PX3 PRIX DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE PARIS

I Must Behave was awarded third prize, Book (series only), Fine Art category, in the 2010 PX3 PRIX DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE PARIS, Paris, France ...
see PX3 PRESS RELEASE

Photo HiStories/I Must Behave review

VISUAL ARCHIVES
a review by Deidra Sullivan

Photo HiStories : Mark Adams, Bruce Connew and John Miller at the Govett-Brewster
13 June - 30 August 2009

"The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth, on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone ...".

- G.M. Trevelyan, Autobiography of an historian.i


I recently watched a documentary in which the late Vietnam war photographer Phillip Jones Griffiths was discussing - or defending - the practice of documentary photography. He argued, "Even if not a single picture taken is ever published, [the images] exist ... and that means we are recording the history of the human race. If that's all you're doing, it is still a very, very worthwhile profession to be involved in."ii Evidently he believed passionately in documentary practice, which is encouraging to see given the intensity of the postmodern critique of documentary that has occurred over the past couple of decades. In Jones Griffiths view it is photography's relationship with realism that is of value, and he suggests it is better to see than not see, better to record than not; better to have a history to refer back to that we can, in some sense, gain from. In our media savvy, image saturated culture, doubtless this sounds sentimental to some ears, but I can't help agreeing with him. However, recent evaluations of documentary practice are such that no photographer would lay a claim to telling the objective 'truth' any more.iii History has become acknowledged as 'histories', a story mediated and shaped by the teller.

This is why Photo HiStories is such good food for thought. Curator Mercedes Vicente presents us with three quite different forms of engagement with the documentary tradition from photographers Bruce Connew, John Miller and Mark Adams. In the exhibition literature, Vicente acknowledges the dilemmas facing documentary photography and suggests that documentary images can no longer be understood as 'fact'. Rather, she suggests, their meanings are mediated by the context in which they are viewed, and by notions of truth, authenticity and authorship.iv The exhibition engages with both the photographers' concerns and these broader issues facing documentary practice.

Viewing Bruce Connew's recent work from his series I Must Behave came as somewhat of a surprise. I hadn't seen his 2007 publication I Saw You and consequently the radical departure from his social realist documentary style was unexpected to say the least. I stood in the gallery space and began to piece the work together - wondering about the decision-making process that caused Connew to choose the scenes, people and objects that he did. The title helps: I Must Behave suggests self-control and surveillance - an internal dialogue of self-observation.

But Connew's images don't give themselves away as easily as that. Initially I was left with a creeping sense of unease and dislocation, rather than perceiving any particular message about social control or observation. The images embody a sense of displacement, of disconnection between people (Susan Sontag's observation about Diane Arbus' photographs - that "Humanity is not one" springs to mind. v). We see a tire floating in a river. A running cat. Posters of missing children. Decrepit Modernist architecture. A woman's torso, with a dramatic scar. A duck in a cage. People walking in the street. A boxing match. A forest. A woman holding a banana. Viewing these images is a little like channel surfing. John Berger once commented that a photograph is like a quote, which, removed from its context, becomes ambiguous.vi Connew's images are just that - dozens of quotes, decontextualised. The images were made in New Zealand and multiple international locations - but more than that, I cannot identify. Sewn back together, these decontextualised quotes tell a new story of dystopia. There is no belonging in these photographs. It is not a reassuring story that Connew is telling us. This is an unsettling observation of the experience of globalisation: where we are, who we are and what we are, we can't quite say. Perhaps the sense of anxiety and disconnection apparent in these images is also a manifestation of the personal and social controls and restrictions we submit ourselves to.

I wonder why Connew has departed from his established social documentary practice so dramatically. Maybe it is a desire to tell a new story, or explore a different set of aesthetic conventions. Perhaps the weight of traditional documentary practice with its irreconcilable ethical and epistemological dilemmas became too heavy. Ironically, I find I must behave more perturbing than a lot of Connew's socially concerned documentary photography. Yet there's an absence of human engagement here, present in much of his previous work, that I find myself missing. We are reminded daily of the disconnectedness of contemporary society, and I wonder if I Must Behave slips from being a comment on it, into becoming another example of it.

