True Self: David Rosetzky Selected Works by Centre for Contemporary Photography

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cover image Against Type, The Beach 2012 (detail) pigment print 62 x 47cm

opposite page Think of Yourself as Plural 2008 (still) single channel high definition digital video, colour, sound 29 minutes, 27 seconds

CONTENTS

Living together is easy

Bohemians Love the Beach JULIANA ENGBERG

Looking both ways

Luke DANIEL PALMER

Summer Blend BRIDGET CRONE

True Self David Rosetzky in Conversation with Naomi Cass and Kyla McFarlane

Together Apart: Portraits by David Rosetzky ROSEMARY HAWKER

In each Other’s Midst DAN RULE

Don’t get me wrong ANNA ZAGALA

Depth of the felt: Ink or swim AMITA KIRPALANI

images this page, top to bottom, left to right: Living together is easy #1 2002, pigment print, 64 x 93.5 cm; Luke 1998 (still), single channel digital video, colour, sound, 3 minutes, 52 seconds; Summer Blend 2000 (still), single channel digital video, colour, sound, 21 minutes, 45 seconds; Ink Swim 2004, single channel digital video, colour, sound; 2 minutes, 10 seconds, wood, Brionvega Algol monitor, nickel chain, acrylic on mirror balls, acrylic medium on found branches, 108 x 190 x 88 cm.

CONTENTS

Social Fabric MARGARET CAMERON

Half Brother

Without You I’m Nothing KATE DAW

Commune

Being Cate CHRISTOPHER CHAPMAN

David Rosetzky BIOGRAPHY

The Quiet Type STEPHEN ZAGALA

Think of Yourself as Plural

LIST OF WORKS

How to feel PHILIPPA HAWKER

images this page, top to bottom, left to right: ♥ forever 2010 (still), single channel high definition digital video, colour, sound, 20 minutes, 46 seconds; Against Type, Yellow 123-A 2012, pigment print, 62 x 47cm; Nothing like this (Autumn) 2007 (still), single channel 16mm film transferred to digital video, colour, 10 minutes, 53 seconds; Portrait of Cate Blanchett 2008 (still), single channel high definition digital video, colour, sound, 9 minutes, 56 seconds.

CONTENTS

Without Jane 2004 type C photo collage 44 x 57 cm

Looking both ways

♥ forever 2010 (still)

single channel high definition digital video, colour, sound 20 minutes, 46 seconds

One of Australia’s finest video artists, David Rosetzky creates intensely beautiful lens-based works exploring identity, subjectivity and relationships. Increasingly, he collaborates with professionals from the fields of theatre, dance, film and sound. Drawing on fifteen years of practice True Self: David Rosetzky Selected Works presents early portrait and longer duration videos, photographs, photo-collages and sculptures, revealing telling relationships between these aspects of his practice. The exhibition not only allows us to see the consistency of Rosetzky’s vision, but to engage with a trajectory in his video that moves from lofi, singular portraits that borrow advertising’s aura, through to cinematic, long-duration work. Rosetzky bends our expectations of time—using duration and repetition, as well as novel exchanges of character and choreographed passages—to enhance the emotional and aesthetic register of his work. Like the Roman god Janus—who presided over beginnings and endings, over gates and doors, simultaneously looking to both past and future—in undertaking a major survey, the artist is concerned not only with how previous work is represented but where the present leads. CCP is pleased to have commissioned David Rosetzky to make the significant new video, Half Brother, 2013. We thank Irene Sutton for her support towards achieving this commission. Presenting multiple video works effectively within the one exhibition space is challenging. Critical to Rosetzky’s approach is a heightened attention to the overall excellence of visual and sonic experience, including quality of projection, screens, sound and seating. True Self features architecturally designed furniture and staging devices for Rosetzky’s durational works, designed by Simon Whibley Architecture | SWA. Exhibition furniture has been beautifully fabricated by Richard Giblett and Aaron Robinson. We have also worked with electrician and technology consultant, Rowan Cochran from Prodigious Concepts to achieve quality in presentation. With great insight and care, CCP designer, Joseph Johnson, has designed an

exhibition identity and catalogue consistent with Rosetzky’s aesthetic rigour. True Self is the third exhibition in the series of major survey exhibitions developed by the Centre for Contemporary Photography and toured by NETS Victoria, following the very successful Hall of Mirrors: Anne Zahalka Portraits 1987-2007 and Simryn Gill: Inland. We are grateful for NETS Victoria’s invaluable experience and insight into creating excellent touring exhibition packages suitable for a range of rural, regional and metropolitan venues. We thank NETS staff, including Georgia Cribb, Emily Jones and Sherryn Vardy for their genuine engagement in development and realisation of True Self. CCP interns, Pippa Milne and Fiona Demertzidis are also gratefully acknowledged for their skilful contributions. We are grateful to Rosetzky’s representative, Sutton Gallery for their assistance. We thank lenders to the exhibition, including Dr Christopher Chapman, Senior Curator and Bruce Howlett, Registrar at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, as well as the private lenders who have generously allowed significant works to be presented in True Self. A number of individuals and companies have ensured that the exhibition and catalogue is presented to the highest possible standards, including Jason Barnett from International Art Services; Gerry Ryan from Duraloid; Sam Moore from Soundcorp and Shane Golding from Tint Design. True Self: David Rosetzky Selected Works comes into being through the generous and substantial support of the Australia Council and Visions of Australia for which the artist, CCP and NETS Victoria are grateful. Without these grants the exhibition would not have been possible. The Gordon Darling Foundation has similarly enabled CCP to publish this exhibition catalogue. We are grateful for the Foundation’s contribution, ensuring that True Self will extend beyond the lifetime of the tour and continue to contribute to the archive of contemporary Australian art. An impressive range of writers have contributed to the catalogue and we acknowledge and thank them for their concise and considered responses. CCP has worked closely with the Australian Research Council Centre for Excellence for the History of Emotions (CHE) at The University of Melbourne to present a series of lectures associated with the exhibition and to publish the online education kit at ccp.org.au. We thank Professor Stephanie Trigg and Penelope Lee from CHE for financial assistance and spirited contributions in realising this collaboration. Taking the long look and assembling a defining survey across an artist’s practice is a challenging and rewarding exercise. True Self: David Rosetzky Selected Works has been achieved through extensive engagement with the artist, and we acknowledge David Rosetzky for his gracious and diligent contribution. We thank him for his commissioned work and for this opportunity. In 2011, Rosetzky made the video How to Feel, the title of which is both question and statement, relevant not only to life, but to art. In considering this, we’ve turned to his Portrait of Cate Blanchett, in which the actor says: ‘Every time I think I have no idea how to do this. I have no connection to it, I don’t know any way in, except to sit with it, and look at it, and listen to it.’ NAOMI CASS, Exhibition Curator Director, Centre for Contemporary Photography DR KYLA MCFARLANE, Exhibition Curator Associate Curator, Centre for Contemporary Photography

Looking both ways

Portrait of Cate Blanchett 2008 (still) single channel high definition digital video, colour, sound 9 minutes, 56 seconds

How to feel 2011 (still) single channel high definition digital video, colour, sound 108 minutes, 39 seconds

David Rosetzky in Conversation with Naomi Cass and Kyla McFarlane

True Self â&#x20AC;&#x201D; DAVID ROSETZKY IN CONVERSATION WITH NAOMI CASS AND KYLA MCFARLANE

nc & km Your work comes to life through collaboration between a wide range of artists and artisans. Can you speak about the collaborative aspect of your practice? dr I’ve had the good fortune of working with many generous and talented people. And because of the relatively small budgets of the projects I work on there is often a necessity to approach them collaboratively. Lines are more often blurred than demarcations suggest, and people tend to crossover from their particular fields of expertise. What I love about working with professionals from different artistic disciplines to my own—or with different skill-sets, is not only that they can provide a good performance, a compelling piece of choreography, light a scene or a photograph to a particular effect, but what I can learn from them, and how they can bring different ideas to a project or challenge my way of thinking. They are my unofficial mentors in a way. Of course you enter a project with a strong vision in mind, but at the same time I think it’s important to remain open to other possibilities throughout the process. I aim to create an atmosphere where people are enthused and involved; not only does it make the process more enjoyable, but it also tends to lead to the most interesting outcomes.

nc & km Your work includes sculpture, photography, video and installation. Can you describe the trajectory of your work and movement between and across these media? dr I originally studied painting and towards the end of my degree I was making sculpture and installation. In 1996 I began to incorporate video into my installation practice, and it has since become a strong focus of my art making. I enjoy working across different art-forms, I am not exactly sure why this is. nc & km As well as your practice as an artist, you played an instrumental role in establishing the significant artist run initiative, 1st Floor. Can you speak about 1st Floor and its role with respect to your practice? dr I think it was during that time, between 1994 and 2002, that I really focused my practice, and this was in a large part due to maintaining an ongoing dialogue and intensity of activity with my peers and colleagues at 1st Floor artists and writers space—Jacinta Screuder, Lyndal Walker, Sean Meilak, Sarah Tutton, Tessa Dwyer, Kate Ellis and many other artists, writers and curators who were involved with the gallery.

