91deliberately posed or set-up scenes. Its method was
observation and its aim truth to experience; a way for
the photographers to explore, interact with and make
sense of their world.’^4
Part of the book’s story is how the art
establishment, particularly the public galleries, largely
resisted the inroads of photography in the 1960s and
even the ’70s. Breakthroughs came in the 1980s when
a younger, photography-savvy generation succeeded
as directors of institutions. This apparent advance
met with an inability within the curatorial profession
to accommodate the documentary tradition within
the hallowed halls of art. This phenomenon is still
evident in public gallery practice, and—crucially for
photographers trying to make a living—collector
desire. Hence the preference among some current
photographers to avoid their work being labelled
‘documentary’. This situation is beginning to change
overseas—Tate Britain’s recent Don McCullin
retrospective is a pertinent example, and a piece on
this show by Ben Luke should be required reading
for curators and collectors.^5 Even though the art
establishment is more open to the medium, acceptance
is based on its own art-related terms rather than those
of the medium which, in three crucial respects, are
fundamentally different. Turner’s Johnsonville work
clearly demonstrates these differences. Art’s subject
matter is somehow special whereas photography’s is
often the very ordinary; art objects are usually one-
offs, whereas photography’s are reproducible; and
the perception hovers about art’s hand-skill being
superior to photography’s machine origins.
In the early 1960s ‘art’ equalled ‘painting’, and in
practical terms—apart from a small handful of artists
such as Walters and Mrkusich, who were committed
to abstraction—most production remained mired in
landscape and, to a lesser extent, portrait genres, with
the former category overwhelmingly rural rather
than urban. The Depression and World War II had
generated some socially related subjects but the art of
the early ’60s reflected the comfortable materialism of
the previous decade. Touchstones remained largely
European, not American, and cubism still represented
all that was radical in ‘modern art’. Peter McIntyre
was this country’s most conspicuous artist. All this
was about to change, the issues involved coalescing in
the nationalist/internationalist debate of the 1980s. Of
this phenomenon it is interesting to observe that, for
all its postmodern positioning, it was still operating
on the assumption that art equalled painting. Francis
Pound’s seminal history The Invention of New Zealand:
Art & National Identity 1930– 1970 , for instance,
completely overlooks the role of photography during
this crucial period.^6
At a theoretical level, however, the early 1960s
was perhaps the high tide of abstraction, the prestige
of which made any perceived ‘realism’ seem old-
fashioned and thus beyond the pale. The term came
with an implied sneer. While this situation worked
against photography’s acceptance, at least it allowed
photographers such as Les Cleveland, Ans Westra
and then Turner to quietly get on with the job. Their
invisibility also masked their perhaps unconscious
late modernism: their social/cultural significance,
their American influence and their being inarguably
part of an international movement. Compared with
the motivations and models for these photographers,
the work of painters of that time was (and perhaps
still is) determinedly parochial. If not the painters,
certainly the curators and writers when it comes to
photography.
Their problem is one of perception. Once the
adverse reaction to the notion of documentary was
codified into practice in the 1970s and ’80s, it has been(opposite)
JOHN B. TURNER
Symonds Building,
Johnsonville 24
December 1966 1966
Black-and-white
photograph
(right)
JOHN B. TURNER
Bank of New Zealand,
Main Road looking
east, Johnsonville 1966
Black-and-white
photograph