David Perry (Australian filmmaker)
{{Short description|Australian experimental and underground filmmaker and video artist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2024}}
{{Use Australian English|date=May 2011}}
{{Infobox person
| name = David Perry
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| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth year|1933}}
| birth_place = Sydney, Australia
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|2015|04|15|1933}}
| death_place = Sydney, Australia
| education =
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| occupation =
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| known_for = Experimental film, video art, animation, underground film
| notable_works =
}}
David Perry (1933 – 15 April 2015) was a pioneering Australian experimental and underground filmmaker, video artist, and a founding member of Ubu Films (1965).Zuvela D. "[http://www.realtimearts.net/article.php?id=7977 Danni Zuvela talks to an experimental film pioneer]". RealTime Arts Magazine, Sydney, December–January 2005 He also practised as a photographer, poster artist and painter.[http://scanlines.net/person/david-perry Scanlines: David Perry] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180724102630/http://scanlines.net/person/david-perry |date=24 July 2018 }}. Accessed 9 September 2017
During work on the production of The Theatre of Cruelty in Sydney, July 1965, he joined Albie Thoms, Aggy Read and others in establishing Ubu Films—named after Alfred Jarry's play Ubu Roi—the precursor of the Sydney Filmmakers Co-operative.Mudie, Peter "Albie Thoms–David Perry: Selected filmwork (1964–1992); Dialogues (1994)". Uniprint, Perth WA, 1994. (Catalogue to Albie Thoms–David Perry screen exhibition, 19–22 April 1994){{rp|p40}} This was Australia's first consciously avant-garde filmmaking group.[http://nfvls.screensound.gov.au/076/cat/mdg811.pdf UBU Compilation 1967-70] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070702091200/http://nfvls.screensound.gov.au/076/cat/mdg811.pdf |date=2 July 2007 }} at National Film and Sound Archive Catalog, p. 21)
16mm experimental films include Walking (1955),Thornley, Jeni [http://jenithornleydoco.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/walking-by-david-perry.html Walking by David Perry] 31 January 2012 The Tribulations of Mr Dupont Nomore (1967); Bolero (1967); A Sketch of Abigayl's Belly (1968); David Perry's Album (1970) and Adam (1975). Ubu Films 1965–70 a retrospective video compilation, was released in 1997. Refracting Glasses (1992) is a 109-minute feature film which "uses a range of techniques (actuality and staged footage, optical effects, animation) in an essay-like construction on the theme of the historical status of the artist invoking, amongst a diverse range of references, the Ern Malley hoax and the work of the Russian artist V. E. Tatlin.
Biography
File:"Vote_Informal"_poster_circulated_in_Sydney_in_1969.jpg]]
Perry underwent his primary and secondary education in Sydney during the 1940s. In 1949–54 he served a printing-trade apprenticeship, after which he worked for various printers and on farms in New Zealand.
In Sydney during the 1960s, he associated with the Sydney Push and developed as a painter, photographer and 8mm filmmaker. Prior to separation, he was married, with three children. He was employed by the Australian Broadcasting Commission in photographic positions and engaging privately in experimental film and video, and other artworks. It was during this time that he made the abstract videographic film Mad Mesh,[http://scanlines.net/object/mad-mesh Mad Mesh, 1968 experimental film] at scanlines.net. Accessed 9 September 2017 and the controversial electoral poster featuring "a continuum of pigs (inspired by Orwell's Animal Farm)" with the slogan Whoever you vote for, a politician always gets in.Perry, David. "Memoirs of a Dedicated Amateur". Valentine Press, 2014, p.50 His film, A Sketch on Abigayl's Belly which showed shots of a pregnant woman caused controversy when it was banned by the Commonwealth Film Censor in 1968 when the print returned from the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. In 1970 Don Chipp, the Minister for Customs and Excise, in a conscious public gesture, overturned the banning of the film.Nicholls, Sean. "[http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/09/24/1253385082642.html Mosman can't stomach '60s nude art film]." The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 September 2009. Accessed 9 September 2017
He travelled to Europe with his second wife and their child, from 1971 to 1974, lectured in film and video at Middlesex Polytechnic in London where he produced essay films such as Utopian Memory Banks Present Fragments from the Past[http://scanlines.net/object/utopian-memory-banks-present-fragments-past (Utopian Memory Banks Present) Fragments From The Past] at scanlines.net. Accessed 9 September 2017 and My Dutch Newsreel. Returning to Australia with his young daughter, he was artist-in-residence at Griffith University (1975–76) where he established a video studio and made works such as Interior with Views,[http://scanlines.net/object/interior-views Interior with Views, 1976] at scanlines.net. Accessed 9 September 2017Jones, Stephen. Synthetics: Aspects of Art and Technology in Australia, 1956 - 1975, MIT Press, Cambridge and London, 2011 p 220 and was lecturer in film and video at the Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education (now the University of Southern Queensland).
He re-established in Sydney in 1980, being employed as a photographer and film/video producer for the NSW health authority and the Royal North Shore Hospital at St Leonards.{{rp|p61}} Mosman Art Gallery presented Then and now and everything in between: The Art of David Perry, a retrospective of his painting, drawing, photography, film and video in 2009."[https://www.daao.org.au/bio/event/david-perry-retrospective/ David Perry Retrospective 12 September 2009 - 11 October 2009]" at daao.org.au. Accessed 9 September 2017 His short auto-biographical film Album 1970 was screened at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2014, in conjunction with the exhibition Pop to Popism.{{cite web |url =https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/calendar/pop-artists-on-screen/|title=Film series: Pop artists on screen|publisher=ART Gallery NSW|access-date=13 October 2018}} Perry referred to many of his works as 'personal films', as opposed to commercial or genre production. Stephen Jones writes that 'Much of Perry's work turns on these aspects of video as mnemonic device reflecting his life and ideology'.Jones, Stephen. Synthetics: Aspects of Art and Technology in Australia, 1956 - 1975, MIT Press,
Cambridge and London, 2011 p219 {{ISBN|9780262014960}}
References
{{Reflist}}
Further reading
- Mudie, Peter. UBU Films: Sydney Underground Movies 1965–70 (UNSW Press)
- Perry, David. [http://valentinepress.com.au/?page_id=693 Memoirs of a Dedicated Amateur]. Valentine Press, 2014
External links
- National Film and Sound Archive [http://nfvls.screensound.gov.au/display/076/wwk770?kw= Search Non-Theatrical Lending Collection]{{Dead link|date=January 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
- Zuvela D [http://www.realtimearts.net/article.php?id=7977 Danni Zuvela talks to an experimental film pioneer]. RealTime Arts Magazine, Sydney, Dec–Jan 2005
- [http://scanlines.net/person/david-perry Scanlines: David Perry] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180724102630/http://scanlines.net/person/david-perry |date=24 July 2018 }}
- [http://valentinepress.com.au/?page_id=2340 Tributes to David Perry]
- [http://www.artfilms.com.au/item/experimental-films-by-david-perry?ItemID=4523 The Experimental Films of David Perry, ArtFilms 2011] {{ISBN|978-1-922007-05-6}}
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Category:Australian film directors
Category:Australian film producers
Category:20th-century Australian painters
Category:20th-century Australian male artists