National Gallery of Victoria
2 March to 16 May 2004

McClelland Gallery
6 March to 25 May 2005

Shepparton Art Gallery
26 May to 3 July 2005

National Library of Australia
3 September to 30 October 2005

All photographs tell us things. But if we are living in 'fictitious times', as American documentary filmmaker Michael Moore has said, then our ability to read and understand the layers of information in photographs becomes all the more important. We have also become accustomed to questioning the truth of photographic images, especially in light of digital technology and its use by the media, which makes us more likely to look for potential fictions.

The idea of 'good looking' is one way of seeing that encapsulates the fact that photographs are not simply a mirror to the world but one of the most complex and, at times, problematic forms of visual representation. The exhibition Good Looking: Narrative Photographs Past and Present brings together images from the National Gallery of Victoria's permanent collection that invite us to project fictions. Some of these photographic stories have a plot or a cast of characters. Others use serial images or create a highly suggestive scenario as a way to structure information; although it may only be implied, we instinctively insert narrative into these photographs.

Through the inclusion of seemingly incidental or unforeseen visual information, these photographs seduce us into looking longer and more thoroughly. In this respect, the role of interpretation (to see how something is what it is) becomes an act open to us in excess of what may be intended by the artist.

Good Looking: Narrative Photographs Past and Present features works by artists Edwin Adamson, Jane Burton, Virginia Coventry, Frank Hurley, Martyn Jolly, J.W. Lindt, Fred Kruger,Tracey Moffatt, Ian North, Kenneth Pleban and Robert Rooney.