Arcadia: Before the brands
Review and exposition by blindboy.
Arcadia: Sounds of the sea
National Portrait Gallery, Canberra
14 August - 19 October 2014
Surfing rarely makes it into our major cultural institutions so the current exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, Arcadia: Sounds of the sea, should be welcomed. While perhaps not as prestigious as its immediate neighbour the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery still sits at our cultural centre and reaches an audience that would not usually be exposed to surfing.
The exhibition, consists of large unframed prints of photos by John Witzig, videos of Alby Falzon's Morning Of The Earth and a series of large ink drawings by Nicholas Harding. It focuses on that period at the end of the sixties and the start of the seventies when surfing was still very much a minority interest enjoyed almost exclusively by young men. The images here reflect that reality. Women are notable only by their complete absence.
In his speech to open the exhibition the journalist and writer David Marr commented on the innocence captured by the images and it was an insightful comment. Nowhere in the exhibition do brand names intrude. If they appear at all it is only as fleeting glimpses of surfboard stickers. This was surfing before the brands. This was surfing when sponsorship, at best, meant free surfboards. Professional surfers, in the sense we now understand the concept, did not exist. The competitive elite of the time survived by making surfboards or, failing that, periods of more menial employment to fund their endeavours.
In that context it is hard to imagine that the group standing in front of an old house in Torquay in 1970 could ever have conceived that their image, massively enlarged, would one day dominate the atrium of a major public gallery. But if their imagination failed, the business instincts of their peers did not, so within a startlingly brief period, their era was over, replaced by the hyper-competitive, greed is good philosophy of the eighties. A time when surfing culture so completely embraced the mainstream as to essentially disappear up its fundamental orifice. A location from which, given its still existing crass materialism, it has never been quite able to emerge.
So this is a representation of a time when surfers really were different and the images did not have to be manufactured or marketed. The sub-culture that arose around surfing was like a negative projection of the mainstream culture of the time: its work ethic replaced by non-productive hours in the water; its harsh, narrow, alcoholic, inhibited masculinity replaced by permissiveness and the sexual ambiguity of long hair; its frozen image replaced by natural flow; its materialism undermined by an almost spiritual identification with nature in the form of waves. The price for that, right through to the late seventies, was to be treated with scorn, contempt and suspicion by large sections of the society of the day. Surfers were seen simply as a variation on the dole bludging, pot smoking, hippie stereotype. And the evidence for that can be found here, if you look closely enough, in the displayed pages of early editions of Tracks.
David Marr drew laughs from the culturati at the opening with a joke that while he thought he was bringing on the revolution by marching in the moratorium against the Vietnam war, surfers thought they could bring on a revolution by going for a swim. The surfers of that era in the crowd probably missed the joke since what they were doing was far more revolutionary than simply pausing in the journey towards a lucrative career, to protest an unjust war. They tried, however briefly, to change the society that could tolerate such injustice by subverting its materialistic values through the way they lived their lives.
It has taken a long time for mainstream culture to look over its collective shoulder and notice the sub-culture revealed in this exhibition. The surfing story that has captured public attention for three decades now is the story of the great financial success of the surf clothing industry. Perhaps now, as the long shadow of its wealth and influence withdraws, is a good time to look back and think about what might have been and what still might be to come. To look, not just at the country soul of this exhibition but at what was happening at the same time in the cities and towns where many other photographers whose work is now rarely seen, were practising. To think again, as the world lurches from conflict to conflict, about the values of that time and how so many, who should have known better, were seduced by wealth and fame to betray what they had once believed and, by aligning themselves with mainstream culture, help create the shallow, violent, materialistic world in which we all now must live. Surfers may not have been the solution but they didn't need to become part of the problem. So see this exhibition and think about what it once meant to be a surfer.
Comments
Just visited the Arcadia website. Great photographs brilliantly over analysed. And I thought Swellnet was killing it in the captions department. The Wayne Lynch at Possum Creek photo in particular has a description that would have the " Culturati " swooning - lift your game Stu.
Nice work Blindboy. For all my piss taking , I enjoyed the post and the photos.
