SOCIAL WORK

One of Australia’s finest artists, David Rosetzky creates intensely beautiful lens-based works exploring identity, subjectivity and relationships. Increasingly, he collaborates with professionals from the fields of theatre, dance, film and sound. Drawing on fifteen years of practice, True Self: David Rosetzky Selected Works presents early portrait and longer duration videos, photographs, photo-collages and sculptures that reveal intimate relationships between the various aspects of his practice. It includes a major new video work, Half Brother (2013), commissioned by CCP with support from Irene Sutton. The exhibition not only allows us to see the consistency of Rosetzky’s vision, but to engage with a trajectory in his video that moves from lo-fi, singular portraits through to cinematic, long-duration work.

David Rosetzky, ‘Commune’ 2003, type C photographs mounted on composition board, flexilight, 120 x 290 x 450cm. Collection of Dr. Dick Quan, Sydney

Which member of your family influenced you the most?
David Rosetzky: It would be very difficult for me to distinguish any single family member as having more influence on me than another.

Do you think its ok to lie?
David: One could say that all art is a fiction of sorts, and therefore that lying is an essential part of art-making. So, yes I think it is more than OK to lie, it is necessary.

What does freedom mean to you?
David: Imagination.

Do you think things happen for a reason?
David: No.

What beliefs do you have that you think will never change?
David: That we are always changing.

David Rosetzky, ‘Think of Yourself as Plural’ 2008 (still), single channel high definition digital video, colour, sound, 29 minutes, 27 seconds, edition 3 of 6. Courtesy the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne.

Do you believe in the supernatural?
David: I believe in the power of belief in the supernatural.

What do you think would be the best thing about being the opposite gender?
David: I often wonder how useful binary opposites are, particularly when thinking about gender.

How do you make important decisions?
David: I would say that I am generally a fairly intuitive person, but also try and look at things from a number of different perspectives before coming to a decision.

Have you ever been lost?
David: Often at the start of a project I will feel lost, and then have to follow a number of different leads or ideas before I find something that’s potentially worth pursuing. I think you have to take a leap of faith and try things out, even if you aren’t sure of exactly where it’s leading, because it’s often the things that don’t quite turn out as planned that end up becoming the most interesting and engaging. Being lost and finding unexpected outcomes can be a very rewarding process.

If I asked a good friend of yours what you were good at, what would they say?
David: Making things up.

David Rosetzky, ‘Portrait of Cate Blanchett’ 2008 (still), single channel high definition digital video, colour, sound, 9 minutes, 56 seconds. Courtesy the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. Commissioned with funds provided by Ian Darling, 2008.

True Self: David Rosetzky Selected Works Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) (WA), 15 November – 21 December 2014 – pica.org.au

A CCP and NETS Victoria touring exhibition curated by Naomi Cass, Director and Kyla McFarlane, Associate Curator, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne. The development, presentation, promotion and tour of this project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body. The catalogue publication is made possible by support from the Gordon Darling Foundation –

netsvictoria.org.au