic landscape *
Wayne Barrar [b 1957], Frank J. Denton [1870 – 1963], Simon Devitt [b 1973], Peter Evans [b 1985 ]
Derek Henderson [b 1963 ], Arthur Iles [1870 – 1943], John Johns [1924 – 1999]
Muir & Moodie [George Moodie c.1865 – 1947], William Partington [1855 – 1940], Peter Peryer [b 1941]
Haruhiko Sameshima [b 1958], Ann Shelton [b 1967] & Henry Winkelmann [1861 – 1931]
FEBRUARY
Simon Devitt I see you there
A serious kind of beauty: the heroic landscape ARATOI Wairarapa Museum of Art & History February - March
MARCH
Ann Shelton a ride in the darkness *
Terry O'Connor Te Manawa o Tuhoe Whakatane Museum & Gallery March - May
APRIL gallery closed
* Suite of Portraiture genre exhibitions
MAY
Hamish Tocher Time's New Roman *
JUNE
James Lowe Ever, ever
JULY
Peter Evans Manipulated by the Human Hand *
KIN The New Zealand Portrait Gallery / Te Pukenga Whakaata, Wellington July – September *
Laurence Aberhart, Janet Bayly, Alan Bekhuis, Peter Black, Rhondda Bosworth, Fiona Clark, Richard Collins, Margaret Dawson, Bruce Foster, Joseph Griffen, Paul Johns, Nikolai Kokx, Anne Noble, Fiona Pardington, Peter Peryer, Clive Stone, Olivia Taylor, John B. Turner & Ans Westra
AUGUST
Joyce Campbell Te Taniwha
SEPTEMBER
David van Royen [Australia] Good Reason 2008 & Not Moving 2010*
OCTOBER
Peter Peryer Other: portraits 1975 – 2004 * Exhibition pre-view Looking forward – Peter Peryer at McNamara Gallery
NOVEMBER
Anne Noble
DECEMBER - JANUARY 2011
Ben Cauchi
FEBRUARY
Richard Orjis
MARCH
Andrew Beck
APRIL gallery closed
MAY
Alan Bekhuis *
JUNE
Haru Sameshima
JULY
Sightseeing NZ & German postcards BLOGSPOT
Sightseeing with Mark Adams, Fiona Amundsen, Karin Apollonia Müller, Wayne Barrar, Frank Breuer,
John Di Stefano, Jeremy Diggle, Elger Esser, Doris Frohnapfel, Eva Leitolf, Anne Noble, Haruhiko Sameshima,
Sarah Schönfeld, Grit Schwedtfeger & Ann Shelton
AUGUST
AUCKLAND ART FAIR 2011
SEPTEMBER
OCTOBER
Wayne Barrar
NOVEMBER
Laurence Aberhart
DECEMBER - JANUARY 2012