Nice writing and beautiful photos. They would seem so out of place in anything other than black and white.
Heard a line from a Joan as Policewoman song the other day that sprang to mind: "don't want to be nostalgic for something that never was."
The drug culture was well imbued by the early seventies, the innocence mentioned already over-taken by the search for a scam that would allow the party to keep on going and ...finding a way to stay at the beach and collect a pay cheque became the impetus for both nascent pro surfing and the clothing industry........mostly from some of the protagonists retrospectively fitted with halos in the gilding of this golden age of so-called innocence.
We can't help but be nostalgic, hell it's big business now, but at least while some of the main protagonists are still alive we can still wipe away some of the misty eyes and see what happened clearly. The same old human foibles: ego, greed, aggression.
Great photos and a really nice contribution to the history of surfing in Australia and a snapshot of a really differant time.
Freeride 76 burst the dream with a dose of reality. The ego, greed and agression remains - just a lot more people engaging in it now.
Nice take Stu. I think its easy to say surfing was never pure, when the reality is we have the opportunity to make so every day. Those photos might be of pioneers but how many people who follow this site were virtual pioneers of more remote surf sites discovered in the 70/80's - a lot from my reading. So when's the beginning of surfing returning to its roots? I say now. How pure is the Teuhpoo'o context right now. How lucky are we today to be able to get up and eat your breakfast with the best live footage ever. If your depressed about the current state of surfing you're probably living in the past, if you're anxious about the future of surfing you're probably living in the future. My overall point is we can all bring a more wholesome approach to surfing today, if we want to.
@RR,
'Twas written by blindboy not me. I'm just the duffer who left my name in the byline (fixed now).
Who da heck is blind boy...
Some fond memories there - as a young surfer at Noosa in the late 60s I was addicted to Tracks and Surfing World, where some of those portraits were first displayed. I have to admit the rapid commercialization of surfing through the 80s, which has continued apace, took my friends and I totally by surprise. On the plus side, skill levels and surfboard design have taken quantum leaps, thanks to the massive influx of $ and people, and inherent creativity of leading surfers / shapers. On the negative, the ultra-crowding of many surf-breaks has made it more of a 'dog-eat-dog' than 'peace, love and happiness' experience, at least at the famous breaks like Noosa, Gold Coast points etc. But I think it was Dylan who said ' You may as well try and catch the wind'. And, as my old man used to say, 'don't whinge to me about crowds son, you had it good for all those years' and if you're prepared to look a little harder, walk a little further, surf a less famous break, solitude is still there to be savored, with or without a brand.
Great photos and article as always expertly penned by Blindboy Hemmingway, although the pic. captions for me are a bit on the fluffy side. I agree with Lindo, if you want to do a bit of searching you can still get some good waves without squillions out. I also think the best thing for the surfing industry is the current crash as it is cutting a lot of fat out of the whole deal. Sometimes you can't always get what you want and get paid for it.
by and large, people are learning to share.
crowds at my local are far more manageable and less violent than at some stages in the seventies when the city crew who came for country soul wanted to enforce their territory.
Old Miki Dora taught the Byron Boys a thing or two about living on the criminal edge......there were some very raw angles ran during the Age of Innocence.
freeride I think the innocence was relative. There were always those who were more worldly and a few who, from very early on, were drug dealers but there was nothing like the almost institutionalised greed that came later. Most of those early dealers were only trying to make enough to keep surfing, which is no excuse, but very different from the grab as much as you can philosophy of the eighties. The fact that it was implemented mainly in legitimate business is a weak defence. Greed is not good, it undermines important cultural values.
The Witzigs and Falzon have been trading on this nostalgic shtick for decades. Every couple of years they seem to dream up a new way of making a buck out of it. As someone who was there from the early sixties - not among the east coast hot spots but way out in the provinces - it was a good time but it was still just surfing and there was plenty of agro in the water when it got good and BS talked and walked on land when young males got drunk or drugged. Anyway, good luck to them. History tends to be written by the victors - and this crew has been canny enough to keep their images and guard their copyrights where a lot of other just as talented lensmen fell by the wayside for any number of reasons. But WTF does David Marr know about surfing? Absolutely nothing, or so it seems, but the arty luvvies consuming their free drinks and canapés probably knew even less. Still, no doubt a good night was had by all. BTW lindo, it was Donovan, not Dylan, who wrote and sung the hippie anthem, Catch the Wind.
