PROOF
WHERE THE SACRED FISH
COME IN
UK & AUST PRESS REVIEWS
Evening Standard 09.08.00
Time Out 05.00
Art Monthly 11.00
ART & AUSTRALIA Vol 38 #3
Juno Gemes in London
David Hansen
THE LANGUAGE OF
OYSTERS
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Reviews
Where The Sacred Fish Come In
Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London, 2000
Gemes, who has spent decades working with Aboriginals, is as interested in the
purely visual as she is in the social-political aspects of modern Aboriginal life.
There are many joyous pictures, there are more abstract commentaries (actors Cate
Blanchett & Ernie Dingo on the set of TV show Heartland): but Gemes
eschews the easy shock value of negative realism. Her vision is a healing one,
bringing tradition and willingly integrated Australians like Dingo together in
a wholesome depiction of hope and belief.
~ Ryll Ryees-Jones, Metro Life, Evening Standard, London August 9, 2000.
With the Sydney Olympics hoving into view, there’s no better time to consider
the art and rights of Australia’s neglected first people. “Where the
Sacred Fish Come in”, an exhibition of photographs of Aboriginal life by
photographer Juno Gemes (at The Rebecca Hossack Gallery), does just that, a poignant,
polemical reminder of intimacy and atrocity down under, where the gap between
white and black quality of life still gapes wider than the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
~ Time Out, London May 2000
‘Gemes is able to give voice to those who inhabit her images’ - a quality
of artistic integrity that shines through every one of these remarkable, luminous
images transforming documentation unmistakably into art. Not by assuming their
identity but by placing herself within their lives and struggles her photographs
become a crucial, integral part of that story through which Aboriginal art has
moved from the dark and dusty corners of Australian Museums and galleries (and
in London slowly too) to centre stage.
~ Nicolas Usherwood, Art Monthly November 2000
Rebecca Hossack Gallery
35 Windmill Street
Fitzrovia, London, W1T 2JS
UK
www.r-h-g.co.uk
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