Two new exhibitions opening today at the Monash Gallery of Art.
Matthew JONES G.R.I.D (Gay Related Immune Deficiency) 1989 courtesy of the artist
Photography goes Poof! Mathew Jones’ lost photoworks 1989-94
3 March 2021 to 10 April 2021
Between 1989 and 1994 the Australian artist Mathew Jones made a number of photographic works about gay identity. For both political and artistic reasons, these works were ephemeral, strategic interventions. Some photographs were only circulated as photobooks or as artist’s pages in magazines. Others took the form of site-specific installations that depended on a live audience. As a consequence, these works were like Molotov cocktails of contemporary art, exploding in the face of specific problems and then evaporating into the ether.
MGA has worked with Mathew Jones to re-create these important historical artworks a quarter of a century later. These works capture the pathos and desperation of Queer politics at the height of the AIDS crisis, but they also continue to offer critical insights on the contemporary politics of sexual identity and social equality.
Artist talk with Mathew Jones and MGA Senior Curator Stephen Zagala
2pm Saturday 5 March 2016 Join artist Mathew Jones and MGA Senior Curator Stephen Zagala for a talk and walkthrough of the exhibition Photography goes Poof!
Free event, all welcome.
Rennie Ellis: Gay Pride 1973
3 March 2021 to 10 April 2021
In 1973 the Australian Gay Liberation movement upped the ante by instigating a series of Gay Pride festivals in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. This was a time when homosexual sex was classified as a criminal act across Australia, and the Gay Pride events sought to challenge these repressive laws and openly celebrate gay and lesbian culture in public spaces.
Rennie Ellis, the most prolific photojournalist of Australian society during the 1970s and 80s, documented Melbourne’s Gay Pride Week with his characteristic warmth and candour. Commissioned to photograph the event for the National Review, Ellis captured everything from transgressive cross-dressers and camped up political banners to same-sex couples enjoying romantic interludes on the lawns of the Botanic Gardens.
This is the only substantial visual record of Melbourne’s first gay and lesbian festival, and most of the photographs in this exhibition have never been exhibited before now.
This exhibition has been made possible with the support of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive.
Monash Gallery of Art. Free entry.
860 Ferntree Gully Road WHEELERS HILL VIC 3150
Website: www.mga.org.au
Opening Hours: TUE-FRI 10.00 am-5.00 pm, SAT-SUN 12 noon-5.00 pm, Monday & Public Holidays CLOSED
Rennie Ellis, Gay Protest March #2, 1973. Photo courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive and Mossgreen Gallery