Exhibition Review: Photography | Brian Rope
William Yang's Mardi Gras | William Yang
National Library of Australia (NLA) Treasures Gallery | 6 December 2023 – 1 December 2024
One of my prized possessions is a copy of Yang's book China, inscribed simply by his own hand “To Brian, Best Wishes, William Yang, Port Macquarie, 2011”. I had just heard and seen one of his presentations during the Australian Photographic Society’s annual convention in that coastal centre.
Yang is a well-known and renowned Australian performer, filmmaker, artist, and photographer. He began his career shooting fashion, but soon shifted to social documentary. Gay liberation, illegal Sydney warehouse parties, and AIDS-related deaths were all documented by this photographer.
Born in Mareeba, North Queensland, in 1943, Yang was raised in the little village of Dimbulah in the Atherton Tablelands. He got his first camera when he was seventeen but didn't start taking photography seriously until he was a university student. He relocated to Sydney in 1969 with the intention of becoming a playwright, but instead found employment as a freelance photographer covering social events. When his 1977 solo exhibition Sydneyphiles opened at the Australian Centre for Photography, his images received critical acclaim.
That exhibition gave viewers an almost voyeuristic glimpse into the social circles and private lives of people who were rarely seen by the general public, including socialites, fashion designers, actors, directors, artists, and Sydney's gay community. The community at that time was controversial as homosexual behaviour was prohibited. In Australia, pictures of gay life, love, and sex had never been shown so widely. Those who were gay and had their photos taken by the artist ran the risk of losing their jobs or facing rejection from their families.
In 1978, a newly formed Gay Solidarity Group held a protest demonstration followed by a parade celebrating queer pride: the Mardi Gras. Due to illness, Yang missed the first three annual parades whilst convalescing in Queensland. Returning to Sydney in time for the 1981 parade, Yang became a pre-eminent chronicler of Mardi Gras.
More than 250 of Yang’s photographs are held by the NLA. Among them are series relating to artists, writers, actors, celebrities, friends, Chinese Australians, intimate dinners, boisterous parties, and the Mardi Gras. This NLA Collections-in-Focus exhibition, William Yang’s Mardi Gras, displays material from over 20 years of photography documenting the parades. Originally opened late in 2023, the exhibition had to close whilst the venue was being renovated but has now resumed.
The 24 images displayed (all with Yang's trademark handwritten descriptions on them) explore four themes: Protest, Community, Art and Remembrance. What began as a protest event celebrating queer life, also became a community event; an artistic event; an event to remember people of the community lost to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
An image of a fairy makes a statement about the courage of revealing oneself as a gay/queer at that time.
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| Fairy, Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, 1982. William Yang (National Library of Australia-nla.obj-136859502) |
An image of two people lighting a candle effectively and sensitively remembers those who died from AIDS.
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| “The Last Candle.” AIDS Vigil 1994. 2/10. William Yang (National Library of Australia-nla.obj-136864462) |
Morals crusader, Fred Nile, was made fun of in the 1989 parade when a Papier Mâché version of his head on a platter made an appearance. Yang was there to get an image.
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| The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and the Head of Fred Nile 1989 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras. William Yang (National Library of Australia-nla.obj-136862227) |
Yang was also there in 2009 to capture a simple, but effective, image of a protestor urging people to fight AIDS rather than Iraq where Australia had been involved in armed conflict from 2003.
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| “Protest.” NSW Mardi Gras. 2009 1/10. William Yang (National Library of Australia-nla.obj-136861261) |
After years of documenting the parades, Yang wrote in his monologue Friends of Dorothy I’ve finally figured out what Mardi Gras is. It’s the re-enactment of a ritual. A ritual we have worked out over the years as defining and celebrating a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex culture.
In a review of Yang’s Sydneyphiles Reimagined, at the State Library of New South Wales, Edward Scheer wrote Yang’s photographs …… offer the complete opposite of the selfie. ….. he offers carefully framed and curated portraits. ……. He brings the pictures back into the present moment.
This exhibition reminds us of the importance of Collections held by the NLA and other institutions. The opportunities to see exhibitions of selections from such Collections should be taken by us all if we possibly can do so.
This review is also available on the author's blog here.
