Justine Varga
NationalityAustralian
EducationNational Art School, Sydney
Known forPhotography
Notable workDesklamp (2011–12); Maternal Line (2017); Photogenic Drawing (2018)
AwardsJosephine Ulrick & Win Shubert Foundation for the Arts Photography Award (2013 and 2016); Olive Cotton Award for Photographic Portraiture (2017); 21st Dobell Drawing Prize (2019)

Justine Varga (born 1984, Sydney) is an artist based in Sydney, and Oxford, United Kingdom.[1] She is known for her interrogation of the photographic medium.[2] Varga's approach is exemplified by her award-winning portrait Maternal Line, one of several awards the artist has received for her photography.[3][4]

Career

Varga graduated with Honours from the National Art School, Sydney in 2007.[5] Shortly thereafter, her photography entered the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2009.[6][7] Her work was selected for significant emerging talent awards and survey exhibitions including: the 2011 Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship Exhibition, Artspace, Sydney (2011); and the 21st Primavera: Young Australian Artists, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney (2012).[8][9] Varga's photographs were included in Flatlands: Photography and Everyday Space, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2012–13), with her first international exhibition being in held in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2013.[10][11]

Since that time, her work has frequently been exhibited in important museum exhibitions: Australian Art: Now at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2015); Paris Photo, Grand Palais, Paris, France (2015);[12] Emanations: The Art of the Cameraless Photograph, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, Aotearoa New Zealand (2016);[13] New Matter: Recent Forms of Photography, Art Gallery of New South Wales (2016–17);[14] TarraWarra Biennial 2018: From Will to Form, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria, Australia (2018);[15] Performing Drawing, National Gallery of Australia (2018–19);[16] Ways of Seeing, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia (2019);[17] Defining Space/Place: Australian Contemporary Photography, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, US (2019);[18] News from the Sun, City Gallery Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand (2019–20);[19] Direct Contact: Cameraless Photography Now, Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, US (2023);[20] Bright Sparks, The Treasury, Bodleian Library, Oxford University, United Kingdom (2023).[21]

Varga was interviewed in her London studio for the feature documentary Making a Mark, which premiered at the Adelaide Film Festival in 2017.[22]

In 2018, she co-curated Runes: Photography and Decipherment, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne.[23] In that same year, she completed a major commission for Duo Central Park, Sydney, a building designed by Foster + Partners in London.[24][25]

Her work has been discussed in histories of photography, including Installation View: Photography Exhibitions in Australia (1848–2020) (Perimeter Editions, 2021), and Negative/Positive: A History of Photography (Routledge, 2021).[26][27]

Maternal Line

In 2017, Varga was awarded the biannual Olive Cotton Award for Photographic Portraiture for Maternal Line, a portrait the artist made of and with her grandmother.[3] Varga asked her Hungarian grandmother to inscribe herself onto a sheet of film negative using her pens and saliva, then printed from that negative in the darkroom to make the awarded photograph.[28] A furore developed online and in the national press within Australia and internationally.[29][30][31][32][33] This was largely due to there being no camera used in its production, nor did it show a face. It was the first time a contemporary Australian photograph was on the front page of one of the major print newspapers since an exhibition of Bill Henson’s work was shut down by police in 2008.[34]

In response to the outcry, the award's judge, Shaune Lakin, Senior Curator of Photography at the National Gallery of Australia said, "In spite of the fact photographic history is lined with examples of nonrepresentational portraits and self-portraits, there remains an expectation that photography’s primary function is to witness the world and that a photographic portrait should show what its subject looked like." And, "To argue that photography requires a camera is to assert a very partial or selective view of the medium’s history of the photograph..."[3]

He described the experience of standing in front of Maternal Line, "It was a moving, melancholic experience: to witness a moment of significant emotional and cultural exchange between two women at such different points in their lives; to be left with a strong feeling for the subject’s personality and – to quote Olive Cotton’s daughter Sally McInerney – her soul... In the end, Maternal Line called itself out as the award’s most ambitious portrait".[3]

