Mnemosyne

by Bill Henson

Sometimes, but very rarely these days, one can announce a real discovery in contemporary photography — a book that will emphatically place its author on the international map on the same level as such giants of photography as Robert Frank and Nan Goldin. After the international success of Lux et Nox Scalo is proud and excited to announce the definitive mid-life retrospective book on Australian artist Bill Henson. The book combines all groups of work that Henson has created up to the from his early Ballet pictures (1974), to his body and nude portraits (1977–1986), from his photographs of street-crowds (1979–1982) to his Baroque Triptychs (1983–84), from his fantastic combinations of pictures taken in the Australian Suburbs and Egypt (1985/86) to his Los Angeles and New York nightscapes (1987–88), from his famous cut-out collages shown at the centenary Venice Biennale in 1995, to the portraits of adolescents and his magical color compositions for the Paris Opera (1990/91), and, most recently, a haunting selection of his images of children adrift in the wilderness of night (1997-2004), many of these appearing for the first time. Bill Henson is a continent in photography to be discovered. This book will be one of Scalo’s major contributions to the understanding of contemporary photography. Published on the occasion of the artist’s retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, opening January 2005 and touring to the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne in April. Essays by Judy Annear, Jennie Boddington, Edmund Capon, Dennis Cooper, Peter Craven, Isobel Crombie, John Forbes, Michael Heyward, Alwynne Mackie, David Malouf, Bernice Murphy, Peter Schjeldahl, and an interview with Bill Henson by Sebastian Smee.

Genres: Photography, Art

501 pages, Hardcover

First published February 28, 2005

Reviews

[Paul H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a sense, you could say that Bill Henson has one trick -- landscapes and nudes shot in a painterly under-exposed chiaroscuro style -- but holy shit does he nail this trick. I've almost certainly spent too much of my life reading photobooks and I'd say that Bill Henson is, without doubt, one of the best two or three photographers of all time.

I was reading a recent review of Henson's work and saw that Henson was friends with Louise Hearman (the painter), which made sense in terms of influence, but then the author made another connection and I literally facepalmed, it was so obvious in retrospect -- Goya. Essentially Henson is the photographic equivalent of Goya's Black Paintings (i.e., that one room in the top floor of the Prado), the same depth and mystery.

It's sort of funny that at first I was wary of Henson, just because I tend to be (initially) skeptical when I see nudity in fine art photography. To be sure, nude photography can be done very well -- the classic nudes in Stieglitz, W. E. Smith, Weston, Callahan, Brandt, etc., are formally beautiful and quite impressive, and then in terms of current photographers, Crewdson and DiCorcia, e.g., use nudity in a way that feels completely natural and interesting and reinforces the themes and moods of their work. Even McGinley's use of nudes, which seems gratuitous to some critics, actually makes complete sense in terms of his themes/style (though, to be sure, I'm not a fan of McGinley/Clark/Goldin et al.).

However, I think in the past couple decades especially, there's this strange tendency for photobooks to include badly composed nude subjects staring off into the middle distance, or just completely superfluous nudity that fails to be beautiful/interesting or even noteworthy in any minor thematic/conceptual way (even good photographers, such as Katy Grannan, fall into this trap). It's very difficult to do this well, and it seems blindingly obvious that nudity is by far the most universal crutch/shortcut for a lack of ideas/content, this weird tic that younger fine art photographers have where they default to random nudes. This only became clear to me after reading thousands of photobooks, you really start to see how common it is, the instances added up and I became convinced that you if were to interview the photographers in question, they wouldn't really be able to explain it either. Apparently you can't really be a super-serious fine art photographer unless you toss in a badly-composed medium-format film photo of an MFA student's labia every few pages, 'because art,' or something?

Anyway, I was surprised, but in a way also not surprised, to learn that there was some controversy in Australia (Henson's home country) about his use of nude models, some of which were teenagers. The models themselves have spoken out about how absurd the critiques are, and I would just add that if you're titillated by this photo, allow me to suggest that the problem is you, rather than Bill Henson.

[Mara · Rating 5 out of 5]

images of solitude, innocence, danger and love......perfection.

[James Tierney · Rating 5 out of 5]

The quality of the prints within are simply extraordinary.