The homogeneity of global culture as apparent in Connew's work is in stark contrast to the context specific stories that John Miller explores. Closer in nature to Connew's earlier work, Miller's photography engages with the established tradition of documentary as a form of social engagement and dissent. Miller's work over the past four decades has focused on protest photography in relation to both national and international concerns. He has photographed many anti-war, anti-apartheid and anti-nuclear protests, and multiple Maori political demonstrations and marches. He states, "I seem to have been performing the role of a sympathetic observer, insofar as I tend to support the causes that motivate such protests, rallies or meetings."vii This selection encompasses photographs made at Waitangi demonstrations over several decades, the 1975 Land March, images from Bastion Point, and various protests at parliament. Miller's photographs are descriptive, detailing as much as possible about the scene he has surveyed. He often works in series or with a triptych form to widen the angle offered to the viewer. In this capacity, photography is evidential, a witness to social and historical events. Referring to his work, Miller states, "a photographic archive which extends over more than three decades has a use in reminding those of us who were there, and informing those who weren't, of what actually transpired in previous yearsand how past events might relate to the present day."viii Doubtless Miller would agree with Jones Griffiths, then.

Mark Adams' work is a compelling example of photography exploring a specific story, or history, of contemporary significance. Adams' photography engages with cross-cultural and postcolonial histories, and addresses colonial practices of collecting and archiving Maori artefacts and taonga. The photographs in Photo HiStories, a selection from the series Rauru, trace the work of Ngati Tarawhai carver Tene Waitere (1854-1931). One of Waitere's most significant works was Rauru, a meeting house, created between 1897-1900 for a Rotorua hotel owner. It was sold in 1904 to the Museum fur Volkerkunde in Hamburg and remains there, one of three meeting houses carved or partially carved by Waitere now located outside of New Zealand.ix Waitere was the first Ngati Tarawhai artist to produce a large body of work for commercial European buyers, and Nicholas Thomas suggests the histories of these carvings, the paths they travelled and their current locations are insights into cross cultural engagements and interactions between empire and art. x The location of Rauru, the Museum fur Volkerkunde, also reminds us that while museums might be sites of knowledge and history they can also be sites of particular types of colonial histories, and significant markers of colonial heritage and practice.

Adams' work doesn't engage with the dramatic moment in the sense Millers' project does. The large scale images of Rauru, the interior and exterior images of the Museum fur Volkerkunde, and Rauru's original street location in Rotorua, are all still, quiet, and contemplative. Adams' process and aesthetic is one that encourages a meditative response from the viewer while also inviting us to enquire further. Adams is both a historian and a photographer and his work offers a compelling argument for photography as a form of visual history.

But history in itself is problematic - how can we know the past? How can we know the'other men and women', lost in the passing of time, that Trevelyan speaks of? History is a combination of received information, inherited narratives, memory, imagination and cultural interpretation, all mediated by the passing of time. If every photograph is more or less, as Berger suggests, an ambiguous decontextualised 'quote', is the capacity of the photograph to function as a form of history compromised? I would argue, no more than any other form of history. No history is complete, be it visual, written or oral; history is a retelling of past events and quite distinct from the past as a series of lived events. Consequently, each of the histories presented in this exhibition can be considered a departure point for further contemplation and engagement with the past, and each engages with time, history and narrative in a distinct way. Miller's work is an archive, Connew's an engagement with the immediate past, and Adam's work, though photographed recently, references several temporal locations throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Considered in unison, as with any diverse collection of photographs, they present something of a temporal medley; we journey between the present and the late 19th century. But this is the poetry of history that Trevelyan refers to, made all the more accessible through the viewing of it.

Back to Philip Jones Griffiths and his belief that documentary photography is "a very, very, worthwhile profession." Jones Griffith's voice is not a lone one in the wilderness; exhibitions such as Photo HiStories attest to that. Curator Mercedes Vicente observes "The failure of mainstream media to deal with current events have prompted a renewed interest in social reality and its documentary mediation."xi Photo HiStories reminds us that it is the concerns and motivations of the photographer that shape any given project. It provides us with a rich variety of material that encourages us to consider both the specific histories explored, and the strengths and complexities of documentary practice.


