Juno Gemes#Publishing

Juno Gemes was born in 1944 in Budapest, emigrating to Australia with her parents Alex and Lucy Gemes{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2020-11-25|title=Juno Gemes: The Movement for Civil Rights in Australia, 1971 to 2010|url=https://rochfordstreetreview.com/2020/11/25/juno-gemes-the-movement-for-civil-rights-in-australia-1971-to-2010/|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2021-02-06|website=Rochford Street Review|language=en}} in 1949.

Gemes studied at the University of Sydney and the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) and graduated in 1964.{{cite web |title=All alumni |url=https://www.nida.edu.au/alumni-and-industry/all-alumni |website=National Institute of Dramatic Art |date=23 September 2015 |access-date=5 February 2021}} In 1968 Gemes directed The Human Body Australia's first experimental theatre group, established with Johnny Allen and Clem Gorman.{{cite web |last1=Gorman |first1=Clem |title=Before The Fringe |url=https://www.stagewhispers.com.au/history/fringe |website=Stage Whispers |access-date=5 February 2021}}{{cite journal |last1=Maxwell |first1=Ian |title=Mayakovsky's hammer: Experimental theatre as romantic modernism, Sydney, 1968–1970. |journal=Australasian Drama Studies |date=October 2017 |issue=71 |pages=112–136 |issn=0810-4123}} Some of The Human Body Performances at the Powerhouse warehouse in Haymarket, featured a geodesic light dome built by Jacky Joy Jacobson and Michael Glasheen from 5,000 light bulbs.{{cite web |last1=Glasheen |first1=Michael |title=Drawing on the land: Garigal country (exhibition catalogue) |url=https://issuu.com/cooeeart/docs/mick_glasheen_catalogue |website=Issuu |date=10 June 2020 |access-date=5 February 2021 |language=en}} Gemes worked in theatre and film, and worked in London sporadically in the late 1960s and 1970s, where she wrote for the London-based underground newspaper International Times. While in London, Gemes performed in some of Yoko Ono's work including the avant-garde film Bottoms and a performance piece The scream at the Perfumed Garden.{{Citation|author1=McIntyre, Iain, 1970-|title=Tomorrow is today : Australia in the psychedelic era, 1966–1970|year=2006|publication-date=2006|publisher=Wakefield Press|isbn=978-1-86254-697-4}}

Gemes began exhibiting her photography in Australia in 1966, and held her first solo exhibition, "We Wait No More", in 1982. In 1971, Gemes became involved with the Yellow House Artist Collective in Potts Point, Sydney.[https://www.portrait.gov.au/people/juno-gemes-1944 Juno Gemes], National Portrait Gallery. Collaborating with another member of the Collective, landscape artist Mick Glasheen, to document traditional stories about Uluru. They stayed in the Central Desert for six months in a geodesic dome seeking out the Pitjantjara elders in the area.

Gemes is known for her photographs depicting the cultural and political struggle of indigenous peoples in Australia,{{Cite web|last=Adair|first=Linda|date=2019-06-25|title=Haunting and luminous 'Juno Gemes: The Quiet Activist – A Survey Exhibition 1979–2019' a response by Linda Adair|url=https://rochfordstreetreview.com/2019/06/25/haunting-and-luminous-juno-gemes-the-quiet-activist-a-survey-exhibition-1979-2019-a-response-by-linda-adair/|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2021-02-06|website=Rochford Street Review|language=en}} including land rights, the handing back of Uluru to the traditional owners, and the National Apology to the Stolen Generations in the Federal Parliament.{{Cite journal|last=Gemes|first=Juno|date=January 2008|title=Witnessing the Apology|url=https://search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3316/INFORMIT.255172262404080|journal=Australian Aboriginal Studies|language=EN|volume=1|pages=115–123}} Gemes describes Nothing Personal by James Baldwin and Richard Avedon, which examines American culture including civil rights and the rise of black nationalism,{{Cite magazine|last=Als|first=Hilton|title=Richard Avedon and James Baldwin's Joint Examination of American Identity|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/13/richard-avedon-and-james-baldwins-joint-examination-of-american-identity|access-date=2021-05-17|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en-US}} as an early influence in her work. In 1976, Gemes photographed American civil rights leader James Baldwin on the rooftop of the Athenaeum Hotel in London.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2020-11-09|title=Notebook Revelations: Juno Gemes' portrait of James Baldwin|url=https://rochfordstreetreview.com/2020/11/10/notebook-revelations-juno-gemes-portrait-of-james-baldwin/|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2021-02-06|website=Rochford Street Review|language=en}}

Under Another Sky, Juno Gemes Photography 1968–1988, a survey of Gemes work from over twenty years was exhibited in Budapest and Paris in the late 1980s.

