Anne Zahalka

Anne Zahalka
Australian, born 1957

Rijksmuseum  2010
C type print
Geelong Gallery
Purchased with funds generously provided by the Robert Salzer Foundation Art Purchase Program and the Geelong Art Gallery Foundation, 2010

Anne Zahalka’s gallery interiors from the series The way things appear examine the rich relationship between art, collecting institutions and audiences. The series explores the way works are displayed in gallery settings, the compositional choices an artist makes and the ‘look’ of visitors as they interact with works and each other.

Stemming from Zahalka’s interest in galleries as tourist sites, the works in this series include carefully composed photographs and random snapshots. Zahalka elaborates: ‘It is an exchange of gazes between the subjects represented within the artworks and the viewers depicted which is complex and multi-layered. This interplay incorporates the viewer and creates a dialogue between our own engagement with art and that of the audience’.