Awards

Collections

References

  1. ↑ "Tolarno Galleries: Justine Varga". Tolarno Galleries. Retrieved 2023-09-23.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 https://ocula.com/artists/justine-varga/
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Why I chose the 'spit and scribble' photograph: Olive Cotton judge on the global furore". The Guardian. 2017-08-02. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  4. 1 2 3 Wagstaff, Camilla (2019-04-03). "Photographer Justine Varga wins Dobell Drawing Prize". Art Collector Magazine. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  5. ↑ "Justine Varga". Artist Profile. 2019-02-03. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  6. ↑ "#7, 2009, Empty studio by Justine Varga". www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  7. ↑ "#1, 2009, Empty studio by Justine Varga". www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  8. ↑ "2011 Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship Exhibition". ArtSpace. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  9. ↑ "Primavera 2012 (21st) | Exhibitions | MCA Australia". www.mca.com.au. Retrieved 2023-04-08.
  10. ↑ "Works shown in the exhibition Flatlands: photography & everyday space | Art Gallery of NSW". www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  11. ↑ "Available light: imagining more... | Exhibitions | MutualArt". www.mcnamara.co.nz. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  12. ↑ Grogan, Jean (2015-02-01). "The world in pictures". Creative Review. Retrieved 2023-04-10.
  13. ↑ "Emanations | Govett-Brewster Art Gallery | Len Lye Centre". govettbrewster.com. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  14. ↑ Rubeli, Ella (2016-09-23). "New Matter: Exhibition challenges traditional ideas of photography". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  15. ↑ "TarraWarra Biennial: From Will to Form". Artlink Magazine. Retrieved 2023-09-23.
  16. ↑ "Performing Drawing". National Gallery of Australia. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  17. ↑ Maps, Visit North Terrace Adelaide SA 5000 Australia T. +61 8 8207 7000 E. infoartgallery sa gov au www agsa sa gov au AGSA Kaurna yartangka yuwanthi AGSA stands on Kaurna land Open in. "Ways of Seeing: Recent acquisitions from the collection". AGSA – The Art Gallery of South Australia. Retrieved 2023-09-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  18. ↑ "Defining Place/Space: Contemporary Photography from Australia". Museum of Photographic Arts (MOPA). Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  19. ↑ "News from the Sun | City Gallery Wellington". citygallery.org.nz. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  20. ↑ "Direct Contact: Cameraless Photography Now". Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  21. ↑ "Bright Sparks: Photography and the Talbot Archive". visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  22. ↑ Making a Mark (2017) – IMDb, retrieved 2023-04-17
  23. ↑ "Runes: Photography and Decipherment". Centre for Contemporary Photography. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  24. 1 2 Artdaily. "Tolarno Galleries now representing Justine Varga". artdaily.cc. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  25. ↑ Leake, Rosy (2019-09-27). "Justine Varga: Camera Observa". Art Collector Magazine. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  26. ↑ "INSTALLATION VIEW – Perimeter Editions". perimetereditions.com. Retrieved 2023-09-23.
  27. ↑ "Negative/Positive: A History of Photography". Routledge & CRC Press. Retrieved 2023-09-23.
  28. ↑ "The Maternal Line: Justine Varga". Artlink Magazine. Retrieved 2023-04-17.
  29. 1 2 Taylor, Andrew (2017-07-24). "Olive Cotton Award: Photographic portrait prize awarded to image without a face". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  30. 1 2 Taylor, Andrew (2017-07-27). "Olive Cotton Award: Is it a photo? Is it a portrait? Should Justine Varga's grandmother be given the prize money?". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  31. 1 2 Sydney, Bernard Lagan. "Justine Varga's saliva 'portrait' leaves artists spitting". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  32. 1 2 "Spitting image: Can drool be art?". BBC News. 2017-07-26. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  33. 1 2 "Grandmother's saliva portrait outcry". ABC News. 2017-07-25. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  34. ↑ Bibby, Paul (2008-05-23). "Henson exhibition shut down". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2023-04-17.
  35. ↑ "Acme | Justine Varga". Acme Studios. Retrieved 2023-04-14.
  36. ↑ "Justine Varga wins 2016 Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award". Art Guide Australia. 2016-06-27. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  37. ↑ "Dobell drawing prize 2019: exploring with light and long shadows – in pictures". the Guardian. 2019-03-27. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  38. ↑ "The Australian: Dobell Spirit Lingers in a Different Medium". www.dobellartfoundation.org.au. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  39. ↑ "Artbank". Artbank. Retrieved 2023-09-23.
  40. ↑ "Works by Justine Varga | Art Gallery of NSW". www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au. Retrieved 2023-04-10.
  41. ↑ st, Visit North Terrace Adelaide SA 5000 Australia T. +61 8 8207 7000 E. infoartgallery sa gov au www agsa sa gov au AGSA Kaurna yartangka yuwanthi AGSA; l, s on Kaurna; Maps, Open in. "Justine Varga". AGSA – The Art Gallery of South Australia. Retrieved 2023-04-10.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  42. ↑ "Collections". Macquarie University. Retrieved 2023-09-23.
  43. ↑ "MAPh". maph.org.au. Retrieved 2023-09-23.
  44. ↑ Neely, Danielle (2019-03-24). "Dobell Drawing Prize #21". National Art School. Retrieved 2023-09-23.
  45. ↑ "Justine Varga – Search the Collection, National Gallery of Australia". National Gallery of Australia. Retrieved 2023-04-10.
  46. ↑ "Search the Collections – UQ Art Museum – - The University of Queensland, Australia". www.artmuseum.uq.edu.au. Retrieved 2023-09-23.

Further reading

  • Nataša Ilec Kralj, ‘Fotografski Vpiisis Justine Varge’, Membrana (Ljubljana, 2021).
  • Daniel Palmer and Martyn Jolly, ‘Analogue Materiality’, Installation View: Photography Exhibitions in Australia (1848–2020) (Perimeter Editions, 2021), pp.378–382: ISBN 978-1-922545-00-8.
  • Geoffrey Batchen, ‘Photogenic drawings’, Negative/Positive: A History of Photography (Routledge, 2020), pp.35–45: ISBN 9780367405830.
  • Kirsty Baker, ‘Justine Varga’, Artist Profile, 49 (Sydney, April – June, 2019), pp.62–71.


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