Publishes,
Interview with Vivian Cooper Smith, Vivian Cooper Smith
Vivian Cooper Smith
“The Insufficient Photograph”
30.08.17 - 23.09.17
The insufficient photograph does not seek to describe anything more than it’s own existence. It resists the principle of sufficient photography that presupposes all can and will be photographed in an apparently benign, democratic utopia of infinite image. It resists its own desire to reveal, to represent, to frame, and to know. It challenges what came before. It challenges before itself. It takes no position before the world but is of the world.
The insufficient photograph begins again and again. It comes from and remains within a reworking, a returning and a turning over. It is image, apparatus and body entangled and contingent. The insufficient photograph is never alone.
—
Vivian Cooper Smith is a photo-artist based in Melbourne, Australia. Born in New Zealand, he lived in Bangladesh, India, and Perth before moving to Melbourne in 1999. His recent work employs the principles of a diffractive methodology in the making of photographic images to explore the possibility for photography to resist its inherent representationalism.
Recent solo exhibitions include ‘The Insufficient Photograph’ at Bus Projects, Melbourne (2017); ‘Apparition Apparatus’ at Galerie pompom, Sydney and Turner Galleries, Perth (2016); and ‘Concrete Compositions’ at Fort Delta, Melbourne (2015). In 2017, he was a finalist in the CLIP Award and has been a finalist in the Darebin Art Prize, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award and the Bowness Photography Prize. In 2013 he was the winner of the CCP Salon Patrick Corrigan AM Acquisitive Award. He is currently undertaking a Masters in Fine Arts (Research) at the Victorian College of the Arts and is supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. Vivian is represented by Galerie pompom, Sydney.
Vivian is represented by Galerie pompom, Sydney.
Images by Vivian Cooper Smith.