BB, I see that greed as a continuum, not a fundamental difference of philosophy.\\\
The seventies generation sowed the seeds of it's own destruction with greed, the eighties was just a logical extension.
Still, no denying the retrospective romantic power of the imagery.
And more fundamentally, from Dora onwards, we've always loved our hypocrisy spooned on in extra large dollops.
zuma I tend to disagree about both Witzig and Falzon. They set a standard that few others reached. Witzig's photos would not be displayed in the National Portrait Gallery if they did not meet the highest aesthetic standards. Morning Of The Earth has probably not fared quite as well but it was by far the best surfing movie of its era. What it shares with Witzig's work is that it portrays the culture as well as the surfing.
Your take on David Marr and the "art luvvies" is pretty spot on, but they weren't there because of the surfing. They were there because of the art and while I had a quiet laugh or two I was also glad to see surf culture presented in a more sophisticated light than is usual. I mean look at the presentation of the ASP events, sporting cliches, male egos and verbal diarrhoea. We deserve better than that, so more power to the "art luvvies" if they can see what eludes the crass marketing arms of the clothing companies.
I have to disagree there freeride. I think there was a turning point. That fateful Hawaiian season of the Bronzed Aussies and the Bugs bashing might have been it but more probably it came a bit later when the clothing companies cracked the European market and started making serious money. Whatever the case I know that I was constantly berated through the early eighties for being associated with the surfing media by friends and acquaintances who were dismayed at the changes that were happening. The truth is that I agreed and was in the process of withdrawing from virtually all involvement in surfing, except actually riding waves and hanging out with my mates. A position I stuck to until my involvement with Swellnet.
hahha, hear you loud and clear on that one BB, just been through a similar process myself.
You know Turning Point was the name of the photo book by Rusty Miller of the same era as the Witzig shots; have you seen it?
No, I really didn't read about surfing or watch videos at all for a very long time. The list of surfing books I haven't read is pretty comprehensive!
it was only released last year.
OK I will have a look at it, thanks for the tip.
look at the shot of Miki Dora and Russel Hughes in the main street of Byron: that was a turning point.
Dream on you blokes, it was a shit fight then as much as now .. if you can find someone +70 who remembers, ask him.
I was talking to a friend of mine who has one of those houses on the Bilinga beachfront. The house has been in the family for about 60 years. She was charting the changes. Today, it is the endless procession of walkers, joggers, skateboarders and bike riders that travel along the wide footpath known as the Oceanway; all that while in 60 years of her viewing she has never seen the beach so unpopulated.
The worst period was the 70's. She says, that was a very bad time as Bilinga was rife with crime from the surfers.
The Cuturati get about as much insight into surf culture from strolling amongst a few exhibits in a gallery as I'd get insight into indigenous culture get by attending a staged corroboree at Mindil markets in Darwin.
Sounds like everyone had fun though and there lies the irony that they had indeed revealed the deeper meaning about surfing after all - that it's all about fun and lightening you're heart.
I'm with you there Blowin. I have a day job which I enjoy but surfing is definitely more fun and empties the mind when its on and as you say that is what is all about.
I was there in support of an old mate, and so were quite a few other salt-encrusted relics from the era, Kim Nelson, Peter Hock and Nigel Coates, as well as BB. Seen these photos a million times before, but never in this context, and it was interesting to talk to the "Friends of the Gallery" - the much-maligned culturati referred to here - and find that many of them surfed back in the day, or at least loved the beach, and identified with these (relatively) innocent images of a bygone era. Where's the harm in that? Cultural cringe is a two-way street.
Phil - well said. Agree we would surprised to see how many art goers were / are surfers even from the 60s.
