The Sievers Project PDF - Centre for Contemporary Photography

The
PROJECT
13 June –31 August 2014
13–17 August 2014
The Sievers Project
Centre for Contemporary Photography
Melbourne Art Fair
•
A
Wolfgang Sievers Comalco aluminium used in the construction of the National
Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, architect: Roy Grounds 1968; gelatin silver photograph;
24.6 x 19.8 cm; National Library of Australia, Wolfgang Sievers Photographic Archive.
A A Wolfgang Sievers Matches, Bryant & May, Richmond 1939;
gelatin silver print; 51 x 36.3 cm; National Library of Australia, Wolfgang
Sievers Photographic Archive.
Jane Brown
Cameron Clarke
Zoë Croggon
Therese Keogh
Phuong Ngo
Meredith Turnbull
Wolfgang Sievers
Curated by Naomi Cass and Kyla McFarlane
FOREWORD
7
NAOMI CASS
JULIAN BURNSIDE
WHO
WAS
WOLFGANG
SIEVERS?
HELEN ENNIS
8
12
THE SIEVERS PROJECT
NAOMI CASS &
KYLA MCFARLANE
Cameron CLARKE
Zoë CROGGON
Therese KEOGH
Phuong NGO
Meredith TURNBULL
25
26
29
30
33
34
ZOË CROGGON Westgate Bridge (after Wolfgang
Sievers) 2014; 79 x 53 cm; photocollage; courtesy the
artist and Daine Singer, Melbourne.
14
ARTIST STATEMENTS
Jane BROWN
Jane Brown
Cameron Clarke
Zoë Croggon
ARTIST biographies
41
LIST OF WORKS
42
COLOPHON
38
Therese Keogh
Phuong Ngo
Meredith Turnbull
37
The Sievers Project follows a number of exhibitions over the last
five years where CCP has opened up a vista on contemporary
practice by exhibiting early work by living artists such as
Bill Henson, Kohei Yoshiyuki and Robert Rooney, as well
as historical photography, alongside contemporary work. As
a commissioning exhibition we have titled this a ‘project’ to
point towards the year-long research period integral to the
exhibition, capturing the curatorial gesture of inviting early
career artists to engage with the past.
The Sievers Project represents a significant curatorial
endeavour for CCP, the tale of which is recounted in the
Introduction. It would simply not have taken place were it not
for the willingness and generosity of Julian Burnside AO QC to
participate, through allowing the artists research access to his
Wolfgang Sievers collection and lending work from it for the
exhibition, as well as contributing an essay for this catalogue.
I acknowledge the artists for setting out on this project
and for returning with thoughtful and excellent work. It has
been a pleasure to both engage with and exhibit the work of
Jane Brown, Cameron Clarke, Zoë Croggon, Therese Keogh,
Phuong Ngo and Meredith Turnbull.
The Sievers Project has been dignified by contributions by a
number of experts and I wish to acknowledge Professor Helen
Ennis, Australian National University School of Art who has also
contributed a catalogue essay; Madeleine Say, Picture Librarian,
Eve Sainsbury, Exhibitions Curator and Clare Williamson, Senior
Exhibitions Curator, State Library of Victoria; Maggie Finch,
Curator of Photography, National Gallery of Victoria and
Professor Harriet Edquist and Kaye Ashton, Senior Coordinator,
RMIT Design Archives, who all took time to speak about Sievers
and share his work with the artists.
Opportunities to commission artists are relatively rare
and funding through the inaugural Early Career Artist
Commissions Grant from the Australia Council has enabled
the project. CCP is pleased to acknowledge this recognition
and support. We are delighted that Lovell Chen Architects &
Heritage Consultants have provided further critical support
to realise the project, for which we are grateful. We see a
germane link between Lovell Chen and the premise of The
Sievers Project.
The Besen Family Foundation are champions for enabling
CCP to produce catalogues for selected exhibitions. I
acknowledge the Foundation for their long-standing and
generous engagement with CCP. We thank the National Library
of Australia for providing permission to reproduce Sievers’ work
in this catalogue.
The Sievers Project has provided a welcome opportunity
for CCP to engage with colleagues in the field of architecture
and we are delighted to acknowledge a partnership with the
Robin Boyd Foundation to present public programs. We are
grateful to Tony Lee from the Foundation for his interest in
the project.
Without doubt CCP ’s ability to both present contemporary
art well and look after artists is greatly enhanced through the
longstanding and generous support of Tint Design and Sofitel
Melbourne on Collins.
CCP is pleased to present a parallel exhibition of The
Sievers Project at the 2014 Melbourne Art Fair and we thank
the Melbourne Art Foundation for enabling CCP to bring the
exhibition to broad new audiences. For the Art Fair exhibition
we are also indebted to Christine Downer, previous CCP
Board member and current supporter, for the loan of a major
Sievers work.
The Sievers Project has been ably assisted by Philippa
Brumby, curatorial intern. Co-curator Dr Kyla McFarlane and
I thank Philippa for her wide-ranging skills over a substantial
period of time. Lastly, I acknowledge Kyla for her excellent
curatorial work and for the pleasure of collaborating with such
a playful, dedicated and steely intellect.
Naomi Cass, Director, CCP.
FOREWORD
NAOMI CASS
Wolfgang Sievers Stanhill flats designed by Frederick Romberg,
Albert Park, Melbourne 1951; gelatin silver print; 24.1 x 16.8 cm; National
Library of Australia, Wolfgang Sievers Photographic Archive.
7
HELEN ENNIS
Who was
Wolfgang
Sievers?
Who was Wolfgang Sievers?
The answer to this is relatively straightforward and can be
accounted for chronologically. He was born in Berlin in 1913
to parents who were interested in the arts, both historical and
contemporary. He trained as a photographer in broken periods
between 1933 and 1936 and was strongly influenced by the
Bauhaus ideals of simplicity and of bringing art and industry
together. While working as a photographer in 1937 he began
preparations to immigrate to Australia but was forced to flee
Germany the following year after being called up to serve in
the Luftwaffe (the German airforce). He arrived in Australia in
August 1938 and opened a studio in Collins Street, Melbourne
in 1939. After the interruptions to his practice caused by the
war he quickly established his reputation as a leader in the
fields of architectural and industrial photography during the
1950s and 1960s, working for many important Australian and
multi-national companies. Sievers married Brita Klarich in
1939 and had two children (the couple divorced in 1972). In
later years he devoted himself to anti-war and human rights
issues, in particular the identification of Nazi war criminals
who had settled in Australia. He died in 2007 at the age of 93.
While the biographical details I have outlined are specific
to Sievers and are of course unique, his life story is also a story
of the twentieth century, shaped in many crucial instances by
circumstances far beyond his control: the rise of fascism, his
own Jewish heritage, Hitler’s rule, and the outbreak of the
Second World War. His was also a successful story of migration.
He came to Australia gladly – his self-declared aim was to get
as far away from the Nazis as possible – and embraced his
adopted country which gave him ‘life, happiness and freedom’.
Wolfgang Sievers Associated Pulp and Paper Mills, Burnie,
Tasmania 1956; gelatin silver photograph; 50 x 40.4 cm; National
Library of Australia, Wolfgang Sievers Photographic Archive.
What was he like as a man?
This is not a question that can be answered with as much
certainty, being more dependent on opinion than facts. I
first met Wolfgang – whose nickname was ‘Mim’ because he
mumbled – when Ian North, inaugural Curator of Photography
at the National Gallery, tasked me with selecting a group of
his photographs for acquisition. I worked with Wolfgang on a
number of occasions over the next several years and curated
the retrospective exhibition, The life and work of Wolfgang
Sievers, which opened at the NGA in 1991 and subsequently
toured to other venues around the country (this was his first
one-person show). I can tell you where he liked to stay when
visiting Canberra (Tall Trees Motel in Ainslie), what he liked
to eat for breakfast (a mixture of grains, seeds and nuts) and
how beautiful his home and garden in Sandringham were. I can
also tell you that he was a very strong, forceful and opinionated
character. He was often dismissive of other photographers,
especially women; he was offended when I paired his work
with that of another European émigré, Margaret Michaelis,
in 1988 in an exhibition at the National Gallery. And in one
of our more memorable conversations he openly mocked Olive
Cotton’s photography, describing her as ‘a snapper with no
talent’. While his dogmatism meant working with him could
be fraught, he could also be generous and expansive, had
an enormous capacity for hard work and, after a lifetime of
meeting tight commercial deadlines, was very reliable.
