Daniel Palmer Associate Professor Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, Monash University, Melbourne. Curating Photography in an Age of Hyperabundance Govett-Brewster Symposium: Practices in Contemporary Photography, 8 Jul 2016 Len Lye Centre Cinema Govett-Brewster Art Gallery New Plymouth, New Zealand Today, more photographs are reportedly taken every two minutes than during the entire 19th century. In contrast to the largely singular hand-made analogical prints seen in Emanations: The Art of the Cameraless Photograph, most of these are ephemeral, bound for circulation as digital data. In context of this hyperabundance, curating of photography has arguably become increasingly important—but it also faces some challenges. This paper explores how the complex status of photography, its ambiguous presence as both a reproducible image and a singular object, has the potential to complicate spectatorship. Ruminating on the notion that a photograph is also an event that unfolds anew with each encounter, I consider what lessons artists working with photography have to offer curators, and explore how museums and galleries around the world have started to respond to hyperabundance through new modes of viewer and public engagement with photographic images. Daniel Palmer is Associate Dean of Graduate Research and Associate Professor in the Art History & Theory Program at Monash Art, Design & Architecture. His new book Photography and Collaboration: From Conceptual Art to Crowdsourcing will be published by Bloomsbury in early 2017. The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery hosted a symposium on 8 July 2016 with curators, artists and academics from New Zealand and Australia to discuss the changing landscape of contemporary photography in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally. Other speakers included: Edith Amituanai, artist Chanelle Carrick, Curator Pictorial Collections, Puke Ariki, New Plymouth Serena Bentley, Assistant Curator Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Victoria Peter Ireland, artist, independent critic Sandy Callister, independent curator and author. Geoffrey Batchen, Professor School of Art History, Classics and Religious Studies, Victoria University of Wellington For more information about the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery visit our website www.govettbrewster.com/

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