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Graham Miller PLAYING THE MAN Turner Galleries 20 SEPTEMBER – 19 OCTOBER September 24, 2019

Posted by bohdan.warchomij in : Graham Miller, Metaphor Online , trackback

Dr Sean Gorman opened Graham Miller’s PLAYING THE MAN exhibition at the Turner Gallery by quoting an absent Bruce McAvaney’s description of the work as ‘delicious’.

Graham Miller inhabits the ubiquitous Scanlens chewing gum footy cards with aplomb and veracity to create homage to the history of the WAFL and VFL and the players and the AFL’s cultural contribution to Australian sporting history. There is humour and insight into the time and place that has framed Miller himself and is shaping a new world of football that questions who and what we are as a nation.

It is both pop culture and Wake in Fright, as Dr Sean Gorman points out to us and lists Graham Miller’s challenges in coming to a Perth boarding school from Hong Kong and learning the ropes of dealing with the Australian male psyche. There is humour in the photos and a sense of racism and abuse that footballers who were different endured, like the Asian rover Les Fong in the 70′s and in modern times the indigenous footballer Adam Goodes.

There are deep questions to ask and deep scars in the history of this sport that is played only in Australia and Graham Miller has successfully asked these questions.

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