Photography in ABR

Dear Editor,

When beginning this message, I came upon my last message from Helen Daniel; it was an eerie and sad moment. So I add my voice to the many who feel her loss: it was always a pleasure to work with her.

I am writing now to say how pleased I am with ABR’s new design and Peter Rose’s initiative as editor in accessing the photography collection of the National Gallery of Victoria. It will provide the ABR with excellent material for its cover and give wider exposure to the NGV’s collection.

This will be interesting indeed to follow, as many Australian photographers hold the view that the major photography collections in Australian art galleries are strong in collecting work up until the 1970s and very poor in their collection of wide bodies of contemporary work produced during the last thirty years. One has only to examine the catalogues of recent major exhibitions such as ‘Federation – Australian Art and Society 1901-2000’ at the National Gallery of Australia or ‘Worlds without End – Photography and the 20th Century’ at the Art Gallery of New South Wales to confirm this view.

The National Library, I think you’ll find, holds the best collection of literary portraits in the country, and the state libraries have often filled the gap left void by the major public collections. This situation is very different from that in the United States, where contemporary photography finds a highly significant place in the major collections and exhibitions of the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney and Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as in the collections of museums across the country.

I was pleased to find so many interesting photographs published in the last issue of ABR, including an Aboriginal and a Malay opening shells, and the witty portrait of Alfred Hitchcock, but surely the creators of these images have names. Could photographers be credited for their work in future issues?

I welcome the new editor’s enthusiasm for photography. Surely it will serve ABR well and create further appreciation of the medium of photography within our culture.

Meanjin

Dear Editor,

As one who, with the late Dr Geoffrey Serle, had something to do with the survival of Meanjin to the present time (as a former board member and original shareholder in the Meanjin Company), I am concerned with the position made public in the Age report of 7 April 2001: in particular, that the new university-controlled board has seen fit to depart from past practice in relation to a continuing appointment. Under this latter system, the editor had the freedom to develop a fresh and individual style without the limitation of a twelve-issue conspectus (the first two issues being dominated by material already in hand). The quality of the work of past editors seems to show the strength of this approach.

The system now introduced seems to me to carry with it a major change to the way the magazine develops in the future. The normal approach of a board seeking change is to sit down with an editor and develop a new forward plan. As I understand it, there has been no indication of dissatisfaction with the magazine as produced by Ms Stephanie Holt.

It is to be hoped that we are not entering into a new period of judgment ad hominem (or is that ad feminem?) that in past years originated from areas external to the university; or perhaps, even worse, that the editorship is seen as just another part-time lectureship that has to be advertised every three years.

Again, as a long-time supporter, I wish the new editor well and hope that he gets more than three years to mould Meanjin along his own lines.

Ray Marginson, Melbourne, Vic.