Remembrance of Things Past

Firstly I have to admit I haven’t read Proust. I do know a little about the themes (which I suppose makes this is a bit like “How to talk about books you haven’t read“) but his ideas of memory seem to apply somewhat to my feelings towards photography.  The photos that resonate for me and draw an emotional, often visceral response and transport me to a place from my memory. However, memory is unreliable and sometimes maybe I am responding to something imagined, a dream or a nightmare.

So yesterday I got out a few books, Laurence Aberhart’s ’domestic architecture’  and “Contemporary New Zealand Photographers” and also a video about Annie Liebowitz. The South Bank Show episode on Liebowitz was a disappointment as it was made at the height of the celebrity Hollywood portraits, although it did look at the Rolling Stone work and had an interesting interview with Hunter S Thompson. I remember an exhibition of her work at the City Gallery some time ago (1997!) that seemed much broader and her book “Women” is excellent. Also just take a look at this portrait. I personally think it says a lot. There is a good commentary about this photograph here from the Guardian.

Mind you, to me you couldn’t better the Mapplethorpe exhibition at the City Gallery in 1996. I don’t why I like his photographs so much when they are simply a different world. Maybe it appeals to my voyeuristic nature?

So back to the New Zealand photography. Aberhart’s house’s are great and appealed because I also love what I call “wedding cake houses” the Art Deco flat roofed NZ style that features largely in the book. I used to live in a ‘nest’ of them in historical Savage Crescentin Palmerston North. That development is quite amazing in itself. Ernst Plischke was one of the architects.

Anyway that reminded me of a book I have “Images of a House” by Robin Morrison, another NZ photographer that I am fond of. His ‘Sense of Place’ was exactly that for me and many of his photos capture the South Island of my childhood memories.

The slighty sepia toned photos in “Images of a House” capture something I can’t quite put into words. Even though the house is occupied there is a late afternoon, dusty loneliness.

Another photograph that caught my eye recently was this (on trademe!) :

JAMES K. BAXTER HAVING BREAKFAST AT JERUSALEM ON THE WHANGANUI RIVER

This image appeared in the book “James K. Baxter: A Memorial Volume 1926-72″ with text by Michael King, Maurice Shadbolt, Tim Shadbolt and others.  Its says photographer unknown.

For a more recent view of photography the Contempoarary NZ book was great. Many of the images entered into the dream/nightmare category for me for example Yvonne Todd.

Speaking of Todd, nice to see a partial(?) list of proposals submitted to CNZ  for the 2008 Venice Biennale at Over the net. I cannot understand why an official list cannot be made available. Its public money surely? Lots of analogies have been made but you wouldn’t see his kind of thing happening with the major book awards.

Miscellanea

A bit of a mixed bag today..

First -It is Te Papa’s 10th birthday and I am NOT going to repeat what others are saying about it  faults (and it has some - and don’t get me started on the logo!). My main thought is that perhaps we are grown up enough to have a separate National Art Gallery. I think on a report card they would get a steady improvement type comment. It does concern me about the McCahon database being in a bit of disarray commented on recently on the Barr’s blog. Also the research/publication aspect seems a bit lacking. OK, I have recently worked in an academic setting where it was ‘publish or die’ and that’s not so great either but I think a national institution could do better.

From the world of literature we have the New Zealand Post Writers and Readersweek coming up in Wellington (11-16 March). Like Nick Barnett from ShelfLife I have been trying to work out what I can get to. For me this probably means nothing for similar reasons as to why I didn’t get to the Bill Hammond exhibition. Someoneiknow suggested a donation button on my blog for petrol money and childcare so I can get to events :-). Maybe I could apply to Creative New Zealand -ha- . Anyway there are some great things on and if I had to pick one “The camera is a small room” looks like a very interesting presentation.

I am wondering how long it will take (if at all) for someone to complain about the images on this blog and copyright. I have been thinking about reproductions and copyright a bit, brought to the fore again when I got an Otiz Frizzell t-shirt this week (”Nice Pair”) and how our art t-shirt collection is growing unintentionally. I expect the main issue with reproductions is devaluing the original? There is money to be had in reproductions maybe but not as much as the original. There have been the recent moves about the % of the price going to the artists whenever a work is resold as well which maybe would impact the situation. I was also reading about the need for copyright to remain with the artist no matter who the owner is. Both ideas seem very complicated to enforce.

On a slightly different take I read a great book last year called “The Rebel Sell” about how counter culture had turned into consumer culture, one of the authors main illustrations being the “Che” image on everything

 

I confess to owning a ‘Che’ bag but it has a better pic on it .

However just for contrast I really love this photo (not a good reproduction)

Lastly my quote for the day - from Cyril Connelly

“There is no more somber enemy of good art than the pram in the hall” (so I keep mine in the garage)