Like Max Dupain, whom he mostly admired, Wolfgang
prized being physically active and his virility was important
to him. Photographer Robert Imhoff recalls that in the last
weeks of his life, when he was confined to his hospital bed, he
still had an eye for the nurses. While this side of him didn’t
impress me at all I did admire his energy and tenacity and his
ongoing engagement with the world.
8
And what about his legacy?
A response to this necessarily combines elements of certitude and having been displaced by machines that are far more efficient
speculation. Sievers himself was totally committed to ensuring than humans will ever be. In other words, the bulk of Sievers’
his legacy as a photographer. He spent years meticulously own photographs contradict his central tenet of the dignity of
cataloguing and documenting his work and was assiduous labour in the modern machine era.
in placing as much of it as he could in major photography The most important aspect of his legacy is undoubtedly his
collections around the country – art galleries and libraries. photographs and the astonishingly vast, high quality body of
The bulk of his archive, a staggering 65,000 negatives and architectural and industrial work he produced between 1938 and
prints, was acquired by the National Library where it has the early 1970s. My view is that his black and white photography
been digitised and is available online to users in perpetuity. is the best although he did not agree with me, arguing that his
But there is another aspect to his preoccupation with legacy colour photography, with its expressive and dramatic qualities,
that has troubled me over the years – his desire to control was equally fine. For me, it is his black and white images that
the readings of his work, to ensure that he ‘owned’ the are visionary, their precision, clarity and drama embodying the
contextualisation and interpretation of it. As I see it, some of belief in progress that underpinned modernity.
the framing narratives he constructed were retrospective and I would also suggest Sievers’ legacy isn’t confined to his
are misleading because they are not borne out by the evidence, photography. As a man he cared deeply about the world and
that is, by the photographs themselves. This is especially wanted it to be better. He was closely involved in the restoration
apparent in his insistence that the relationship between ‘man of Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s buildings in Berlin in the 1990s and
and machine’ was central to his industrial photography. In in the re-evaluation of his own father’s reputation (Professor
my assessment of his enormous archive, images that extol this Johannes Sievers was an expert on Schinkel and had used his
interaction are actually relatively few in number. They are young son’s photographs in his books on the architect in the
outweighed by thousands and thousands of other industrial 1930s). Wolfgang donated his photographs to fund-raising
scenes in which the worker is locked into the dreary, repetitive campaigns for human rights and remained a passionate antitasks associated with mass production, or is not present at all, war activist until his death.
What would he have
thought about this project?
I suspect that he would have been thrilled to know that
his contribution to Australian life and photography is the
touchstone for the six photographers involved in the project
and that his work continues to be appreciated.
Professor Helen Ennis is Director of the Centre for Art History and Art Theory
at ANU School of Art, Canberra.
C Wolfgang Sievers Bruck Mills Guest House,
Wangaratta, Victoria 1956; gelatin silver photograph;
21 x 25 cm; National Library of Australia, Wolfgang
Sievers Photographic Archive.
A
JANE BROW N Former Amcor and APM site, Fairfield 2014 (detail);
toned, gelatin silver print; courtesy the artist.
11
Wolfgang Sievers was a remarkable person and a remarkable
photographer. Having fled Germany in 1938 the passionate
young Bauhaus trained photographer set up a studio at the
top end of Collins Street and soon began taking industrial
and architectural photographs – the two genres with which
he is most closely connected. Sievers’ pre-war commercial
photography demonstrates the strong aesthetic sensibility which
characterised his later work.
One of his earliest industrial photographs taken in Australia
was the now famous image of the Bryant & May match machine,
Manufacture of Matches at Bryant and May, Richmond,
Victoria 1939. It is quite remarkable seeing it now, to realise
that this was taken 75 years ago.
Sievers’ most famous photograph, although not his favourite,
is Gears for the Mining Industry, taken in 1967 at the Vickers
Ruwolt factory in Abbotsford, the site now occupied by Ikea.
This striking image was used for an Australian postage stamp
in 1994.
Wolfgang spoke to me about the process of taking the
photograph Gears. He wandered around the factory looking
for suitable subjects. He saw two giant half wheels, covered in
foundry dust and grime. He asked for them to be cleaned and
to be placed one element above the other. He set up his lights:
five 500 watt lamps he was accustomed to carrying around.
He asked an engineer to take a Vernier caliper and stand on
the lower element, apparently measuring the pitch of the upper
element. They protested, saying that they would never normally
do such a thing. Wolfgang insisted. The entire process of setting
up the photograph took 18 hours, and he took two frames!
Sievers’ favourite image was taken at the Miller Rope
factory (Employee Making Rope with Ropeway at Miller
Rope, Brunswick, Victoria, 1962). It illustrates as well as any
of his photographs his abiding interest in the dignity of labour.
This was his driving passion, and can be seen clearly in many
of his industrial photographs.
In 2004 I was offered the chance of buying a collection of
ninety-two framed photographs from Sievers. I agreed to buy
them, sight unseen. He told me later how pleased he was that
I had said yes so quickly. Apparently, galleries around the
country had set up committees to consider the acquisition. For
all I know, they are still considering it.
In 2006, about a year before his death, Wolfgang asked
me if I would accept a large collection of photographs and use
them as I chose to raise money for human rights causes. Since
then, sales of photographs from that collection have raised over
$340,000, the only expense being the cost of framing some of
the collection.
With his lifelong concern about human rights, I think he
would be quietly pleased that his legacy lives.
Julian Burnside AO QC, Australian barrister, human rights advocate and author.
JULIAN BURNSIDE
Wolfgang Sievers Gears for the Mining Industry,
Vickers Ruwolt, Burnley, Victoria 1967; gelatin silver
photograph; 49.6 x 39.3 cm; National Library of Australia, Wolfgang Sievers Photographic Archive.
12
Wolfgang Sievers The sweat shop, C. J. Wilson clothing factory,
Collingwood, Melbourne 1963; gelatin silver photograph; 33.4 x 49.8 cm;
National Library of Australia, Wolfgang Sievers Photographic Archive.
SIEVERS
PROJECT
Along with many Australian photographers, Wolfgang Sievers
(1913–2007) was a great supporter of CCP, donating photographs
to numerous fundraising auctions. When delivering a large,
bright yellow Kodak cardboard box containing an unframed,
un-editioned version of Gears for the Mining Industry, Vickers
Ruwolt, Burnley, Victoria, 1967 for CCP ’s 2003 fundraising
auction, the then frail and elderly man tripped on the front
step of the previous gallery in Johnston Street, confirming in
the Director’s mind the need to rehouse CCP. This building,
he informed us, was the site of an unscrupulous sweatshop on
the upper floors, long since departed, and the subject of one
of his works documenting factory labour.[1]
Towards the end of his life, CCP had scheduled an ‘in
conversation’ between Sievers and Julian Burnside AO QC ,
who by this stage was vocal about their agreement to sell
Sievers’ work to raise funds for human rights causes. The
evening was cancelled as Sievers was admitted to hospital and
the opportunity to reschedule did not arise. Wolfgang Sievers
was fantastically engaging for CCP staff who visited his home
to receive work or interviewed him for our newsletter.[2] Sievers
always had a lot to say.
Following Sievers’ death, Burnside suggested we exhibit his
Sievers collection. So entrenched in our purpose as a contemporary
art space we politely declined, misunderstanding Burnside’s offer
to promote the human rights purpose of the collection, thinking
he was suggesting we undertake an authoritative retrospective,
which was clearly outside the capacity of CCP. We returned to
Burnside some years later with the idea of using the collection
as a way of immersing contemporary artists in Sievers’ work
and inviting them to respond.
The Sievers Project was developed with a twofold purpose:
to bring Sievers to the attention of contemporary art audiences
and to engage Sievers’ audiences with contemporary practice.
It is hoped that the project enables contemporary work be
viewed in relation to a particular past, and for this past to be
seen through contemporary interpretations – an instance of
backwards causation you might say. The exhibition is not the
space in which to assess Sievers’ oeuvre, rather, it is time to
bring it into a conversation with the present.
