NGV Event | Short Talks Afternoon: Behind the photograph Fred Kruger

Short Talks Afternoon: Behind the photograph Fred Kruger

Join Dr Jane Lydon (Monash Indigenous Centre (MIC)) Dr Isobel Crombie (NGV), Bill Nicholson (Wurundjeri Tribe Land & Compensation Cultural Heritage Council) and Leigh Astbury (writer and art consultant).

Uncover the complex political and social content underpinning Fred Kruger’s compelling photographs and gain historical insights into the rebellion at Coranderrk Aboriginal Station.

Date:  14th April, 2–4.30pm

Venue: The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Federation Square, Theatre Level G

Cost: $32 A / $27 M / $29 C (includes afternoon tea, bookings essential).

Bookings and Information: Ph +61 3 8662 1555, 10am-5pm daily, Event Code P1255

Fred Kruger Exhibition, 4th February – 27th May 2012

This exhibition is a comprehensive survey of the work of Fred Kruger (1831–88), a German migrant to Victoria with a highly distinctive command of photographic language. Kruger’s detailed and compelling images draw us into an intimate experience of the landscape and are achieved through his orchestration of people within natural environments.   

 Kruger’s photographs are complex constructions embedded in the political and social circumstances in which he lived. This is especially the case with his creative documentation of life at the Coranderrk Aboriginal Station in 1876 and 1883 taken on commission from the Board for the Protection of Aborigines. Working at a time of rebellion at the station, Kruger’s images are a rare insight into a period of transition for the Aboriginal people.  

It is his combination of rich context, strong sense of time and place, and distinctive creative expression that makes Kruger’s work so notable in the history of Australian photography. Exhibition Website