In 2018, Gemes told The Sydney Morning Herald her reason for taking up photography: "It was because I saw that Aboriginal people were invisible that I took up the camera." Much of her work has documented the Aboriginal rights and land rights movements,Gemes, Juno. "The Political and the Personal Process in Portraiture: Juno Gemes in Conversation - National Portrait Gallery, August 2003." Australian Aboriginal Studies (Canberra, A.C.T. : 1983) 2003.2 (2003): 85-92. from the Aboriginal Tent Embassy to 2008 when she was one of ten photographers selected to officially document the Apology to Australia's Indigenous peoples.{{cite news |last1=Baker |first1=Candida |title=Life on the Hawkesbury: A photographer, a poet and a bowerbird called Spinoza |url=https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/life-on-the-hawkesbury-a-photographer-a-poet-and-a-bowerbird-called-spinoza-20180430-h0zf9s.html |access-date=9 March 2019 |work=The Sydney Morning Herald |date=4 May 2018 |language=en}}

Gemes has thirty works in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Australia.{{Cite web|title=Juno Gemes, b. 1944|url=http://www.portrait.gov.au/people/juno-gemes-1944/|access-date=2020-11-29|website=National Portrait Gallery people}} Her papers are held at the National Library of Australia and the Mitchell Library of the State Library of New South Wales.{{cite web |title=Guide to the Papers of Robert Adamson {{!}} Academy Library {{!}} UNSW Canberra |url=https://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/library/finding-aids/guide-papers-robert-adamson |website=www.unsw.adfa.edu.au |access-date=5 February 2021}}

In 1986 Gemes and her partner Australian poet Robert Adamson co-founded, with writer Michael Wilding, independent publishing company Paper Bark Press (sometimes spelt Paperbark), which published Australian poetry. Wilding left the company in 1990, and Gemes and Adamson continued to run the company{{cite web |title=Paper Bark Press|date=10 Mar 2004 |url=https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A36937 |website=AustLit |access-date=27 August 2022 }} until 2002.{{cite web |last1=Lea |first1=Bronwyn |title=Poetry publishing in Australia |url=https://bronwynlea.com/2013/05/14/poetry-publishing-in-australia/ |website=Bronwyn Lea |access-date=27 August 2022 |language=en |date=14 May 2013}}

In 1997 Adamson and Gemes collaborated on the publication The Language of Oysters.{{Citation|author1=Adamson, Robert|title=The language of oysters|publication-date=1997|publisher=Craftsman House|isbn=978-90-5703-101-4|author2=Gemes, Juno, 1944-, (photographer.)|year=1997}}

In January 2025 Gemes published Until Justice Comes: Fifty Years of The Movement for Indigenous Rights. PHOTOGRAPHS 1970 - 2024, through Upswell Press. Until Justice Comes, Upswell Press 2025, [https://upswellpublishing.com/product/until-justice-comes?srsltid=AfmBOooAlRudXwGwu8nCUkw0jIR-3NJC7AWhsJYirHxX5sNpzFq8Qe0S ISBN: 978-0-6459840-2-6]

Gemes' son, Orlando Gemes, born in London in 1975, is pictured with Essie Coffey OAM in a portrait at the National Portrait Gallery. He travelled with his mother as she documented Aboriginal people and activism.{{cite web |title=Essie Coffey (Bush Queen) and Orlando Gemes, 1978 (printed 2003) |url=https://www.portrait.gov.au/portraits/2005.48/essie-coffey-bush-queen-and-orlando-gemes |website=National Portrait Gallery collection |access-date=19 March 2021}}

