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September 23, 2007
Late Monday afternoon I took a break from exploring Melbourne's lanes to see the Guggenheim Collection: 1940s to Now at the National Gallery of Victoria. It is is exclusive to the National Gallery of Victoria and will not travel to any other Australian city. It features iconic artworks from the Guggenheim collections from 1940s to the present. Among the “name” international artists represented are the likes of Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein, Gilbert & George, and Jeff Koons.
I was much taken by the photographs by Beat Streuli of people in urban spaces, and the way he explored the lone person in the big city crowd, which has been a central theme of modern art since Poe and Baudelaire.
Beat Streuli, Sydney, 1999
Streuli, a Swiss photographer, captures people when they are at their most natural state, when they are not posing for the camera. He uses a telephoto lens at a distance to catch his unknowing subjects appearing naturally, without artifice.
He has developed a substantial and impressive body of work in photography and video that documents the mundane, transient pedestrian activity of urban life: of people moving through and among each other, each alone yet among the other, blur a line between portraying anonymity and individuality.
Beat Streuli, Bruxelles Midi, 2005/06
The interest of these telephoto "snapshots" is in the movements of people in the public spaces of large cities---in the way individuals exist in moments whilst composing a flow of humanity.
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Gary,
Beat Streuli's photographs are great. They could not be done in Canberra. Unlike Sydney, the CBD of Canberra is empty. So you cannot sit and watch people. Or take photos of people in crowds.