Unravelling the mystery of the ordinary

By GAIL BAILEY


"I am at war with the obvious," said William Eggleston, the American photographer known as the "father of colour photography", in his book, The Democratic Forest.

He was referring to the type of pictures that contain easily identifiable objects right in the centre of the photo, the type, Eggleston said, that most people tend to like.

Banal, unremarkable, insipid - those were some of the words, though, that art critics used to describe Eggleston's 1976 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, only the second exhibition of colour photography in the museum's history.

Eggleston became infamous for showcasing the commonplace, such as shoes under a bed, run-down southern streets, family members, passers-by. However, there were those, like former curator John Szarkowski, who saw something radical in Eggleston's everyday models.

It comes as no surprise, then, that Auckland photographer Harvey Benge regards Eggleston as one of his artistic influences.

Those who have closely followed Benge's career - there have been seven photography books and numerous international exhibitions - will be well-acquainted with his skewed eye for nondescript exteriors and interiors.

Benge's first photography book, Four Parts Religion (1992), is full of shots of Auckland buildings and streets, but with a photographer's sleight of hand. Cropped images of religious signage mixed with the urban sprawl of Auckland highlight his penchant for the peripheral.

"I'm interested in the idea of mystery and enigma," he says. "Most of my pictures suggest that something has happened or something is about to happen. It is like an empty stage waiting for someone to call 'action'."

The photos of Benge's latest exhibition capture this very staging.

Hotel Art (which has nothing to do with hotels) is his first dealer show in Auckland since he left to live in Paris five years ago.

The colour photos are mostly of interiors, which Benge spartanly titles Chairs, Window, Sofa, Wall. You get the picture, but not the obvious. And that's the point.

A pair of lavender sandals on either a suitcase or a box; a blanket of rusty brown velour on a bed; a set of dining room chairs blanketed in white sheets - these are the inanimate subjects of Hotel Art.

That there exists universality in a picture of an object taken in Budapest and one taken in Auckland suggests Benge is after the same kind of democracy as Eggleston was in The Democratic Forest.

And when Benge does reveal the city or identify the place in a house where some of the shots were taken, I want to block my ears. The mystery is spoiled. It is the unknown about his work that gives it weight.

"If you look hard enough at things there is equanimity."

Benge takes photographs of random streets, spaces and people to challenge his own perception of reality, of how he might classify things.

"I'm the maker and the reader. I make the picture yet my position is almost similar to that of the viewer. This is what fascinates me about photography, that I can be informed on both sides."

Most of the pictures in Hotel Art were shot in Europe this year and continue his focus on the urban incidental.

Benge began his photography career in the early 90s and seems to relish the fact that he is untrained. Without hesitation he says: "I really know nothing about photography. I'm not interested in F-stops. I'm interested in what's in the little frame of the camera."

Exhibition

*What: Hotel Art, by Harvey Benge

*Where and when: Bath St Gallery, Parnell, to Oct 30