[1]
NAOMI CASS & Kyla mcfarlane
THE
Wolfgang Sievers The sweat shop, C. J. Wilson clothing factory,
Collingwood, Melbourne, (1963).
[2] Daniel Palmer, ‘Wolfgang Sievers’, Flash, June – September 2004,
Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, p 10-11.
15
An Australia Council Early Career Artists Commission
Grant enabled the project to be realised. Six early career artists
with diverse disciplines and interests were selected to make new
work in response to Sievers: Jane Brown, Cameron Clarke, Zoë
Croggon, Therese Keogh, Phuong Ngo and Meredith Turnbull.
In the early stages of the project, we had in mind the tradition
of commissioning artists to respond to public and private art
collections – particularly within a postmodernist paradigm
and often in a site-specific space such as a museum or historic
house. There are, however, important distinctions between our
endeavour and the history of artists opening up interpretation
of the collection as a critical, creative intervention. The Sievers
Project has been a more open commission. Artists were invited to
respond in any way to a broad set of circumstances: to the work,
to the man, or to his public declarations on human rights and
the dignity of work. And in the context of a dispersed archive,
held wholly outside of our contemporary art space, as well as a
wide range of sites and associations in the man’s prolific body
of work.
A process both collective and singular supported the
commission brief. Our selection of artists purposefully sought
diversity in approach and media, our only criteria was that they
have an extended period in which to immerse themselves in
Sievers’ work. Alongside the usual curators’ studio visits, the
CA
Research material at Therese Keogh’s studio, 2014.
CB Carrara marble block – work in progress, Therese
Keogh’s studio, 2014.
B Work in progress, Zoë Croggon’s studio, 2014.
BB Wolfgang Siev ers’ photograph, In the Forum
Romanum, 1953.
D Work in progress, Meredith T urnbull’s studio, 2013.
16
artists have gathered together for research visits and discussions.
Proceedings commenced when Sievers expert Professor Helen
Ennis joined the artists, project intern and curators for an
introductory day at CCP. This began with a spirited journey
through his work and life from Ennis, who remained as a go-to
advisor on the project, followed by discussion and a visit to the
State Library of Victoria to view key Sievers works and ephemera
in their collection, presented by Madeleine Say, Picture Librarian,
Eve Sainsbury, Exhibitions Curator and Clare Williamson, Senior
Exhibitions Curator.
Further highly anticipated group outings transpired. In
subsequent visits, at National Gallery of Victoria, Maggie Finch,
Curator of Photography showed us classic black and white prints
and surprising colour photographs, including anthropological
works. At the RMIT Design Archives, Professor Harriet Edquist
and Kaye Ashton, Senior Coordinator Design Archives opened
up Sievers’ world to us, positioning him in Melbourne’s denselypopulated twentieth century design community. An archive of a
different kind was Julian Burnside’s legal chambers, where artists
viewed his collection in situ, entranced as Burnside pulled boxes
from behind and under his desk to show us Sievers’ prints and
share anecdotes about Sievers’ life.
These combined outings sat alongside the solitary experience
of making new work. For this, some artists retreated to the
studio, some to key Sievers sites, and others back to the archives.
Some took a leap from Sievers into other realms, spring boarding
from a single Sievers photograph into their own obsessions and
trains of thought.
Revisiting his industrial clients, including mining sites
in Broken Hill, Amcor, APM, Bruck Textiles and Ford,
photographers Jane Brown and Cameron Clarke followed
gently in Sievers footsteps, as befits their practice. Where Sievers
went into a factory to implement the vision of his clients, and to
visualise their aspirations, Brown and Clarke have entered with
the imprimatur of the artist. Commissioned by the contemporary
art space rather than industry, they have nevertheless entered
these spaces, some of which are already under public scrutiny
with respect to closures and government subsidy, respectfully.
Their practice is documentary, not investigative journalism,
or reportage, or the surreptitious undercover expose of an
activist. Against Sievers’ commercial practice and in line with
his expressed interest in the dignity of labour, Sievers did from
time to time photograph in a documentary manner, such as in
his aforementioned image of the sweatshop above the old CCP
building in Johnston Street, Collingwood. (page 14)
Jane Brown’s vision is melancholic and elegiac. She is
attentive to the degradation of sites closely observed and, at
Broken Hill, to the raw and parched mining town landscape
with mining equipment standing like strange sculptures in the
sun. At the former paper mill, the machines are coated in a
Papier Mâché-like covering; boots are left on the factory floor
as the workers departed for the final time. She meditates on the
modern formality of a glass curtain wall, now a fragile relic
amongst trees, arranging her photographs in a formalist grid as
if to memorialise and pay homage to the structure itself. Clarke
has produced two kinds of portraits from his time at Bruck
Textiles and Ford: the machine and the workers, photographed
in isolation, befitting Clarke’s view of the contemporary
relationship between worker and machine. For his part, Sievers
was known to fake the relationship of body to machine, such
as in his theatrical Gears for the Mining Industry, Vickers
Ruwolt, Burnley, Victoria, (1967). Elsewhere, the worker is
often homogenised into the anonymity of the production line.
Clarke’s portraits dignify skilled yet vulnerable individuals,
counter to Sievers’ idealised or generic workers, his scientists
or engineers.
Zoë Croggon works with Sievers where he is most confident,
seeking out his dramatic, modern, tectonic images, looking for
‘upmost contrast’ in shadow and light, form and structure.
Croggon suspends found images of balletic, athletic bodies in
relation to these images, in an almost a dialectical manner–
perhaps more in conversation. She plays with perception,
unhinging the relative perspective and scale of building and
CC
CAMERON CLARKE Gauge Area (Ford Territory
Right Hand Rear Quarter Panel) Geelong Stamping
Plant, Ford Motor Company 2014; archival inkjet print;
100 x 80 cm; courtesy the artist.
C Phuong Ngo Thai Thi Kieu Tien from the series
Mother Vietnam 2014; inkjet print; 15 x 10 cm; courtesy the artist.
A
JANE BROW N Mining Machinery, Line of Lode Miners Memorial
Complex, Broken Hill 2014; brown toned, fibre-based, gelatin silver
print; courtesy the artist.
19
body. The bodies become fabulous equals to the architecture,
echoing, rather than inhabiting it, upturning the classical
relationship between architecture and body. Croggon’s
juxtapositions are not aggressive – they touch lightly upon
Sievers’ imagery, even floating free of it – but in the realm of
collage even a simple placement or juxtaposition upon an iconic
image can still shock.
In Julian Burnside’s office, Therese Keogh and Phuong Ngo
each sought out single Sievers photographs from the selection
of unframed images in old mats, upon which they focussed
entirely. In her selection of a Sievers photograph of a severed
marble hand taken at the Forum in Rome, Keogh was drawn to
the anomaly in his work. The image is a totally uncharacteristic
travel photograph, not even the framing of the photograph
gives the author away.[3] But this is an anomaly that wondrously
opens up all the issues of her own practice, many of which
align somewhat with Sievers’ subjects – her interest in process,
materiality, work, industry, the hand made, and the seasonal
tasks of agriculture. From the severed marble hand clutching
a sheaf of wheat, she has ‘worked’ a heavy block of marble, a
material of prosperous built structures and iconic sculptures,
fired it into quicklime (in a kiln of her own making) and folded
the narrative of agricultural burning of harvest stubble.
For Ngo, many relevant issues were already literally sitting
in the space of Burnside’s chambers when the QC , human
rights advocate and author pulled out from under his desk a
photograph of women machinists in a sweatshop. Phuong took
this image into his own experience as the son of Vietnamese
refugees, making an enlightened link between the sewing
machine, and the fact that children of refugees went to sleep
at night to the sound of their mother sewing piece work in the
lounge room – the sound of the machine playfully characterised
as their Vietnamese lullaby. Ngo’s work pays homage to
Vietnamese mothers, their life journeys, and to the ubiquity
and enduring image of the machine.
Meredith Turnbull has a diverse practice, encompassing
installation, sculpture, photography and craft-based media.
For The Sievers Project, Turnbull has engaged in a process
[3]
The subject too is enigmatic. Indeed, Philippa
Brumby sought expert advise to identify the hand.