An important point here is the talent, intelligence and abilities of the key early surfers. We know the Billabong, Ripcurl and McTavish stories. Then look at the Witzigs, Nat, Midget and and and the many others. That era was totally different than today and I think that these photos were trying to portray this. The interesting point for me was the nearly identical development of this culture in both the US and Aus. Remember back then - no mobiles, travel the seas by boat (plane was expensive). Yet the surfers from sides of the ocean were very similar in ideas, lifestyles and thoughts.
thats only because the lifestyle was copied from the Hawaiians by the Californians and then transmitted here to Oz by the seppos, Duke Kahanomoku and Tommy Tanner notwithstanding.
Prior to that we had the clubbie culture dominating the beach scene which was deeply conservative and tied to existing social structures.
Phil I don't think anyone here is begrudging Witzig's photos getting their due cultural recognition, just putting some of the nostalgic rose colouring into perspective.
Freeride. No not quite right. Sure hawaii was the mecca (and still is) because of the swell. Sure surfing was born there but the culture in the 60s was different. Yes the clubbiness hated the 'new breed' and many were torn between this new idea and the club but they eventually realised they both loved the ocean. The key point is that the Hawaiian and Californian surf culture were separated and there was no communication (or little of it). Yet look at how it evolved.
There is a good book - 'History of Surfing' authored by US surfer Matt Warshaw.
Greg Noll wrote a book once, and he told a story about those early Australian days that is rarely repeated: He was in the back of a ute, travelling up around the bend that exposes the Long Reef bommies, somebody had piled him in with a few of his yank mates, they were probably heading for Avalon.
Noll wrote about the waves out there .. he said they were looking good enough to go, big, clean and fast - so he hammered on the window for the driver to stop and go around. He didn't, when they got to Avalon, or wherever they ended up that day, Noll braced the driver and asked howfuckencome you didn't stop?
Whoever he was, the driver, he just said, ' it couldn't have been that good mate, nobody was out.'
.. Or something like that, I've got the book racked somewhere, cheap publication, it fell apart after a month.
Wasn't the reason they didn't stop was because there's no surf club at Longy?
That's my recollection, but then my memory is as ratshit as yours PB.
hang on, I'll edit it - either way, we didn't show up too good that day, the driver was probably Phil bloody Jarratt, he was a north av animal, or maybe I've got that wrong too ..
Never heard that story but did hear that when Hakman and Rory Russell were here in the seventies they were amazed no-one was surfing Little Makaha on a big day.
"The key point is that the Hawaiian and Californian surf culture were separated and there was no communication (or little of it). Yet look at how it evolved."
George Freeth, Duke, Tom Blake, Jack London etc etc etc beg to differ.
The nexus and influence is well documented.
There were first principles and primary causes in all offshoots : Greenough and Simmons in Ca for instance.
Hard to underestimate the influence of Greenough on Oz surf culture, especially of that era. It was nothing without him.
Yes definitely a connection and influence from several key people but given the cultural evolution around Aus it is still interesting to see the unique Aussie scene.
Witzig captured it well. Many tried with Kodak brownies and 8mm cameras but it takes a bit more to capture the scene.
Frank Pithers, Bob Weeks, Martin Tullemans, Barrie Sutherland ... all good photogs from in and around then. But you rarely see their images any more. As previously said, the Witzigs, through their heavy media involvement back then, managed to claim the high ground on the history of the times and along with the likes of Falzon and canny marketing skills have been holding on to it ever since. History might be made by many, but its story is written by the victors - and these guys were the victors. That's not a criticism - just a simple fact.
It's great to see so much discussion of the exhibition on this site. The curator says:
'Arcadia sound of the sea offers a taste of what it is to be young, male, lean, unencumbered and irresponsible; to be as close to free as a human being can get.
It invites a sensual response to textures and smells: to salt and fresh water, wet and dry sand, dune vegetation, undergrowth, tent canvas, floors of vans and shacks, weatherboards, hand-knitted jumpers, thin old t-shirts, corduroy, spongy neoprene, stiff hair, dog fur, noses and claws, banksia pods, firewood, seaweed and rocks.
The exhibition brings together about forty photographs by John Witzig, printed to unprecedented size; film footage from Albert Falzon’s fantastic Morning of the Earth; and seven wondrous ink drawings of trees, water and rocks by Nicholas Harding.
