Review | Bill Henson at Tolarno Galleries
When I visited Tolarno Galleries it was quiet and almost deserted. Nothing hinted at the 500 strong crowds which had piled in for the opening night, nothing except the director’s lost voice. In the silence I contemplated the thirteen Henson photographs. I was drawn to the far corner and Untitled 2009/2010 (#11) and found that it encapsulated Henson’s interest in artworks of the past, statuary and the body as a sight for more than sexuality.
A red haired figure fills the frame with her head bent forwards and bare shoulders cropped at the chest. Light falls from behind her, illuminating a flame red strand of her hair and white skin under her neck. Her chin and profile are almost in silhouette, but there is enough light that we notice the figure’s closed eyes and reflective withdrawn expression. Shadows mottle the skin of the nude figure making it look like marble. There are blues, purples and greens swirling on the skin of the figures in this series, however in Untitled 2009/2010 (#11) stands out, her skin is creamy, life filled.
She is surrounded by darkness; her hair is absorbed into the black background, which contrasts with a wisp of red hair. Her pose is has something in common with Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus (c. 1486). Though her head is tilted further forward, this model is posed at a similar angle to Venus. Her shoulders are bare like Venus’s and her age and fiery hair are similar to The Birth of Venus. There are differences, however, Venus looks at the viewer and the model in Untitled 2009/2010 (#11) looks down. Is this a modern Venus we see? And if so why does she look away?
Other photographs in this series take the connection with art history further. There are two interior photographs which depict the blurred heads of gallery viewers in front of works of art. Untitled 2009/2010 (#3) and (#10) specifically feature paintings by Rembrandt van Rijn from the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia - The Return of the Prodigal Son (c. 1663-65) and Danaë (1636). These two images alone are foundation enough for a whole essay. I think Henson chose these two specifically because of the way Rembrandt has used light. In both paintings a golden light lands on or surrounds the subjects, the men in The Return of the Prodigal Son are lit from the direction we are looking from. Their hands and faces are glowing. Similarly Danaë’s body glows, almost from within, but the source of this perfect, pure light is not clear. Light in these images has the effect of presenting a universal truth – as though what we are seeing is reality, not from a story.
Rembrandt has a talent for depicting the mythical as though he had encountered it personally, as though it had existed with him in 17th century Holland. Two Old Men Disputing (1628) in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria is an excellent example of this. Saints Peter and Paul sit in a small room filled with early morning sunlight, suggesting that they have been talking all night. One holds a book while the other points to a passage in it. The light appears at once common, everyday as well as celestial (as the light of inspiration). Is it just the morning sun, or is it evidence of a momentous epiphany in their discussion?
The way in which Henson uses light in his photography is very different to Rembrandt; Henson does not enter the mythical realm of storytelling except through the intertextual inclusion of these masterpieces from the Hermitage Museum. Instead Henson, in my opinion, creates an alternate realm, residing alongside these mythical stories and alongside ours. It is a realm in which the light that touches a body is highly controlled. Henson’s lighting has the effect of highlighting the humanness of his subjects; we see veins, bruise-like patterns, bluish green shadows and above all the body as real and lived in. Though Rembrandt and Henson are not entirely interested in the perfect female form they are both concerned with representing life just outside our grasp. We’ll never meet Danaë or Venus, but we can glimpse them sometimes at night.
Rembrandt’s figures, in particular Danaë, are almost lit from within and their mythic status comes from this other worldly light. In both Henson and Rembrandt’s work however I see a connection between the mythic and the every day. Rembrandt projected from the present into the classical past and Henson too, explores classical antiquity but he includes Rembrandt in his exploration which makes us question the role of myth in our lives.
Henson’s signature black bluish lighting and strong black backgrounds signifies the unknown. The darkness in impenetrable, provides no answers and denotes night, death, aporia (an impasse), and as I’ve said, a sort of world apart in which mythic and prosaic stories exist side by side in the tradition of Rembrandt. I think it is telling that Rembrandt’s work, which clearly interests Henson, does not address this unknown, this blackness. Rembrandt’s shadows are not as deep; they do not probe our awareness of what is beyond the frame. Rembrandt’s shadows serve only to enhance the light, where as I think Henson’s lighting serves to enhance the darkness.
Debate (not criticism) in the papers around the Tolarno Galleries show centred in part on whether high school students should see Henson’s show. While I was contemplating the photographs a school group came through the gallery. Mostly female walked around in groups, a few by themselves, looking at the work and looking at each other. They discussed the work with their teacher and the gallery staff.
The body in Henson’s photographs, past and present, with its connection to art of the past, fits within the tradition of the nude. Kenneth Clark describes the nude (as opposed to the naked) as ‘a balanced, prosperous, and confident body: the body re-formed’. Though Henson’s nudes do not always appear confident he manages to capture the body reformed, in other words there is something different, added, or removed from the way in which we would normally imagine young bodies. It is the realm I mentioned above and in it Henson finds the space to explore how the body relates to this tradition of the nude.
And they’re beautiful; I could not escape this fact while in front of the photographs. There are many ways to read a nude and we just have to look back at the way this has been done in the past to see that the power of the gaze resides with the viewer. Henson presents one frame in what could be a film sequence; it is up to us to fit a story around it if we wish.
Bill Henson at Tolarno Galleries until 21 April 2011