“My videos often consider the underlying impulses and interior thoughts that exist below the surface of seemingly benign, everyday interaction.”

nc & km The choreographed body is becoming important in your work. Indeed you work with highly regarded choreographers and dancers. Is this to do with striving for a formalist ideal of beauty

or is this a more visceral engagement with human interaction—another language of communication perhaps? dr In 2003 I made a three channel video installation called Untouchable, which was the first video into which I incorporated choreography, and I collaborated with choreographer Jo Lloyd, who also performed in the work. My initial reason for using dance was to extend the range of speeds and textures in my videos and also to explore a more abstract and embodied form of communication other than spoken language. In Untouchable, dance functioned as a way of creating a sense of connectivity between the otherwise isolated characters on screen and I’ve incorporated dance into my work to expand on this idea. Over the past decade dance has become an integral part of my practice, and I have utilised it for different reasons in different works but I keep returning to it so, for me, there’s a fascination. I think it has to do with exploring different modes of expression.

True Self — DAVID ROSETZKY IN CONVERSATION WITH NAOMI CASS AND KYLA MCFARLANE

Untouchable 2003 Three channel synchronised digital video installation, colour, sound Acrylic on timber construction, speakers, data diffusion screens 18 minutes, 38 seconds

nc & km There is a gentleness, grace and comfort between the characters in your work. Does this reflect your view of human interactions? dr I’m not sure I agree that the relationships between my characters are characterised by gentleness or comfort. I’ve always tried to work with a range of emotions. My videos often consider the underlying impulses and interior thoughts that exist below the surface of seemingly benign, everyday interaction. French author Nathalie Sarraute, one of the creators of the ‘New Novel’ movement has influenced my practice in this regard. I think How to feel presents a departure from my previous work, in that themes of conflict and aggression are closer to the surface. This is specifically evident in a café scene, where two characters conversing about their personal revenge fantasies openly articulate their violent impulses.

nc & km Your work has a refined and attenuated aesthetic. It is populated with beautiful, youthful subjects, often associated with the language of commodity fetishism. This suggests a dichotomy between beauty and felt experience. Does this inform your work? dr In a number of my works, the subjects are cast as signifiers of a commodified global culture. Almost like animated cut outs from the pages of glossy lifestyle magazines. These earlier works—Justine, Luke, Commune and so on, are in one way aimed to encourage audiences to consider their relationship to images from television, advertising, fashion and cinema and ask how they may influence and inform their lives, and their sense of self. Earlier in my practice, I was concerned with how consumer culture informed our identity, and the way we looked at, or read, one another—in everyday life. In a number of my video works, such as Weekender, there are accompanying voiceovers, which seem to provide us access to the inner most thoughts of the screen protagonists who, in turn, describe their general difficulty or inability to communicate with one another despite an overwhelming desire for intimacy and connection. But it is important to me that these personal statements are not fictional but are derived from interviews with the cast, and are wholly honest accounts. They are documents of actual events and represent personal opinions. Obviously they are mediated in a way: the transcripts of the original interviews have been edited and then recorded so, in effect, the subjects are ‘performing’ themselves. But I honestly don’t consider my work being about a ‘dichotomy’. It’s just complex being human. My work tries to reflect that on some level. nc & km In your newest works, Against Type and Half Brother, you have become

more explicit in your engagement with pure materials. Can you speak about this? dr Against Type was about my interaction with a set of specific materials that held quite significant emotional meaning for me personally, and this collection of photographs was very much about a process, a very tactile process with these materials. That I needed to record in some way. nc & km In relation to your most recent work commissioned for this exhibition Half Brother, you have mentioned the idea of the ‘split subjects, the self’s reliance on the other—in a psychoanalytic sense, mirroring and desire.’ Can you reflect on this? dr My video Half Brother is being made, in part, as a response to having gone through the process of sorting through my father’s things after he died. Being a graphic designer and an artist he had many large stacks of different types of papers, coloured pantone films and printed material—as well as job samples, catalogues and artwork. This new video refers to aspects of my father’s creative process: sorting, dividing, layering, and so on, but it also includes my own experience of sorting through his possessions after he died. I wanted to draw the two processes together. Its basis is in memory and observation but I wanted to open it up to new thematic possibilities. It’s an experimental performance based video work involving a cast of three professional dancers/ performers, Gideon Obarzanek, Alisdair Macindoe and Josh Mu. Together with choreographer Jo Lloyd and the performers, I spent a number of days in a creative development workshop devising a series of simple choreographed movements working with stacks of paper, which included a variety of physical negotiations between the performers themselves and the material of the papers, sorting, layering, dividing, tearing, stacking, cropping and so on. We also transferred these processes into a purely choreographed form with the dancers themselves without the use of the paper. In this new work I am seeking to create a variety of rhythms and speeds of movement as well as exploring the boundaries between self and other, anxiety and comfort, intimacy and desire, in order to present different ways of thinking about the self and the body.

True Self — DAVID ROSETZKY IN CONVERSATION WITH NAOMI CASS AND KYLA MCFARLANE

Against Type, Cords 2012 pigment print 62 x 47cm each

Commune 2003 (detail) type C photographs mounted on composition board, flexilight, 120 x 290 x 450cm

09 Weekender 2001 (still) single channel digital video, colour, sound 16 minutes, 18 seconds

Half Brother 2013 (still) high definition digital video, colour, sound 10 minutes, 9 seconds

True Self â&#x20AC;&#x201D; DAVID ROSETZKY IN CONVERSATION WITH NAOMI CASS AND KYLA MCFARLANE

Living together is easy #1 2002 pigment print 64 x 93.5 cm

Living together is easy

Living together is easy #2 2002 pigment print 64 x 93.5 cm

Living together is easy

DANIEL PALMER “My name’s Luke. Hi I’m Luke. Luke”. So begins Luke, one of Rosetzky’s first video works, with a character testing out three possible ways of introducing himself. First presented on a simple television screen atop a white, modular wooden bench, Luke is one of several single portrait studies shot by the artist using a domestic video camera. Like Sarah 1997 and Helen 1999, which also feature somewhat embarrassingly intimate reflections about grooming routines and personal goals, Luke is a relatively short and simple work, but establishes a number of the distinctive stylistic and technical features associated with Rosetzky’s more ambitious later productions. The video opens with a stylish monochromatic light grey screen and white Helvetica text announcing its title and subject, accompanied by the soothing vibraphone sounds of Hawiian inspired Icelandic electronic lounge music. A smooth dissolve reveals the character Luke, shot in flattering, even lighting in a frontal close up. Curly haired, clean-shaven and casually dressed in a grey woolen jumper, Luke is the exemplary ‘metrosexual’— as a then-current marketing term defined the urban, middle-class heterosexual male newly attentive to their physical appearance. Luke speaks to the camera as if to a diary, prefiguring the kind of self-display we have since become familiar with online via sites such as YouTube (2005–). The video is divided into a series of rapid sections—‘Ideas’, ‘Competition’, ‘Heroes’, ‘Fitness’, ‘Grooming’, ‘Style’ and ‘Money’—during which Luke briefly explains, with apparent sincerity, his views on various everyday lifestyle issues. Thus he says:

I wouldn’t say I’m a fitness fanatic, but I do have a strange, well, personal, regime I follow every day… before I have a shower, I do somewhere between 50 and 100 push ups… If I don’t do them I feel uptight for the rest of the day.