NOTES:
i Trevelyan, G.W. (1949). 'Autobiography of an historian'. In Autobiography and other essays. London: Longmans, Green. Quoted in Lowenthal, D. (1985). The past is a foreign country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.185.
ii Phillip Jones Griffiths, quoted in Kirby, T. (Series Producer). & Rodley C. (Episode Director). (2006). The genius of photography. Episode 3: Right time/ Right place. London: Wall to Wall for BBC.
iii See Sontag, S. (1978). On Photography. London: Penguin; Rosler, M. (1981) 'In, around and afterthoughts on documentary photography.' In Bolton, R. (Ed). (1989). The context of meaning: critical histories of photography. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, and Solomon-Godeau, A. (1991). 'Who is speaking thus? Some questions on documentary photography.' In Photography at the Dock: Essays on photographic history, institutions, and practices.' Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
iv Mercedes Vicenti. (2009). Photo HiStories: Mark Adams, Bruce Connew and John Miller. (Exhibition Wall label), Govett-Brewster Gallery, August 2009.
v Susan Sontag discusses Diane Arbus' work in On Photography (1978), pp.32-33.
vi John Berger, writing in Berger, J. & Mohr, J. (1982). Another Way of Telling. New York: Vintage, pp.85-88.
vii John Miller, (2003). John Miller: Media Peace Award recipient 2003. Notes in response to an interview by Faye Norman. PhotoForum 69, December 2003. Retrieved from www.photoforum-nz.org/index.php?pageID=27, October 1 2009.
viii Ibid.
ix Nicholas Thomas, 'Introduction', in Thomas, N. (Ed). (2009). Rauru: Tene Waitere, Maori Carving, Colonial History. Dunedin: University of Otago Press, p.12.
x ibid.
xi Mercedes Vicenti. (2009). Photo HiStories: Mark Adams, Bruce Connew and John Miller. Retrieved from www.govettbrewster.com/Exhibitions/Previous/, October 1 2009.

COLLABORATION

Catherine Griffiths and Bruce Connew discuss their collaboration, such as it might be, in Auckalnd, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin ...
see DESIGNERS INSTITUTE OF NEW ZEALAND

SUITE

Bruce Connew is now represented in New Zealand by SUITE fine art gallery
... see also WORKS FOR SALE

Larry Sultan

An artist of great consequence, Larry Sultan dies December 13, 2009 ... see NEW YORK TIMES obituary.

On the way to an ambush

On the way to an ambush (1999) was twittered by lens culture blog December 14, 2009: "A favorite photobook discovery: Bruce Connew On the way to an ambush, Burma" . Of course, with the good comes the less so ... an unfortunate rap on photo-eye, December 7, 2009, where the story is reviewed by Sara Terry as "slight"! The final 100 copies (50 left) are signed and numbered with an archival print and DVD. See VAPOUR MOMENTA BOOKS.

On the way to an ambush was a 40-image exhibition, May 1 - July 29, 2008, at WAR PHOTO LTD, Dubrovnik, Croatia. Published in 1999 by Victoria University Press, New Zealand, the book has long been thought out-of-print. However, in a rare twist of fate, 150 copies of the book were discovered tucked away in a distributor’s warehouse. As a limited edition end to the print run, 100 copies were numbered and signed, and offered as a multi-media package. Each book will be accompanied by a signed pigment print on archival Hahnemuhle cotton rag paper, and a DVD of a contemporary recording of a performance/presentation, first given in 1998, of the book’s visual material with a scripted voice-over. Available at WAR PHOTO LTD or VAPOUR MOMENTA BOOKS ... see also ARCHIVE

GRANTA, Spring 2009

The Censored 2008 triptych has appeared inside and on the cover of lofty UK literary magazine, Granta 105, Lost and Found, Spring 2009 . . . see GRANTA and NEW WORK

Bruce Connew discusses I Must Behave, Granta, the Censored 2008 triptych, and more, on Kim Hill's Saturday Morning show on Radio New Zealand ... PODCAST

I Must Behave, 2009

PARIS PHOTO book-signing with Slavica Perkovic Matea has 220 friends and Bruce Connew I Must Behave, 14H, Saturday, November 21, 2009 at Schaden.com bookstore, C10, in the foyer of PARIS PHOTO.