Dr. Felicity Harley-McGowan, historian of Late
Antique and Medieval Art at the University of
Melbourne, presented several suggestions of its
origins and significance.
of independent research that has explored his relationship to
fellow German émigré Gerard Herbst, a textile designer who
was head of Industrial Design at RMIT, Melbourne. Turnbull is
attracted to Sievers’ milieu, with her interest in his relationship
with Herbst and the photographs he took for him unfolding
into an appreciation of a broader community of architects,
artists and designers, and also to the graphic quality of his
industrial and architectural imagery. Her resulting aesthetic is,
however, all her own. Turnbull’s response is an eclectic mix of
design, craft and photography, which brings fragments from
her own photographs into a design she has printed onto bolts
of fabric. She has also turned process and reference imagery
into structural collage, situated in proximity to the cloth, which
hangs, banner-like, from the gallery ceiling.
Wolfgang Sievers was not a contemporary artist in the
current understanding of the term. His commercial photography
includes work for clients such as Ford Motors, Mobil and
architect Frederick Romberg. So the response of contemporary
artists in The Sievers Project to this work says something
interesting to us about shifts in photography, from its role as
‘document’ to the rise of photography as ‘fine art’ and to the
broader, expanded field of lens-based practice, as well as the
equally shifting, complex relationship between commercial and
artistic practice.
Subsequently, The Sievers Project is not a like by like staging
of historical and contemporary practice. Sievers’ role could
perhaps most accurately be described as that of ‘image-maker’,
in the fullest sense of the word. Drawing upon Bauhaus ideals,
he built an extensive picture of work and industry in Australia
in the 20th century, especially in its middle years. Bringing
Sievers back to light in this contemporary moment enables us to
reflect upon the changing role the image-maker might play in the
imagining of a national identity, and the changing appetite for
documentary. We now see Sievers’ work as balletic, theatrical
and staged and our societal relationship to work, particularly
manufacturing, has changed dramatically. As writer Ray Edgar
put it, in reference to work by Jane Brown: ‘If Wolfgang Sievers
documented the dynamic rise of Australian manufacturing in
the optimistic post-war period of the mid-20th century, Jane
Brown records its abysmal decline in the 21st … Sievers’ love
of labour has been lost.’ [4] It is hardly surprising that, against
this modernist master, none of The Sievers Project artists
have chosen to supplant his vision. Their responses have been
delightfully respectful, meandering, lateral and personal.
One of the pleasurable unknowns of commissioning as
opposed to curating with existing artworks is the experience
of working within an inductive framework for the duration of
the project. As we write, we have not yet seen the commissioned
work together, neither Sievers next to the commissioned work,
nor all the commissions within the same space. Befitting of this
framework, we conclude with a twofold speculation. Do the
commissions emerge with an overt, collective response to the
imaginative and declarative photography of Sievers, or have
Jane Brown, Cameron Clarke, Zoë Croggon, Therese Keogh,
Phuong Ngo and Meredith Turnbull responded in more discreet
ways, enveloped within their existing practice? And finally, do
we see Wolfgang Sievers in a new light?
Dr Kyla McFarlane, Associate Curator, CCP. Naomi Cass, Director, CCP.
[4]
Ray Edgar, ‘Past Master: The Sievers Project’,
Art Guide Australia, May / June 2014, p 73–76.
C
Wolfgang Sievers The Designer
Gerard Herbst with his Design of Prestige
Material at Red Bluff, Melbourne 1950;
gelatin silver photograph; 50.1 x 40.3 cm;
National Library of Australia, Wolfgang
Sievers Photographic Archive.
MEREDITH TURNBULL Composition B
I For Fabric 2014 (detail); photo collage;
courtesy the artist.
BB
next spread (clockwise from top left)
Wolfgang Sievers Sulphuric Acid Plant, Electrolytic Zinc, Risdon, Tasmania 1959; gelatin silver photograph; 50.3 x 39.9 cm; National
Library of Australia, Wolfgang Sievers Photographic Archive.
MEREDITH TURNBULL, ZOË CROGGON, CAMERON CLARKE
and THERESE KEOGH The Sievers Project; installation view, Centre
for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne; photo Christian Capurro.
JANE BROWN Triptych. The Paper Mill (former Amcor and APM site),
Fairfield 2014; 3 panels of 9, 6 and 6 selenium toned, fibre-based, gelatin
silver prints; installation view, Centre for Contemporary Photography,
Melbourne; photo Christian Capurro.
Wolfgang Sievers Asta von Borch, student at the 'Contempora
School of Applied Arts' in Berlin 1937; gelatin silver photograph;
29.2 x 36.7 cm; National Library of Australia, Wolfgang Sievers
Photographic Archive.
20
With a view to examining the sites and locations of some of
Sievers’ big industrial clients, I concentrated my efforts on
the mining city of Broken Hill, where Sievers photographed
extensively in the late 1950s, and the former Australian Paper
Manufacturers site in Fairfield that later became Amcor and
is now in the process of demolition. By focusing on these two
sites the work has become my testimony to the stuff of both
silver and paper – a metaphorical wink to photography, if you
will. It is also a testament to loss and change. Looking over
Sievers’ work, particularly the industrial and architectural,
one is struck by a profound sense of the change that has taken
place since the heyday of his career in post-war Australia. So
many of the places he documented are now gone. Once proud
and optimistic, these industries, their workers, their machines,
their purpose-built architecture and indeed the very work itself
have been lost.
Like much of Sievers’ earlier work, my photography is
articulated in silver. The attraction of a town known as the
“Silver City” was there, but I was also taken with a very beautiful
image Sievers had made in Broken Hill in 1959 (page 40).
Unable to gain access to this beguiling staircase, I discovered
nevertheless that Broken Hill is in many ways an open-air
museum to mining, its streets named after the minerals
extracted in the area, with mine heads, mining machines,
railways, two-up halls, the miners memorial and slag heaps
dominating the landscape. Poignantly some of the old mining
machinery also served as a memorial to the miners who had
died whilst working in the city’s mines. I was able to retrace
the very mines Sievers had photographed in 1959, such as the
BHAS (now Perilya) winding towers. The modernist vernacular
of the town’s civic buildings evoked a Sievers-esque aesthetic,
the hand-painted mural in the Palace Hotel reminiscent of
The Bar at the Hotel Australia, 1969. I was struck by the
endless horizons, the isolation and the dryness – less obvious
in the work of Sievers, who was of course fulfilling his clients’
commercial interests.
But mining had also changed since Sievers’ time. Broken
Hill’s workforce had decreased – a few weeks before my visit
CBH Resources had sacked a third of its workforce due to the
downturn in zinc prices. The empty or closed working men’s
clubs, abandoned cottages and horizons dotted with obsolete
mining equipment seemed testament to this.
Although I did not find my staircase in the Silver City, I did
find it at the former paper mill situated on the banks of the Yarra
River in Fairfield. Associated Pulp and Paper Manufacturer and
Australian Paper Manufacturers were major clients of Sievers’.
He had worked at the Fairfield site in 1964 photographing egg
carton manufacture, but it was his work on the now demolished
APPM site in Burnie, Tasmania that was my catalyst (page 9).
Like Piranesi’s Carceri etchings, paper manufacture is
overborne with stairs and monstrous machines. I drew on that
sense of disquiet or the unearthly that Sievers evoked in such
works as Sulphuric Acid Plant, Electrolytic Industries, Risdon,
Hobart 1959 and Cement Mill, Vickers Ruwolt, Burnley,
Melbourne 1969. I also wished to convey the nature of the
Fairfield site – over 100 years old and suitably labyrinthine
in structure.
On the east side of the former paper plant is a wall of
windows typical of the modernist factories Sievers documented,
such as the former ETA factory in Braybrook. The gridded
arrangement of the work exhibited pays homage to these
windows, soon to be destroyed, imposing with their blue and
silver glass panels.
As with my photographs of the abandoned mining equipment
in Broken Hill, my representation of the former paper plant
is also a testament to the machine. I was able to recognise the
Walmsleys rolling machine and other operational hooks and
rollers that Sievers’ himself had photographed at the APPM
plant in Burnie. But far from being the shiny new examples
of engineering in the machine age, these machines were worn
down, covered in pulp or branded with a pre-demolition
acronym: NAD (No Asbestos Detected). Symbolic of Australian
manufacturing in decline, these images also pose questions –
what had it been like to work there, had these workers found
other jobs, and why had they left their boots behind?
