PERTH.- New passports, new photography is a celebration of the Gallery’s recent acquisitions of contemporary photography around the theme of portraiture. It brings together over one hundred works – the majority of which are on display for the first time – which explore how photographers use the camera to reflect, construct and challenge identity.
AGWA Director, Stefano Carboni, said, "The State Art Collection is an incredible and inspiring resource for both local and visiting audiences. So I am delighted that AGWA is delivering another vibrant and challenging display showcasing recently acquired works from the Collection. The diversity and unique nature of each of the photographs in this exhibition wonderfully reflects current photography practice in Australia and abroad."
Stefano went on to say, "The opening of our photographic showcase is a fitting complement to the closing weekend of the stunning Richard Avedon People photographic exhibition, which is an in-depth overview of Avedon’s achievements in the art of black and white portraiture photography. new passports, new photography strongly demonstrates AGWA’s focus and commitment to acquiring contemporary photographic works of art for our Collection.”
The exhibition is a considered combination of works by Western Australian, Australian and International artists and includes several major newly acquired works by Australian Anne Zahalka. "Zahalka draws from the history of painting to create tableaux compositions that evidence how identities emerge through layers of social and cultural intervention," commented Robert Cook, AGWA Curator of Contemporary International Art. He went on to state, "In a similar vein, Bindi Cole, Tony Albert, Darren Siwes, and Fiona Foley’s works play with and critique constructed representations of Indigenous Australians in a colonial culture."
Landscape has the capacity to shape not only experience, but also the representation of self. Brad Rimmer’s Silence captures this idea in a series depicting individuals living in the Western Australian wheat-belt.
Young artist Jackson Eaton’s Better half series warmly explores complex relationships between himself, his ex-girlfriend, father and his step-mother. American photographer Stephen Shore’s incredibly beautiful self-portrait from 1976 has a similar feel. It pictures Shore taking a photo of himself from bed in a scrappy New York apartment between the road trips that made him famous.
new passports, new photography ranges from soft, personal imagery to strong and powerful statements, from the intimate to the deeply political. It represents some of the ways identity is represented and self is shaped through this most accessible yet most challenging of contemporary art-forms.
