Jeff Carter John Gollings Trent Parke

Photographs from Gold Coast Streets 1957 - 2008 Street life is a shared experience of common places, along roads and pathways, beneath signs and shop awnings, at bus stops and car parks. Glances are exchanged, conversations overheard, confrontations made with display and bravado and silent reverie found within the maelstrom.

The street is by definition a very public space - but as presented in this exhibition, there are also private and unseen transitory moments captured by the keen eye of a photographer. These are images where everything seems to come together and where the fraction of a second captured on film, gives new insights into the wider experience of the city.

Street photography can transform random events and sites into a place of unscripted theatre where personal narratives caught in the frame become part of a larger drama of universal experience.

Streets of Gold presents the work of three important Australian photographers - Jeff Carter, John Gollings and Trent Parke, who have each come to the Gold Coast with specific - but quite different - intentions to make photographic studies of these streets. Their work spans three generations and reflects distinctive approaches to the genre of street photography. Their images however, offer much more than a straightforward historical record of a time and a place. They are infused with a genuine sense of inquiry that seeks out the less obvious or the cliché. The camera is their common compulsive tool of investigation and many of these works are now seen for the first time.

The street life captured in their works is however, as much about city form as it is about people. The buildings, signs and street furniture of the Gold Coast have the same kind of transitory presence as the people within the frame. The distinctive built form of Surfers Paradise that we recognise today, has a brief history of just 60 years – a relative infant compared to other major Australian cities. This urban landscape has a language of impermanence and there is an almost tangible, expectant sense that as needs change and opportunities arise, new structures will emerge. Alternately sites may languish for many years awaiting consolidation or the right market conditions, so these spaces lie untended or vacant, often dappled with faded multiple ‘For Sale’ signs.

An arrival to the Gold Coast is an encounter first with a trickle, then a staccato rhythm of low apartments, soaring towers, petrol stations and modest beach houses squeezed between gleaming mansions. The coastal urban highway strip is punctuated by signage for hotels, fast food outlets, shopping arcades and fun attractions.

The gold of these streets is the palpable sense of the possibility of reinvention and renewal. The opportunity for escape from the conventions of suburban life - either for a few days as a tourist or for a lifetime as a resident - has lured many thousands to the Gold Coast since the mid 1950s. Some revel in the opportunities for transgression, others slip easily into the early morning rhythms of beach life.

These works by Jeff Carter, John Gollings and Trent Parke show that these streets are ours to inhabit and enjoy, to shape and to change.

Virgina Rigney - which in a pre-television apre-television in -which Womans Weekly Australian the and Walkabout Australian Pix, His target for these black and white photographs were the popular magazines such as of the Snowy Mountains Scheme. towns new the Showand Vaudeville Sorlie’s Travelling Melbourne, Market, Victoria Queen the at traders of the studies extensive made he time At this lives. Australian working unheralded previously document to camera and typewriter bulky his -carting writer and aphotographer as career independent afully start to decided he magazine Outdoor and Fishing of apopular editor as fiveyears After war. the after just school leaving since way his pay to jobs labouring and Born in 1928, Carter had begun travelling with his camera and working in itinerant farming himself. for see to Eric Warrell friend his with briefly 1955, in there and, went he Paradise Surfers called place this up in happening different’ ‘something was there heard had Carter Jeff immigration on national cuisine. cuisine. national on immigration war of post impact the feel to yet was that Australia an in of anovelty –something options out American Café scene. Tom’sThese and Bon the in photographs wear beach also show of casual a combination cosmopolitan the and stall, selection Goulash and of informal eatingSpaghetti his mother work as a dress designer. He has noticed the jaunty capri pants on the Carterwomen reveals anat eye the for stylish fashion – something he hethinks took from having watched inhibitions. lost newly their relinquishing or shoes on putting clothes, their changing without shops the in browse delineates these two zones – people wander from their hotel, to the sand and back,For eat and Surfers Paradise, the street seamlessly merges with the beach, for there is little that lively street activity that Carter had come to photograph. miles down the road in the midst of a dry paddock. It was however, the immediacy ofunprepossessing the sign for Florida Gardens, the first canal estatethat was beingdredged a few apartment building were just beginning construction. Carter noticed and photographed a rather Broadbeach Hotel had opened in 1955 and the Chevron Hotel and Kinkabol – the firstin high 1952rise but it lifted been had had taken a few restrictions more years building Post-war for bustle. to economic activity beginning to was 1957,gain In real Paradise momentum. Surfers Lennons roadside service. away food bar – come take style on eat American before of the novelty the we both starve – recognized he the individual Queensland into bar border stools the and Crossing quick Such a camera allowed Carter to operateeye. the heldto was quicklythat and discreetly. aviewfinder and out folded that lens aZeiss with quality image These precisely engineered cameras were relatively compact yet delivered medium format filmwith 12 shots 120 per shaped roll. square used which cameras Ikonta Super German East identical purchased that was starting to capture the national public imagination. He carried two recently Paradise with his wife Mare and baby son to make a Surfers to more of 1957serious returned he summer study the In of off. head and the holiday asubject propose simply townoften Rather than wait for an editor to commission him to do a particular feature, Carter would photographer. a series of images – it also gave better returns and greater control to him as both a writerseeking and to get to know of his subject’s approach Carter’s suited wider situation immediately of format and kind This wanting astory. to tell carried had that whole image a single story with previously - pages double four over essay picture 1951first its in and it published publication, of style this of influential most 1936, of in one the was appeared which Life magazine TheAmerican world. the in happening was what see really to opportunity the people gave age