JANE BROWN
C JANE BROW N Slag Heap, Broken Hill 2014; selenium
toned, fibre-based, gelatin silver print; 17 x 21.5 cm;
A
courtesy the artist.
JANE BROW N Staircase. The Paper Mill (former
Amcor and APM site), Fairfield 2014; fibre-based, gelatin
silver print; 40.6 x 50.8 cm; courtesy the artist.
25
CAMERON CLARKE
Wolfgang Sievers’ portraits of workers and industry resonate
with me, as my own documentary practice explores the
connections between people, their environment and their history.
The Sievers Project has provided me with the opportunity
to revisit some of the sites where Wolfgang Sievers created
his iconic imagery, and to explore the changed relationship
between Australian workers and their machines. I have found
this opportunity to be most engaging and, given the current
climate and upheaval in the Australian manufacturing industry,
particularly poignant.
It is an interesting and challenging time for many businesses
operating in the field of manufacturing. In my research and
development of work for this project I have had access to several
manufacturing businesses in the midst of immense change and
adaptation to local and global economic forces.
The imagery I have created for this project, taken at Bruck
Textiles in Wangaratta and The Ford Motor Company in
Geelong, echoes Sievers’ work in its documentation of industry.
It is however a departure from it, in that the ‘worker’ and
machine are treated as completely separate. The worker in my
view is still vital to the operation of manufacturing industries,
however the role of the worker has drastically changed over
the past 30-40 years since Sievers created his striking imagery.
In the present day of more automated processes, higher input
cost demands and a truly global economy and marketplace,
manufacturing industries in Australia have needed to adapt.
This adaptation has in some respects led to the diminished role
of people in manufacturing workplaces and, moreover and
unfortunately, to many of the industries for which Wolfgang
Sievers produced work closing their doors.
The ‘dignity’ of the worker was fundamental to Sievers’
approach and his imagery of people intricately involved with
the machine demonstrates this. I, too, believe in the dignity
of people and the work they do and it is for this reason I have
given equal standing in terms of style, composition and scale
to the people in my photographs, along with the machinery.
C
CAMERON CLARKE Ljube (Louie) Nedeski Production Operator, Production Weld, Ford Motor Company,
Geelong 2014; archival inkjet print; 63 x 50 cm; courtesy
the artist.
CAMERON CLARKE Küsters Washer Bruck Textiles, B
Wangaratta 2014; archival inkjet print; 100 x 80 cm;
courtesy the artist.
26
Zoë Croggon
I have worked with a small pool of architectural photographs
from the Sievers collection in combination with found figurative
imagery to create a suite of “split-image” collages. From his
oeuvre, I have chosen to use clean industrial and architectural
images that make use of sharp tonal contrasts, unusual vantage
points and emphasise the efficiency and precision so indicative
of his work.
My collages combine two divergent images to create a
fresh, autonomous work that animates ideas of perception. I
merge images of the kinetic body with architecture as a way of
drawing parallels and divisions between the two. One aspect of
the work is purely formal, focusing on the corresponding lines
and contours of the active body and the severity of minimalist
architecture. Conceptually, I abstract the human form and
its surroundings to consider the limits of observation, reconsidering the formal qualities of familiar objects and figures,
lost in their use.
In describing his artistic method, Sievers once said, ‘the
fundamental Bauhaus idea is purity of line and simplicity of
design, both in architecture and industry. To this I added the
dignity of man as a worker.’ However, Sievers work was known
for its analytical impersonal style, people are mostly absent,
the bright new workplaces untouched and unpersonalised. His
work, staged, deliberate and even theatrical, pairs well with
the posed and rigid forms I have coupled his work with.
Despite the lack of people in Sievers’ work, I think he saw his
photographs as portraits of not an individual but of a collective
portrait of unified man, of group efficiency and gleaming
modernity marching neatly into the future. His work is a shrine
to the sweat of a collective man working toward the ideal of
modernisation and progress.
Although I use the human form consistently in my work, I
only use slices of the body, heightening the impersonal nature
of these figures. The stylisation of the figure (especially the
exclusion of the face) reduces the individual features to classically
architectonic forms, which in fact adheres to Sievers’ objective
and formal compositional style. I see my work as a kind of
abstracted portrait, both unifying and further emphasising
the disparity between our surroundings and ourselves.
ZoË Croggon John Holland Constructions, Ginninderra Bridge (after Wolfgang Sievers) 2014; photocollage; installation view, Centre for Contemporary
Photography, Melbourne; photo Christian Capurro.
29
B
THERESE KEOGH After Firing (stubble burn) 2014;
photopolymer intaglio print; 74 x 54 cm; courtesy
the artist.
THERESE KEOGH After Firing (CaO) 2014; quick- D
lime (from Carrara marble), steel box (used in firing);
installation view, Centre for Contemporary Photography,
DB
Melbourne; photo Christian Capurro.
THERESE KEOGH In the Forum Romanum (after Sievers) 2014;
graphite on paper; 41 x 40 cm; courtesy the artist.
THERESE KEOGH
‘In the Forum Romanum’ is scrawled on the back of the
photograph, depicting a severed right hand holding a sheaf of
wheat. The corners are worn down, from decades of the artist
pinning and repinning and repinning.[1] According to legend,
the absent left hand holds a torch; a duality of growth and
combustion, like a phoenix at its point of metamorphosis.[2]
After the harvest the stubble is burned, clearing the land for
the next crop. Over the years burning makes the soil acidic
and infertile, unable to support life due to its own history of
harvest. And so a fine white powder is deposited over the earth,
after the annual fire, to neutralise the soil.
The marble was propped up on sandbags to stop vibrations
from the chisel reverberating back into the artist’s hand. In a
gesture towards immortality, the artist chipped away at the stone,
unaware that the hand being carved would one day be severed,
whether through incident or intention. It was asked what it meant
to sever a hand; a hand that is both maker and made.
Large kilns were constructed, with buildings and sculptures
– made centuries earlier – dismantled and stacked inside, to be
fired at such high temperatures that their chemical state would
be irreversibly altered.[3] The quicklime produced through
this process was used as the basis for the construction of new
buildings, remodeling the cityscape. The new chemical structure
of the quicklime, however, undermined the desire for rebuilding
history. Through its own process of production it had become
impossible to handle, reacting violently with moisture from the
maker’s hands, burning them.[4] Like Frankenstein’s monster,
the substance awakened.[5]
[1]
30
This photograph was taken by Wolfgang Sievers in 1953 while
travelling through Rome. Unlike many of his other works, there
is only one known print in existence, and no negative.
[2] The hand in the photograph has been identified as that of Ceres,
goddess of agriculture.
[3] Hundreds of millions of years ago, broken down seashells gathered
at the bottom of the ocean. The pressure of the water above
compacted the sediment to form limestone. Further pressure,
and high temperatures caused a metamorphosis, resulting in
marble. Seashells, limestone and marble are all forms of calcium
carbonate. When fired, the carbon dioxide trapped inside is burned
away, transforming the calcium carbonate into calcium oxide, or
quicklime. CaCO3 (s) → CaO(s) + CO 2 (g)
[4] Quicklime has a very high pH, making it an alkaline. When it
comes into contact with water a chemical reaction takes place,
resulting in temperatures as high as 800oC. CaO(s) + H 2 O(l) →
Ca(OH) 2 (s)
[5] The etymology of the word ‘quick’ is to be ‘alive’ or ‘living’.
mother vietnam
PHUONG NGO
A
PHUoNG NGO Untitled #1 from the series Mother
Vietnam 2014; inkjet print; 15 x 10 cm; courtesy the artist.
D Ph uong Ngo Lullaby 2014; industrial sewing
machine, thread; Untitled #1 from the series Mother
Vietnam 2014; 27 inkjet prints; each 15 x 10 cm; installation view, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne; photo Christian Capurro.
