for being out of touch with ‘‘real’’ photography—
whatever that was—since the term covered a con-
stantly changing and expanding range of practices.
The ACP came into its own under the aegis of
American museum-based formalism. In its forma-
tive years the ACP imported exhibitions by Amer-
ican masters, such as Diane Arbus; and American
masters themselves, such as the then Director of the
Photography Department of the Museum of Mod-
ern Art New York, John Szarkowski, in 1974, and
the photographer Lee Friedlander in 1977. How-
ever the ACP also began to exhibit and support the
first generation of Australian art school graduates,
including Carol Jerrems, Bill Henson, and Max
Pam. It also began to bring important aspects of
Australia’s photographic heritage to light, for
instance by giving Australia’s most important
photographer, Max Dupain, his first retrospective
in 1975. Olive Cotton, now one of Australia’s most
loved photographers, was virtually unknown when
she held her first retrospective at the ACP in 1985.
Between 1978 and 1982 its director, the U.S.
trained Christine Godden, established a new level
of museum professionalism in the gallery, and suc-
ceeded in moving the ACP to its present location in a
busy and fashionable shopping precinct. But during
this period the ACP was criticized for perpetuating a
so-called ‘‘photo ghetto,’’ focusing narrowly on a
formalist aesthetic, at a time when camera images
were exponentially increasing in quantity, prolifer-
ating in format, becoming the central theoretical
object of postmodern theories of representation,
and forming the lingua franca of contemporary art
in general.
From 1982, with Tamara Winikoff as director,
the ACP deliberately tried to broaden and connect
itself to a wider variety of communities. In 1983 it
began to publishPhotofile, which contained reviews
and longer historical, critical, and theoretical arti-
cles. The gallery program now often featured
community-based and issue oriented exhibitions
exemplified by the ‘suitcase shows’ it toured,
which were inspired by the radical socially aware
practices of British photographers like Jo Spence.
Photofile was particularly exciting in the mid
1980s, with the critic Geoffrey Batchen as editor,
because by then a whole range of sophisticated
discourses had taken the photograph as their prin-
cipal subject, and a new generation of theoretically
savvy art school graduates placed the photographic
image—if not the idea of photography as an auton-
omous, historicized, fine art medium—at center
stage in Australian art.
During the 1990s, with Denise Robinson as
director, this new wave of art school graduates,
such as Tracey Moffatt, Anne Zahalka, or Robin
Stacey, were all featured in the gallery, which also
became an important Sydney Biennale and Sydney
Gay and Lesbian Mardis Gras venue. At the same
time, however, the Workshop was languishing,
Photofile was disappearing under a miasma of
thick prose and arch imagery, and the ACP was
falling into debt.
Much of the tenure of the next director Deborah
Ely, appointed in 1992, was involved with success-
fully negotiating the re-financing and extension of
the ACP’s building, as well as upgrading and
updating the Workshop and revitalizingPhotofile.
The gallery, although closed for refurbishment for
long periods, continued the trend of exhibiting
work in photographically related, particularly digi-
tal, media.
The current director, Alasdair Foster, faces an
entirely different climate from the one into which
the ACP was born. Photography is no longer a
young medium impatiently knocking on the doors
of art. As an art practice its edges have long since
dissolved into digital media, film, performance,
and installation. It is now a pervasive cultural and
psychological phenomenon. The ACP is no longer
the sole ‘foundation’ for photography in Australia,
it is now just a small part of a vibrant and well
established matrix of museums, libraries, galleries,
magazines, and art schools across the continent.
MARTYNJollyFurther Reading
Australian Centre for Photography Website:www.acp.au.
com(accessed May 4, 2005).
Ely, Deborah. ‘‘The Australian Centre for Photography.’’
The History of Photography(Australia Issue) 23 (1999)
no. 2.
French, Blair, ed.Photo Files. Sydney: The Australian Cen-
tre for Photography and Power Publications, 1999.
Newton, Gael.Shades of Light: Photography and Australia
1839–1988. Canberra: Australian National Gallery,
1988.
Willis, Anne-Marie. Picturing Australia: A History of
Photography. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1988.AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PHOTOGRAPHY