SPARE OF THE MOMENT

Leading Australian photographer Bill Henson recently opened his latest photography series at the Hellenic Museum, channelling preeminent Greek cultural institution.

 

WORDS BY JACK FREEMAN & IMAGES BY THE HELLENIC MUSEUM

 

The show titled “ONERIROI” represents Henson’s bold career as he goes into deeper levels of understanding the impact of history, beauty, culture and art, bringing on extended metaphors of us, the audience as custodians of the past and the preservation of future generations. Henson known for challenging boundaries of experimentation uses chiaroscuro lighting, composition and the human form to evoke powerful narrative and pure beauty. Robert Buckingham states "I have known and admired Bill Henson for nearly 40 years. It is an honour to support a permanent installation of Bill's work at the Hellenic Museum in Melbourne. My contribution is inspired by philanthropists like Naomi Milgrom who demonstrate how private funding and collaboration can make great things happen. My father made it possible for me to sponsor this project and I have dedicated it to his memory."

 

Incorporating precious treasures from the Athens based Benaki Museum’s award winning exhibition “Gods, Myths and Mortals”, Henson’s use of three thousand five-hundred-year old solid gold Kylix and 2500-year-old wreath become a symbol of the past and its rich survival and decay. Henson states “It's interesting to feel as though one is seeing something from an equal distance and closeness, and that one can sense both a tender, intimate, breathing proximity and, simultaneously, an anonymous, monumental and unknowable distance in the same work at the same time. As though a work manages to contain all manner of opposing forces or contradictions. This is a quality that I respond to in all good art”.

 

The exhibition opened on the 8th of April and The Hellenic Museum is open from Tuesday to Sunday, from 10:00am - 4:00pm.