Cruel Radiance
Streetscapes in Photography
27 July - 27 September 2007
This selection from the Art Gallery of South Australia's photography collection traces an
aesthetic sensibility carried by migrants and refugees from Europe to the new worlds of America and
Australia and by expatriates travelling in the other direction. These photographers engage with the
formal qualities of signage and advertising in streetscapes. The photographs capture an urban view.
Although the images seem depopulated, the presence of people is everywhere - in architecture and
graffiti - the places people make and the things left behind. Some works explore photography as a
form of social commentary with empathy for those who have lived with hardship, poverty and
dislocation. Others register hope and simple pleasure in what is.
The display includes the works of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassaï, Walker Evans, Aaron
Siskind, Weegee, and Australians Wolfgang Sievers, Mark Strizic, Grant Mudford and Eric Thake.
