Bowness Photography Prize finalists

Finalists for the 2012 Bowness Photography Prize are:

Robert ASHTON, Daniel BOETKER-SMITH, Kirsten BOWERS, Jane BROWN, Chris BUDGEON, Elaine CAMPANER, Rowan CONROY, Jagath DHEERASEKARA, Stephen DUPONT, Cherine FAHD, Jacqueline FELSTEAD, Siri HAYES, Christopher HOLT, Tim JOHNSON, Francis KEOGH, Bronek KOZKA, Jesse MARLOW, Joseph MCGLENNON,
Georgia METAXAS, Michael MILLER, Phuong NGO, Simon OBARZANEK, Gerard O’CONNOR and Marc WASIAK, Polixeni PAPAPETROU, Izabela PLUTA, Clare RAE, Hannah RAISIN, Lynne ROBERTS-GOODWIN, Tobias ROWLES, Julie RRAP, Rodney SCHAFFER, Lani SELIGMAN, Martin SMITH, Valerie SPARKS, David STEPHENSON, Darren SYLVESTER, Claudia TERSTAPPEN, Christian THOMPSON, Stephanie VALENTIN, Justine VARGA, Daniel VON STURMER and William YANG.

This year’s eminent judging panel, Magnum photographer TRENT PARKE, NGV’s Senior Curator Photography ISOBEL CROMBIE, and MGA Gallery Director SHAUNE LAKIN have selected 42 photographs from approximately 2 500 entries – the largest number received in the history of Australia’s most coveted photography prize.

Shaune Lakin, MGA Gallery Director, said on behalf of the judging panel: “With a record number of entries and an extraordinarily high caliber of work, the judging process was very difficult. So we selected more finalists than usual – to reflect the strength of the field. The finalists represent the best in contemporary Australian photography and their photographs will make an amazing exhibition; I am sure choosing a winner in early October will be incredibly difficult.”

The winner of the $25 000 prize will be announced at MGA on Thursday 4 OCTOBER 2012. Three finalists will be awarded an Adobe Honourable Mention prize. One of Australia’s most eminent cultural figures, Penelope Seidler AM, will join the judging panel to choose the winner of the 2012 Bowness Photography Prize.

> VIEW THE FINALISTS' IMAGES ON OUR FLICKR PAGE

EXHIBITION OPENING AND ANNOUNCEMENT: Thursday 4 OCTOBER 2012
ARTIST'S PARTY AND CRUMPLER PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD ANNOUNCED: Sunday 18 NOVEMBER

Catherine Clover at Platform

Catherine Clover; A Filth of Starlings 

opening Friday 3rd August 2012

This exhibition comprises 24 A1 size works on paper, two in each cabinet. The works are, effectively, lists of the collective nouns used for a variety of urban bird species, including ravens, sparrows, crows and starlings. A huge variety of collective nouns, particularly for groupings of animals, are a characteristic of the English language. These nouns are intriguing and some of the versions can be traced back to 15th century Britain. The exhibition looks at our ambiguous relationship with these birds through numerousness and close proximity, two of the main reasons many of us dislike them.

Exhibition Dates: 3rd-25th August
Open Mon-Fri 7am-7pm, Sat 9am-5pm

Cities in transition symposium: Photography in Paris and Australia at the turn of the 20th century

AGNSW's upcoming exhibition Eugène Atget: old Paris has a number of related events, a highlight is Judy Annear's Cities in transition symposium: Photography in Paris and Australia at the turn of the 20th centuryhttp://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/calendar/cities-in-transition-symposium/, that explores the early 20th-century documentary photography of Eugène Atget and assesses its relevance to an Australian context. Speakers include Françoise Reynaud, curator of photographs, Musée Carnavalet, Paris; Helen Ennis; Martyn Jolly;Catherine De Lorenzo and chaired by Judy Annear.

Janina Green @ Colour Factory

Janina Green's current exhibition Be Home Before Dark at the Colour Factory propels us into what Simon Gregg describes as "psycho-scapes" - those haunting nature experiences that come with their own soundtrack. Janina Green uses film and prints by hand but don't let that put you off. Check it out until 28 July 2012

Colour Factory Melbourne
409-429 Gore Street, Fitzroy, Victoria 3065.
T (+61) 03-9419-8756.

Carly Grace at Platform

If you’re travelling through the Degraves Subway in Melbourne take some time out and catch
an exhibition by Carly Grace, Sonja Hornung and Noriko Nakamura at Platform. Until 29 June 2012

Craig Barrett and David Tatnall at Gasworks Arts Park

David Tatnall is well known to MGA audiences through his innovative public programs using pinhole cameras, as a finalist in the Bowness Photography Prize, and by his work in the MGA Collection.