Luke is actively involved in an idiosyncratic process of self-creation, and yet his mundane monologue is characterised by self-consciousness and a distinct orientation towards how he is perceived by others:

My personal style is sort of three-fold: somewhere between the gay German tourist, the angry socialist, and the sort-of B-grade urban cowboy, there’s me… and if you saw my wardrobe you’d understand why. Personal style was a frequent theme of the art exhibitions at 1st Floor Artists and Writers Space, where this work was first shown and of which Rosetzky was the founding director. Lyndal Walker’s photographs and installations certainly come to mind. I recall talking to an artist about Luke when it was first shown, who simply said: “the camera likes Luke”. If I remember this conversational detail it is perhaps because I found it a curiously honest response (and I was probably envious). Indeed, the camera had imbued Luke Savage, a familiar but slightly shambolic visitor to 1st Floor openings, with a certain glamour and poise. Rosetzky’s logic therefore extends that of Andy Warhol’s, in his use of friends and exploration of photegenia in his screen tests and movies. Personally, I did not know Luke well enough to ascertain whether his monologue was in earnest or scripted. Luke could quite well have been doing all those pushups. However, knowing Rosetzky’s work, we can assume it is a manicured edit of an original interview, a highly stylized version of a character explaining the way he puts himself together. As always, Rosetzky blurs the line between documentary and a more idealised presentation of his subject—unsettling and mirroring our own capacity for selfdelusion and doubt about personal appearance. DANIEL PALMER is a senior lecturer in the Art History & Theory Program, MADA | Monash University Art Design & Architecture, Melbourne.

Luke — DANIEL PALMER

Luke 1998 (still) single channel digital video, colour, sound 3 minutes, 52 seconds

Luke â&#x20AC;&#x201D; DANIEL PALMER

Eden 2008 pigment print collage 66 x 52.5 cm

Kiah 2008 pigment print collage 66 x 52.5 cm

ROSEMARY HAWKER August, Crystal, Caroline, Kiah, Eden—each in three quarter profile, each avoiding looking at the camera and, despite their youth, beauty and near smiles, appearing apprehensive in a way that goes beyond the mild anxiety common to posing for the camera. These unsettling collaged portraits continue Rosetzky’s attention to the idea of a layered, fractured and changing identity, as pursued through his video works, asking what it is to address this in the still image. While cutting the once inviolable surface of the photograph may no longer be striking in itself, Rosetzky’s surgical incisions into the photo flesh and clothes of his sitters are strangely disturbing. At the same time, this treatment is direct and literal in its expression of the self as a multiple and networked subject. We are familiar with the idea that clothes are costumes that help us perform an idea of self but here Rosetzky’s cutting and layering of the photograph, of flesh and fabric, is a flaying of superficial appearances towards a fuller articulation of the self. The slick photographic print, with its ready commitment to appearances, like the clothes and accessories of Rosetzky’s sitters, is peeled away to reveal a substrate of other costumes, hair styles and colours. More disturbingly still, these are not just alternative appearances but other peoples’ clothes, other peoples’ hair, and other peoples’ skin. The coterie of August, Crystal, Caroline, Kiah, and Eden seem impossible to separate, their individual appearances literally undercut by the wearing, taking off and sharing of clothes, jewellery, bodies. The network of their connection is marked out across the separate works or identities of the series as we recognise that shirt fabric again, those beads again, Crystal’s red hair falling on Eden’s shoulders… This sounds almost grotesque in writing but Rosetzky manages this with remarkable control, maintaining and even enhancing the

lustre of youth, beauty and hope without trivialising the anxiety of establishing a sense of an individual self in a culture that asks for conformity and sameness. The careful tonal control and the near life-scale of these portrait photographs achieve a visual cohesion that steadies the figurative disjunctions of the collaged images. The restrained tones follow recent fashion and fashion photography, emphasizing a decidedly non-pop, underplayed, classic elegance. The cut away clothing also echoes the fashion for the deconstructed shirt and collar but to see skin treated in the same way is to feel a growing unease. When Rosetzky cuts ovals of smooth flesh from a face and fills it with the equally flawless skin or hair of his other sitters, the shift in colour and its delineation in shadow line, or the whiteness of the cut paper recall a disparate range of associations—make-up accentuating cheek bones and brows, highlights in painting or paint by numbers, stencils, spray paint, duco, a face marked out for plastic surgery, sci-fi android forms learnt from television. As extreme as the assault on the figurative is in these works, this paring of flesh maintains a decisive and direct representational effect. As much as these collages make the idea of portraiture problematic, both connecting and disconnecting identity and appearance, they are persuasive and immediate in representing the complexity of self-identity and the acute and perhaps disabling consciousness of its construction in a world of endless influences. DR ROSEMARY HAWKER is Senior Lecturer in Art Theory at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Brisbane.

Together Apart: Portraits by David Rosetzky — ROSEMARY HAWKER

Caroline 2008 pigment print collage 66 x 52.5 cm

all images: Justine 2000 (still) single channel digital video, colour, sound 4 minutes, 42 seconds

Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get me worng â&#x20AC;&#x201D; ANNA ZAGALA

ANNA ZAGALA In 2000, the year David Rosetzky made Justine, I would have been roughly the same age as its self-doubting protagonist; acting out my own quarter-life crisis, preoccupied with the future and who I might become in the new century. There was no bridge between the present and what lay beyond, other than a stack of fashion, film and interior magazines. I felt as if my unarticulated hopes were somehow contained between those static, flimsy covers. Depending on the day I would either study them for signposts or just flip through the glossy pages with listless inattention. I don’t think it was just me. Truth be told, the turn of the millennium felt weirdly high-key, even as it unfolded against a backdrop of shades of grey. Minimalism was sweeping interiors. Charcoal was everywhere that year. There was a lot of speculation in Culture Studies—another millennium obsession in itself—of the ‘cocooning’ phenomenon. Like a perfectly preserved artifact, Justine brought that time—in history, in the passage of a life—flooding right back. As a portrait it is an example of controlled economy. Rosetzky’s film is under five minutes in length and contains precisely four shots. Three of the four shots could be described as tableaus, the kind of carefully styled and framed shots found in magazines. They possess an unnatural stillness characteristic of posed photographs. This formal device, of holding Justine in frame in this way, does two things: foregrounds interiority and artifice. Rosetzky amplifies this effect by cutting out all ambient sound and dubbing the footage with Justine’s voice over and a sparse electronic soundscape. Justine’s self-analysis is wide-ranging as it is obsessive. Her insights range from a critique of her appearance: “I’m completely deformed” to the interpersonal: “I just need people around me. I need them to help me gauge and regulate my behavior.” But she also describes anxiety: “I feel like I have to create my whole lifestyle but there are too many variables to coordinate. Does the music match my mood? My décor? My hair? Does it matter?” To underscore the point Rosetzky frames Justine in such a way as to reinforce her disconnection; she sits beside a

sleeping boyfriend in one shot, and in another she listens to a reel-to-reel wearing headphones. And while the rhetorical mode of Justine is confessional she’s no mess. She recounts these stories with wry self-awareness. Her insights are well integrated, most likely hard-won at the hands of a trained therapist. It’s difficult to escape a sense of self-consciousness in Justine’s candor and frankness. Could you describe it as artifice? In the least pejorative meaning of the word, artifice is simply describing attention to craft: what it might take to create an image, or tell a story, the care you might take in dressing or arranging your hair. In short, what it might take to get your face on. ANNA ZAGALA is a Melbourne based writer.

Don’t get me worng — ANNA ZAGALA

Bohemians Love the Beach — JULIANA ENGBERG

JULIANA ENGBERG Bohemians love the beach. Not in a sun bronzed way, but in a resistive, languid way that designates them apart from the fun and frivolous frolics of ordinary people. They are not there for surfing in the sun bleached and glinting atmosphere, but for quiet, pensive suffering, angst and ennui. The beach, for them, brings into high relief their sense of existential estrangement. The sea, with its unsettling churn, ebb and flow, sets a pace for introspection. Art history documents abound with images of poets, writers and artists at the beach; lolling, lying, picnicking, reading, snoozing, sometimes snogging... mostly peering out beyond the photographer at something vaguely transfixing so as to appear particularly nonchalant of being in the moment, and the subject of a photographic gaze. They understand life is a construct and that this moment of relaxation is yet another posture in a lifelong arrangement of self. After the invention of leisure, Emotional Modernists grouped in flannels and sunnies, in and out of season. Clusters of Bloomsburys, Surrealists, always Picasso, the Impressionists of course, and our own bohos, the Heide set—Tucker, Hester, John and Sunday Reed—each established their claim on sensitivity, buffeted by the elements on windswept dunes. Rational Modernists preferred cafes, interiors and urban settings.

