The Truth
18 FEBRUARY - 7 MARCH 2021
Featuring gallery artists Izabela Pluta and Jacky Redgate, PHOTO2021 brings groundbreaking new art back to the streets and galleries of Melbourne and beyond with work from locally and internationally celebrated artists, established and emerging.
With a significant proportion of programming being delivered at iconic outdoor sites, PHOTO 2021 is primed to reinvent the way that cultural events are delivered and experienced. As the city of Melbourne and state of Victoria emerge from a 6-month hiatus, PHOTO 2021 will be an artistic celebration of heightened poignancy. The festival will also include an online program, which has the added benefit of making the festival global while keeping local audiences safe and comfortable.
An official exhibition of PHOTO 2021 is Reconfigured/Rediscovered. Pluta will feature in this exhibition which brings together artists to extend perceptions of photography and image-making into new realms. Highlighting the permeability of photography, the exhibition questions the relationship between image and reality, asking how images operate, and how they can be created without a camera.
In 2020, The Bowness Photography Prize marked its 15th year. To celebrate, Monash Gallery of Art has partnered with Smith & Singer to showcase the previous 15 recipients during PHOTO 2021 at their Collins Street premises from 18 February to 7 March 2021. Being the 2011 winner of the Bowness Photography Prize, Jacky Redgate will be featured at the Collins St exhibition.
Redgate's solo exhibition at Geelong Gallery, Hold On, is also a part of PHOTO 2021's extended program. Hold On reflects on how she has recalled the autobiographical images and subjects of her juvenilia, while continuing to make conceptually based photographs over the past decade. What could initially be interpreted as formal compositions with neutral subjects becomes ‘contaminated’ by dolls and teddy bears from Redgate’s childhood. Blurring the lines between truth and untruths, Redgate’s works embody a cathexis on emotionally laden subjects.
