The photograph and Australia, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney

The photograph and Australia
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
21 March - 8 June 2015 
Queensland Art Gallery
June - September 2015

DAVID MOORE

Migrants arriving in Sydney 1966 

Gelatin silver photograph 

Art Gallery of New South Wales, gift of the artist 1997 

© Lisa, Karen, Michael and Matthew Moore

The photograph and Australia at the Art Gallery of NSW is the largest exhibition of Australian photography held since 1988 that borrows from collections nationwide and looks at the history of the medium.

Reflecting an evolving image of Australia from the 1840s until today, The photograph and Australia presents more than 400 photographs by more than 120 artists, including Morton Allport, Richard Daintree, Paul Foelsche, Samuel Sweet, JJ Dwyer, Charles Bayliss, Frank Hurley, Harold Cazneaux, Olive Cotton, Max Dupain, Sue Ford, Carol Jerrems, Tracey Moffatt, Robyn Stacey, Ricky Maynard, Anne Ferran and Patrick Pound.

The works of renowned artists and those considered to be national icons are shown alongside those by unknown photographers and everyday material, such as domestic albums and postcards. The photographs in this exhibition tell people’s stories, illustrate where and how they lived, and communicate official public narratives. Scientific photography such as the earliest Australian X-rays and astronomical photographs appear alongside contemporary representations of people and place.

Sourced from more than 35 private and public collections across Australia, England and New Zealand, including the National Gallery of Australia, the National Library of Australia and the State Library of Victoria, The photograph and Australia uncovers hidden gems dating from 1845 until now.

From mass media’s evolution in the 19th century to today’s digital revolution, The photograph and Australia investigates how photography has been harnessed to create the idea of a nation and reveals how our view of the world, ourselves and each other has been changed by the advent of photography.

It also explores how photography operates aesthetically, technically, politically and in terms of distribution and proliferation, in the Australian context. Highlights include works by Australia’s first professional photographer, George Goodman and recent works by Simryn Gill.

Curated from a contemporary perspective, the exhibition takes a thematic rather than a chronological approach looking at four interrelated areas: Aboriginal and settler relations; exploration: mining, landscape and stars; portraiture and engagement; collecting and distributing photography.

Exhibition curator, Judy Annear, senior curator, photographs, Art Gallery of NSW, said: ‘We are proud to present The photograph and Australia, an exhibition that considers how the photograph invented modern Australia.

Audiences are invited to experience the richness of Australian photography, past and present, and the sense of wonder the photograph can still induce through its ability to capture both things of the world and the imagination.’

Director Michael Brand stated: ‘We hope that The photograph and Australia will contribute to an understanding of the richness and complexity of the medium and provide impetus for further explorations of the photograph’s production, function and dissemination in this country. We trust that in doing so, it will also help place Australian photography in a broader international context.’

A richly illustrated publication will accompany the exhibition, reflecting the exhibition themes and investigating how Australia itself has been shaped by photography.

There will be related education programs, digital resources, a substantial film program and live events. A major symposium will also be held at the Art Gallery of NSW on 18 April addressing the proliferation and distribution of photographic images.

The photograph and Australia will be open to the public at the Art Gallery of NSW in the major exhibition gallery from 21 March to 8 June 2015, before travelling to the Queensland Art Gallery, where it will be open to the public from June to September 2015.

Art Gallery of NSW - Sydney - Australia
www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au

David Moore, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

David Moore: the unseen images
The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
7 November 1997 - 18 January 1998

David Moore is Australia's most significant living photographer. This exhibition celebrates his 70th year. David Moore's career was forged at the high point of international photojournalism. He was assigned by Life, Time, Fortune and The New York Times in the U.S. and The Observer in the U.K.. He photographed the building of the Sydney Opera House in the 1960s and the Glebe Island Bridge in the 1990s. He has worked in many parts of the world and published eight books of photographs.

David Moore's accumulated archives now amount to more than 200,000 images. The breadth and depth of his working life, over 50 years, has produced an extraordinary collection of material which documents facets of life in Australia and the United States as well as events in Britain.

This exhibition consists of a selection of 87 photographs that have not been seen before by the public. They represent a wide variety of David Moore's working life. Included are pictures of politicians and artists, people in remote regions, urban design, landscape, the rich fabric of daily life and personal observations which illustrate a continued search for expression and communication. A fully illustrated catalogue published by Chapter & Verse accompanies the exhibition. David Moore and Judy Annear, Curator of the exhibition, will discuss the unseen images on Friday 14 November within the show.

There is a thread which joins these photographs regardless of whether they are black & white or colour, or whether they were taken in the 1950s or forty years later - it is the photographer's ongoing fascination with the structure of the image within the frame: its geometry, and, within that geometry, the relationship between all the elements depicted, no matter how small they may be.

David David Moore's modernist stance in photography is the overriding aspect of this exhibition. From a very early stage in his career the impulse to formalism and abstraction in his work is quite clear. While there are images of spontaneity and intimacy in some of the early photographs, it is in the patterns of light and shade over form, particularly architectural and natural from, which becomes paramount in his work.

David Moore has been instrumental in advancing Australian photography throughout his career and in the early 1970s was instrumental in setting up the Australian Centre for Photography in Sydney. In 1994 he was awarded an Australian Artists' Creative Fellowship. He has exhibited in London, Paris, China, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and New Zealand, as well as throughout Australia. His work is included in major collections throughout the world, for example, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, le Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C..

THE ART GALLERY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
Art Gallery Road, The Domain, Sydney NSW 2000
www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au