In the year 39ce, Thi Sach a Vietnamese noble, lead a revolt and children crossed boarders and boarded boats with no
against the Chinese occupation of Vietnam. He failed in indication of where they would end up or even if they would
his attempt and in retaliation was executed by the Chinese. arrive at a destination. Yet the urge to seek a better existence
Widowed in her thirties, Trung Trac, enraged at the injustice of was so great that they were willing to take the risk. Although
her situation and that of her country, shunned the traditional unknown, it is estimated that anywhere between 200,000 and
mourning of her husband as a recluse, opting to fight.
500,000 Vietnamese perished at sea.
Along with her sister, Trung Nhi, she rallied supporters and The experiences of women who fled Vietnam during this
launched a rebellion against Chinese rule in 40ce. Raising an period vary greatly, stories of rape and murder are abundant,
army of 80,000 troops consisting predominately of women, the but within all of these terrible histories and memories, the
Trung sisters drove the Chinese out of Vietnam ending over stoic Vietnamese woman who defies her existence beyond
150 years of occupation. Installed as queens, Trung Trac and being ‘just’ a survivor of trauma still remains. Much like their
Trung Nhi reigned for 2 years. In 43ce, under the command of ancient counterparts, there was no time for mourning and
General Ma-Vien, Chinese forces reinvaded Vietnam. In defeat many of these women upon resettlement in Australia found
the Trung sisters, rather than be captured, cast themselves in employment as outworkers and streamstresses, sewing clothes
on industrial sewing machines in their homes for an array of
the Hat River.
The Trung sisters have been revered as heroes since; temples, clothing companies.
roads and buildings bear their name. Their mythology permeates Others simply sewed clothes for their own children as a cost
Vietnamese national and individual identity presenting the first cutting measure. Thai Thi Kieu Tien was twice a refugee. Born
historic image of the stoic Vietnamese woman.
in Cambodia to Vietnamese parents who fled the Indochinese
Trung Trac and Trung Nhi set the framework for women War along with much of the French speaking elite, she was then
actively engaging in conflict over the course of 2 millennia; forced back into Vietnam as a teenager upon the rise of the
including the recent Indochinese War and the Vietnam Khmer Rouge and the subsequent cleansing of the Vietnamese.
(American) War. In these modern conflicts Vietnamese women In 1981, as a young mother with a five month old child she once
have often taken key roles as patrol guards, intelligence agents, again fled a war torn country with her husband on a boat with
propagandists, and military recruiters.
no real destination, she did not eat or sleep for three days.
In South Vietnam women often volunteered to serve in the After arriving in Australia she had another three children
Army of the Republic of Vietnam’s Women's Armed Force and after some time was able to purchase a sewing machine
Corps. They tended to serve in ‘supporting’ roles often as nurses on which she would spend evenings making clothes for her
and doctors on the battlefields. Although there is mention of children; happy pants with fluro dinosaurs on skateboards,
armed combat, most accounts are unsubstantiated.
hoodies and Christmas themed shirts and dresses for special
In North Vietnam, however, women fought alongside their events.
male counterparts in both the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese I have fond memories of those happy pants and sound of
military against the French during the Indochinese War, and the sewing machine lulling me to sleep.
South Vietnam and its French and American allies during the
Vietnam War. The victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu in This work is an ode to…
May 1954 (Indochinese War) is said to have involved hundreds The Vietnamese Woman
of thousands of women, and many of the names on the Viet The Vietnamese Mother
Cong unit rosters were female.
Thai Thi Kieu Tien (Mum)
The fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War in 1975
signaled the largest mass human exodus from Vietnam in its
2000 years of conflicts and foreign occupation. Men, women
33
MEREDITH TURNBULL
My work for this project takes the graphic quality of many of
Wolfgang Sievers’ photographs as its starting point: including
the striking formal compositions in the architecture he
photographed and how he enhanced these qualities through
his particular vision. Sievers’ use of light, shadow and point
of view, and his play with angles and perspective were each
things that influenced my response.
Two images became particular touchstones for the project:
photographs from a series he took for designer and former
head of Industrial Design at RMIT University, Gerard Herbst.
Sievers captured models in the studio, Prestige Material Design
fabrics and Herbst’s original photo transfer on fabric techniques.
In many ways my project pivots around the image of Gerard
Herbst silhouetted on the beach at Red Bluff holding a roll of
Prestige Material above his head: as if baring a standard or
waving a flag in demonstration. My contribution responds to
these distinct aspects of the work: Sievers’ documentation of
the fashion industry of the time and particular contributions
to this field, and his own unique abstract and formal way of
viewing and recoding the world around him. My work for the
exhibition includes a series of collaged, floor-based panels and
two hanging fabric works utilising both appropriated images
and my own photographs. Both the floor and hanging works
endeavour to reflect the architectures and geometries at play
within Sievers’ photographs and the formal patterning of 1950s
fabric design.
Meredith Turnbull Composition I For Fabric
2014; heat set digital print on cotton voile, aluminium tube
and shock cord; Composition For Floor in 7 Panels 2014;
particle board, timber, acrylic paint and decoupage;
photocopy paper; installation view, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne; photo Christian Capurro.
34
Jane Brown is a Melbourne-based artist, specialising in monochromatic photography. Completing a Bachelor of Arts at
the University of Melbourne in 1990 she has also studied at VCA and RMIT. Brown has exhibited in several solo exhibitions,
including a Hopeless Taste of Eternity, Pigment Gallery, 2009; Monumental Effect, Death Be Kind Gallery, Melbourne 2010;
Afterlife, Ballarat International Foto Biennale, Ballarat 2011; Australian Gothic, Edmund Pearce, Melbourne 2012 and Island
of the Colourblind, BREENSPACE , Sydney 2013. Group exhibitions include CCP Declares: On the Nature of Things, Centre for
Contemporary Photography, Melbourne 2012; Not Before Time, BREENSPACE, Sydney 2013 and Melbourne Now, National
Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2013. Brown’s work is held in the collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the
National Galley of Victoria and Horsham Regional Art Gallery. Brown was a finalist in the Monash Gallery of Art Bowness
Photography Prize in 2012 and 2013. Her work has been profiled in a number of publications including Photofile and The
Australian newspaper. Brown was recently awarded ARTAND Australia/Credit Suisse Private Banking Contemporary Art
Award, 2014.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
CAMERON CLARKE West Point Warper Bruck Textiles, Wangaratta 2014; archival inkjet print; 100 x 80
cm; courtesy the artist.
Cameron Clarke is a Melbourne-based documentary
photographer with an interest in large format landscape and
portrait photography. Clarke has created work in both Australia
and internationally, in countries such as Denmark, Germany,
Sweden, Norway and the United States. Since completing a
Bachelor of Arts (Photography) degree at RMIT, Clarke has
exhibited in several solo shows including Takings of Place,
C3 Contemporary, Melbourne 2011, Where Waters Meet, C3
Contemporary, Melbourne 2012, 45 Miles to Chesapeake Bay,
C3 Contemporary, Melbourne 2013 and group exhibitions
including The Study of Everything, C3 Contemporary,
Melbourne 2012, William and Winifred Bowness Prize (awarded
‘People’s Choice’ award), Monash Gallery of Art Melbourne
2013 and Josephine Ulrick & Win Schubert Photography Award
(finalist), Gold Coast 2014. International exhibitions include
Foreign Eye, Pingyao International Photography Festival,
Shanxi Provence, China 2011.
ZoË Croggon is a Melbourne-based artist who works with sculpture, video,
drawing and primarily collage. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Drawing) in
2010 with First Class Honours in 2011 at Victorian College of the Arts where she
was awarded the ACACIA Art Award and was short listed for the Wallara Travelling
Scholarship. Solo exhibitions include Zoë Croggon, Daine Singer, Melbourne 2012;
Pool, West Space, Melbourne 2013; Deuce, Daine Singer, Melbourne 2013 and
Apex, Transit Gallery, The Substation, Melbourne 2014. She has also exhibited in
numerous group exhibitions, more recently these include Splitting Image, Tinning
St Gallery, Melbourne 2012; Exploration 12, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne
2012; Dodecahedron, Platform Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne 2012; Liquid
Archive, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne 2012; Future Now, The
Substation, Melbourne, Cowwarr Art Space, Gippsland 2012 and Melbourne Now,
National Gallery of Victoria, 2013. Croggon was recently shortlisted for the Basil
Sellers Art Prize, Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne, 2014.
