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Points of view: Australian photography 1985-95

Art Gallery of New South Wales
19 November 2005 - 29 January 2006

Anne Ferran Scenes on the death of nature V 1986

Points of view explores developments in Australian photography from 1985 to 1995. This was a decade that saw a maturing of the diverse photographic practices which had developed in Australia from the 1970s. The works from this time exhibit a rapid incorporation of contemporary ideas and changes in photographic technique: various forms of colour photography became more accessible and economic; technical sophistication and diversity became more evident as many artists moved to working with laboratories or with printeries to achieve specific effects; or simply, artists became considerably more accomplished in their own darkrooms.

This was also a time when Aboriginal artists (such as Michael Riley, Brenda Croft and Destiny Deacon) were recognised as photographers and artists in their own right rather than as part of what the mainstream considered to be a marginalised social group. In parallel, artists of non-Anglo Saxon descent ceased to be corralled as "multicultural".

Points of view presents the work of 20 artists, including William Yang, Sandy Edwards, Anne Ferran, Ingeborg Tyssen, Destiny Deacon, David Stephenson, Robyn Stacey, Anne Zahalka, Farrell & Parkin, Pat Brassington and Rosemary Laing.

The exhibition covers a number of issues, for example, the ongoing concern with matters of representation regardless of who or what the subject might be; the life of objects within the photographic frame and how the subject operates as a memory trigger or imaginative springboard; and the dynamic relationship between the still and moving image through narrative, series and scale. Points of view follows on from the highly successful 1999 exhibition What is this thing called photography? Australian photography 1975-85, which set the scene for an understanding of the refocusing and diversity of experimentation in photographic practice of 20-30 years ago.

Judy Annear, curator of the exhibition and senior curator photography at the Art Gallery of New South Wales says: "While some commentators in the Australian photography scene saw that photography as we had come to understand it to be could be exhausted as a medium by the mid 1990s, artists in Points of view showed no sign of this exhaustion as they continued to explore and refine their ideas and practice."

Points of view: Australian Photography 1985-95
 

On view:19 November 2005 - 29 January 2006
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art Gallery Road, The Domain, Sydney
Telephone:(02) 9225 1744 or
recorded information (02) 9225 1790
National Toll Free 1800 679 278
Hours:10am to 5pm 7 days a week
Art After Hours until 9pm every Wednesday
Admission:Free
Media Information and Interviews:Susanne Briggs, Press Office
Tel. (02) 9225 1791 or 0412 268 320
Email susanneb@ag.nsw.gov.au
Images available on request

IMAGE CREDIT: Anne Ferran Scenes on the death of nature V 1986. Gelatin silver photograph.
Hallmark Cards Australian Photography Collection Fund 1987. © Anne Ferran