Travelling Light

I am back from the installation of Sightseeing in Whanganui. The exhibition opened on Friday 06 May at McNamara Gallery Photography, the only dedicated photography space in the country. McNamara is nominally a dealer space, so I pay due credit to Paul McNamara for going out on a limb and hosting a show that may not generate much of a commercial return for the Gallery. Moreover, because the works in the exhibition are mass produced it unseats the role played by vintage prints in the discussion around photography's value in a commercial art market. I like to think that Paul McNamara, the gallery director, is interested in what the exhibition says about photographic practice. Sightseeing talks about what we mean by photography on three levels.

First, it highlights what we mean by a photograph - is is the act of 'taking' the shot (that decisive moment..), does a photograph reside in the negative, or perhaps in the printing of the image, or even in a reproduction of the image?

Second, it highlights how we multiply, reproduce, send and diseminate images in the world.

Third, it highlights how we receive and use images, how we and also artists attach stories to images, and it belies the research process that artists often use.

Exhibitions that allow discussions 'about' photography are few and far between, (we all remember Imposing Narratives) so it it a credit to the Gallery that they create the space for this discussion to occur.