David Rosetzky’s Weekender (and it’s companion work, the later, Nothing Like This) continues the tradition of beach bohos and illustrates the hyper-construct of languor and rites of passage for introspective types. Rosetzky establishes scenarios of inner intensity in which the participants narrate their disaffections and doubts as soliloquies to self. Rosetzky’s videos reference films like The Return of the Secaucus 7 and The Big Chill, which pushes a group of protagonists together to explore identity. In the instance of Rosetzky’s works however, action is limited and the conventional narrative eliminated in order to zero in on the heightened meditations. Devices such as mirrors refer to a kind of twentysomething narcissism, the beach is presented as a dynamic character of identity flux; time is compressed and delivered in mediated bites. JULIANA ENGBERG is Artistic Director of ACCA, Melbourne and Artistic Director of the 19th Biennale of Sydney (2014).

all images: Weekender 2001 (still) single channel digital video, colour, sound 16 minutes, 18 seconds

Bohemians Love the Beach — JULIANA ENGBERG

all images: Summer Blend 2000 (still) single channel digital video, colour, sound 21 minutes, 45 seconds

Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get me wrong

Summer Blend â&#x20AC;&#x201D; BRIDGET CRONE

BRIDGET CRONE Summer Blend was first exhibited in the exhibition Mayonnaise, organised by a group of “visual artists, an interior designer, architect, sound designer and writer” and held at 1st Floor in February 2000. According to the publicity material, it was an attempt to create “an environment blending art, architecture and contemporary city life.” 1 In my mind, Summer Blend will always be linked with this exhibition, connecting it with a particular lifestyle, a group of people and their shared interests and ambitions. In short, Summer Blend makes me think of the sort of endless summer that I now only dream of (being a resident of colder climes), as well as a time and a place… and the interconnecting images of mayonnaise and sun cream. Yet while Summer Blend reminds me of a specific moment, it opens up broader questions around seeing and being seen that go beyond the particularities of its original context. The questions of how we see each other and how we construct our own self-image lie at the heart of Rosetzky’s work. What is particular about his approach is the manner in which the body is pushed to the forefront of this activity; the movements of the body and the interactions between bodies present a kind of base material for the work. Summer Blend begins with a single strand of hair sticking up and into a blank screen. The rest of the head gradually enters the screen and a man begins grooming himself. He applies moisturiser to his face, shapes his spiky hair and generally preens. A succession of bodies then moves into and across the screen as moisturiser (or in my mind, sun cream) is rubbed slowly into knees, feet, arms and stomach. Everything is slow and languorous, the view is close-up, the music is mellow and the mood is, well… summery. Bodies fade into bodies, yet we never see a single body in its entirety. In Summer Blend, there is a sense of the body being a malleable material that is in formation; in other words, it is formed and shaped by its movements. Because we are never able to see a whole body in the work, we are focussed upon the particularities of movement as movement. That is, rather than making an immediate judgement based on clothing (they wear very little of it), style or manner, we must consider the minutiae of gesture and the topologies of the bodies that these gestures (or movements) reveal. This method of portraiture—based on

the body’s movements—is taken up in later works, such as Think of Yourself as Plural and Portrait of Cate Blanchett (both 2008). Here, the body alternatively reveals and performs so that in a scene in Think of Yourself as Plural, for example, manic movement underlies a conversation regarding social anxiety. At times the movement of the body betrays the spoken text and, at others, the text betrays the body, so that a chasm is produced between what is said and what is expressed by and through the body itself. Summer Blend is not simply about the body in movement but how we look at and how we perceive the body. In fact Rosetzky’s practice is intimately concerned with questions of image-making both as a contract that is created between the viewer and the artwork and the perpetual construction of self-image. Rosetzky’s awareness of what we might term the apparatus of the image, that is the component parts of the image’s composition and construction (such as artist, context, camera, lighting and so on), is key to this practice. By addressing these questions of how an image is composed, Rosetzky is able to produce images that are both very particular and particularly open, and which acknowledge the overlapping modes of image-making in art and in the presentation of the self. His work, therefore, encourages the careful act of looking that blends body and image together. BRIDGET CRONE is a curator and writer based in London. She is particularly interested in curating, producing and discussing artists’ moving image and performance-based work. She teaches at Goldsmiths, The University of London. Tessa Blazey, Bridget Crone, Chris Gill, Sean Meilak, Jacinta Schreuder, David Rosetzky, Scott Woodward, Mayonnaise, 1st Floor Artists and Writers Space, 9 to 19 February 2000, part of the 2000 Melbourne Fashion Festival.

Summer Blend — BRIDGET CRONE

Without Jeremy 2004 type C photo collage 44 x 57 cm

DAN RULE Questions tracing the bearings, parameters and limitations of self have long encircled David Rosetzky’s practice. For all their performative gestures, impossibly good-looking protagonists and big-budget aestheticism, his video works tend to centre back on the multiplicity of identity. Within Rosetzky’s missive, we are vessels, we are composites and we are amalgams; complex beasts who mimic, duplicate and parrot one another. Individuality and subjectivity are effects of a complex social and interpersonal arithmetic; beliefs, value systems and behaviours are at once fluid and porous. Style is also a prominent part of Rosetzky’s signature. His moving images approach style and how it portends to the aesthetic tendrils of consumerist culture, high-end advertising and film. Every frame, action, edit, costume and lighting decision—every perfect jaw line, flop of hair and dab of middle class self-importance—contributes to a subtle taxonomy of desire. His actors and productions purvey a tonality and texture and type that glimmers with a particular perfection and sheen. His suite of 2004 photographic collages Without Jane, Without Jacinta and Without Jeremy treads something of a different path amid Rosetzky’s wider oeuvre. Where his eye for choreographic movement, gesture, dialogue and performance marks so much of his output, this series of still, nonetheless destabilised portraits broaches identity (and its wonderfully good-looking activators) from a very different position. Formally, at least, these three works intimate a kind of patchwork in which their protagonists rupture and bleed into others. Crude lines are cut in the surface of the image and organic, elliptical sections are removed—fragments of skin, hair and skull are peeled back. We glimpse a different pair of cheekbones, hair of another colour, slight shifts in skin tone and gesture. While a form such as collage—let alone its implications of appropriation, recycling and pastiche—would seem a curious strategy in the context of Rosetzky’s work, this graceful perforation reveals a familiar motif: the plurality of the supposedly singular self. His devices may often rest in the movement of bodies and twists of monologic phraseology, but here he relies purely on the surface of the image and its rupture via the scalpel. A body reveals another body, another self, a missing other.

In Each Other’s Midst — DAN RULE

Without Jacinta 2004 type C photo collage 44 x 57 cm

On the one hand, this suite of conflated images might be read as a study of our endless yearning to emulate others. The series describes both the self and, perhaps, the desperately desired version of self. But there’s perhaps more at play here; a pensiveness and intimacy that gestures towards absence or loss. When our layers are peeled back, the marks, contours and resonances of those closest to us are revealed. Self, Rosetzky seems to imply, is a suspended state between individuals, bodies, memories, words and actions. It’s a notion echoed by recent studies surrounding transactive memory and cognitive interdependence. Harvard academic Daniel M. Wegner has long advocated for a kind of shared memory and consciousness, evidenced by studies into an individual’s diminished capacity for recall following the loss of a long-term partner, husband or wife. Put simply, we prompt one another’s recollections; we fill in one another’s gaps. For Rosetzky—an artist whose practice has so often trawled the wider miasma of cultural patterns, vernacular and

production—this series of collages proves a telling juncture. Here, we are drawn to reflect on those with whom we are genuinely intimate and conjunctive. Even when we are without them, they still exist within.

