Names and mates

I'd seen an exhibition of photos of Carol Jerrems a few years back at the National Gallery.  This one at the National Portrait Gallery was bigger.  I noticed works from on loan from the National Gallery, the National Library, presumably the NPG, perhaps more, and there were scenes, collections, images I hadn't seen before.  She's the creator of the iconic Vale Street 1975 with a bare-chested highlighted woman with two males scowling behind, and similarly famous pics of actors and political activists and musos (Anne Summers, Bobbi Sykes, Evonne Goolagong, Skyhooks, Kate Grenville, Kath Walker, Wendy Saddingon, Paul Cox...) and just of a string of people and sub-cultures around her in Melbourne and later Sydney through the 1970s.  I know the period well and enjoy a revisit although it seems another world now: post-'60s and subject to considerable denigration then and now.  I also love to view her photography, for the natural lighting, the contrasted shadows, the central highlighting of a face or body, the awareness of background and shape and geometry.  Also the techniques of B&W film photography of the time, the shades of grey, the very rare true black, the visible grain and occasional movement of slower exposures, the monochrome nature of all her pics.  Wikipedia advises "she always used a 35mm Pentax Spotmatic single-lens reflex camera with a standard f1.4 50mm lens, eschewing wide or telephoto lenses, and used black and white film, usually Kodak Tri-X" (400ASA and stock standard).  Every pic in the collection is monochrome, but one is washed in a warm sandy colour.  It was of CJ naked with camera in a mirror with her lover on the phone in the foreground and described in a related label as post-coital.  The colour was apt and the presence was quite lovely but unique.   She features herself in some pics, but the whole involves her as the medium.  And the final series confirms her commitment, documenting her time in hospital with a liver disease before an early death aged 30.  It's a loss, but she leaves a treasury of the time.  Intriguing and alt-historical if not always hugely enjoyable.

Carol Jerrems : Portraits is on display at the National Portrait Gallery until 2 March.  Just one pic by me given copyright but plenty of pics to view at NPG. 

https://searchthecollection.nga.gov.au/artist/13261/carol-jerrems

Living in the Seventies

I visited the National Gallery to view a retrospective of Carol Jerrems yesterday. CJ was a photographer who documented life in the 70s: Hair (the tribal love rock musical); Skyhooks; share houses; women in an age of post-pill feminism. I expected to feel at home and to learn something new, or at least to recognise something, this being my formative era. But I didn’t. Nothing much cut through for me. Mark and Flappers were more AC/DC than Skyhooks (maybe it's poor judgement, but I walked out on AC/DC when they were supporting Lou Reed). I found most of the exhibition distant and confronting and borderline angry. I enjoyed some aboriginal pics, where people had real reason to be angry but were welcoming. I enjoyed a pic of Kath Walker with fine dark skin against corrugated iron that reminded me of a classic Miles Davis photo. But many of the pics weren't so technically satisfying. I quite liked a little girl with matching dress and wallpaper but it was too obviously a take on Diane Arbus' identical twins. I liked a few playfully sexy pics of Jenny Bonette and some dogs. My favourite was Flying dog. It was obviously a hard pic to capture and it had joy and was unexpected and nicely juxtaposed like a Cartier-Bresson moment. Maybe it’s just photography that disappoints. I like it well enough and I enjoy playing with it but these days I find it a minor art. I used to treat it with some seriousness: Nikon FM, B&W even Tech Pan 2415, darkroom, zone theory, rule of thirds and the rest. That was then. So CJ didn’t tell me a story of my era that I recognised. For that, give me Helen Garner or David Malouf.

The pics are all over the net, but given copyright, you'll just have to follow these links:

Flying dog / Carol Jerrems

Kath Walker, Moongalba / Carol Jerrems

Vale Street / Carol Jerrems (her most famous)

Lots more...