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Michael kluge
Left Behind
10 December 2022 > 26 February 2023
Linden New Art is proud to present Left Behind, the latest photographic project by St. Kilda-based artist Michael Kluge.
Known for his documentation of historic buildings and cultural relics from bygone days, Left Behind heralds
a bold new development in Kluge’s practice, as the artist extends his focus towards the subject of memory as observed through the lens
of grief.
Read
the catalogue online
Be brave
IMAGES > (top and above) Michael Kluge, Left Behind, 2022, digital inkjet print. Image courtesy of the artist.
IMAGES > (above and below) Michael Kluge, Left Behind, 2022, digital inkjet print.
Image courtesy of the artist.
Be bold
With what is Kluge’s layered and poetic response to the loss of his partner to cancer, Left Behind depicts personal belongings “left behind” across a spectral series of images loaded with the private significance of the memories that remain. Reflecting on the role photography performs in rendering the past, Left Behind sees Kluge harness the camera as an instrument for articulating presence through absence to create an act of remembrance in which it is ultimately time itself that is left behind. Michael Kluge’s Left Behind is a touching meditation on memory and mourning, and one that invites thoughtful and sensitive contemplation in tender acceptance of the passing of all things.
What is ‘Left Behind’ when someone dies? It is not only the countless memories that that time brings, but it’s also all the physical and
tangible personal items. Items steeped in familiarity and collective memory. Items that speak of identity, connections, attributes,
passions and personality. After Janice passed away, these are all I had left. Grief is the process of coming to terms with the physical
absence of someone with whom you continue to have a psychological and spiritual connection with. For me, the making of these photographic
works was part of that often nonlinear and ongoing therapeutic process of adjusting to life without Janice, my partner of 29 years.
Michael Kluge, 2022
Michael Kluge
Michael Kluge is a mid-career, St-Kilda based artist working in photography. His work focuses on subjects that occupy a distinct space. Throughout his practice, Michael uses light to amplify his ideas. The marginalised draw his eye. And because Michael values the ordinary and the overlooked, he dresses them up in their best light in the hope that we will also come to notice and value them. The concept of time is central to Michael’s work. He privileges old objects, people and locations that hold history within their image The disappearance of a subject before he has captured it gives him concern. Michael’s regard for the soul of his subjects and his desire to give them presence is manifest in the beauty he conjures in his work.
Be brave
IMAGE > Portrait of Michael Kluge. Image courtesy of the artist.