Juno Gemes

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Juno Gemes (born 1944) is a Hungarian-born Australian activist and photographer, best known for her photography of Aboriginal Australians.[1] A performer, theatre director, writer and publisher, Gemes was one of the founders of Australia's first experimental theatre group The Human Body.

Early life[edit]

Juno Gemes was born in 1944 in Budapest, emigrating to Australia with her parents Alex and Lucy Gemes[2] in 1949.[3]

Career[edit]

Theatre[edit]

Gemes studied at the University of Sydney and the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) and graduated in 1964.[4] In 1968 Gemes directed The Human Body Australia's first experimental theatre group, established with Johnny Allen and Clem Gorman.[5][6] Some of The Human Body Performances at the Powerhouse warehouse in Haymarket, featured a geodesic light dome built by Jacky Joy Jacobson and Michael Glasheen from 5,000 light bulbs.[7] Gemes worked in theatre and film, and worked in London sporadically in the late 1960s and 1970s, where she wrote for the London-based underground newspaper International Times. While in London, Gemes performed in some of Yoko Ono's work including the avant-garde film Bottoms and a performance piece The scream at the Perfumed Garden.[8]

Photography[edit]

Gemes began exhibiting her photography in Australia in 1966, and held her first solo exhibition, "We Wait No More", in 1982.[9] In 1971, Gemes became involved with the Yellow House Artist Collective in Potts Point, Sydney.[3] Collaborating with another member of the Collective, landscape artist Mick Glasheen, to document traditional stories about Uluru.[7] They stayed in the Central Desert for six months in a geodesic dome seeking out the Pitjantjara elders in the area.[7]

Gemes is known for her photographs depicting the cultural and political struggle of indigenous peoples in Australia,[10][11] including land rights, the handing back of Uluru to the traditional owners, and the National Apology to the Stolen Generations in the Federal Parliament.[12] Gemes describes Nothing Personal by James Baldwin and Richard Avedon, which examines American culture including civil rights and the rise of black nationalism,[13] as an early influence in her work.[14] In 1976, Gemes photographed American civil rights leader James Baldwin on the rooftop of the Athenaeum Hotel in London.[15][10][16]

Under Another Sky, Juno Gemes Photography 1968–1988, a survey of Gemes work from over twenty years was exhibited in Budapest and Paris in the late 1980s.[1]

In 2018, Gemes told The Sydney Morning Herald her reason for taking up photography: "It was because I saw that Aboriginal people were invisible that I took up the camera." Much of her work has documented the Aboriginal rights and land rights movements,[14] from the Aboriginal Tent Embassy to 2008 when she was one of ten photographers selected to officially document the Apology to Australia's Indigenous peoples.[17]

Gemes has thirty works in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Australia.[18] Her papers are held at the National Library of Australia and the Mitchell Library of the State Library of New South Wales.[19]

Publishing[edit]

In 1986 Gemes and her partner Australian poet Robert Adamson[17] co-founded, with writer Michael Wilding, independent publishing company Paper Bark Press (sometimes spelt Paperbark[20]), which published Australian poetry. Wilding left the company in 1990, and Gemes and Adamson continued to run the company[21] until 2002.[20]

In 1997 Adamson and Gemes collaborated on the publication The Language of Oysters.[22]

Personal life[edit]

Gemes' son, Orlando Gemes, born in London in 1975, is pictured with Essie Coffey OAM in a portrait at the National Portrait Gallery. He travelled with his mother as she documented Aboriginal people and activism.[23]