People, People,

of the period Kathy Ford and Paula Stafford in PEOPLE 5.4.67 PEOPLE 26-27) in (pages Stafford Paula Ford and Kathy period of the model GC upcoming about 16.1.63 19-25), PEOPLE in “Golden(pages Girls” another 34-35) and (pages 2. Other photographs from these trips were featured in “The New Gold Coast” in PEOPLE1. 8.11.61 28.12.1957 Melb Age Literary Supplement www.jeffcarterphotos.com. at also and Australia Picture via viewed be may these and collections National held is work in His Gallery. Abrahams Christine the by Melbourne in and Sydney in Gallery Bryon/McMahon by Award.represented is He Emeritus aprestigious with Council Australia the by honoured 2004 of he was 2008. up In most take will that aproject lands, grazing marginal of journeys to photograph the human face on aseries embarked of recently has 80 drought at and aphotographer as and practice to continues climate Carter Jeff change in irrigation and you are not wearing what has and become evaporated more has promenade important style than what or best-dressed who European you of the are. formality –the culture street of refashioning Australian distinctly of a evidence is assurance and confidence Their renaissance. classical the from removed far too not acomposition in Paradise Surfers at beach main of the steps the on again them captured has Carter pm, 1:46 at heat searing the in shirtless Hatless, beach playground, post graphically their is garden captured Thebeer bravado. in Carter’s sexual with out composition calling or of hairdos bare chests highset and big smiles.manicured in carefree aswagger, and car asmart at envy in glancing pavements, the crowds teenagers of generation Anew lenses. telephoto and standard and cameras Nikon 35mm with time this 1960s’, early the in returned Carter when shifted has moments of these innocence The relative seem out of place and time. the footpath, are oblivious to this display on men of dressed youthful older,exuberance formally Thetwo opposite. and recklessness building of the roof - the on and they ahandstand doing girls in their fashionable après beachwear, have stopped to look at the improbableand others sight indirectly, of a such man as Café, the extraordinary captured Cathay the at moment bridge bamboo street the over image - couple walking of the image the as such literally, Carter’s street photographs from the same year capture similar impressions - some quite the frustration at returning to a still provincial of out Australia. born was polemic his perhaps and America in of Technology Institute Massachusetts at Boyd had recently returned from almost two years as a Fulbright scholar and visiting professor grounds.’ economic on purely makers holiday attract can which resort healthy something done. He is building and making a rowdy, good natured flamboyant, crimefree who is stifled bythe plodding restrictive of entrepreneur type ways the for outlet an ofthe providing southern open, burst cities. here is Here of conservatism heshroud is getting skimmed off the top of the 20th century cream it the Australian You call spirit…a might enterprise. and feeling of adventure that Australia’s Australia, in enough rare heavy afeeling, is floralwisps of bathers and Hawaiianselling bars shirtsthrough bikini windows shows, floor fabulous open clubs, night to pools, the rock foot murky path spanning ….bridges There bamboo shops, of souvenir autopia It is optimism. plus town country Australian any ‘It is (1) paradise’ Cement aFibro ‘Developing on Age Boyd, then Australia’s Robin by written best-known Paradise architect, Surfers on for one article an of in his regular columns parallel in the acontemporary Melbourne have The images