David's recent work can be seen in a new exhibition with Graig Barrett at Gasworks Arts Park from 5 to 24 June. Barrett and Tatnall have been friends for more than thirty years and have each have pursued their own artistic paths. Now they are showing together for the first time in Shared vision. Until 24 June

Opening Night: Wed 6 June from 6pm to 8pm
Exhibition Dates: 5 to 24 June
Time: Daily 9am to 4pm
Enquiries: Tracey McIrvine 03 8606 4200
Venue: Angela Robarts-Bird Gallery
More Information:   gasworks.org.au

Cold Eels on Radio National's Awaye

Radio National's  Daniel Browning talks with the curator of MGA's current exhibition Cold Eels and Distant Thoughts, Djon Mundine and artists Adam Hilll nad Jason Wing 

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/awaye/cold-eels-and-distant-thoughts/3963516

First up they unpack the enigmatic title of the exhibition that comes from a statement by Afro-American boxer Jack Johnson (1878–1946). When asked why white women were attracted to black men, Johnson amusingly and cryptically replied: ‘We eat cold eels and think distant thoughts’. GREAT LISTENING!

The eight photographers included in this exhibition belong to two generations: the younger Adam Hill and Jason Wing, who is of Aboriginal and Chinese descent; and six mid-career photographers, Michael Aird, Mervyn Bishop, Gary Lee, Peter Yanada McKenzie, Ricky Maynard and Michael Riley. 

Image:

Jason WING

Birripi people

An Australian government initiative self-portrait  2012

22 laser prints, black paint

collection of the artist

TIMEMACHINE

Lee Grant , winner of the Bowness Photography Prize in 2010 is editor of Timemachine a collaborative online magazine with editorial contributions from Tom Williams and Sarah Rhodes.

The current issue titled Elegy features an essay from Helen Ennis' Reveries and the work of photographers well known to MGA audiences , such as Stephen Dupont and Georgia Metaxas plus others.The website states "Timemachine publishes contemporary photography from Australia and elsewhere in the world. Our emphasis is on showing new work and longer term projects; and bringing the concerns of photographers and their colleagues to wider attention.

http://timemachinemag.com/current-issue /http://timemachinemag.com/current-issue/

Hoppé is the Leibovitz of the early 20th century

In June MGA hosts Emil Otto Hoppé:  society, studio, and street celebrating the work of a pivotal figure in photography in the first half of the twentieth century.

Cecil Beaton called him ‘The Master’; during the 1920s, he was the most famous photographer in the world. Now El Mundo applauds Hoppe's exhibition at MAPFRE in Madrid 

During the 1920s and 30s, Hoppé was one of Europe’s most sought-after photographers. His studio in South Kensington was a magnet for the rich and famous, from dancers to film stars and from royalty to leading writers and artists.

Hoppé photographed the most famous cultural identities of the era.  This exhibition features remarkable portraits of most of the leading social and cultural figures of the period, including King George V and Queen Elizabeth, Albert Einstein, Fritz Lang, Paul Robeson, and Benito Mussolini.

Many of Hoppé’s subjects included major literary figures. George Bernard Shaw, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, AA Milne, Ezra Pound, Vita Sackville West, Anita Loos, Somerset Maugham, Henry James,  Rudyard Kipling and Thomas Hardy all sat for Hoppé. The artists Jacob Epstein, Marinetti, Marsden Hartley, Käthe Kollwitz and dancers Margot Fonteyn, Martha Graham and Nijinsky also had their portraits taken by Hoppé. 

The works of Emil Otto Hoppé come to Melbourne for the first time in an exhibition at MGA from 9 June to 29 July 2012.

Drawn from the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, London and the EO Hoppé Archive in Pasadena, California.

image:Emil Otto Hoppé

Ezra Pound  1918

gelatin-silver print

Rod McNicol wins NPPP

Congratulations to Rod McNicol, winner of the National Portrait Photography Prize for 2012 with his portrait of Jack Charles.

This year judges the judges were Louise Doyle, Director, National Portrait Gallery, Joanna Gilmour, Curator, National Portrait Gallery and invited guest judge, Blair French, Director, Artspace Sydney.

The forty six finalists were selected from 1500 entries. See it at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra until May 20.

Storm chaser

Nick Moir is well known for his news photography and has covered some of the biggest news stories in recent times including the Ivan Milat trial, the 2004 Tsunami in Banda Aceh and the Canberra bushfires. Catch this great video as Nick describes moving away from a "reactive" strategy of photo journalism to his own "roving" style that led to his astonishing bushfire and storm-chaser images that can be currently seen in OCULI: Terra Australis Incognita.

image:
Nick Moir
Darwin storm 2007
digital pigment print
60 x 70 cm

Iphoneographer: Nick Moir

MGA's current exhibition Oculi: Terra Australis Incognita features the work of photographer Nick Moir. Nick's work can also be seen on-line as part of The Age's Iphoneography section where readers are invited to contribute their own iphone pics.

Nick Moir
Beechworth 2009

digital pigment print

60 x 70 cm