photo by and © Jeff Wall
After ‘Invisible Man’ by Ralph Ellison, the Prologue, 1999-2000
A retrospective of the works of inventive Canadian photo-based artist and writer Jeff Wall is cause for celebration. An initiative of the Art Gallery of WA (in association with the National Gallery of Victoria) this first Australian survey of Wall’s work brings together 26 of his luminous and largely life-sized images. Jeff Wall will also be in situ for a time, in conversation with AGWA’s Chief Curator Gary Dufour at 2pm on Sunday May 27. “For Wall, the event depicted, formal composition and poetics are always important and in combination create works that extend photography as a medium and test the limits of ‘near’ documentary and conjectures built on memories. All of Jeff Wall’s photographs create distinctive imaginative new pictorial realities” (AGWA media release).
Jeff Wall Photographs, AGWA, May 26-September 10; transferring to NGV in November and to Sydney’s MCA in 2013
photo Nikki Toole
Esther Godoy, Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia 2010
Skater: at The National Portrait Gallery in Canberra offers a more intimate selection of images by Melbourne photographer Nikki Toole who for the last three years has been collecting images of skateboarders around the world. She observes, “Many skaters speak of a solitary mind space while skating; of entering into another state of consciousness. To make these portraits I asked the skaters to place themselves within this meditative space.” This exhibition is a partnership between the National Portrait Gallery and Geelong Gallery.
Skater: Portraits by Nikki Toole, National Portrait Gallery until May 2 and at Geelong Gallery? June 30-September 9
RealTime issue #108 April-May 2012 pg. 46