Tableau

. Two

All works on the following pages C type film – Contemporary Digital Print Courtesy the artist, Bryon McMahon Gallery Sydney and Christine Abrahams Gallery Melbourne

Jeff Carter Street of a Thousand Pleasures 1957 1 Jeff Carter Love in a Hot Climate 1957 2 Jeff Carter Pioneer Boulevardeers 1957 3 Jeff Carter As Good as it Got 1957 4 Jeff Carter Before Sophistication 1957 5 Jeff Carter Why go Overseas 1957 6 Jeff Carter When all else Fails (there is always fish and chips) 1957 7 Far Left - Jeff Carter Tableau 1957 Jeff Carter Passing Time c.1963 Jeff Carter A Touch of Class c.1963 1 Above - Jeff Carter The Age of Ignorance c.1963 2 Jeff Carter Not Parking, just Pausing c.1963 3 Jeff Carter Worlds Apart c.1963 4 Jeff Carter Mutual Appreciation c.1963 5 Jeff Carter Apres Surf c.1963 6 Jeff Carter Best Dressed, Less Dressed c.1963 “Venturi has written a dangerous book …. It inverts the ideas that many have based their which when opened out stretches for over 8 metres. The small size of the images just allows professional lives upon” you to read the detail on the shops, hotels and vacant lots - Plushpups sits beside the Hotel Continental, the Body Shop Burlesque and Liquor Lockett. Encased in a glittering silver slip This ‘dangerous book’ was Learning from Las Vegas, first published in 1972, which on one case, it has become a small but influential icon of the Pop Art period. level was a study of the Las Vegas strip as a phenomenon of architectural communication, but whose broader intent was to argue for a recognition of the value and role of the architectural Ruscha commented - “The photographs I use are not ‘arty’ in any sense of the word – I think form of the everyday – signage, shopping centres, garages, parking lots - and against what the photography is dead as fine art; its only place is in the commercial world …I want absolutely authors termed purist Modernism, which had become sterile and divorced from the way that neutral material” people and cities actually wanted to function. They advocated the vitality of architecture of inclusion – against ‘the deadness that results in too great a preoccupation with tastefulness Gollings has taken this idea of making a series of photographs and then combining them to and total design’. form a long image of the streetscape, but has also inserted his own photographic language to make his work anything but neutral. Shot from the rooftop of a slowly moving car he Far from being threatened by these ideas, three young architects, living far away in Melbourne, painstakingly made over 10 street strips of central Surfers Paradise some using over 20 were immediately attracted to the arguments. They decided to test out the ideas and make different images. Shooting in colour he is able to capture the graphic intensity of the line their own study of the one place in Australia that unashamedly embraced the American style of awnings and signs beneath a bright blue sky, and rather than mechanically align each iconography of signs and symbols to create a streetscape of escapism – Surfers Paradise. photograph neatly, he has chosen to push and flatten the shapes of the buildings to enhance their graphic quality and to maintain the legibility of the signs. Pedestrians appear occasionally Tony Styant-Browne, Mal Horner and John Gollings had studied together at Melbourne and with their shorts and long white walk socks are definite markers of their time. University in the late 1960s and Styant- Browne went on to write a masters thesis on the Strip city. Gollings had decided to pursue his pre-university interest in photography and was working Some, with their careful composition and capturing of itinerant detail, such as Hotel Surfers with commercial advertising as well as beginning to specialise in architectural photography. City which features a gleaming blue sports car out front, take on all the qualities of street Their Gold Coast connections where reinforced by their own holiday experiences photography of the captured moment. as teenagers and by Styant-Browns father who had practiced as an architect here for a number of years. The medium format compositions such as Mini Putt Putt and Modern Units are early indicators of Gollings’ now renowned elegance, but there are also works of humour and irony such as The year they came - 1974 - was an exceptionally bad one for Surfers Paradise. Cyclonic the rear view of the Revolving Aquarium restaurant sign with the photo point station and the rains had bought extensive flooding to Brisbane and the Gold Coast, first on Australia Day looming beer jug beneath a threatening sky. Some works hint at the passing of a golden age for and then later again in March. The beaches were stripped of sand leaving bare the unsightly, Surfers Paradise – he photographs the fading signage for Siesta Motel , the tired Golden Mile but essential, rock walls protecting the Esplanade and tourist numbers were significantly Flats and the pool of the El Dorado ( the first motel in Surfers Paradise and then just over 20 down. Political uncertainty at a Federal level and the spectre of inflation kept building years old) in an warm sunset light, knowing that these would not be part of the streetscape for activity low and only two small high-rises were built in that year. very much longer.