Selected exhibitions[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Juno Gemes b. 1944, Design & Art Australia Online.
  2. ^ "Juno Gemes: The Movement for Civil Rights in Australia, 1971 to 2010". Rochford Street Review. 25 November 2020. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  3. ^ a b Juno Gemes, National Portrait Gallery.
  4. ^ "All alumni". National Institute of Dramatic Art. 23 September 2015. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  5. ^ Gorman, Clem. "Before The Fringe". Stage Whispers. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  6. ^ Maxwell, Ian (October 2017). "Mayakovsky's hammer: Experimental theatre as romantic modernism, Sydney, 1968–1970". Australasian Drama Studies (71): 112–136. ISSN 0810-4123.
  7. ^ a b c Glasheen, Michael (10 June 2020). "Drawing on the land: Garigal country (exhibition catalogue)". Issuu. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  8. ^ McIntyre, Iain, 1970- (2006), Tomorrow is today : Australia in the psychedelic era, 1966–1970, Wakefield Press, ISBN 978-1-86254-697-4{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  9. ^ a b Gemes, Juno (1982), "1 poster : colour ; 41.5 x 31.5 cm", We wait no more, Hogarth Gallery & Apmira November 5 to 26 1982, Sydney, nla.obj-138346645, retrieved 5 February 2021 – via Trove
  10. ^ a b c "Juno Gemes – The Quiet Activist : Survey exhibition 1979 -2019 | Head On Photo Festival". www.headon.com.au. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  11. ^ Adair, Linda (25 June 2019). "Haunting and luminous 'Juno Gemes: The Quiet Activist – A Survey Exhibition 1979–2019' a response by Linda Adair". Rochford Street Review. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  12. ^ Gemes, Juno (January 2008). "Witnessing the Apology". Australian Aboriginal Studies. 1: 115–123.
  13. ^ Als, Hilton. "Richard Avedon and James Baldwin's Joint Examination of American Identity". The New Yorker. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  14. ^ a b Gemes, Juno. "The Political and the Personal Process in Portraiture: Juno Gemes in Conversation - National Portrait Gallery, August 2003." Australian Aboriginal Studies (Canberra, A.C.T. : 1983) 2003.2 (2003): 85-92.
  15. ^ "Notebook Revelations: Juno Gemes' portrait of James Baldwin". Rochford Street Review. 9 November 2020. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  16. ^ a b Fairley, Gina (27 June 2019). "Review: The Quiet Activist: Juno Gemes Survey, Macquarie University Art Gallery". ArtsHub Australia. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  17. ^ a b Baker, Candida (4 May 2018). "Life on the Hawkesbury: A photographer, a poet and a bowerbird called Spinoza". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 9 March 2019.
  18. ^ "Juno Gemes, b. 1944". National Portrait Gallery people. Retrieved 29 November 2020.
  19. ^ "Guide to the Papers of Robert Adamson | Academy Library | UNSW Canberra". www.unsw.adfa.edu.au. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  20. ^ a b Lea, Bronwyn (14 May 2013). "Poetry publishing in Australia". Bronwyn Lea. Retrieved 27 August 2022.
  21. ^ "Paper Bark Press". AustLit. 10 March 2004. Retrieved 27 August 2022.
  22. ^ Adamson, Robert; Gemes, Juno, 1944-, (photographer.) (1997), The language of oysters, Craftsman House, ISBN 978-90-5703-101-4{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  23. ^ "Essie Coffey (Bush Queen) and Orlando Gemes, 1978 (printed 2003)". National Portrait Gallery collection. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  24. ^ www.bibliopolis.com. "Under Another Sky. Uluru Handback Ceremony, Sir Ninian Stephens, Hon. Barry Cohen With Traditional Owners And Their Children by Juno Gemes, b.1944 Aust on Josef Lebovic Gallery". Josef Lebovic Gallery. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  25. ^ "Guide to antiquarian books now available". Canberra Times. 17 December 1989. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  26. ^ Hinkson, Melinda (2006). "Review Our Community exhibition, National Museum of Australia, Canberra" (PDF). Aboriginal History. 30: 208. ISSN 0314-8769.
  27. ^ De Lorenzo, Catherine; Isaacs, Jennifer (2003), "Photographic proof: Portraits from the Movement 1978–2003 by Juno Gemes", Art Monthly Australia (166): 11–13, ISSN 1033-4025
  28. ^ Bennie, Angela (9 July 2003). "Charting the moves for justice". Sydney Morning Herald.
  29. ^ "NAISDA celebrates 40 years". The Dictionary of Sydney. 24 November 2016. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  30. ^ "Naya Wa Yugali - We Dance". Carriageworks. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  31. ^ Adair, Linda (14 September 2019). "Gemes, Crispin & Pollak: Exhibition Preview". Rochford Street Review. Retrieved 6 February 2021.

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