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Daniel Crooks: Parabolic / Miyanaga Akira: REALTIME


18 Mar 2017
REALTIME: Miyanaga Akira, 18 Nov - 30 Apr 2017 Daniel Crooks: Parabolic, Anna Schwartz Gallery 1 Mar - 1 Apr 2017

The growth of the large metropolitan cities of modernity occurred largely alongside the invention and proliferation of camera technologies in the nineteenth century. It is therefore not surprising that many of the earliest, and most iconic images from the histories of photography and cinema feature cities or urban environments. Think of Louis Daguerre’s Boulevard du Temple (1838) and the Lumière Brothers’ first “actuality” films, such as L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat (1895). Even the foundation story of video art involves Nam June Paik taking his newly purchased Portapak camera onto the packed streets of New York City to document the visit of Pope Paul VI in 1965 – along with all the traffic jams and urban disruptions caused.

The patterns and rhythms of urban culture have proved rich inspiration for generations of artists and filmmakers. Two exhibitions in Melbourne reveal that these connections between urban environments, cameras and technological experimentation remain of keen interest to many contemporary artists. Daniel Crooks’ Parabolic at Anna Schwartz Gallery and Miyanaga Akira’s REALTIME at the National Gallery of Victoria present two artists working with similar inspirations, and many similar techniques, but to quite different effects and ends.

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