DAN RULE is a writer, editor and publisher from Melbourne. He is the director of Perimeter Books.

In Each Other’s Midst — DAN RULE

all images: Ink Swim 2004 single channel digital video, colour, sound; 2 minutes, 10 seconds wood, Brionvega Algol monitor, nickel chain, acrylic on mirror balls, acrylic medium on found branches; 108 x 190 x 88 cm

Depth of the felt: Ink or swim â&#x20AC;&#x201D; AMITA KIRPALANI

AMITA KIRPALANI Silent, not swimming, just standing, a man in inky blue seawater is there and then not. He stares into the camera, aware, composed, and unflinching. The camera lens is unyielding; focussed with the kind of hard, still clarity a face cannot hold. Silence, absences and omissions depict a concourse of deliberateness. This moving image portrait explores the unmoved, where emotion is played to a script and is likely unfelt. Ink Swim encapsulates the painterly notion of ‘breathingness’ and recodes this concept (which concerns depth of field), as a portrayal (or depth of the felt). But whilst breathingness is about inner force, Rosetzky’s portrait promotes implication first and subjectivity second. The body in water is buoyant, but the body in water also resists. Rosetzky offers the chains, which enclose, and the driftwood, which buttress the screen, as supporting sculptural players, another mute but necessary accompaniment, each pulling at either side of the portrait. A grid is both assumed and depicted, where each component of the installation (including the moving image) sits on an axis of tactility and movement through scripted time—within and beyond the installation. Talking while thinking is less scripted and silence is unscriptable, only able to be marked out in time, or in movement, however slight. The speech associated with analysis, scrutiny and calculation is never silent and can be injurious. This out-loud performance, however hesitant, with definitions and chains of reference, can unpick the finer details, scratch at the soft nuances and unsettle quiet, close, personal examination. Instinct is touch over telling, as we braille over details. It is a dance of demystification, where a mistrust of the viewer and a mistrust of the artwork are entangled. I imagine Rosetzky uttering Hemingway’s instruction: “You’re not supposed to mention it… Doesn’t do to talk too much about all this. Talk the whole thing

away. No pleasure in anything if you mouth it up too much.” 1 Perhaps we should reconsider covering it over again, to avoid splitting the richness of inky unspecific viscousness with the vinegar of definition and words. Talk overshadows the subject matter. And pithy statements overshoot content. And yet silence isn’t what’s seen as worthy interpretation, or participation. Yet silence marks an occasion, silence commemorates, reveres, or even seduces. Silence provides space and harbour for rumination, contemplation and deep thinking. AMITA KIRPALANI is a writer and curator, she is currently Assistant Curator at ACMI. Ernest Hemmingway, ‘The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber’ (1936), The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories, Scribner, New York, 2003, p138.

Depth of the felt: Ink or swim — AMITA KIRPALANI

MARGARET CAMERON ♥ forever is a diffusion of light, tone, texture and theme—a perfect golden, mellow memory. Tinted with autumnal hues, the work is staged as any and every perfect day through which one has wandered with a lover. There is a lazy pace. I find Lou Reed ‘s 1972 single looping in my head:

Oh, it’s such a perfect day I’m glad I spent it with you.1 Distinctly cued by light and saturated by its richness ♥ forever begins in the morning—a standing lamp with theatre gels highlights lovers in a city bedroom. Languidly and sensuously it unfolds and ends with the setting sun, a stage lamp lighting a hill in the countryside at dusk. Everything is imbued with the romantic, those special tints of light that the heart casts upon a scene. This tinted day is just a day, no matter that I expect something to happen. It proceeds in an ordinary and superbly technical manner, a sensuous ode, enhanced by a cinematic glow only achievable through the lenses of reverie and memory. The day trip is a classic urban experience belonging to all lovers who have taken a drive out of town. The simple narrative is perfectly captured. It is familiar. I recognise the light, the surfaces, tones, pace, texture, interiority, nuance and spaciousness. The central figures are a couple but the lovers are plural. With ironic comment on the notion of a ‘forever’, the personas on this day trip play constant tag—they relay, changing places and gender seamlessly through a denouement of pedestrian and satisfyingly simple actions. As the couples vary, these resonant shifts of perspective are as light as ripples of wind across water and the surface of the gorgeous screen. But they do dislodge the viewer’s expectations. There will be coupling ad infinitum as the day breaks, endures and sets—all lovers participate in this

‘forever’ for a single day at least, its lustre deepens and is made secure by memory. Yet, though the work is carefully composed it also has the immediacy of non-fiction and the super-real feel of documentary. Rozetsky is a curious and aesthetic observer. And like the nineteenth century flâneur, the stroller, the urban explorer, the connoisseur of the street, it is as if the artist’s attention alights on one person at a time. The central figures are exchanged in a dance of attention, just as one, when wandering a city street, enters the lives of passing others, overhearing their concerns, imagining their immediate futures, replacing them and returning to them again and again. The camera lens weaves a precisely observed and choreographed social fabric so that the day trip out of town becomes an iconic depiction of contemporary experience.

Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world ‘picturesque’.2 ♥ forever shows no commitment to a psychological narrative but rather to the trajectories of travel and movement, the path of the sun, glances, tones, gestures and rhythms of an exceedingly beautiful ordinary. MARGARET CAMERON is a Melbourne based performance artist, poet and theatre director. Lou Reed, ‘Perfect Day’, A-side, Walk on the Wild Side, produced by David Bowie & Mick Ronson, RCA, New York, November 1972. 2 Susan Sontag, On Photography, Penguin, London, 1977, p55.

Social Fabric — MARGARET CAMERON

single channel high definition digital video, colour, sound 20 minutes, 46 seconds

all images: â&#x2122;Ľ forever 2010 (still)

Social Fabric â&#x20AC;&#x201D; MARGARET CAMERON

Commune

all images: Commune 2003 type C photographs mounted on composition board, flexilight, 120 x 290 x 450cm

Commune

Against Type, Jade 556-A 2012 pigment print 62 x 47cm

Against Type, Meshes 2012 pigment print 62 x 47cm

STEPHEN ZAGALA Against Type is a quiet series of images. David Rosetzky often develops his artworks in consultation with others: a sound designer, a carpenter, a cinematographer, a costume designer, actors and models. But there is none of that here. This is a quiet body of work, produced by photographing material that Rosetzky already had at hand in his studio. There is also a certain modesty to the assemblages that Rosetzky has put together for the camera. He has used a limited selection of printed matter and graphic design materials to create semi-abstract compositions. And he has photographed these arrangements at close range to affect a tone of intimacy. This modest pitch is particularly evident when the grid of a cutting mat enters the frame, indicating that these images have been composed and shot on a tabletop. The key image in Against Type is a re-photographed photograph of David Rosetzky’s father as a young man. There are other images in the series that reproduce photographic source material, but this is the only image where a photograph has been re-photographed as a complete object; a thing with worn edges and a creased corner that we are led to believe is of interest in and of itself. As such, it stands out from the other images, which all focus on the margins of overlapping surfaces or frame partial details of photographs from the pages of magazines. The fact that this re-photographed photograph is a portrait of the artist’s father might suggest that Against Type is a personal memoir or homage. It might also be of interest to note that Rosetsky’s father was a graphic designer, and that the cutting mat and Pantone sheets that appear in Against Type were inherited from him. But these biographical details don’t really explain the series as much as they point to the presence of inscrutable undercurrents.

The significance of a re-photographed photograph is that it is an image-type that has an obscure depth. Layers of unfathomable meaning are folded into such images: who was the original photographer and what was their relationship with the subject? Who owned the photographic print and what sentiments did they attach to it? How was the photograph circulated and shared with others? Rosetzky doesn’t labour over these questions; he lets them abide in the background, ruffling the edges of the surfaces he’s knitted together. Rosetzky’s reference to his father introduces an enigmatic dimension to this series, which is otherwise concerned with the surface of things: the glossy pages of fashion magazines, the formal arrangement of colours and shapes, and the stylish elegance of a graphic designer’s working materials. Rosetzky’s work often lingers with a genuine fondness on the superficial contours of style and fashion, but dark uncertainties and incommunicable depths always haunt these interests. Against type captures this aspect of Rosetzky’s artistic vision with a quiet clarity: below the beautiful poetry of our superficial lives, the physical stuff of our existence is infused with mysterious forces. STEPHEN ZAGALA is Curator, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne.

