TRENT PARKE
Minutes to Midnight book by Steidl
29 February to 24 March 2012
In 2003 Trent Parke set off on a road-trip around his native Australia, a
monumental journey that was to last two years and cover a distance of over
90,000 km. Minutes to Midnight is the ambitious photographic record of that
adventure, in which Parke presents a bold but uneasy nation struggling to
craft its identity from different cultures and traditions. Originally
exhibited at the Australian Centre for Photography in 2005 the work
subsequently toured nationally and internationally.
To celebrate the upcoming publication of Minutes to Midnight by Steidl (along
with Parke’s The Christmas Tree Bucket), Stills Gallery is proud to present a
selection of some classic images from the Minutes to Midnight series as well
as previously unseen work featured in the book. Steidl, one of the world’s
most sophisticated and distinguished printing and publishing companies, has
worked with some of the most renowned photographers and artists across the
globe.
Minutes to Midnight merges traditional documentary techniques and imagination
to create a dark visual narrative portraying Australia with a mix of
nostalgia, romanticism and brooding realism. This is not a record of the
physical landscape but of an emotional one. It is a story of human anxiety and
intensity, which although told about Australia, represents a universal human
condition in the world today.
For Parke the book is a medium in which he can convey the essence of his ideas
and vision. He has said "I've never been interested in the single picture;
the book is the work. Minutes to Midnight was always about my imagination, my
place, and it's my personal document of my time... The same for The Christmas
Tree Bucket. It is not a set of 60 photographs, it is a story-book, and the
image sequence is important in building a story and a complete line of
thought."
Parke’s earlier books, Dream/Life, The Seventh Wave (with Narelle Autio) and
Bedknobs and Broomsticks (published in association with Alec Soth) have become
highly collectable. A suite of 30 Minutes to Midnight works was acquired by
the National Gallery of Australia. Parke’s works are also in the collections
of AGNSW, Artbank, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and the National Gallery
of Victoria.
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© Trent Parke Harts Ranges, 2004 from Minutes to Midnight
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