The surfer Nat Young wrote in the first issue of Tracks ‘By simply surfing we are supporting the revolution.’ He meant that young men like him didn’t have to fulfil ideological expectations of the post-Menzies era; that it was time to start questioning everything that the burgeoning capitalist globalising state hoped successive generations would take for granted. The spirit of independence that Young invoked washes through Arcadia.'
I think that sums up what the exhibition is about - and also, what it never tried or purported to be about.
Well summarised… Now it would be interesting to get some postscript from key people of that era such as Nat, the Witzigs and see how the 'revolution' evolved. As we have stated many became highly successful 'capitalists' and yet have kept their love of surfing.
great comments...have y'all watched Wayne Lynches Movie...unchartered waters...??
I think Wayne has a great take on that era told from a child prodigy's point of view,and already rebelling against the staus quo of the day.....
I often wonder about where are all the old timers now and did they continue to follow the ideaologies of their youth.....now theres an interesting story...whay became of the hippes??
I have seen Uncharted Waters. A very good film. I haven't seen a surf doco I have enjoyed more and it seems a great insight into Wayne's world.
Back in the day, I had some vague impression of Lynch as some sort of gentle, mystical, nature spirit. It was fun to see that he was also something of an ornery cuss. And I mean that in a good way, like a lot of real artists are ornery cusses when you get to meet them. They need to be a bit bloody-minded.
And, My God! there is some beautiful surfing in that film.
There is also this other bloke in the doco, Maurice Cole. He seems like a bit of a wag.
Thanks Zuma for the heads-up re Donovan and not Dylan 'trying to catch the wind'- just wanted to add a couple of additional points re the mass commercialization and exponential growth of surfing since the 80s, moving from what was effectively a pastime and garage industry in the 60s to the mass marketing and billion $ turnover of the surf industry today. First is the issue of massive consumption of petrochemicals that we and the millions of other surfers use in our relentless quest for the perfect wave, perfect board, perfect wetsuit etc. Surfers had always been hedonistic and single-minded in these pursuits, but a little like the tragedy of the commons, when there were thousands of us, rather than millions, this was less of an issue. Now my guess is that surfing is the most polluting sport going around, but happy to be proved wrong on that. And of course the ASP dream tour and other international contest formats feed this flame, the pros having scores of boards each year and clocking up squillions of freq. flyer miles. And this lifestyle is aspired to by many, chasing careers in pro-surfing. Secondly, we seem to have morphed almost completely into a 'look at me' ethos, having abandoned John Severson's ideal of being alone in the ocean with one's thoughts in this otherwise crowded world. Now it's go-pros or similar hanging off every appendage and orifice, the resultant clips to get their star (and his all important brand) his 2-3 minutes (rarely 15 mins.) of fame. There's some great surfing being captured, and it's all eye candy, that's for sure, and I'm just as addicted as the next man. So is there a moral to this story? I don't know - ask the brand bosses I guess.
I've got a question, but it might need a statistical reply: what are the most popular of the photos represented in these exhibitions, static, therefore idealised, or shots in motion?
What sells?
....and going back a bit further.
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/aug/18/breakers-boa...
What happened to the hippies?
They ended up perfectly fulfilling the "ideological expectations of the post-Menzies era."
Coastal real estate, massive wealth accumulation; all the trappings of the capitalist system they once -briefly- rebelled against.
Not all of course, but a significant proportion.
Thats the great irony of Arcadia, the great unanswered question: why did Nat Young et al so quickly turn their back on that promise and reality and embrace the big bucks, effectively selling out to the highest bidder this artform they professed to love?
But we don't like to ask that question. Just like miki Dora ended up on the Quiksilver payroll after decades of building a brand around anti-commercial posturing. We'd prefer to embrace massive hypocrisy and preserve the purity of our weepy-eyed nostalgia.
in the end, they are beautiful photos of men doing beautiful things, and like Tim Winton alluded to in Breath, maybe that alone elevates them to the realm of art.
hey FR just for the record,Mickey Dora was not payrolled by Q/S .....he used his relationships at Q .....to pay for dinners/Golf/tennis...if you wanted to hang out with Mickey and claim it, you needed $'s...