37
Therese Keogh is a Melbourne-based artist who employs
research methods to examine the structures that produce, and
transform, space through an engagement with site, landscape
design and vernacular architecture. She graduated from Monash
University with First Class Honours in 2011. Solo exhibitions
include Beeswax Project, Light Projects, Melbourne 2011,
Bell’s Swamp, Allan’s Walk Shop 7, Bendigo 2012, Platform
Archive Project, Platform Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne
2012, and The Equatorial Arrangement (part one), Tarp Space,
Ouyen 2013. Keogh’s recent collaborative and group projects
include Between Architecture: The Writing Project, FELTspace,
Adelaide 2013, Eclipse (return), Articulate Project Space,
Sydney 2013, raft, Craft Victoria, Melbourne 2013, Landscape
Transformed, Wallflower Photomedia Gallery, Mildura and
Obscured, Bus Projects, Melbourne 2014.
Phuong Ngo’s practice explores the individual and collected identity of the
Vietnamese Diaspora through the exploration of history, politics and culture. He
completed a Bachelor of Art (Fine Art) with Honours at RMIT in 2012. His solo
exhibitions include The Vietnam Archive Project, Seventh Gallery, Melbourne 2012,
Domino Theory, CCP, Melbourne 2012, My Dad the People Smuggler, Counihan
Gallery, Brunswick, 2013, and Article 14.1, Next Wave Festival, Melbourne 2014.
Recent group exhibitions include Debut IX, Blindside, Melbourne 2013, Honours
Endowment Travelling Scholarship, RMIT School of Art Gallery, Melbourne 2013,
The Churchie National Emerging Art Prize, Griffith University Art Gallery, Brisbane
2013, Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 2014 and Vietnam/
Australia: Voicing the unspoken, Yarra Gallery, Human Rights Arts and Film Festival,
Melbourne 2014. He has also exhibited as a finalist in the National Photographic
Portrait Prize, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra 2011, William and Winifred
Bowness Photography Prize, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne 2012, and The
Substation Contemporary Art Prize, Substation, Melbourne 2013.
Meredith Turnbull’s practice is multifaceted, including photography, jewellery, sculpture, video and installation. Turnbull
is current a PhD candidate in Fine Art at Monash University Australia (2010-), having also completed a Bachelor of Fine Art
(Gold and Silversmithing) at RMIT University (2003–2006), a Bachelor of Arts, Honours (Art History) at La Trobe University
(1996–2000) and Certificate of Photography at Photographic Imaging Centre (1995–1996). Turnbull has exhibited in several
solo exhibitions including Target Practice, CCP, Melbourne 2011, Co-workers, Rae and Bennett, Melbourne 2012, The Edible
Woman, West Space, Melbourne 2012 and Compositions, Bus Projects, Collingwood 2014. Turnbull has also participated in
group exhibitions including CLUNKY, LOOSE and TIGHT, Sutton Project Space, Melbourne 2012, The Telepathy Project,
Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne 2012, Signature Style, Craft Victoria, Melbourne 2013, Art or Cunning, Watch This
Space, Alice Springs 2013, Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 2014, and Dusty Chair, George Paton
Gallery, Melbourne 2014.
Meredith Turnbull Composition for floor in 7
panels 2014 (detail); particle board, timber, acrylic paint
and decoupage photocopy paper ; installation view, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne; photo
Christian Capurro.
38
LIST OF WORKS
All works courtesy the artist unless
otherwise stated.
JANE BROW N
Triptych. The Paper Mill (former
Amcor and APM site), Fairfield 2014
3 panels of 9, 6 and 6 selenium
toned, fibre-based, gelatin silver
prints
each 38 cm x 47 cm
framed dimensions: 121.5 x 148 cm;
121.5 x 101 cm; 121.5 x 101.0 cm
page 22
Staircase. The Paper Mill (former
Amcor and APM site), Fairfield 2014
fibre-based, gelatin silver print
40.6 x 50.8 cm
framed dimension: 57 x 46.5 cm
page 24
The Broken Hill series 2014:
Boot brush, entrance to administration
building, Perilya Mine site, Broken Hill
gold toned, fibre-based, gelatin
silver print
page 10
Broken Hill Railway Station
gold toned, fibre-based, gelatin
silver print
Disused tanks, Broken Hill
brown toned, fibre-based, gelatin
silver print
Italo International Club, Broken Hill
(located opposite the CBH Rasp Mine)
gold toned, fibre-based, gelatin
silver print
Mining Machinery, Line of Lode
Miners Memorial Complex, Broken Hill
6 brown toned, fibre-based, gelatin
silver prints
page 18
Mining Machinery, Line of Lode
Miners Memorial Complex, Broken Hill
fibre-based, gelatin silver print
Museum at the Royal Flying Doctor
Service, Broken Hill
fibre-based, gelatin silver print
Palace Hotel, Broken Hill
fibre-based, gelatin silver print
Perilya Mine, Broken Hill
selenium toned, fibre-based, gelatin
silver print
Slag Heap, Broken Hill
selenium toned, fibre-based, gelatin
silver print
page 24
Building with the St Johns's Cross
(possibly for the Maltese community or
the St John Ambulance service
gold toned, fibre-based, gelatin
silver print
View over Broken Hill
selenium toned, fibre-based, gelatin
silver print
each 17 x 21.5 cm
(framed dimensions: 20 x 24.5 cm)
CAMERON CLARKE
Garry Sanders Warping Operator,
Bruck Textiles, Wangaratta 2014
63 x 50 cm
Gauge Area (Ford Territory Right
Hand Rear Quarter Panel) Geelong
Stamping Plant, Ford Motor
Company 2014
100 x 80 cm
page 18
John Taylor Warping Operator, Bruck
Textiles, Wangaratta 2014
63 x 50 cm
Karen McNuff Warping Operator,
Bruck Textiles, Wangaratta 2014
archival inkjet print
63 x 50 cm
Kevin Mullan Fitter & Turner, Ford
Motor Company, Geelong 2014
63 x 50 cm
Küsters Washer Bruck Textiles,
Wangaratta 2014
100 x 80 cm
page 27
Ljube (Louie) Nedeski Production
Operator, Production Weld, Ford
Motor Company, Geelong 2014
63 x 50 cm
page 27
Shipping Bay (Ford i6 Engine)
Geelong Engine Plant, Ford Motor
Company 2014
100 x 80 cm
Theis Dye Jets Bruck Textiles,
Wangaratta 2014
100 x 80 cm
Toni Ryan Warping Operator, Bruck
Textiles, Wangaratta 2014
63 x 50 cm
West Point Warper Bruck Textiles,
Wangaratta 2014
100 x 80 cm
page 36
All works archival inkjet prints
All works edition of 3 + 1 ap
ZOË CROGGON
Comalco Aluminium Used in the
Construction of the National Gallery
of Victoria [7] (after Wolfgang
Sievers) 2014
80 x 73 cm
page 5
Comalco aluminium used in the
construction of the National Gallery
of Victoria [18] (after Wolfgang
Sievers) 2014
87 x 60 cm
Westgate Bridge (after Wolfgang
Sievers) 2014
79 x 53 cm
page 5
View from the great hall of the National
Gallery of Victoria towards the
forecourt (After Wolfgang Sievers) 2014
76 x 89 cm
page 40
John Holland Constructions,
Ginninderra Bridge (after Wolfgang
Sievers) 2014
70 x 86 cm
page 28
All works photocollages
Courtesy the artist and Daine
Singer, Melbourne.
THERESE KEOGH
After Firing (CaO) 2014
quicklime (from Carrara marble),
steel box (used in firing)
118 x 70 x 50 cm
page 31
After Firing (stubble burn) 2014
photopolymer intaglio print, lid of
steel box (used in firing), steel frame
70 x 74 x 54 cm
page 31
In the Forum Romanum (after
Sievers) 2014
graphite on paper
41 x 40 cm (framed dimensions)
page 31
PHUONG NGO
Lullaby 2014
130 x 120 x 80 cm
industrial sewing machine, thread
page 32
Thai Thi Kieu Tien from the series
Mother Vietnam 2014
15 x 10 cm
9 inkjet prints
edition of 6 (individual)
edition of 2 + 1AP (set of 9)
page 18
Untitled #1 from the series Mother
Vietnam 2014
27 inkjet prints
each 15 x 10 cm
edition of 6 (individual)
edition of 2 + 1 ap (set of 27)
page 32
C
Wolfgang Siev ers North Broken Hill mine,
administration entrance, New South Wales 1959; gelatin silver photograph; 24.0 x 19.5 cm; National Library
of Australia, Wolfgang Sievers Photographic Archive.
