From Andrew Frost…
Photographer Murray Cammick co-founded RipItUp the legendary New Zealand music magazine with Alistair Dougal in 1977. While photographing hundreds of international bands and musicians who toured New Zealand in the mid to late 70s – as well as recording the nascent Auckland punk and new wave scenes – Cammick was meanwhile also creating reportage images of the night life of the city’s centre, its nocturnal the V8 car culture and the people who wandered the streets and frequented the nearby clubs around Queen Street.
Cammick’s images at Darren Knight Gallery are an extraordinary record of a time and place, and while the cars and streets are the stars of the shots, the eye is inevitably drawn to the people that populate their edges. Recalling his early inspiration Cammick was “…primarily interested in people at first [but I grew] to like the way a young couple would sit close together behind the steering wheel or the way a car would cruise past, disappearing into the night. The street itself became a character and 40 years later we are into the context or wide shot.”
Until May 11
Darren Knight Gallery, Waterloo
Pic: At Gary Glitter, Auckland Town Hall, 1975: Reg, Eve (who sold fudge and fake furs at Cook St Market) Bridget Ikon and Richard Blanks,
1975. Silver gelatin, printed 2015, 25 x 38 cm.