The Quiet Type — STEPHEN ZAGALA

Against Type, 1960 Blue 290-A 2012 pigment print 62 x 47cm opposite page, middle: Against Type, Blue 304-A 2012 pigment print, 62 x 47cm

The Quiet Type â&#x20AC;&#x201D; STEPHEN ZAGALA

Against Type, Blusher 2012 pigment print 62 x 47cm

Against Type, Open-neck 2012 pigment print 62 x 47cm

Half Brother

all images: Half Brother 2013 (still) high definition digital video, colour, sound 10 minutes, 9 seconds

Half Brother

all images: Portrait of Cate Blanchett 2008 (still) single channel high definition digital video, colour, sound 9 minutes, 56 seconds

CHRISTOPHER CHAPMAN David Rosetzky’s screen-based portrait of actor Cate Blanchett is a subtle and sophisticated mini-movie that explores ideas of the actor’s persona. Rosetzky explains:

I knew that I didn’t want to present the portrait as a definitive representation of Cate Blanchett— but rather an exploration of shifting identities and inter-changeability. The location of the Sydney Theatre Company workshop—where they make all of their sets—added to this idea as it represents a site of construction and potential. The National Portrait Gallery commissioned Rosetzky to create the portrait and he collaborated with choreographer Lucy Guerin and composer J David Franzke and worked closely with Blanchett.

In its conceptual rigour, Rosetzky’s moving-image portrait is in the tradition of recent international screen-based portraits that present their subjects in a surprising and sensitively-realised manner. In 2004 the National Portrait Gallery in London commissioned British artist Sam Taylor-Wood to create a video portrait of British footballer David Beckham. Taylor-Wood’s David, shot in a single take, is a close-up of the sportsman as he is sleeping after a training session in Madrid. The intimate portrait of Beckham presented a very different image to his sensational public persona. In 2006 Scottish artist Douglas Gordon and Algerianborn French artist Philippe Parreno created the 91-minute film Zidane – A 21st Century Portrait, with a soundtrack by Scottish band Mogwai. During a 2003 football match, French footballer Zinedine Zidane was monitored by seventeen cameras, the footage edited together to create an atmospheric and existential portrait. The portrait of Blanchett presents a gentle layering of voiceover, gesture, sound and visual composition, elements that Rosetzky uses regularly in his work. ‘I feel fairly comfortable keeping quite an open attitude toward a work during the development process,’ he says, ‘The script was the starting point I think.’ Rosetzky met with Blanchett and recorded an interview with the actor at her office at the Sydney Theatre Company. The artist was interested in Blanchett’s relationship to the various roles she has played, in their performance and the transformation that this involved. Rosetzky says:

Being Cate — CHRISTOPHER CHAPMAN

I asked fairly general questions about that—such as ‘how do you see the roles that you play—what are they for you?’ or ‘how do you prepare for a role?’ and so on. Cate is extremely articulate and was very generous and open with her responses. From an hour of recorded material Rosetzky selected elements from the interview to create a structure for the work. An opening close-up offers Cate Blanchett’s hands moving carefully through a series of gestures. Camera movements include gentle panning shots and a sequence of lens changes informed by camera and lighting tests where Blanchet’s face comes into focus. The work is contemplative; it reveals an intimate and personalised attitude to the actor’s roles. The work speaks to the layers and varieties of selfhood that we all hold. CHRISTOPHER CHAPMAN is Senior Curator at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. A version of this text was originally published in the Gallery’s Portrait magazine.

Being Cate — CHRISTOPHER CHAPMAN

all images: Think of Yourself as Plural 2008 (still) single channel high definition digital video, colour, sound 29 minutes, 27 seconds

Think of Yourself as Plural

all images: How to feel 2011 (still) single channel high definition digital video, colour, sound 108 minutes, 39 seconds

PHILIPPA HAWKER It begins outside, with movement, a journey, a leisurely soundtrack over what looks like the opening sequence of an indie movie, as we follow a young woman on a bicycle, riding helmetless through inner city streets. Her arrival at her destination marks the beginning of the piece; her departure marks the closure—although it’s not the same person making her way through the dark at the end of the day. The characters seem distinct yet they are interchangeable. Three men and three women. Six characters in search of an author, or an order, or an identity, or something like that. Half a dozen variants on a theme. Or one character sliced six ways. A Greek chorus. A performance group. A collective consciousness. It sounds tricky, yet it doesn’t look complicated. Not on the surface. It is transparent, clear, almost familiar in its simplicity. Six people converge at a location: a former warehouse or factory,

How to feel —PHILIPPA HAWKER

a hall, a rehearsal space, a set. The group engages in something together. A rehearsal, a performance, a development process, an exercise in self-exploration. It seems like a work in progress; exercise, warm-up, confessional exploration, opening up to each other. Making I-contact. Occasional breaks. Choreographed sequences. With movement, everything shifts. The body takes over the narrative. Choreography emphasises. Gesture, repetition, echo. The fragility of the body. The awkwardness of interaction. Who moves, who is moved, who acts, who is acted upon. Push or pull. Bend or collapse. Movement that shifts from aggression to play, disruption to support. Dance suggests—and absorbs—confrontation. There is a structure. There is a pattern. Repetition is essential: repetition with variation. There is a mixture of naturalism, artifice and casual contrivance. It looks as if people are talking about

themselves, revealing things to each other. Or are they performing them? Are they giving us memories, accounts, versions, references, or reflecting them back to each other? Is that her speaking? Is that her, speaking? Her words? Her thoughts? Her lines? They are speaking together, but are they saying the same thing? Say it again, in a different tone: does it mean the same? Six of one, as it were. Not six individuals. Shared identity, selves that cross boundaries. Common sentences and sentiments. Language is passed around, stories belong to more than one person—or perhaps to someone else, or no one. Talk of experiences of daily life that involve performing, witnessing, watching, fantasising. Seeing yourself as a character in a movie. There are no startling revelations. No sudden transformations or dramatic shifts of context. I find myself making curious connections: thinking of the four young

drama students in Jacques Rivette’s Gang Of Four, ensnared in a cycle of rehearsal, repetition and conspiracy, or of Rosalind, in As You Like It, disguised as a man, claiming that she has not just fainted, but was feigning a faint. Connections that seem worlds away from the enclosed space of this particular rehearsal room, and the melancholy, auto-perpetuating sense of self that is created and investigated there. PHILIPPA HAWKER is a Melbourne-based film and arts writer.

How to feel —PHILIPPA HAWKER

Nothing like this (Autumn) 2007 (still) single channel 16mm film transferred to digital video, colour 10 minutes, 53 seconds

Without You Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m Nothing â&#x20AC;&#x201D; KATE DAW

KATE DAW In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby, a man with every possible material thing he could desire, is consumed with longing for the one thing he can’t have; Daisy Buchanan. He gazes out over water to a green light fixed to the end of a pier and wishes for her. This intense yearning leads to no good; by the end of the novel Jay Gatsby is found dead in his own swimming pool, his dreams dashed and the lives of those around him ruined. In Nothing like this (Autumn) a man floats in a pool, very much alive, trapped in a space that is his own; a private retreat and contemplative world that allows us, the audience, to merely speculate on his inner-most thoughts and desires. The water, contained, almost pond-like, separates us, just as it did with Jay and Daisy, from what we desire most—a type of encounter with this floating man. As the ripples span lazily outwards towards us, we are further distanced from our ideal. Although we shouldn’t feel surprised. In David Rosetzky’s work we are never really allowed to actually touch his characters. And this is precisely the point. Rosetzky understands so very well the emotional strength of desire and longing. Importantly, he also understands his audience to be a critical part of his practice, in the sense that his work exists to induce a sense of almost impossibleto-bear yearning and wistfulness in his viewers. The projection of these emotions by his audience onto his works, whether it be a weekend away in the country, a dance, a portrait of a celebrity, or any one of the numerous, meticulously crafted sequences and scenarios he has compiled over the course of his working life, is a key to understanding the underlying meaning of his practice. Rosetzky’s recent work has often involved movement; people arriving and leaving a building, pacing, dancing with one another,

