Silent city

A Together In Art Pocket Exhibition curated by Isobel Parker Philip

We often talk about the city as if it were an organism; a living, breathing thing made of cells and systems that move together as one.

Perhaps that’s why scenes of empty streets seem so shocking. Vital signs all but extinguished, the city is no longer sentient.

I know that, in this moment, the health of the city depends upon its desertion. And yet, those vacant streets – those empty arteries – make me feel so ill at ease.

Isobel Parker Philip is senior curator of contemporary Australian art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

AGNSW collection Glenn Sloggett Hope Street 2000

https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/207.2011.2/

AGNSW collection Gerhard Stromberg Albertblock 2001

https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/288.2018/

AGNSW collection Eugene Atget Rue de l’Hôtel de Ville 1921

https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/76.2010/

AGNSW collection Ben Cauchi A dead end 2007

https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/273.2012/

AGNSW collection Christina Fernandez Lavanderia #4 2002, printed 2009

https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/207.2009/

AGNSW collection Shannon Ebner Sculptures involuntaires 2006, printed 2008

https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/45.2008/

AGNSW collection Olive Cotton Through the fence circa 1934, printed 1980

https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/219.1980/

AGNSW collection Grant Mudford Woolloomooloo 1973

https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/325.1985/

AGNSW collection David Moore Scarborough College, Toronto, Canada 1970, printed 1997

https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/34.2004/

AGNSW collection Callum Morton Motormouth 2002

https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/305.2002.a-v/