John Austin Photography

On 24th October I was told by Nicole of Northcliffe that two of my portraits of Howard Taylor in his Northcliffe studio and in Galerie Dusseldorf in 1988 and 1995 were on display as part of MATERIAL PRACTICE: Howard Taylor's Journal exhibition at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, which is on show until early February next year.

I emailed and ‘phoned the curator of the show, Emma Bitmead, to send me some pix of the installation for my professional records, but received no response.

A few days later Paola took some pictures of the show, as at my age I have no intention to ever, read EVER, soil my boots with the grime of Perth again, and I wanted pix for my records,

I presumed AGWA were showing some of my silver gelatine prints from the original negatives, which they have in the permanent collection.  No, what is on display are HUGE brown digital copies.  (I do not allow digital prints of my work to be made.)

In the purchase agreement from 2003 for the sale of these prints to AGWA is the provision for exhibition and display, with copies used for education and promotion, all quite normal and acceptable.  I keep copyright.  What shocks me is that AGWA have changed the format and presentation of my work in a way that is totally out of keeping with the subtlety of HT's studies of forest light.  And they did not even have the courtesy to contact me to regarding their planned abuse of my work.

In not contacting me AGWA Director Colin Walker and curator Emma Bitmead have shown unprofessionalism and lack of good manners regarding intellectual property rights, but professionalism and good manners are presumably outside of their job descriptions.

In a wireless interview on ABC in August 2020 the new director, Colin Walker, admitted to being a bureaucrat who intended to “Create rock stars from our artists”.  Also he stated that he would be forging AGWA partnerships with big business to raise funds, which I understand to mean he will allow WA business to appropriate arts for kudos and greenwashing.  Literally throwing the WA arts sector to the sharks so he can get credit for making AGWA’s books balance.

I have not yet responded, this one is going to be served cold.   I might be eighty, but I am not dead yet