‘I’D NEVER SEEN OR HEARD ANYTHING SO CLEARLY MADE FOR ME’
CATHERINE CONNOLLY
In this short, looped video crowd footage has been selected from an early 80s The Jam concert and slowed down to a rhythmic pace focussing on the pulsatory motion of the amorous crowd juxtaposed with the intent, almost shocking stillness of a photographer amongst them.
Art Exhibition
previously on
at
Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP)
in
Fitzroy-Collingwood
precinct,
Victoria,
Australia.
From
Friday 05 June 2009 to Sunday 02 August 2009
Launch Thursday 04 June 2009,
Published by CCP on Monday 25 May 2009.
Contact the publisher.
The crowd thrusts together in wave-like unity, all intent on an unseen spectacle before them while the photographer remains still, camera poised and almost predatory. As the crowd continues in this manner there are moments in the film when it is unclear whether it is adulation or protest manifest in their actions. Throughout their hectic motion, slow enough that the drive and energy is readable but emphasising the gesture as a collective one, the photographer remains static. There is a desire and a need in his pose to document and possess the occasion, as much to verify the performers’ presence, as his own. There is a contrast felt between the private meaning of such an interaction and the public nature in which it is played out. The video continues my investigations into the relationships people have with forms of popular culture.
Title from Peter York on Roxy Music’s first album, Frieze Magazine, Issue 113, March 2008
FREE ARTIST FLOOR TALKS
SATURDAY 6 JUNE 2009, 12PM
Join artists Bianca hester, louis porter, arlo mountford,
simon zoric, catherine connolly and larissa hjorth.
