In Discussion with Graham Howe

Photo by Marjorie Ornston

Graham Howe, CEO & Founder of Curatorial. As a curator, art historian, author, and artist, Graham created Curatorial (then Curatorial Assistance) in 1988. With over three decades of experience in curating, producing and managing exhibition projects, he has organized and overseen the creation and circulation of more than 380 exhibitions to venues worldwide. Beginning in 2018, Howe, with Phillip Prodger, created the Solander Collection of photographic art. Before founding Curatorial, Graham was a visiting curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1984-85); he served as curator of the Graham Nash Collection (1976-88), prior to which he was the founding Director of the Australian Centre for Photography in Sydney (1973-75). In 1972, he was Exhibitions Manager at the Photographers' Gallery, London, (1972-73) and Research Assistant at the Royal Photographic Society, 1973. Graham has authored over 20 books on photography and art history and holds an MFA in Painting, Sculpture, and Graphic Art, from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a BA in Photography and Film from Prahran College, Melbourne.

I had the pleasure and honor of asking Graham about what way(s) art can be a transformative experience if one goes to an exhibition at a museum, what can be learned about Australia through this exhibition, and what are some of the most challenging things about being a curator ’, and so much more.

UZOMAH: How can exhibitions like this engage the local community in coming and understanding more, not just about art and culture but their own lives?

Graham: The central theme of the Under A Southern Star exhibition is about fostering harmony and understanding among people. The world has a long history of brutal colonization, where, one power usurps and overtakes another, but in due course there is often a process of reconciliation that begins with awareness, followed by regret, apology, and then efforts to integrate Indigenous populations with settlers. This exhibition points to a path of reconciliation, emphasizing that learning to coexist with others is a fundamentally enlightened way forward.

UZOMAH: In what way(s) can art be a transformative experience if one goes to an exhibition at a museum?

Graham: Art is a medium of engagement. It serves as a codex of ideas, opinions, viewpoints, and conversations between the artist and their audience. Unlike passive media that aims to stimulate or entertain the viewer, the mission of an art museum experience is to encourage discovery. It extends an invitation to visitors to inquire, empowering them to explore and gain understanding through the information and experiences presented. The art museum is, therefore, an interactive environment where knowledge must be sought the old-fashioned way — you have to work for it. But the rewards are immense; once you're engaged, the riches of the experience are boundless.

UZOMAH: What research went into developing this exhibit? Could you describe the process from the initial concept to the final curation?

Graham: This exhibition is a collaborative effort between Deborah Klochko, former Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Museum of Photographic Arts (MoPA) in San Diego, Ashley Lumb, independent curator, and myself as the founder and CEO of Curatorial Exhibitions. Both Ashley and I are Australian-born.

Deborah’s vision for MoPA was that, as a West Coast museum, it was better suited to looking westward across the Pacific for ideas for its exhibition programming, rather than eastward to New York, London, Paris and Rome, as many other West Coast museums have done. Encouraged by her museum trustee, Peter Farrell, Deborah visited a series of Australian museums and consulted with their curators to guide her selection of an exhibition of contemporary Australian photography, which launched in 2019.

However, with the onset of the pandemic, the proposed touring of the exhibition became impractical due to the closure of most museums worldwide. This gave us the opportunity to rethink and more tightly focus the exhibit themes around environmental issues and colonial history, not just in Australia but also as an issue that resonates for so many other countries that grapple with these issues. With Ashley’s collaborative help, we reconfigured the selection of artists to better represent a balance between Indigenous and Anglo-European cultures, exploring questions about identity and belonging in an increasingly ecologically fragile continent.

UZOMAH: Can you describe an important lesson you learned from the first exhibit you curated?

Graham: Coincidentally, my first exhibition as the founding Director of the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney, was in 1974, and it also focused on contemporary Australian photography. While curating this exhibition, I felt that showcasing the differences between each artist's vision made our conversations most interesting. I continue to apply this idea today, encouraging viewers to reflect on questions of self and society within the broader socio-political ecosystem. This approach fosters a deeper understanding of who we are and how we relate to both our society and the world at large.

UZOMAH: How do you think the exhibition Art on Hulfish | Under a Southern Star will help the audience see a different side of Australia through the artists selected to reassess the country's troubled colonial history, where the art presents questions about identity, belonging, and the continent's increasingly fragile ecosystems?

Graham: The prevailing view of Australian culture over the last century has been of a predominantly white, Anglo-Saxon society pitted against a harsh environment. Australia was often seen as a land rich in primary industries, with farmers and miners working the land. As a result, the dominant image of Australia became one of a white, ruggedly independent, and masculine culture.

Dorothea Mackellar, one of Australia’s famous poets, speaks of a "sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, of rugged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains" in one of her well-known poems. The image perpetuated of Australians was one of heroic figures emerging triumphant from hardship, not unlike the American cowboy—embodying pioneering spirit, hard work, and virtuous toil, making them admirable figures in society.