I Must Behave, an exhibition of 85 images, a sideways glance at behaviour, features as part of Photo hiStories open at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand, June 13 - August 30, 2009, along with fine exhibitions by Mark Adams and John Miller. The artist book, I Must Behave, printed by EBS, Verona, launched in June 2009.

A selection of 14 images from the complete series of 85, opened at Mary Newton Gallery, Wellington, Tuesday, February 3, 5.30pm. Accompanying this work was the political triptych, Censored 2008, a recontextualisation of three censored National Geographic double-page spreads.

I Must Behave follows on from the 2007 surveillance project, I Saw You, and is the second in a series of three projects over three years, each examining a social/political theme . . . see NEW WORK


A CONVERSATION WITH Mary-Jane Duffy, Mary Newton Gallery, Wellington,
New Zealand, March 2009

You're well known as a certain type of photographer. What has prompted this move into a new area of photography, or is it a new area?

I've always seen myself, in rare and brief moments of clarity, as a social/political realist documentary photographer ... this new work, I Must Behave, is no different, it has merely grown out of what has come before. I Saw You uses a different technique, a radically different technique it might be argued, to what I've previously indulged in, certainly, but it is about surveillance, and that's social/political. I Must Behave is about behaviour and control, although I must accept not obviously so, but again it is social/political. The technique applied is much the same as I've ever used, although I made a conscious decision half-way through 2007 to have my 35mm frame, as much as possible, vertical when I photographed, and with a prime lens slightly wider than my perennially regular, normal lens. As well, I made a point often not to look through the viewfinder at what I was choosing to photograph. I have used these techniques before with other projects, but not with the same dedication of purpose as I did with the latter part of collecting imagery for I Must Behave.

What has prompted this shift in technique? A desire, I figure, to come in at subjects that correspond with my lines of thought and concerns, at a somewhat different trajectory. Why? I must admit, I haven't spent much time thinking about it. I can resurrect particular moments: for example, I became aware near the end of seven years photographing Indian-Fijian sugar cane cutters for Stopover, periodically living closely with them, that I was beginning to consider moving my ideas into new territory, but was unsure just how that vague impulse might proceed. I Saw You overlapped the tail end of Stopover, and while the technique changed dramatically, it remained a microcosmic look at the broad notion of surveillance, an approach not uncommon in my previous work. Stopover, for instance, while focusing on Indian-Fijian sugar cane cutters, a tiny slice of humanity, is about migration, the hypothesis that we're forever migrants, only sometimes we're in positions of stopover. Beyond the Pale, my whimsical conviction that underground coal miners could represent the nature of, not only some of a New Zealand personality, but also a much wider humanity. In the way it was photographed, and then put together as a body of work, it offered threads common across borders: comradeship, hard work, shared danger, intimacy, sexuality, aloneness, loneliness and others. Mostly, thus far, it seems only to have been considered as a body of work representing underground coal miners.

So, I produce work in a realist documentary manner that can be read first, if you like, for its literal, narrative line ... of course, there are always, always, always further layers, sub-texts within individual images, within sequences of images in a body of work, and within a series as a whole. I have never seen it as my responsibility to spell those out. I can discuss process and idea, but meaning, while I have mine, must be in the mind of the viewer.

Visitors to the exhibition have tried to relate the title to the works quite literally... but it's not a literal relationship, right? As your byline says, it's a sideways glance at behaviour. Anything you want to say about that?

Yes, I'm aware of that. Anyone who sees the work, without exception, has asked at least once about where a particular image was taken. I'm happy to explain, but it isn't a clue to the image and its meanings, or indeed a clue to the work as a whole, which is why there is no captioning information whatsoever in the book.

You know, at a late stage in the book's production, while it was at the printers, I weakened for a moment and considered including an explanatory line or two ... fortunately, a good friend, when it was put before him for a speedy response, said the following:

"I don't think you need this piece of text? Or rather, what it says does not seem to me to cover the broad effect of your project, which for me rests on doubt, uncertainty, taboos, proscribed or hidden practices, a hint of menace and of apocalypse either now or just averted or soon to come - and which gives the viewer a certain not wholly pleasant frisson as to what 'human nature' might really involve - by comparison with which the sentence you offer seems a bit too literal and limiting, prosaic even?"

