International Photo Festival - Photo 2022 - Being Human

A couple of weeks ago I dragged my reluctant ass off the couch on a lazy Sunday afternoon and rode my bike into the city to meet up with a bunch of other randoms to look at some photos. For a measly 10bucks each, Associate Curator Brendan McCleary guided us around city streets, parks and lane ways to check out large scale outdoor photographic installations. And it was awesome. 

Photo2022 has 90 photography exhibitions on the go around Melbourne (last day 22 May). Brendan gave a brief overview of each artist and what their work was about. It was a bit like speed dating and a good, quick introduction to a lot of artists in a short time. I have a couple of favourites to revisit to have a more intimate date with and really get to know them better. 

There’s one more bike tour running this weekend (22 May) and then the exhibition packs up, so if you want a reason to get off the couch you can book here.  

On grief and mourning and ‘Art Speak’

We cycled up to Ioanna Sakellaraki’s work (above) and Brendan gave us a brief run down on how the artist went back to Greece after her father died and explored the rituals of grief and mourning. I’ve made a mental note to do a self portrait with lace and pomegranates to honour my friend Bryce who I would normally have been sharing these experiences with, debating what the heck is art and what makes a good photograph. Although he’d sold his pushbike a few years ago after stacking it along the St Kilda bike path when a child cut across in front of him and he slammed the brakes on and slammed his shoulder on the concrete path resulting in a very nasty broken collar bone. It wasn’t the broken bone that made him give up riding though, it was because he believed the impact of the accident triggered a sleeping melanoma in his lung to wake up and almost claim his life about 5 years ago. After flirting with death at that time, he came back for a few more years while slowing losing lung capacity and he stopped breathing just before Christmas last year. 

I’m really glad Brendan gave us the short version of what the work was about because I might not have gotten past the first sentence in the description on the website. It might as well be written in Greek for all the sense it makes to me. And again, Bryce and I would have debated the concept of ‘WTF is art?’ and what makes a good photo and how we would never be considered artists because we don’t understand what we call, ‘Art Speak’. 

“Ioanna Sakellaraki’s conceptual practice positions photography as ontological proposition within a nexus of fiction, collage and the archive.” 

I think it was Georgia O’Keefe whose answer to ‘What is Art?’ is closest to what resonates with me. 

“Art is a mark on a piece of paper that makes you feel”

At least, I think it was Georgia O’Keeffe. I saw some of her work at Heide many years ago and it was part of that exhibition that I recall the quote from. Memory is an unfaithful accomplice though and Google has failed me in searching for confirmation. Georgia lived until she was 98 so she certainly had plenty of opportunity to say it. 

Anyway, back to Art Speak. I prefer the explanations in Art Galleries that are geared for kids. If you can explain it to me like I’m five I’m with you all the way. 

Any art form though, is surely not just what the artist is trying to portray, but what the viewer takes from it. Some things you connect to. Some things you don’t. I am inspired by Ioanna’s work to create my own photograph on grief and mourning. I will borrow from her concepts of lace and pomegranates because they both have special meaning to me. 

And that was all from just one of the many installations we experienced. 

On the opposite side of Spring St the five story high image by Richmond Kobola Dido’s “Men Do Not Cry” (below) considers the challenges of men and emotions.  

We set off again on our deadly treadlies to explore laneways bulging with art. 

We huddled at the top of Hosier Lane and gazed through helmets to take in Cindy Sherman’s gigantic self portrait on the side of the Atrium in Fed Square. The imposing image is the largest single work in the PHOTO 2022 show and I wonder at her impervious gaze. The 1980 self portrait is from the Untitled Film Still series. 

Both Atong Atem and Song So also used self portraits to recreate scenes and characters, although possibly due to two years of lockdowns and restrictions meaning that was the only option available to them.

As a fan of flowers I loved Christian Thompson’s work in the courtyard beside the Old Melbourne Gaol.
And the finale in our cycle tour was the 100 years series of portraits by Jenny Lewis in Barry St in Carlton. Well worth wandering along.

This just barely scratches the surface of what’s on. I’m off to Monsalvat tomorrow for Arrayah Loynds exhibition. While not part of the Photo 2022 exhibitions, she has been shortlisted for the 2022 Australian Photobook Awards and her exhibition is running until 12 June.

Enjoy and be inspired.