Exhibition30 Jun – 7 Aug 2004
Penetralia: Art and Psychoanalysis in Melbourne, 1940–2004
Art and psychoanalysis under the scope. The works of prominent artists including Albert Tucker, Sidney Nolan and Vivienne Shark LeWitt will be…
Klaus Rinke, 'Solo for Pool Attendants' (1976). Image courtesy of ifa.
Klaus Rinke, 'Along the wall' (1973).
Photo Art, RMIT Gallery 2004
Photo Art, RMIT Gallery 2004
Photo Art
An exhibition telling the German story
This exhibition has eight groups of photographs forming a series of mini ‘retrospectives’, (as the curator calls them) by some key German photographers. These retrospectives – which were selected in consultation with the artists – include major works by Dieter Appelt, Astrid Klein, Sigmar Polke and Katarina Sieverding (to name a few). The show ranges from 1969 to 1992 and so the trajectory in German photography that it charts includes body art and performance, conceptualism and minimalism.
“For those viewers more familiar with the likes of contemporary superstars such as Thomas Struth and Andres Gursky, this exhibition will be something of a revelation I suspect. Part of that revelation is the experience of being able to relate to these photographs ‘in the flesh’. It is probably unfashionable to say this, but no matter how often I see photographs on the internet or in books there is nothing that beats being in the physical presence of a photograph that is intended – as these are – to be seen on a gallery wall. Issues of scale, the physicality of the images, how you move into relationship with them in the gallery spaces – in short, the ‘dynamics of viewing’ – are all things that are only possible when you are standing in a room with the works themselves.”
– Dr Isobel Crombie, opening speech of the Photo Art exhibition