That cleared the thought pretty quickly!

With I Must Behave, I have done away with a literal, narrative layer (beyond a layered title, and, in the book, a layered sub-title too), which may perplex some viewers given the history of my work, but to perplex is not my goal. It's just that this work, rather than a microcosmic approach, has been collected from 10 different countries over three years, a broad physical sweep attached to the broad concept of behaviour and control, something of a monumental topic, and, of course, one that resists a single definition. As well, I'm conscious to eschew moral judgement, or, for that matter, use the work to coach, rather it is a tone, a feel, even an inkling that I hope viewers stroll away with. Behaviour and control has been dealt with in many different ways ... this is mine.

Do you imagine that you will continue to do projects like Stopover?

I approach the process for each project with an open mind, although that may only now be evident as the differences in process from earlier work are more sharply defined.

As well, I Saw You and I Must Behave are the first two in a series of three projects each exploring a particular social/political theme, so I expect the third to run it's own path, much as the first two.

The Censored 2008 triptych, another recent tangent, developed as I collected work in China for I Must Behave ... I enjoy the overlap of ideas and processes, and, I must say, I'm gratified when the likes of lofty, literary magazine Granta see sufficient value in the work to publish it. (Granta 105, Lost and Found, Spring 2009)

Mark Amery suggests in his review of I Must Behave that you were subverting your own photographic practice. I wasn't sure I agreed, but perhaps you were?

Certainly, my motivation for I Must Behave, and I Saw You, did not begin with an art notion to subvert my earlier work. My photographic practice continues to grow, perhaps with an occasional, kooky outgrowth. When I retrace my steps to end up at my abbreviated, formal art education period, before my first social/political documentary project in 1976 (on a dishevelled Aboriginal community in north-west Australia, the fall-out from 1967, when Aborigines were made Australian citizens, and, incredibly, first gained the right to vote), if ever there was a foggy effort to undermine myself, it was probably then with my deduction that I shouldn't be anything other than a photojournalist. I was aware I wanted to work towards social/political documentary, but considered this single option, which, as I look at it now, was an unlikely fit ... I had years of difficulty with magazines and photo agencies. I had my agenda and they had theirs, and our infrequent, although sometimes lengthy, alliances were a blinding headache to all who were implicated. It took me years to work through that one. I was never a photojournalist, but I tried very hard to be one because I imagined that was my destiny. I didn't even look like one! So, I suppose, early on, I undermined my own instincts. Now, I'm right on track.

I Saw You, 2008

Auckland Festival of Photography, 30 May - 22 June 2008. Three images from the I Saw You series were included in a group exhibition at Satellite Gallery, Newton, along with three separate images from the same series in the PhotoForum group show, Bath Street Gallery, Parnell. A short film of the same work, produced by Catherine Griffiths with music by Alfredo Ibarra, screened at the Manukau Light Night, Manukau City, New Zealand, and can be viewed at VAPOUR MOMENTA BOOKS or YouTube ... see also NEW WORK

Zhongshan, China

Bruce Connew was in Zhongshan, China, for three weeks, until the end of May 2008, collecting material for I Must Behave.

EDIT 45

Twelve images from the surveillance series I Saw You are a wraparound cover on the latest issue of German literary journal EDIT 45 (http://www.editonline.de). Stopover, the Indian-Fijian migration series, is represented inside the journal by ten images, with an essay, Unguarded Moments, about the connections between the two social documentary series, by Michael Fitzgerald, managing editor of Art and Australia magazine. . . . see NEW WORK

STOPOVER, a story of Indian-Fijian migration

The exhibition, intelligently and elegantly hung, opened at TAURANGA ART GALLERY, New Zealand on 11 October, until 14 December 2008.

Stopover won a silver medal at the New Zealand Best Design Awards 2007, 5 October 2007 - a silver only?!! What were the judges thinking?

