Vernacular?

So more than 90,000 views. I'd like to se my work get that level of exposure at the NGV.

Speaking of the NGV, maybe I should write an exhibition review of a show I've seen lately?

American beauty at the NGV international at the moment has got to be one of the best shows I've seen since the Bill Henson show of 2004, or was it 2005? Anyways, Lee Freidlander Walker Evans and Robert Frank have got to be in my top 10 of favourite Overseas Modernists photographers from the last century. Lee Freidlander I'm told shot enormous amounts of film to get the kind of 'visual' treats he achieved, and Walker Evans, documenting life with an 8 x 10 camera, with the most superb compositions and drawing that I have ever seen. Robert Frank well I'm almost speechless here. His controversial book from the 50's 'The Americans', even has an introduction by one of my favourite poets/authors, Jack Kerouac. The space at the NGV international is small, so sadly the amount of work on show is scant, but several of my Favourite Lee Freidlander shots are there, the one with the triangular cloud over the stop sign, and the shot of the tourists at Mt. Rushmore, are moments never top be repeated, slices of time that say as much about what is being photographed as the photographer and the time and place, and managing to be funny as well!

This show is a must see, just for the ideas it portrays, which is an idea close to my heart. 'The Vernacular'.

“I speak of the things that are there, anywhere and everywhere – easily found, not easily selected and interpreted.”
Robert Frank

13 May to 22 October 2006
Photography Gallery, Level 3
Admission free