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Rock moments captured
forever |
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I
caught up with another Art on the Move show this week, this time at
the Mandurah Performing Arts Centre. Michael
Wylie’s Forever and Easy has a slightly different edge to a lot of shows
I have the good fortune of viewing — this one documents one man’s obsession
with photographing the act of making music. And I do love obsessive art — you can only admire
the fix Wylie is getting from his work. The energy going on between
subject and photographer is there for all to see and it’s this emotional
transference that makes Wylie’s images such enjoyable viewing; that
and the fact that most of us can relate to the subject matter. Going
to see a band is great fun at the best of times but what Wylie has done
in this 16-year project is capture the most intense moments of this
activity. In Forever and Easy we get a cross-section of international
acts and local bands shot around What
I really liked about Wylie’s photographs is that these images aren’t
pretentious self-promotion or all the bull you get with advertising
contemporary pop music. No,
these images are serious portraits of people hard at work and the audience
as they respond to someone putting in everything they’ve got. There’s
no eternal gloating here, as it says in the Henry Rollins’ quote next
to the image of him letting it all go: “I don’t think it’s all that
healthy to sit there and marvel at yourself too often.” That’s not what
these photos are about. Forever and Easy seems more about Wylie trying
to get inside that energy pop, the little bubble that explodes when
performer and audience connect and for the most part he does it well.
The
show is predominantly black and white; colour
comes into Wylie’s repertoire only when he needs it — the shot of Tool
frontman Maynard James Keenan gaping down
the lens comes to mind here. Colour and an open lens also work well in picking up Jed Whitey
at the Amplifier Bar in full swing but the grainy black and whites stuck
with me and, particularly in the crowd shots, make for great ambience,
concentrating on the central emotion of the audience rather than peripheral
stuff. One
black and white focuses on a single face as it screams blindly out of
a crowd catching The Hellacopters, also at the Amplifier Bar. This is the pick
of Wylie’s photos for me, like Munch’s scream
this one holds the subject in this place, in this life — everything
else about him is somewhere else. The
image is one of a few doublesided digital inkjet prints that float between the busy
walls. It’s nice to wander through them, they block out the view so
you come to the photos on the wall behind not knowing who is going to
be performing there. Of
the other works Wylie’s
honesty lets us believe in his passions and gives us all the reason
we need to understand his 16-year rock and roll odyssey. Forever
and Easy ends at the Mandurah Performing Arts
Centre tomorrow. RIC SPENCER |
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