Mickey was true to his roots and was always anti- capitalism........so he was a real one.......
as for the rest ,you can observe who and what they are today....which tells the real story of their moral integrity relative to their youth.......
Right on Brutus--good points...
FR - GNat is Nat and that's that. After a few months on the farm - surfing, sex, drugs and rock roll maybe time to move on. I don't believe they were anti capitalists but maybe anti establishment. Most of us just wanted to surf - simple as that. Don't agree with your 'hypocrisy '. The Witzigs, Falzon definitely created an art form as you say and well stated by Winton.
Well some got the real estate, others ended up in various degrees of rural poverty, but surfers were never really hippies anyway. We could never quite muster the ideological conviction. Surfing was always a high maintenance lifestyle with the on going need for boards, wetsuits and transport. We were never as detached from the mainstream as the real hippies but we did, very briefly, share some of their values, and yes the question remains. What happened? How did we get from idealism to exploitation quite so quickly? The best I can do is to suggest that in the kind of free market capitalism that was emerging then and now dominates, anything that can be sold or exploited, will be.
"Just like miki Dora ended up on the Quiksilver payroll after decades of building a brand around anti-commercial posturing."
FR, Miki Dora's deal at Quiksilver Europe over the last few years of his life was having the rent paid on his one-bedroom apartment at Guethary, membership of the golf club at Arcangues and 1000 Euros a month pocket money. He also received residuals cheques for his bit parts in the beach movies of the early 1960s, but he rarely cashed them. Not exactly a wholesale sellout to commercialism, just an old bloke getting by.
Right on Phil, don't believe Miki ever really sold out--maybe it was his last scam--on Quickdollars-(Quicksilver)...------Miki was once asked a question- Would you enter a contest for $1,000-$2,000 prize money? His answer- "I ride for my pleasure only: no thanks. Professionalism will be completely destructive to any control an individual has over the sport at present. The organizers will call the shots, collect the profits, while the waverider does all the labor and receives little. Also, since surfing's alliance with the decadent big-business interests is designed only as a temporary damper to complete fiscal collapse, the completion of such a partnership will serve only to accelerate the art's demise. A surfer should think carefully before selling his being to these "people”, since he's signing his own death warrant as a personal entity"...
Miki Dora played golf?
I'm with Freeride. Never mind the anti-capitalist posturing, the bills paid from Quik, or anything else...that Miki Dora was a member of a country club is too much to compute.
How my idols have fallen...
I heard he drove a Volvo station wagon too.
He did have a VW camper.
Like I said above-maybe it was one of his last scams-if they offered it to him-why say no?
Like i
Stu-nothing seems to happen when i hit the reply dot-so this is my reply to you about Dora and the country club-----Don't be so quick to write Dora off- who knew what was going through his mind at the time--he was -what -in his 60s by now--maybe he just wanted to cruise in the country club for the --"f'ree buffet.'"--and a glass of wine.....
Miki never taxed anyone ,to my knowledge, who couldn't afford it.
Interesting to see Phils comments that Miki was set up by Q/S.......and payrolled.......by Q/S ,he just taxed the corporate surf executives......as it was a bit of a coup to hang out with Miki...
I knew the surfing side of him....and often he was the only guy that would come out in France and surf with me onto some of the outer banks.....made a few bds with him,every sunday nite dinner....a lot of stories.....
but from what I have have seen in 40+ years in the surf industry......when it came to surfing...he was as real as it gets!!
Stu-nothing seems to happen when i hit the reply dot-so this is my reply to you about Dora and the country club-----Don't be so quick to write Dora off- who knew what was going through his mind at the time--he was -what -in his 60s by now--maybe he just wanted to cruise in the country club for the --"f'ree buffet.'"--and a complimentary glass of wine.....
If someone wants to start a company , how about a wax business. A cheap wax business. The available gear , whilst awesome is getting way more expensive and simultaneously shrinking in size remarkably. Good, cheap wax ......please.