No Flash

“No flash! No flash!” In the Uffizi Gallery in Florence the gallery attendants are chanting “no flash!” at the tour groups. Now that everyone has a camera someone’s bound to have forgotten to turn their flash off. Some people are filming their entire visit to the gallery, others are using the zoom as binoculars to look closer at the paintings. At a certain point the number of cameras in a gallery becomes a spectacle in itself and a distraction from the exhibition.

There is no photography in the antique libraries in Dublin. And then there is MONA’s policy on photography which is strange “Still photography for personal use is allowed. No flashes or tripods, please. No videos or photographs may be reproduced, distributed, sold or displayed on personal websites without our permission. Buy a postcard.”

I understand the conservation reasons for no flash photography – strong light will fade pigments. I understand the basics of copyright law of images and the reasons why copyright might apply to unique expressions of an idea. I am interested in the variety of gallery practices around the world and I notice that the policy on photography does vary across galleries. (I have written about this before in a post in 2008 about the NGV’s policy on sketching and taking notes.)

A museum or galleries policy on photography is not simply about insurance, copyright, security and protection of the collection, it defines the purpose and use of the museum’s collection. The Frick Collection in New York allowed photography briefly in early 2014 but then reversed this policy worried about the damage that inattentive photographers focused on their camera screen might accidentally damage some of the collection.

Why do people want take photographs in an art gallery? I know why I want to: images for this blog, not that I always take them I am not one of the bloggers who regularly takes photos at gallery openings or documents the whole exhibition with photographs. It is not easy to take good photographs of art and many artists and galleries would prefer not to have their art represented in bad photos so I am grateful that some galleries, like RMIT Gallery will supply photographs free to bloggers (thanks RMIT Gallery staff for your help over the years). I go around with a light weight digital camera strapped to my belt; it is sure is different from hauling my old Soviet Zenit around.

Photography is part of everyday life now and people are increasingly trying to capture something of that life in the camera. With digital cameras there are few delays in processing and distributing; we can bore our friends in small doses over Facebook later that day.

For more on this subject Mark Sheerin explores some of the issues of photography and the variety of gallery policies in “Gallery Photo Policy Versus The Aura of the Artwork” in Hyperallegic.

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Painful progress on my book

When I last wrote about progress on my book, Melbourne’s Sculpture it was the end of March. I am now three months behind schedule with my book.

Progress of the book has been slowed with getting better photographs than the ones I’d taken, mine weren’t really up to scratch for publication. I never really thought of myself as a photographer and I knew that my photography was the weakest part. I should have asked more questions about it and read the camera manual.

So plan B for the photographs and start to develop a plan C; scratch plan B after two months of going nowhere. Move on to plan C and start to develop a plan D and whole vicious cycle goes on. Somewhere in all of this I decided to do some renovations and a major clean up of the house.

Paul Montford, John Wesley statue,1935, Melbourne

There has so many lows, more pleas for help on windy winter nights, so few highs recently (some great sculpture exhibitions at RMIT, Callum Morton at Anna Schwartz and Inge King at the NGV) and far too much waiting. It is hard to be patient and anxious at the same time. Waiting can be horribly distressing and at time I felt I was being drip fed hope. The street artist, Mal Function who makes those little gremlin heads finally read and replied to my email six months later but not too late as it happens.

I didn’t feel like writing my blog during this time; too uncertain of what the future would bring, too something. It is an odd feeling because the fate of the book was no longer in my hands. It was a good experience editing with Chloe Brien the book. Everyone is doing a wonderful job holding it together around me, the publisher, David Tenenbaum has been patient, my wife, Catherine and especially my old friend, Paul Candy who had been most helpful when exactly when I needed it. Lots of thanks; I must rewrite the acknowledgements for the book.

The book will now have photographs kindly supplied by the City of Melbourne, ConnectEast, State Library of Victoria and several photographers. More thanks.

Amongst the photographers I actual meet Matto Lucas. I had seen some of his work years ago but I had only met him virtually a few weeks earlier; his Facebook post are are often a work of art. I’d also seen his photography in his blog the Melbourne Art Review.

None of the photographs in this post will appear in the book.

Charles Robb, Landmark, 2005

Bruce Armstrong, Eagle, 2002, Docklands

Kitchen Passions

The readymade is, in an odd way, a part of the history of still life painting or photography. Duchamp’s readymades are best known through photographs reproduced in art history books. Duchamp’s readymades hardly exist, those that actually exist are mostly limited edition reproductions; this is of no importance because they are not ‘retinal’ works of art but ideas. The artist chooses an object and make it art; it really doesn’t matter if the object exists in a photograph or physically because ultimately it exists as art only in the mind of the viewer.

Maree Alexander’s exhibition of photographs, Behind Closed Doors at Jenny Port Gallery is a beautiful and surreal use of readymades. The relationship that Alexander creates in her photographs between readymade objects creates new Surreal meanings. Surrealism included Duchamp’s idea of the readymade in their repertoire of techniques. Surrealism is a way of understanding the world, a world charged with unexpected meanings from the unconsciousness. And the Surreal unconscious is, not surprisingly given their Freudian influences, a sexually charged world.

Alexander’s readymades, like Duchamp’s, frequently have sexual overtones. Alexander’s kitchen ceramic objects are animated. Lemon squeezers mate with each other, a jug and teapot kiss as honey runs along their lips, a round jug presses a curved glass into a corner. There is a masculine or feminine aspect to many of the objects that Alexander has used. A small ceramic bird begs for food from the leg of a larger upturned jug.

Duchamp’s readymades were frequently purchased in a hardware shops; Maree Alexander’s readymades are found in kitchens (sourced from friends, op-shops and garage sales)

Alexander’s photographs of these surreal readymades have pale tones and a cool gaze. But behind the closed cupboard doors Maree Alexander’s objects are passionate entities.