{"id":8633,"date":"2025-10-04T06:45:34","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T06:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malleeroutes.com\/wp\/?p=8633"},"modified":"2025-10-05T00:02:03","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T00:02:03","slug":"mallee-a-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malleeroutes.com\/wp\/mallee-a-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Mallee space: studies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A simple study of Mallee tree in the South Australian mallee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These trees were on the Sturt Highway between Truro and Blanchetown prior to the Bookfield Conservation Park.<\/a> I’d seen it when I was on my way to explore the conservation park to photograph the dense space of the mallee woodland. At the time I was staying in the Kapunda Caravan Park with the group of friends who were currently walking the Lavender Federation Trail<\/a> and so I was able to easily return a day or so latter in the late afternoon to photograph the trees on the side of the highway. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Rolleiflex
Mallee space, Sturt Highway, South Australia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The photo was made after the Murray Bridge exhibition<\/a> that was the conclusion to the collaborative phrase of the Mallee Routes project. These photos were the beginning of the more conceptual solo stage of the project that started in late 2020. This solo stage is more conceptual than the previous collaborative one due to its three themes of absent history, space\/place and unknown futures, which acknowledge and refer back to, the historical significance of conceptual art and legacy of Duchamp for contemporary photography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

On this particular occasion I was starting to tentatively explore the concept of space (as opposed to place) of the mallee woodland. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conceptual photography <\/a> the ‘concept’ is preconceived and so theory plays a formative role in the art practice. It refers back to the late 1960s to the early 1970s, where emphasis was placed on the concept or idea rather than the physical art object.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conceptual Art<\/a> was a reaction to the perceived constraints of modernIsm and the increasing commodification of the art object. Artists sought the means to think beyond the medium-specific aspects of traditional art forms, such as originality, style, expression, craft, permanence, decoration and display. Initially they used language and text to directly disseminate ideas, demystify artistic production and negate visuality and their artworks took the form of written statements, declarations, definitions and invitations.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Rolleflex
Mallee space #2, Sturt Highway, South Australia <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Conceptual art in Australia, which is associated with Robert Rooney, Ian Burn, Mel Rumsden, Dale Hickey, Robert Hunter, Alex Danko and Richard Dunn, is seen by Sasha Grishin<\/a> in his Australian Art: A History<\/a> (2013) as an historical art movement that “didn’t go much beyond criticising in a rather obvious way, consumerism, the art market and the art establishment”. (p.469). This historical movement of conceptual art asserted the anti-aesthetic claim, it attempted to absolutise the non-aesthetic character of art. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That attempt failed. Some claim that recent photography ie., large-scale, pictorial and frequently digital, colour photography (Jeff Wall, Thomas Demand, and Andreas Gursky) that has dominated photographic art since the 1990s represents a turn away from conceptual art. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An alternative interpretation is that conceptual art is not a traditional art-historical or art-critical concept at the level of medium, aesthetic form, style or movement. It denotes a transdisciplinary art premised on the complex historical experience and critical legacy of conceptual art. This is interpreted as a rupture with the traditional aesthetics that has been associated with aesthetic, sensual experience and perception (to feeling) and is opposed to concepts, conceptual thinking. It is associated with the industrial archaeology of Bernd and Hilla Becher and Ed Ruscha’s Twentysix Gasoline Stations <\/em>photo book (1963). Ruscha\u2019s books provide a verbal \u2018score\u2019 to be \ufb01lled out by speci\ufb01c photographic realizations or performances–the title is formulated in advance of taking the photographs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we have as a result is the tension of the aesthetic and conceptual components within the generic concept of the art work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A simple study of Mallee tree in the South Australian mallee. These trees were on the Sturt Highway between Truro and Blanchetown prior to the Bookfield Conservation Park. I’d seen it when I was on my way to explore the … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"kt_blocks_editor_width":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70,89,23,109],"tags":[9,8,110],"class_list":["post-8633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","category-history","category-mallee-blog","category-theory","tag-south-australia","tag-the-mallee","tag-theory"],"yoast_head":"\nMallee space: studies - Mallee Routes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A study of Mallee trees and space in the South Australian mallee.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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