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Photography. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1988.AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR
PHOTOGRAPHY
The Australian Centre for Photography (ACP) is a
publicly funded gallery curating exhibitions of Aus-
tralian and international photography, combined
with a workshop offering courses to the public
and access to photographic facilities. It also pub-
lishes the magazinePhotofile.
The ACP opened in 1974 and it was very much a
child of its time. Interest in photography as a crea-
tive art was booming in Australia in the early
1970s. Art museums were establishing departments
to collect and exhibit international and Australian
photography, art schools were establishing photo-
graphy departments to turn out graduates in what
was then regarded as the hottest new medium,
entrepreneurial individuals were opening (mostly
short-lived) private photography galleries, and
magazine and book publishers were experimenting
with (mostly short-lived) publications devoted to
the new art form. The boom took off first in Mel-
bourne, but spread to other provincial capitals.
This photography boom coincided with a general
cultural and social renaissance in Australia, fueled
in large part by greatly increased arts funding as a
result of the progressive federal government, which
had been elected in 1972.
In this climate a small group, led by the impor-
tant Australian documentary photographer David
Moore, successfully applied to the government for
funds to set up a ‘foundation’ for photography.
Their initial plans were wildly grand: they con-
ceived of it having a populist, social role (somewhat
akin to Edward Steichen’s gathering the millions of
photographs from which he selected the seminal
The Family of Man exhibition shown at the
Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1955) as
well as a professional role in supporting individual
photographers—from giving them direct grants
and commissions to collecting their work. But
within a year or two of its opening APC had settled
into a mode of exhibiting curated shows of photo-
graphy to an art audience on a gallery/museum
model, occasionally touring exhibitions, and offer-
ing facilities and courses to the general public in a
workshop that was established in 1976.
The ACP has always suffered an uneasy relation-
ship with its shifting and fractious constituency. In
its formative years it was resented by some for
draining scarce funds away from the other artist-
run photography spaces, quasi-commercial photo-
graphy galleries, and small photography magazines
that were springing up and struggling to survive
across Australia. This single institution, located in
the heart of Australia’s largest and wealthiest city,
was a natural magnet for accusations of elitism andAUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PHOTOGRAPHY