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Stuart Page

September 9 - October 3
SOFA Gallery, The Arts Centre, Christchurch

Director Stuart Page presents SHUSTAK at SOFA Gallery this September. This exhibition will feature a selection of the late Larence Shustak's photography and films as well as screenings of Page's own documentary, Shustak.

The unconventional Jewish American, Larence Shustak headed to New Zealand from New York City in 1973 and founded the departments of Design, Film and Photography at the Ilam School of Fine Arts, holding a senior lectureship in these three disciplines until 1992.

Shustak is responsible for some iconic images of New York -its people, communities and the urban surrounds. He spent time documenting jazz musicians in the mid 1950s and 60s, black Jews and New York street life. The image of jazz musician Thelonious Monk has become one of his most well known photographs. Later, Shustak ventured into filmmaking and interestingly chose the 16mm format commonly used at that time for television for his films, rather than a format more commonly associated with filmmaking proper. He was interested in playing with ideas of authenticity and film, eager to adapt to new technologies and gadgets which unsettled the common belief (no doubt more powerful in Shustak's time than now) that photographs tell the truth.

Page studied under Shustak at the Ilam School of Fine Arts, graduating in 1980 with Dip FA (Hons) in Photography. Nowadays Page exhibits photography as well as working as a freelance cinematographer/editor and film teacher in Auckland. He also drums for the post-punk band, AXEMEN.

James Robertson writes of Page's documentary on Larence Shustak as a ‘multifaceted portrait of an artist, as the one time apprentice radically yet respectfully re-masters the teacher through friends, students and colleagues and most importantly the artist's own output." The documentary will be screened at various intervals throughout the day in the gallery.

SOFA Gallery is open: Monday to Friday 11-5 and Saturday and Sunday 12-4.