observing and speaking, yet all the while perhaps not really connecting. In Nothing like this (Autumn), an earlier work, more self-contained and introspective, his man floats alone, still, except for the occasional hand movement, needing no one and asking nothing of anyone. Like Narcissus, who didn’t understand he was watching his own image in a reflected pool and died before he would leave it, we linger next to this work, reluctant to leave this man alone. Again we understand how our presence is critical to the reading of the work in wondering if perhaps, like Narcissus, we are gazing at ourselves. In Mimesis, Eric Auerbach says: ‘Within us is a constant process of formulation and interpretation whose subject matter is our own self… we are constantly endeavouring to give meaning and order to our lives in the past, the present and the future, to use our surroundings, the world in which we live.’ Further, these private ruminations in Rosetzky’s work are often structured into narratives, yet not whole and complex stories, but many fragments, breaking off here and there; ‘a method which dissolves reality into multiple and multivalent reflections of consciousness’. As we contemplate the dying summer light being slowly replaced by a melancholy chill, and observe the bright, palegreen tones shift to gold, we lean in close and find, once again, the very thing we desire slipping out of reach, elusive to the last. KATE DAW is an artist and Head of Painting at the School of Art, VCA/MCM, University of Melbourne.

Without You I’m Nothing — KATE DAW

How to feel 2011 (still) single channel high definition digital video, colour, sound 108 minutes, 39 seconds

BIOGRAPHY

Portrait of Cate Blanchett 2008 (still) single channel high definition digital video, colour, sound 9 minutes, 56 seconds

David Rosetzky is represented by Sutton Gallery, Melbourne.

BIOGRAPHY

Against Type, Overlay (Process Black) 2012 pigment print 62 x 47cm

David Rosetzky works in a variety of media including video, installation, photography, sculpture and drawing. He studied painting at Victoria College, Prahran and recently completed a PhD in Fine Art at Monash University, Caulfield. From 1994â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 2002 he was the founding director of the artist and writer run gallery, 1st Floor Artists and Writers Space, Melbourne. Rosetzky has presented his work widely in Australia and overseas in exhibitions including We Used to Talk About Love, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, (2013); the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, (2012); Dress Codes; The Third ICP Triennial of Video and Photography at the International Center of Photography, New York, USA, (2009); Asian Art Biennale, Taichung, Taiwan, (2009); Crowds / Conversations / Confessions at the Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, (2006); and Circle of Friends at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, (2008). In 2005 he was the winner of the inaugural Anne Landa Award for video and new media arts. He regularly collaborates with professionals from the fields of theatre, dance, film and sound including choreographers Lucy Guerin, Stephanie Lake, Jo Lloyd and Gideon Obarzanek, composer and sound designer J.D. Franzke, cinematographer Katie Milwright, dramaturg and writer Margaret Cameron, and dancers Kyle Kremerskothen, Alisdair Macindoe and Charmene Yap. In 2008 Rosetzky was commissioned by The National Portrait Gallery, Canberra to produce a digital video portrait of actor Cate Blanchett.

all works courtesy the artist and sutton gallery, melbourne, unless otherwise stated. Luke 1998 single channel digital video, colour, sound 3 minutes, 52 seconds edition 1 of 6 cast: Luke Savage Justine 2000 single channel digital video, colour, sound 4 minutes, 42 seconds edition 3 of 6

Living together is easy #3 2002 pigment print 64 x 93.5 cm edition AP2 photography: Peter Rosetzky Commune 2003 type C photographs mounted on composition board, flexilight 120 x 290 x 450cm photography: Catherine Martin collection of dr dick quan, sydney

cast: Justine Press, Nick Azides, Bridget Crone, James Lynch, Jacinta Schreuder, Lyndal Walker, ‘Johnny’ editor: Andrew Whelan Summer Blend 2000 single channel digital video, colour, sound 21 minutes, 45 seconds edition 5 of 6

Ink Swim 2004 single channel digital video, colour, sound 2 minutes, 10 seconds wood, Brionvega Algol monitor, nickel chain, acrylic on mirror balls, acrylic medium on found branches 108 x 190 x 88 cm private collection, sydney

cast: Christopher Brown, Mark Feary, Shio Otani, Justine Press, Summer videography: Rhian Hinkley editor: Andrew Whelan costume design: Shio Otani

Without Jacinta 2004 type C photo collage 44 x 57 cm edition AP2 Without Jane 2004 type C photo collage 44 x 57 cm edition AP2

Kiah 2008 pigment print collage 66 x 52.5 cm edition 6 of 6 photography: Catherine Martin

Without Jeremy 2004 type C photo collage 44 x 57 cm edition AP2 photography: Gary Gross Nothing like this (Autumn) 2007 single channel 16mm film transferred to digital video, colour 10 minutes, 53 seconds edition 2 of 6 Weekender 2001 (above) single channel digital video, colour, sound 16 minutes, 18 seconds edition AP2 cast: Jacinta Schreuder, Cath Martin, Tim Harvey, Christopher Brown, Raph Hammond, Sarah Fitzpatrick editor: Cormac Lally costume design: Sean Meilak Living together is easy #1 2002 pigment print 64 x 93.5 cm edition 4 of 6 Living together is easy #2 2002 pigment print 64 x 93.5 cm edition 5 of 6

cast: Saxon Jorgensen cinematography: Katie Milwright editor: Viveka de Costa 1st camera assistant: Esther Faradi August 2008/12 pigment print collage 66 x 52.5 cm edition 2 of 6 Caroline 2008 (above, right) pigment print collage 66 x 52.5 cm edition AP1 Crystal 2008/12 pigment print collage 66 x 52.5 cm edition 2 of 6 Eden 2008 pigment print collage 66 x 52.5 cm edition 6 of 6

LIST OF WORKS

Portrait of Cate Blanchett 2008 (below) single channel high definition digital video, colour, sound 9 minutes, 56 seconds videography: Katie Milwright choreography: Lucy Guerin sound design and composition: J. David Franzke editor: Paul Damien Williams production managers: Lee Jake Mariano, Kate Rule 1st camera assistant: Tov Belling key grip: Martin Fargher gaffer: Matthew Hoile best boy: Adisung Tubtim colourist: Daniel Stonehouse compositing: Reece Sanders hair, makeup and styling: Nadja Mott hair, makeup and styling assistant: Sean Meilak clarinet on soundtrack: Gillian Howell Clothing supplied by Obüs, Saxon Jorgensen national portrait gallery, canberra commissioned with funds provided by ian darling, 2008

♥ forever 2010 (below, left) single channel high definition digital video, colour, sound 20 minutes, 46 seconds edition 3 of 6

Think of Yourself as Plural 2008 (above) single channel high definition digital video, colour, sound 29 minutes, 27 seconds edition 3 of 6 cast: Deanne Butterworth, Brad David, Kyle Kremerskothen, Edwina Wren, Charmene Yap videography: Katie Milwright choreography: Lucy Guerin sound design and composition: J. David Franzke dramaturg: Margaret Cameron editor: Paul Damien Williams production manager: Natasha Pincus assistant production manager: Sacha Giuretto production assistants: Serena Ryan, Simone Secor sound recordist: Ric Creaser additional dialogue recording: Soundfirm additional dialogue recording post sync supervisor: Byron J. Scullin sound mastering technical assistance: James Wilkinson set design: Megan Norgate 1st camera assistants: Warwick Field, Andrew Jerram, Ari Wegner 2nd camera assistant: Simon Walsh grip/gaffer: Richard Turton assistant grip/gaffers: Brett Campbell, Andy Edwards, Adrian Goodman colourist and compositor: Daniel Stonehouse, XYZ studios wardrobe, makeup and hair: Nadja Mott for Pluscreate wardrobe, makeup and hair assistant: Rowan Dinning for Pluscreate data wrangler and camera supplier: Pete Wells at Inspiration Studios musicians: Geoff Hales, Percussion; Martin Lubran, Guitar; Tommy Spender, Saxophone charmene yap’s haircut: Sweet Caroline clothing supplied by: Alexi Freeman, Materialbyproduct, Nom D, Obüs, Order and Progress plants supplied by: Daniel Crooks, Matthew Dux, Miri Ranson chair supplied by: Anibou car supplied by: Matthew Herbert locations: Cavallero, Panama Dining Room, Peter Rosetzky Studio, Max Watts Industria this project was generously supported by australia council for the arts, arts victoria, lucy guerin inc