This background is hinted at in the hundreds of photographs that John Gollings took over As often happens with such projects, time and the immediacy of the need to pursue careers those 3 weeks. The streets are clean but relatively quiet and orderly, although this may be and family commitments saw that their study of the Surfers Paradise strip was never published. attributed to the desire to photograph in early morning light. Styant- Browne moved to Los Angeles a year later and when Gollings visited him there he was able to purchase two copies of Ed Ruschas’ book for himself. Gollings recalls that with only three weeks scheduled to make the study before they were due to go on to other commitments, the three had already decided on quite definite photographic The images in this exhibition have never been published or exhibited before and using digital strategies before they arrived and he went to work quickly with large format, panorama and scanning, Gollings has combined the multi-images according to his original vision and they 35mm cameras. are now presented as complete. As artworks they can now be seen as representing an important moment in Australian photography – when the language of American Pop art was translated in Essentially he worked in four different styles of street photography: quick single 35mm a completely contemporary way to make a distinctive local expression. We can only hope that documentary shots of hotels, shops and signs, carefully composed medium format images that we are now ready to learn from them. concentrated on formal elements of colour and composition, wide panoramas shot in the middle of a street and finally the most complex and innovative – strip together streetscapes. Letter to the Beautification committee of Las Vegas who where anxious to plant trees and grass along the strip – “ the best things are the signs and the architecture – the median should be This multilayered approach to making photographic documentation was partly informed by the paved in Gold” Learning from Las Vegas p68 extensive use of photographic reproductions in Learning from Las Vegas, and this in turn had been informed by contemporary Pop Art. The authors, Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour, make John Gollings was born in 1944 is principal of Gollings Pidgeon a Melbourne based company reference on the second page to their debt to the Pop artists and Ed Ruscha in particular and specializing in architectural photography and graphic design. Although best known for later in the book they feature a black and white photograph that is an “Edward Ruscha” style his architectural images – including much recent work for the latest Gold Coast highrise elevation of the Vegas Strip. (Illus.33 ) developments, Gollings has lectured, published and exhibited widely both nationally and internationally in Art Galleries and Museums and holds a Masters of Architecture from RMIT. Ruscha b. 1937, had studied at art school in Los Angeles in the late 1950s and his paintings were All photographs C-Type film Contemporary digital print. Courtesy John Gollings His work is held in the collection of the Australian National Gallery. meticulous renderings of isolated commercial signage or deadpan renderings of petrol stations. John Gollings In 1966 he published a small unassuming artist’s book– Every building on the Sunset Strip – 1. Ed Ruscha quoted In Oxford companion to Contemporary Art p260 Sign Revolving Aquarium Restaurant, Isle of Capri 1974 that was literally that – a photographic strip of both sides of the road folded concertina style 1 John Gollings Ampol Service Station 5 John Gollings Surfers Paradise Street Surfers Paradise 1974 Panorama 1974 2 John Gollings Modern Units 1974 6 John Gollings Mini Putt Putt 1974 3 John Gollings El Dorado 1974 7 John Gollings Bottle Shop 1974 4 John Gollings Siesta Motel 1974 8 Below - John Gollings Street Panorama Surfers Paradise Blvd 1974 John Gollings Yum Yum 1974 John Gollings Golden Mile Flats 1974 Forward to 2008 and the Gold Coast has leap frogged other regional centres to become Parke’s photographs may at first seem like they are the lucky result of simply being in the Australia’s sixth largest city. On any given day, an average 78,000 people visit, and more right place at the right time – however the decisions made to be in those places, a clear sense than 1000 choose to settle here each month. The Gold Coast uneasily straddles competing of composition and an intuitive interest in the human condition, make him able to respond reputations as the ultimate party town and the place to gracefully retire - as a natural aquatic quickly when something does happen. Patience and physical stamina combined with intense playground for the lithe and fit, or the site of the highly fabricated fantasy ‘worlds’ - as concentration are hallmarks of his working methods but it is the quality of light and the entrepreneurial, aspirant and internationally connected but also the home base of support for saturated colour that this brings to his images that is one of the most defining elements the inwardly looking One Nation party. in his work.