A
ZOË CROGGON View from the great hall of the National Gallery of
Victoria towards the forecourt (After Wolfgang Sievers) 2014; 76 x 89
cm; photocollage; courtesy the artist and Daine Singer, Melbourne.
41
WOLFGANG SIEVERS
AMP St James Centre Cnr William &
Bourke St 1970
50 x 40 cm
Anti-Vietnam War Protest by Wolfgang
Sievers 1967
50 x 40 cm
Asta von Borch at Contempora School
for Applied Arts 1937
40 x 30 cm
page 23
Australian Paper and Pulp
Manufacturers 1956
60 x 46 cm
page 8
Construction of Cement Mill Vickers
Ruwolt 1969
50 x 40 cm
Gears for Mining Industry Vickers
Ruwolt 1967
60 x 48 cm
page 13
Rayon Loom Tuner, Bruck Mills 1950
50 x 40 cm
Ropemaking Miller Rope 1962
50 x 40 cm
‘Stanhill’ cnr Queens Rd &
Hanna St 1951
50 x 40 cm
Sulphuric Acid Plant at EZ
Industries 1959
50 x 40 cm
page 22
The Designer Gerard Herbst with his
Design of Prestige Material at Red Bluff,
Melbourne 1950
37 x 28 cm
page 21
All works gelatin silver prints
Collection of Julian Burnside,
Melbourne.
MEREDITH TURNBULL
Composition I for Fabric 2014
heat set digital print on cotton voile,
aluminium tube and shock cord;
dimensions variable
edition of 2 + 1 AP
pages 21+35
Composition for Floor in 7 Panels 2014
particle board, timber, acrylic paint
and decoupage; photocopy paper
dimensions variable
pages 35+39
COLOPHON
A RT ISTS’ ACK NOW LEDGEM EN TS
JANE BROW N
I would like to express my gratitude to
the following people who helped make
this project possible:
Tom Paul, General Manager
Project Development from Glenvill,
for his genuine interest in the project
and for arranging my access to the
former paper mill site at Fairfield truly one of the most extraordinary
places I have photographed. For a site
that was in the process of demolition
his sense of urgency and flexibility was
incredibly helpful.
Jason Deans and Steve Young
from Delta Group who so generously
escorted me around the former Amcor
site. I am immensely grateful for their
patience in giving me the time and
space to do my work and for their
understanding for what I was trying
to achieve; for keeping me safe and for
not laughing too hard when I thought
NAD was a tag from a dexterous
teenager with a spray can.
Jane Hodder, Partner, Herbert
Smith Freehills and CCP Board
member for her expeditious results
and invaluable advice and assistance
in providing the necessary
introductions to the companies
that I hoped to photograph.
Glenn Maskell and Jason Arnheim
from Amcor.
David Hume, General Manager at
Perilya Mine, Broken Hill for granting
me access to the mine’s entrance to
photograph the winding tower.
Line of Lode Miners Memorial
and Visitors Centre, Broken Hill.
John Madden from the Mining and
Mineral Museum at Broken Hill for the
very useful information he provided on
locations of interest.
National Gallery of Victoria,
State Library of Victoria, RMIT
Design Archive and Julian Burnside
for opening up their inspirational
collections of original Wolfgang
Sievers photographs.
National Library of Australia,
Canberra Picture Collection for their
extraordinary image database.
Helen Ennis for her compelling
lecture and exceptional monograph
on Wolfgang Sievers that provided
me with a constant reference point.
Bob from Neo Frames, who like
many a Melburnian, has a Sievers
connection.
Greg Wood from Woodworks
Framing.
The Centre for Contemporary
Photography and the Australia
Council for this unique opportunity.
Lastly, the CCP staff – particularly
Naomi Cass (Director) and Kyla
McFarlane, Curators of the project – as
well as Karra Rees, Pippa Milne, Joseph
Johnson and Philippa Brumby.
Cameron Clarke
Elle Ozturk, Alan Collins, John Taylor,
Scott Parker, Garry Sanders, Karen
McNuff, Leslie Montgomery, Toni
Ryan and the staff and management
at Bruck Textiles in Wangaratta.
David Potter, Terry McKiernan, Kevin
Mullan, Muray Wilson, Louie Nedeski,
Paul Connors, Alan Jalocha, Mick
Howard, Gina Kavvadas, Russell Jacobs
and the staff and management at The
Ford Motor Company, Geelong Plant.
Jake Lowe, Kim Mennen, Stuart
Crossett, Kelly Russ, Naomi Cass,
Kyla McFarlane, Pip Brumby
and the staff at the Centre for
Contemporary Photography.
Kate for her help with words, and,
my family for their continued support.
Therese Keogh
Erin Keogh, Alison Brookes, Laura
Carthew, Emma Hamilton, Tess Healy,
Julian Burnside, Andrew and Clare
Keogh, Rebecca Dal Pra, Matthew
Dettmer, Dr Felicity Harley-Mcgowan,
Deanna Hitti and Paul Gilders.
Meredith Turnbull
Meredith Turnbull would like to thank
the Curators, Naomi Cass and Kyla
McFarlane and Intern Philippa Brumby
of The Sievers Project, the staff of
Centre for Contemporary Photography,
Matthew Linde and the Centre for
Style, Beau Emmett and Ross Coulter.
The Sievers Project
Curated by Naomi Cass, Director,
CCP and Kyla McFarlane, Associate
Curator, CCP
A Centre for Contemporary
Photography exhibition
All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical
(including photocopying, recording
or any information retrieval system)
without permission from the publisher.
© the artists, writers and Centre for
Contemporary Photography 2014
DESIGN
Joseph Johnson
INSTALLATION
Beau Emmett
PROJECT INTERN
Philippa Brumby
ISBN
978–0–9875976–2–5
PRINTER
Centre for Contemporary Photography
404 George Street
Fitzroy Victoria 3065, Australia
CONTACT
+613 9417 1549
www.ccp.org.au
info@ccp.org.au
Centre for Contemporary Photography
is supported by the Victorian
Government through Arts Victoria
and is assisted by the Australian
Government through the Australia
Council, its principal arts funding
and advisory body. Centre for
Contemporary Photography is
supported by the Visual Arts and Craft
Strategy, an initiative of the Australian,
state and territory governments. CCP is
a member of CAOs Contemporary Arts
Organisations of Australia.
SUPPORTERS
Government Partner
The development, presentation,
promotion and tour of this project
has been assisted by the Australian
Government through the Australia
Council for the Arts, its arts funding
and advisory body.
Philanthropic Partner
ZoË Croggon
I would like to thank Alison, Daniel,
Martin and Kira for lending me
their sharp eyes and giving me their
unwavering support. Thank you to
Kyla, Naomi and Pip for inviting me to
participate in this exciting exhibition
and making it such a joyous project
to be involved in. I would also like to
thank the unnamed photographers
whose work I have found and
appropriated for this exhibition.
Lastly, thank you Wolfgang Sievers.
42
Corporate Partner
Public Program Partner
Supporters
B
Wolfgang Sievers Advertisement
for 'Elbeo' stockings, Contempora, Berlin 1938; gelatin silver photograph; 28.9
x 38.9 cm; National Library of Australia,
Wolfgang Sievers Photographic Archive.
BB
Wolfgang Sievers Cocktail bar at Menzies Hotel, Melbourne, Australia 1965;
gelatin silver photograph; 45.9 x 35 cm; National Library of Australia, Wolfgang
Sievers Photographic Archive.
THE SIEVERS PROJECT
Jane Brown
Cameron Clarke
Zoë Croggon
Therese Keogh
Phuong Ngo
Meredith Turnbull
Wolfgang Sievers
Centre for Contemporary Photography
13 June –31 August 2014
Melbourne Art Fair
13–17 August 2014