John Austin Photography

On 24th October I was told by a friend from Northcliffe that two of my portraits of Howard Taylor in his Northcliffe studio and in Galerie Dusseldorf in 1988 and 1995 were on display as part of MATERIAL PRACTICE: Howard Taylor's Journal exhibition at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, which is on show until early February next year.

A few days later a Perth friend took some pictures of the show, as at my age I had no intention to ever, read EVER, soil my boots with the grime of Perth again, and I wanted pix for my records.

A Perth friend send me 'phone pix of the installation, which are the ones shown here.  The exhibition curator has promised to send me "official" copies of pix of the installation for my professional records and for publicity.

Until the first pix arrived I presumed AGWA were showing some of my silver gelatine prints from the original negatives, which they have in the permanent collection.  What is on display are HUGE digital copies, floor to ceiling on vinyl.  I do not allow digital prints of my work to be made for exhibition.  Equally bad is the cropping and adding of the maquette of Collonades on my 1995 photograph.    AGWA did not contact me to regarding their planned reinterpretation of my work.  I have since had a 'phone conversation with AGWA regarding these issues, so hopefully no one will suffer this kind of shock in future.

In the purchase agreement from 2003 for the sale of these prints to AGWA is the provision for exhibition and display, with copies used for education and promotion, all quite normal and acceptable.  I keep copyright.  What shocked me was that AGWA changed the format and presentation of my work in a way that is totally out of keeping with the subtlety and sensitivity of HT's studies of forest light.

In this copy they have added a maquette of Collonades on my
1995 photograph of Howard installing Collonades at Galerie Dusselfdorf

In a wireless interview on ABC in August 2020 the director, Colin Walker, admitted to being a bureaucrat who intended to “Create rock stars from our artists”.  Also he stated that he would be forging AGWA partnerships with big business to raise funds.  But mainly the desire of the State Government is to see AGWA attendance figures increase.  BUT, is not the business of state art galleries to become popular, but rather to purchase, conserve and research state art and to publish well written monographs on WA artists.  That anyone actually visits the place is secondary, and given the paucity of education of Western Australians, it is amazing that any go at all.