"The Spirit of Sport"

Photography by Gary STEER
Digital imaging/ printing: Peter FREEMAN

The Spirit Of Sport is photography exploring the unchartered area of sport, where art is commonly lost. The exhibition looks at how sport is tribal, combative ritual. It searchs for the common ground between sport and art - creativity, pleasure, energy, the sense, courage, appreciation of beauty.

Pour en savoir plus : www.garysteer.com.au

Opening Hours: Monday to Thursday 9.00 - 7.30pm Friday 9.00 - 5.00pm

Photographs exhibited are for sale.

Allan Hawke speech at Launch of “The Spirit of Sport” - 16 July 2008 - Alliance Française de Canberra

May I begin by recognizing Bruno Duparc, Director of the Alliance Francaise Gallery and the artist Gary Steer, whose photographic work is displayed on the walls around us.

Welcome one and all.

This collection is part of the Vivid National Photography Festival which is being held in Canberra for the first time from 11 July to 12 October. Some 50 organisations in and around Canberra are collaborating to present more than 100 exhibitions celebrating the vital role of photography in Australian life, art and history.

Gary Steer has had a long career as a film maker and more recently has turned more to still photography which has been an abiding passion of his. Gary would shy away from mentioning his own sporting prowess which includes rock climbing, mountaineering, cross country skiing, sea kayaking, cycling, swimming and para-gliding, with an added spectacular reputation for cliff diving into the sea - a most courageous pursuit.

I’m ashamed to say that yesterday was the first time that I’ve visited this Gallery, particularly unforgivable because I’m such a Francophile and will be spending another month or so in Paris and the south of France in October/November.

For those who may have been listening to the ABC this morning about the best sporting town in Australia, I won the NSW State Lifesaving title in 1965, having come 3rd in 1964 and then finished second in 1966. This event comprised medley swimming and running on the beach and was known as the Iron Man competition. My physical condition now might belie that achievement, but I also represented the ACT in swimming and rugby union and Queanbeyan High School in those pursuits as well as athletics, rugby league and water polo.

Australia seems obsessed by sporting prowess as a mark of our identity and the measure of success in the international arena. We’ll see that to the fore in the forthcoming Olympics. For my part, I’ve been religiously glued to the Fox Sport Channel each day to watch the progress of Cadel Evans and his compatriots as they wind their way through the picturesque scenery of the Tour de France.

As a nation, we also seem preoccupied with the ephemeral anti-hero; the celebrity poseurs flickering like moths in the spotlight for their moment of fame or infamy.

If our descendants are to enjoy a similar standard of living and quality of life and be free to work towards their aspirations and potential, then it’s about time we gave due recognition to the deserving heroes and heroines in business, engineering, science, academia, agriculture and other fields of endeavour. We need to celebrate the grace and spirit of those who put duty and service to the national interest ahead of public or private gain.

Aspiring to excellence in sport is an accepted norm, even expectation of Australians. How then do we extend that practice to achievements in intellectual and creative activities - the mirror to a nation’s soul?

In 1993, I was privileged to be Chief of Staff to Paul Keating, an unequivocal supporter of the arts. Paul required a daily dose of inspiration from Gustav Mahler who frequently repeated his observation that “An artist shoots in the dark, not knowing whether he hits or what he hits”.

John Ralston Saul elaborated on this theme: “The idea of purpose is always incomplete …” commenting on “… the strange sort of life that the creative and artists live …Solitary. Often the greater the talent the more solitary.”

Keating once remarked that “From the earliest times of European settlement, Australia has been a work in progress, redefining itself, shifting its image of what it means to be Australian in response to the changing world.” The search for meaning is always there in the background as we go about our daily activities. Robert Hughes pointed to the ability of artists to offer us a “glimpse of a universe into which we can move without strain. It is not the world as it is, but as our starved senses desire it to be: neither hostile nor indifferent, but full of meaning - the terrestrial paradise whose gate was not opened by the mere fact of birth.” Artists seduce us into being active participants in constructing meaning around their work from our own gestalt.

Another Paul - the Frenchman Valery - used to argue that “a work of art should always teach us that we have not seen what we are seeing.” Jean-Paul Sartre struggling with his physical imperfections and latent creativity realised that “… the mind can rise above abjection, take responsibility for the body’s miseries, dominate and suppress them: manifesting itself through the ill-favoured body, it can shine all the more brightly.”

These thoughts and themes bring me to the essence of the surrounding works: “A photographic search for the common ground between sport and art, blending the motion of sport and the vision of art. Sport is portrayed as performance art and its players are the artists.”

As you can and will see, this prestigious collection of sporting imagery is photographed in an innovative and creative way; unconventional and artistic. The accompanying brochure tellingly points out that “Art and sport are rarely uttered in the same breath”, yet elite performance in both pursuits requires “intense commitment, discipline and passion”. The exhibition explores this common ground through its painterly and impressionistic images which differ markedly from the typically snap frozen frames or accurate reproductions that we are so familiar with.

I am very pleased to declare - “The Spirit of Sport” - a most fitting title, because that’s what it captures so well, formally open.

It will be on display here until 9 August, so I invite you to encourage your family and friends to come along and pay homage to the artist and his remarkable depictions. When it completes its run here the exhibition will move to The Q at Queanbeyan from 9 to 20 September.

Thanks for listening.