• 1982, 5 – 26 November: We wait no more Hogarth Gallery & Apmira{{Citation|author1=Gemes, Juno|title=We wait no more, Hogarth Gallery & Apmira November 5 to 26 1982, Sydney|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-138346645|year=1982|publisher=|id=nla.obj-138346645|access-date=5 February 2021|section=1 poster : colour; 41.5 x 31.5 cm|via=Trove}}
• 1985, 26 October: Gemes created a visual document of the historic Uluru Handback Ceremony at Uluru NT.{{Cite web|last=www.bibliopolis.com|title=Under Another Sky. Uluru Handback Ceremony, Sir Ninian Stephens, Hon. Barry Cohen With Traditional Owners And Their Children by Juno Gemes, b.1944 Aust on Josef Lebovic Gallery|url=https://www.joseflebovicgallery.com/pages/books/CL179-143/juno-gemes-b-1944-aust/under-another-sky-uluru-handback-ceremony-sir-ninian-stephens-hon-barry-cohen-with-traditional|access-date=2021-02-06|website=Josef Lebovic Gallery|language=en-US}}
• 1989, from 19 December: Literary Images, Jacqueline Mitelman, Virginia Wallace-Crabbe and Juno Gemes. Special collections section, library of the Australian Defence Force Academy, launched by Robin Wallace-Crabbe{{Cite news |date=1989-12-17 |title=Guide to antiquarian books now available |work=Canberra Times |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article120867255 |access-date=2023-03-24}}
• 2005, 30 June to 30 November: Our Community exhibition, National Museum of Australia, Canberra{{Cite journal|last=Hinkson|first=Melinda|date=2006|title=Review Our Community exhibition, National Museum of Australia, Canberra|url=http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p171301/pdf/book.pdf?referer=1058|journal=Aboriginal History|volume=30|pages=208|issn=0314-8769|via=}}
• 2005, 12 July – 10 September: PROOF: Portraits from The Movement 1978–2003 National Portrait Gallery and Macquarie University Gallery 10 March – 10 May 2004.{{Citation|author1=De Lorenzo, Catherine|title=Photographic proof: Portraits from the Movement 1978–2003 by Juno Gemes|journal=Art Monthly Australia|issue=166|pages=11–13|publication-date=2003|issn=1033-4025|author2=Isaacs, Jennifer}}{{Cite news|last=Bennie|first=Angela|date=9 July 2003|title=Charting the moves for justice|work=Sydney Morning Herald|url=|access-date=}}
• 2016, November–December: Gemes' work was included in an exhibition at Carriageworks in Redfern, Sydney, celebrating the 40th anniversary of NAISDA Dance College, called Naya Wa Yugali ("We Dance" in Darkinyung language).{{cite web |date=24 November 2016 |title=NAISDA celebrates 40 years |url=https://dictionaryofsydney.org/blog/naisda_celebrates_40_years |access-date=26 August 2022 |website=The Dictionary of Sydney}}{{cite web |title=Naya Wa Yugali - We Dance |url=https://carriageworks.com.au/events/naya-wa-yugali-we-dance/ |access-date=26 August 2022 |website=Carriageworks}}
• 2019: Juno Gemes: The Quiet Activist, A Survey Exhibition 1979–2019{{cite web |title=Juno Gemes – The Quiet Activist : Survey exhibition 1979 -2019 {{!}} Head On Photo Festival |url=https://www.headon.com.au/exhibitions/juno-gemes-quiet-activist-survey-exhibition-1979-2019 |website=www.headon.com.au |access-date=5 February 2021}}{{cite web |last1=Fairley |first1=Gina |title=Review: The Quiet Activist: Juno Gemes Survey, Macquarie University Art Gallery |url=https://visual.artshub.com.au/news-article/reviews/visual-arts/gina-fairley/review-the-quiet-activist-juno-gemes-survey-macquarie-university-art-gallery-258288 |website=ArtsHub Australia |date=27 June 2019 |access-date=5 February 2021 |language=en-au}}
• 2019, 17 – 29 September: group show entitled Three Women Artists In Country, Maunsel Wickes at Barry Stern Galleries{{Cite web|last=Adair|first=Linda|date=2019-09-14|title=Gemes, Crispin & Pollak: Exhibition Preview|url=https://rochfordstreetreview.com/2019/09/14/gemes-crispin-pollak-exhibition-preview/|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2021-02-06|website=Rochford Street Review|language=en}}

{{reflist}}

• {{Official website|http://www.junogemes.com}}

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Category:1944 births

Category:Living people

Category:Australian women photographers

Category:University of Sydney alumni

Category:National Institute of Dramatic Art alumni

Category:Hungarian emigrants to Australia

Category:Artists from Budapest

Category:20th-century Australian artists