INTERVIEW (still looking for the great journalists name)
Who what where or when inspired your passion for storytelling, for photography?
I was always a visual person. I found words difficult; I was one of the kids that found spelling a nightmare... so I turned instead to things visual. I took up photography because I thought it would be more immediate than drawing and painting, but I probably spend as much time on a photograph than most artists spend on their paintings.
Who do you count as major artistic influences -tell me about two of these artists and a major work or two?
I've spent the last 5 years doing a Master of Arts, which, in part, was about examining the work I did in the ‘90s and 2000s and putting it into an historic and theoretical context. Out of this I realised that one photographer above all others has influenced my mind set right from the beginning. Robert Mapplethorpe. It was his photographs I went to find in 1991 when I first traveled to NYC, having discovered them a couple of years earlier. I was really attracted to the beauty of his prints - they seem precious. I was also attracted to the subject matter.
Mapplethorpe presented images that were unlike most of what I had seen before. The men in his photos were not always handsome - they were distinctive. Mapplethorpe didn't photograph personalities but was more sculptural, particularly in his later work. The photograph of Ken Moody composed like a passport photograph with his eyes closed. This is an image that made me stop and reconsider everything I did in photography. Mapplethorpe’s most important contribution was not the blurring of the line between art and porn, but that he made images of black Americans that entered the public conscience, that were different. The men in his photographs were still, sexy, yet contemplative, thoughtful, teasing, it cut across the narratives of black Americans of the time. I never got to meet Mapplethorpe; I’m not sure, reading his interviews, whether it would have been a good experience...
I did meet Arnold Newman several times. Newman is a portrait photographer who put people into their environments and let the background do the talking as much as the face. One of the great joys of my life was meeting Newman in his Upper Westside apartment and purchasing a print of Igor Stravinsky from him. (Google it). This is perhaps the most perfect portrait made. It says everything, in a graphic way that describes Stravinsky’s work. This print is constant source of inspiration for me, challenging me towards my own perfect statement where a single photograph says so much. The third photographer I would like to count as a major influence is Henri Cartier Bresson. He originated the idea that there is a 'decisive moment' to make a photograph, when all the elements came together to form the perfect story. Of these three it is Mapplethorpe that has influenced this show the most, for this show is about depicting 'types' that don't often get visually represented.
Can you tell me about the installation, why the Federation Square locale?
There are 20 types of Anglo Celtic Australian (ACA) men and Chinese (Australian) men. Ten of each, which are arranged in a triangular formation, with most culturally sanctioned (that is the one that the popular culture emphasize though media, national and personal narratives at the front, behind him other types were distilled from the two culture's cinematic output. The photographs are 1.9 m tall and .8m wide. The two sets are not oppositional, but on a course to merge. Throughout time and across cultures there has been a battle going on defining what is the ideal man. Is he a physical man or an intellectual man? The two cultural perspectives I’ve chosen for this exhibition illustrate this, with the ACA masculinity being dominated by images and stereotypes of the physical and Chinese being about academic, cultural and occupational pursuits.
I've been exhibiting since 1996, first in cafes then I moved to galleries then to public spaces. I like public spaces the most. My work is very sociologically based; I’m asking questions that I want to engage the general public with. That is not to say I don't hit on issues in art theory, I do. So the more public the space the more people who see it, then there is more chance of the questions being discussed. Federation Square is the most wonderful public place to show, and I’ve had a fantastic working relationship with them in putting this project together. Sydney doesn't have an equivalent space, very few cities do. It’s a real privilege showing in there.
Do you describe these works as portraits- tell me about how you feel they are best described?
They are not so much portraits because even for the people who are playing themselves (like my father) they are acting out a 'type'. The individual is usurped by a more generalised representation, though having said that I’ve left some quirks in. for example the watch worn by the lead Chinese guy is a Tag Heuer not a Rolex.
And the juxtaposition of different images of men- describes two images and tells me something about the placement and the juxtapositions?
In Australian Anglo Celtic masculinity (ACAM) we privilege youth, particularly men that have natural talent and work hard at perfecting it. So footballers, sportsmen, entertainers. Behind the very handsome, well built man holding his footy boots is a 59-year-old man holding an Esky, wearing Speedos. They are the same type in many ways separated by 30+ years. A similar juxtaposition happens in reverse in the Chinese set, where the privileged masculine type the 50s professional and behind him is the 20s professional eager to climb the corporate ladder. In just these four photographs we have the key finding of my research and the core issue, which makes me uncomfortable with how we (ACA) see being a man. In ACAM we know whether we've achieved 'manhood' by the time we are 26 and the rest of our lives we attempt to reform how we view ourselves against the dominate images and themes that press and media present us with.
For most of us ACA men we don't fit this ideal of the sportsman and work at defining ourselves differently (see http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/the-true-history-of-the-beer-belly-gang-20101203-18jvj.html it's worth the typing), I’m interested in the experiences of men from other cultural backgrounds who have to interact with this dominate issue. In the Chinese view of a man it’s about using intellect you have to achieve while being cultural and moral. What I find interesting is in my peer group most of the ACA men relate more to the Chinese model then to the ACA model. So in part this show is about giving space within Australian culture for Chinese men to perform their masculinity and give permission for men like me, and you, to cast ourselves as cultural and about mind rather then body. Which is in part why I moved to Melbourne from Sydney.
Masculinities, fluidity, and multiplicity - these may or may not be some of the art school/theoretical terms from the recent past that may also be an influence on your conceptual approach?
The way masculinity has been conceptualised in theory is that there are many competing masculinities in any society at any time, some based on the physical some on the intellectual. But the popular culture has an amalgam that is constantly refereed to, and presented as the 'real' man, the 'proper' man, refereed to as the hegemonic masculinity. In this installation I’ve distilled back to this culturally dominate (sportsman/businessman) type, for I wish to disrupt it. One size does not fit all. One masculinity does not suit a culture. There are many competing to be seen, to be acknowledged, but struggling against the dominant type. My theoretical frame is Lucan's idea of the "given-to-be-seen" which is the images that exist in a culture by which we feel we can construct our identity.
What my work has always been about is attempting to expand what exists in the "given-to-be-seen". I'm presenting 20 masculinities; to the public hopefully get people to question what is an ideal man? Each person who approaches this installation will bring with him his own cultural understanding and will see this work through his/her eyes. The show will be very different for an Indian student who is negotiating Australian culture, than it is for a tourist from Qatar. It is hard to break down the stereotypes until you acknowledge them. Over the last 15 year with the rise of the internet and social media we have fundamentally changed the way a new generation is able to construct their identity (including masculinity) there is much more material and more variety. Much of this is hidden in cyberspace is not viewed by the majority of the population. What my work is doing is to bring forward these 20 types (carefully researched from cinema) and presenting them to the population at large and challenging the viewer to accept them as 'real' men.
Looking at these images in the Fed Square context you are placing them in, makes it clear to audiences that these are not images from advertising or does it? How do punters know its art, is it clearly signified and/or is this part of the mystery of the installation. What do you feel about this?
Great point, it has been part of my art practice since 2004 to use materials that are associated with advertising and present the work as if it is advertising without the company brand. This produces 'shock' for the viewer, the form is familiar and comes with a set of expectations but it's not advertising, it is a little confusing. The project I was commissioned to do as Esplanade in Singapore in 2004 was 6 full sized portraits that were stuck to the floor on of the corridors leading to the concert halls. Singaporeans are used to lots of advertising. It was interesting seeing their reactions to the work. I was trained as a commercial photographer. I love advertising imagery. I want my work to use their vocabulary in order to subvert it.
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