However, this was a culture imposed upon a land already perfectly tended by the people’s several hundred Indigenous tribes, who had lived on the Australian continent for more than 60,000 years. As Bruce Pascoe points out in his 2014 book Dark Emu, Indigenous Australians maintained a highly effective ecological balance, practiced sophisticated agricultural management, engaged in inter-tribal trade, and nurtured a balanced ecosystem.

I hope that what the audience takes away from the messages conveyed by the artists in this exhibition is respect, awareness, and enlightenment—that we are walking an extremely fragile path. Our lands and our people need a reversal of the destructive Western trends we have followed for so long.

UZOMAH: Can you go into depth about the most challenging thing about being a curator, how you overcome those difficulties, and what some of the joys of being a curator are? What are some of the most rewarding aspects of your role as a curator?

Graham: Curating holds the privileged position of being able to engage with and showcase other people's cultural treasures. It is truly an enviable role. However, with that privilege comes the responsibility to interpret these works thoughtfully. A curator cannot simply select personal favorites; instead, they are obliged to present the works in a way that shows their relative merits and demerits within the context of their tradition. The goal is to allow the audience a pluralistic interpretation from a broader perspective. In this way, each viewer can bring elements of their own experience to the work, deepening their engagement and enriching the quality of their interaction with the art.

One way to overcome these challenges is through a deeper understanding of the subjects being explored. This involves conducting research, understanding the histories behind specific aspects of a culture, and becoming well-versed in the issues that surround them. Perhaps the most rewarding aspect of being a curator is engaging with the artists, whether they are alive or dead.

UZOMAH: This exhibition includes many photographic techniques, including Lumachrome glass printing and AI animation. It traces photography's evolution, exploring how it was used to explore themes such as migration, environmental degradation, landscape, settler colonialism, and portraiture. How was each technique selected regarding the subject's theme?

Graham: We did not aim to create an exhibition showcasing a broad range of techniques. Rather, we focused on the ideas behind the works. As such, we followed each artist’s choice of medium as a means of conveying their message. For example, in collecting vintage mugshots of petty criminals, Vee Spears invites us to question our assumptions about criminality in Australia. Her series Guilty Not Guilty mirrors the British expression "sorry not sorry"—a phrase often used to indicate a lack of remorse for an act committed. Using AI technology, Spears animates these static portraits and gives them voice to what she imagines as their stories.

In a similar but different approach, Judith Nangala Crispin’s subjects are repurposed but her subjects of inanimate road-killed creatures are pressed onto light-sensitive paper and exposed for 24 to 36 hours in sunlight. The resulting images are then enhanced by the artist’s hand-drawn additions using a wide variety of chemistry and foodstuffs, including the occasional use of including the iconic Australian spread Vegemite. These nightscape-like worlds become the heavens that receive the deceased creature, engaging with the Aboriginal concept of the cosmic infinite, often referred to as The Dreamtime. In this worldview, the astronomical heavens are seen as the resting place of the spirits of once-earthbound creatures. Crispin, who has Indigenous Australian ancestry but was largely shaped by Western cultural traditions, creates these chemigram body impressions of deceased native Australian animals as she transforms their earthly forms into evocative representations of their flight in the night sky—a cosmic landscape for spirits as envisioned in Aboriginal culture. Her process is highly unconventional but purely photographic, and unlike a lens-based image, she makes full contact with her subjects and transforms them into astrological spirits.

UZOMAH: What can be learned about Australia through this exhibition? What do you hope each visitor learns about Australia from this exhibition?

Graham: I hope each visitor leaves this exhibition to think of others with more kindness in their hearts.

UZOMAH: What made you want to become a curator? What keeps you motivated in your role?

Graham: For me, and likely for many others, the process of applying connoisseurship as a method of relative evaluation allows us to engage more deeply with life experiences. I believe that this approach resonates with the role of a curator. Being evaluative about one's experiences should be a lifelong motivation. This is what keeps me engaged and passionate about the curatorial process.

UZOMAH: More representation of Aboriginal culture in the Australian experience is needed. How can this exhibition change that and produce such results that result in changes?

Graham: Almost half of the artists featured in Under A Southern Star are of Indigenous Australian origin. Others, like Germany-born Tobia Titz, focus on giving voice to his Aboriginal subjects, an act of reconciliation from an artist whose homeland also has a complex and challenging history. These works stand as testimonials to a more inclusive narrative of Australia, one that I hope can serve as an example of how other nations facing racial, religious, and cultural conflicts can work toward greater understanding. Sometimes, it takes an outsider to help us see our prejudices to which we are otherwise blind.

For more information about the exhibition ‘Under a Southern Star’ at Art on Hulfish and others at Princeton Art Museum, please visit their site here.

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