....to some of the Fringe venues

"Pont a Mousson"

 G'day Possums....
there are venues and then there are venues. Some work for the photographer a lot don't. 
Some photographers hang their work well and some seem clueless as to the point of the exercise.



Probably the best venue in this Fringe that I've seen so far has been Backspace Gallery behind the Art Gallery on Camp St. It's inclusion as a "Fringe" venue is accidental as there was supposed to be a master printers show there as part of the events program. This "event" was a non-event and the three people exhibiting there  ( Kathleen Winder's "Columba Livia, Rosalind Lawson's and Lynden Nicholls' "Meniscus")  were fortunate to be offered the space when their original venue was sold and the new owners decided that renovations would begin ten days into the biennale. Not the only venue to change track two weeks before the opening. (Kirrilee Bailey's "Young" is now at Portico.) This happened after the program and broadsheets had been printed, which is somewhat unfair to the exhibitor and not a good look for the business' concerned.

Backspace Gallery... there is another larger room to the right.
"Meniscus" 
Interesting works but the plastic framing bothers me. Too many reflections behind the work make it confusing to look at and the lightness of the frames made them awkward to hang a level.

"Columba Livia"

One of Kathleen Winder's  "Columba Livia".... well worth a look but I'm extremely biased. ( Shane and Mrs Wombat's daughter).
This show to me, is the pick of the Fringe and is beautifully presented.


Another good venue is Creative Framing in Armstrong St.  Good clean wall space with professional lighting and ease of access for viewing.

Showing there is Craig Marsdens' "In a Quiet Space"; beautiful long exposure landscape/seascape most, Zen-like. and nicely hung, too.

 


My own show "Continuum"  is at the "Bean Barn"  in Sturt St.  Another  good venue with a most amenable and helpful owner.
I should, perhaps show how I planned my show and hung it.
I sought Richard's permission for the show some 12 months prior and after returning from France had some 2  months to select, print, mat and frame the selected works.  I paced out the venue ...it's around 14 metres long with good natural light and small "spots" for darker days.
After I had selected the works to show I made a 1:10 scale drawing of the wall frames and prints to see how they would work together and how the colour balance performed.

It certainly helped and as some of the works are sculptural and meant to be manipulated I had to place them where they would cause least disruption  to the staff and patrons at Bean Barn ... in the event, hanging was simplified and the show went up almost fully as originally planned.

Bean Barn

Things I learned: 
1/ Don't use standard wire for the backs of works, use twisted brass picture wire; it doesn't slip around as much.
2/ Have double sided tapes on backs of frames to stick them to the wall to minimize movement through air flow.
3/ Have your hanging points as high as possible on frame so they hang as flat as possible. 
4/ Make your catalogue as obvious as possible.
Funniest comment so far... gentleman commenting on a piece as to its location in France. I told him and then he asked, "Is that yours?" "Yes", I replied. He then asked,  "Whose are all the others?  
5/ Make your signage as idiot proof as possible.

In and Out or Home and Away

This piece is called; In and Out or Home and Away.
The  images can be rotated.
it has proved a popular work but I hope the guy with the camera who was overheard saying that he would utilise the same format shows more originality and imagination when it comes to the crunch with his own work.




Cheers petals... hope this has been slightly informative and by the way, Bean Barn is already booked for 2013.... more soon.


Shane

....to the Fringe

Well Petals, France has long been departed and we’re back in the Victorian Burrow.

This blogs’ a bit like the French tour much was intended and about a 1/3 actually happened.

We’ve been busy post-processing stuff shot in France for exhibition at The Ballarat International Foto Biennale

which opened on the 20^th and will be running till Sept18th

My show, “Continuum” is on at “the Bean Barn” 

A neat little venue with good light and very good coffee.

This work is part of “The Fringe”….  and I am going to be commenting on the fringe shows and their venues over the next couple of weeks.

There’s not much point talking about the “Core” shows as the protagonists are pretty well known and get plenty of coverage.  Some unnecessary.

One exhibitor, Jan Saudek was stage-centre to a small controversy when (I believe) a woman in Ballarat rang festival director Jeff Moorfoot to complain about one of Saudek’s works that she had seen advertising the biennale in Art Almanac.

She was of the opinion that the mother of the child in the image was prostituting her child and wanted the work removed.

Jan Saudek

Apparently, she has been known to “play-the-public-conscience” before and receiving no joy from Jeff, rang both Child Services and then Tourism Victoria with her complaint. A bureaucrat from Tourism Victoria suggested that if the controversy reached the State Government funding might not be forthcoming for the 2013 biennale.

Picture was pulled!

Welcome to the “Nanny-State”

The nasty woman has sexualised the child but provided good publicity via many newspapers and television who ran the image… did she complain to them? Tourism Bureaucrat “covers-arse” and is gutless in the face of a storm in a teacup.

All in all a pathetic reflection of the reality of Australia.    

The process of putting an exhibition of photographs into non gallery spaces is  interesting and  I will make comment on the works and the venues and how they “work” together.

Please take note that even if my opinion is critical of works exhibited that underlying the criticism is a respect for the photographers willing to put their work in front of the public gaze (at much expense) in a real, not in a cyber sense, where so many “fibs, porky's and outright lies” can be told.

Cheers

Shane.