In the 34 years since John Gollings made his series, the revolving Aquarium restaurant on the Before the sun even touches the horizon, Surfers Paradise is awake – in fact with the longest Isle of Capri has become an Anglican church and the mini putt putt is overlooked by an trading hours for nightclubs in the country, it never sleeps. As the light then spreads and the 80 storey residential tower. wind is still, the streets become a stage for the meeting of two separate cultures.

Trent Parke had originally planned a trip to the Gold Coast to continue a series of street Shirtless, tired, and still keyed with the exuberance of music and substances, the boys sitting photography begun in Sydney that particularly captured reflections, shadows and atmospheric on the steps at the point where Cavill Mall meets the beach have made it through the night. effects within the built canyons of the city. He was then perhaps best known for his work The beauty and infinite stretch of the beach and ocean offer the space to get things together Minutes to Midnight – a series shot in black and white over two years as he travelled the before moving on. They inhabit exactly the same place where Jeff Carter photographed his harsh, sparse vast distances of Australia, with his partner and fellow photographic artist colour beach scene over 45 years earlier. At this hour however, the beach is not theirs alone, for Narelle Autio, as the county turned over the millennium to the new century. This new city one by one, cyclists, joggers, skaters and most distinctively, surfers appear, their boards tucked series precipitated a move into intense saturated colour, shot with medium format film stock, under their arms on their way to catch a hoped-for swell. These groups pass each other without so that when printed to a large scale, each fragment of detail within the frame is laid bare. needing to acknowledge the connection of the shared time.

Parke quickly realized that the Gold Coast had a very different kind of urban landscape from 6 AM Sunday morning Surfers Paradise presents the disjunction between the culture of the conventional cities, with its aging motels and remnant fibro beach shacks surviving between night and the third of the Gold Coasts early morning inhabitants - the international tourist. mansions and high rises and the very obvious sense of continual change. The Red Lion Motel Lying asleep in a position of beautiful repose with the sea lightly drenching him, the boy is depicted in what must be its third incarnation of a new colour scheme within as many years becomes a little like human detritus, for the gaze of the tourist is firmly on the million dollar and it is now dwarfed by the sparkling apartment tower on the other side of the highway. view stretching out before him. (1)

Big skies and billowing clouds introduce another important element, but it is the This is amongst the most recent of Parkes pictures, made in February 2008. This visit coincided unpredictability and the unusual street life of the metropolis on the beach that has led him with what seemed like the only real weekend of intense heat that whole wet summer. The city to return three times since 2006 to make this ongoing series of work, Coming Soon. felt charged and eagerly embraced one last opportunity for play before the season turned.

Street Photography has continually evolved with its own rich formal language and history Our message Jesus captures the moment where one persons early morning stroll to the beach is and Parke has absorbed these legacies – both through his membership of the Magnum photo another’s disastrous end to the night – a scenario played out beneath the ironic call to personal agency and through his own large collection of books. Rather than look to the up close captured salvation of the Surfers City Chapel. (2) moment style of say Cartier-Bresson, American colour photographers of the 1960s and 1970s, Gary Winogrand and Stephen Shore have been more influential. Shore’s epic road series But it is also in the ordinary that Parke finds a kind of grace. He finds the confluence that has American Surfaces of 1972 of apparently banal streetscapes, hotel rooms, signs and characters brought a cyclist attired in red beneath a similarly hued bending crane and the reverse of a sign, met along the way, seems unremarkable at first but the concentration, matter of factness and two men walking in unison yet on the opposite sides of an otherwise deserted street, and a man constant recording have a tone that appeals to Parke. feeding a parking meter in a empty car park, framed by the discarded guard rails.