cast: Rita Kalnejais, Stephen Phillips, Johann Rashid, Luke Ryan, Alexandra Schepisi, Andie Tham, Mark Leonard Winter videography: Katie Milwright sound design and composition: Tommy Spender costume design: Sean Meilak editor: Paul Damien Williams production manager: Emily Lochovicz sound recording: J. David Franzke 1st camera assistant: Simon Walsh colourist: Fergus Hally How to feel 2011 single channel high definition digital video, colour, sound 108 minutes, 39 seconds edition 3 of 6 cast: Elizabeth Nabben, Nicole Nabout, Stephen Phillips, John Shrimpton, Yesse Spence, Miles Szanto videography: Katie Milwright choreography: Stephanie Lake sound design and composition: J. David Franzke costume design: Sean Meilak dramaturg: Margaret Cameron Editor: Paul Damien Williams producer/Project Manager: Emily Lochowicz sound recording: John Wilkinson continuity: Daryl Watson sound dialogue editor: Michael Carden 1st camera assistants: Emily Jade Barr, Sky Davies, Jesse Minter, Geoff Skilbeck 2nd camera assistants: Emily Jade Barr, Lucy McCallum, Dan Mitton grips: David Cross, Rob Hansford, Arthur Manousakis gaffers: Chris Dewhurst, Rob Dewhurst colourist: Dee McClelland camera equipment: Inspiration Studios people in cafe scene: Caroline Anderson, Joanna Anderson, Melany Masel, Matt Ward, Kathrin Wheib, Emily Wong locations: Y3K, Julio cafe, Edinburgh Gardens commissioned by the australian centre for contemporary art, melbourne supported by arts house, developed in the culturelab with the assistance of arts victoria Against Type, 1960 Blue 290-A 2012 pigment print 62 x 47cm edition 1 of 6 Against Type, Overlay (Process Black) 2012 pigment print 62 x 47cm edition 1 of 6 Against Type, Jade 556-A 2012 pigment print 62 x 47cm edition 1 of 6 Against Type, Open-neck 2012 pigment print 62 x 47cm edition 4 of 6

LIST OF WORKS

Against Type, Yellow 123-A 2012 pigment print 62 x 47cm edition 1 of 6 Against Type, Blusher 2012 pigment print 62 x 47cm edition 1 of 6 Against Type, Cords 2012 pigment print 62 x 47cm edition 2 of 6 Against Type, The Beach 2012 pigment print 62 x 47cm edition 2 of 6 Against Type, Blue 304-A 2012 pigment print 62 x 47cm edition 1 of 6 Against Type, Meshes 2012 pigment print 62 x 47cm edition 1 of 6

Half Brother 2013 (above) high definition digital video, colour, sound 10 minutes, 9 seconds Cast: Alisdair Macindoe, Josh Mu, Gideon Obarzanek Choreographer: Jo Lloyd Cinematographer: Katie Milwright Editor: Meri Blazevski Sound designer: J. David Franzke Second camera operator: Sky Davies Sound recordist: Gretchen Thornburn Colourist: Vincent Taylor Data wrangler: Sophie Beach Additional cast: Lewis Allen, Lucinda Barnett, William Bartley-Nees, Nicholas Chilvers, Alice Dixon, Alison Finn, Shivanjani Lai, Jimmy Nuttall, Nicholas Smith, Hana Vasak centre for contemporary photography commission, supported by irene sutton, on occasion of the exhibition true self

opposite page How to feel 2011 (still) single channel high definition digital video, colour, sound 108 minutes, 39 seconds

True Self: David Rosetzky Selected Works Curated by Naomi Cass, Director, CCP and Kyla McFarlane, Associate Curator, CCP A Centre for Contemporary Photography and NETS Victoria touring exhibition. True Self: David Rosetzky Selected Works will be toured by NETS Victoria to venues across Australia from 2013 to 2015: Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo, NSW Cairns Regional Gallery, QLD Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, NSW Latrobe Regional Gallery, VIC Perth Institute for Contemporary Arts, WA Riddoch Art Gallery, Mount Gambier, SA Devonport Regional Gallery, TAS Horsham Regional Art Gallery, VIC For further information on the tour visit www.netsvictoria.org.au SUPPORTERS exhibition 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. tour partner

National Exhibitions Touring Support (NETS) Victoria is supported by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria and the Community Support Fund, by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and through the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments. NETS Victoria also receives significant in-kind support from the National Gallery of Victoria. publication sponsor

education and public program partner

supporters

CCP ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS architects: Simon Whibley Architecture | SWA audio visual supply: Sam Moore, Soundcorp catalogue design: Joseph Johnson catalogue printing: MPD Printers catalogue support: Aileen Ellis, Gordon Darling Foundation ccp interns: Pippa Milne, Fiona Demertzidis exhibition furniture fabrication: Richard Giblett, Aaron Robinson installation at ccp: Beau Emmett public program and education kit partner: Penelope Lee, Centre for the History of the Emotions, The University of Melbourne technical consultant: Rowan Cochran, Prodigious Concepts Half Brother 2013 has been commissioned by Centre for Contemporary Photography, with assistance from Irene Sutton on the occasion of the exhibition True Self. ARTIST’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Naomi Cass, Director of CCP and the CCP Board for inviting me to undertake this survey of my works from 1998-2013. It has been a rewarding and challenging process, for which I am very grateful. The intelligence, thoughtfulness and insights provided by Naomi and Kyla McFarlane, associate curator of CCP, will sustain me far beyond the life of this particular exhibition. It’s always both a challenge and a pleasure to make new work, and I was very appreciative to be commissioned by CCP to produce my new video Half Brother for this exhibition. For their clever and elegant architectural design and their consultative approach, I am very appreciative of Simon Whibley Architecture, whose combination of spatial awareness and unique combination of materials, have contributed an added depth of experience and practicality to this travelling exhibition. Joseph Johnson is a remarkably gifted graphic designer, and it is a complete privilege for me that he has created such a beautiful exhibition catalogue. One again I would like to thank Kyla McFarlane, this time for editing the exhibition catalogue, and for her patience and sensitivity in working with me. I am also indebted to the numerous writers who have taken the time to think and write on my work with such skill and consideration. For their essays in the exhibition catalogue, I thank Bridget Crone, Daniel Palmer, Juliana Engberg, Rosemary Hawker, Anna Zagala, Stephen Zagala, Philippa Hawker, Amita Kirpalani, Margaret Cameron, Christopher Chapman, Dan Rule and Kate Daw. For his general technical wizardry and audio-visual installation design I thank Rowan Cochran. Cake industries and Mike Kennealy have also lent great support to the digital wrangling and assurance of seamless playback of the video works in the exhibition. For the printing of the various photographic series in the show I was both delighted and honoured to work with Clare Rae of Rae and Bennett Fine Art Printing, Peter Hatzipavlis from the PSC Print shop and Sandra Barnard from Sandy Prints. For his exquisitely crafted frames, good humour and eye for detail, I am grateful to Greg Wood of Woodworks framing. I would like to acknowledge the generosity of Marco Fusinato for providing his studio as the location for the filming of Half Brother, and I also thank Daniel von Sturmer, Meri Blazevski, Kathy Temin and all of the artists at River Studios for giving me access to their studio complex for the duration of the video shoot. At my representative gallery, Sutton Gallery, I would like to thank Irene Sutton, Samantha Comte, Elizabeth McDowell, Larisa Marrosine and Kati Rule. And also, thank you to Shirley Gregov, Bob Gunter, Andrew and Justine Hughes, Emily Lochowicz, Sean Meilak, Ella, Marion, Peter and Susie Rosetzky and Sarah Tutton. 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. © Centre for Contemporary Photography 2013 and David Rosetzky ISBN 978-0-9872933-8-1

project collaborators

404 George Street Fitzroy Victoria 3065, Australia +613 9417 1549 | info@ccp.org.au | www.ccp.org.au opening hours Wednesday–Friday, 11am–6pm Saturday–Sunday, 12–5pm

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.