A spread of Stopover photographs appeared in TIME magazine, 24 September 2007, with a well-turned and pointed story by Elizabeth Keenan.

Stopover ... “Connew’s work combines haunting images with a text that is poetic, elegant, and moving in its clarity. There is a power and persuasion to his work that even the most scholarly and responsible analyses cannot match.” Professor David Hanlon, Director, Centre forPacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai’i, July 13, 2007.

The exhibition opened at PATAKA, Porirua, Wellington, New Zealand on August 26, 2007. Victoria University Press, Wellington and University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu published the book in July 2007.

The book was launched with grace and sustenance amongst the cane cutters and their families, and in the shade of a giant mango tree, by Bruce Connew, Catherine Griffiths, Brij Lal, Padma Lal, Jogindhar Singh Kanwal and Amarjit Kaur in Vatiyaka, Fiji, 2pm, Saturday, August 25, 2007 . . . see NEW WORK

Mary Newton Gallery

Mary Newton Gallery’s Christmas drinks for their artists and a few friends, Friday evening, December 14, 2007 was at the “so grown up” Confidential Bar in Wellington where hung a selection of eight images from the I Saw You series.

I Saw You, the 52-image surveillance series, showed at boutique Mary Newton Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand, until August 11, 2007. The exhibition was accompanied by an artist book and short film.

The film, can be seen at VAPOUR MOMENTA BOOKS or YouTube . . . see also NEW WORK

Wonder-land

Wonder-land came to New Zealand. After a triumphant show at the remarkable 2006 Fotografia Festival Internazionale di Roma and the 2006 Pingyao International Photography Festival in China, Wonder-land opened March 7, 2007 at Bath Street Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand during the Auckland Festival AK07. www.bathstreetgallery.com/html/news.asp

Two photographs from the Muttonbirds - part of a story series were part of the Wonder-land exhibiton by nine New Zealand artists curated by Harvey Benge for the Fotografia Festival Internazionale di Roma, April - May 2006 at Villa Glori, Facolta Architettura, Valle Giulia, Via Argentina, Roma. Heather Galbraith, senior curator at the City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand, wrote a sharp and persuasive essay. Designer and typographer, Catherine Griffiths, conceived the brand, and applied it to her poster and website design. Creative New Zealand assisted liberally with freight costs.

Mark Adams, Harvey Benge, Ingrid Boberg, Bruce Connew, Marti Friedlander, Dieneke Jansen, Allan McDonald, Haruhiko Sameshima, Ann Shelton. www.wonder-land.co.nz

Birds - The Art of New Zealand Birdlife

Three photographs from the Muttonbirds - part of a story series were part of the magical BIRDS, The Art of New Zealand Birdlife, an exhibition by more than 59 New Zealand artists curated with an exceptional and pragmatic intelligence by Helen Kedgley for PATAKA, Porirua, Wellington, New Zealand. The exhibition went on to the Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui, New Zealand through February 11, 2007.

Laurence Aberhart, Tanya Ashken, John Bevan Ford, Don Binney, Adi Brown, Rob Cherry, Bruce Connew, Bronwynne Cornish, Shane Cotton, Matt Couper, Jim Dennison and Leanne Williams, Neil Dawson, Paul Dibble, Geoff Dixon, Charlotte Fisher, Hamish Foote, George Foster, Steve Gibbs, Jenny Gillam, Kohai Grace, Fred Graham, Bill Hammond, Michael Harrison, Paul Hartigan, Sarah Hillary, Rex Homan, Matt Hunter, Gavin Hurley, John Johns, Sean Kerr, Maureen lander, Tony de Lautour, Saskia leek, John Lyall, Peter Madden, Colin McCahon, Andrew McLeod, Sam Mitchell, Moana Nepia, James Ormsby, Hamish farmer, Fiona Pardington, Michael Parakowhai, Peter Peryer, Seraphine Pick, Martin Poppelwell, Brydee Rood, Jeff Thomson, Greer Twiss, Ronnie van Hout, Warren Viscoe, John Walsh, Denys Watkins, Robin White, Brendon Wilkinson, Emily Wolfe, Wayne Youle, Carey Young. www.pataka.org.nz