Digital photography has now made the camera a ubiquitous presence on the street. Carrying a Trent Parke was born in 1971 and raised in Newcastle, New South Wales. Using his mother’s phone or pocket camera puts the potential for taking an image of a quirky moment within the Pentax Spotmatic and the family laundry as a darkroom, he began taking pictures when he was reach of just about everyone and if that does not get you, in a post 9/11 world, a surveillance around 12 years old. Today, Parke, the only Australian photographer to become a member of the camera probably will. Magnum Photography Agency, works primarily as a street photographer. He was awarded the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography and has won World Press Photo Awards in 1999, Parke is one of 18 international photographers featured on the web site www.in-public.com 2000, 2001, and 2005, and in 2006 was awarded the ABN AMRO emerging artist award. devoted to profiling the whole genre of street photography and which also gives anyone in cyberland the opportunity to have their work reviewed and placed up. As an indicator of the He lives in Adelaide and is represented by Stills Gallery in Sydney. revival of interest in the genre, the site receives many thousands of hits per week. (1) For the record Parke notes that the tourists did check that the man was breathing Despite the obvious logistical advantages of digital cameras, Parke continues to work only in before taking their picture and that he woke shortly afterwards. film and to sell his work as C Type film prints. This enforces a discipline of being aware of the (2) The driver in the car was not hurt. remaining stock in his pocket and there is no facility for the immediate review of an image to ‘see’ if it has been captured. All other works on the following pages are Type C Photographs shown in this exhibition as Digital Prints from the series Coming Soon. Courtesy the artist, Magnum Photos and Stills Gallery Sydney

Trent Parke Vegas in Paradise Gold Coast 2006 Type C Print 114 x 143cm, Collection Gold Coast City Art Gallery Acquired 2007 Trent Parke Hard Rock. Surfers Paradise 2006 Trent Parke Six A.M. Sunday morning Surfers Paradise 2008 1 Trent Parke Burleigh sunset. Burleigh Heads 2006 2 Trent Parke Exotic vegetables. Gold Coast Hwy 2006 3 Trent Parke Instant cash in a flash. Miami. Gold Coast Hwy 2006 4 Trent Parke Combi Van. Surfers paradise 2008 5 Trent Parke Waiter. Surfers paradise 2008 6 Trent Parke Our Message Jesus. Broadbeach Gold Coast Hwy 2008 7 Trent Parke Red Lion Motel. Surfers Paradise 2008 8 Trent Parke Pastor Benny Hinn’s Holy Spirit Miracle Crusade. Surfers Paradise 2008 9 Trent Parke Five A.M. Sunday Morning. Surfers Paradise 2008 10 Trent Parke Morning storm. Surfers Paradise 2008 11 Trent Parke Sunrise in paradise. Surfers Paradise 2008 12 Trent Parke Man Feeding Meter. Surfers Paradise 2008

Trent Parke Crime Stoppers Surfers Paradise 2008 The exhibition is presented with the generous sponsorship of the Sunland Group.

Listed international developer the Sunland Group, is delighted to support this exhibition of important photographs which vividly capture the evolution of the Gold Coast from a holiday coastal town to a vibrant, sophisticated city. Sunland was founded on the Gold Coast 25 years ago and has proudly played an innovative role in the development of the city’s distinctive urban environment and its landmark architectural achievements. We value the opportunity to look through the eyes of these artists to celebrate our region’s past and focus on a future vision for the Gold Coast.

Gold Coast City Art Gallery wishes to thank the Sunland Group for their support and the three artists, Jeff Carter, John Gollings and Trent Parke, for their enthusiasm in working on this project and for making their works available for exhibition.

Gold Coast City Art Gallery Gold Coast Arts Centre 135 Bundall Rd Surfers Paradise Ph 61 7 55816567 [email protected] www.gcac.com.au

Acknowledgments This catalogue is published by Gold Coast City Art Gallery on the occasion of the exhibition Streets of Gold Jeff Carter John Gollings Trent Parke Photographs from Gold Coast Streets 1957 – 2008 28 March – 11 May 2008 Curator: Virginia Rigney Curator Public Programs GCCAG Design: Peter Sexty Design © Images: Jeff Carter, John Gollings Trent Parke Text: Virginia Rigney ISBN 978 0 9775023 3 3