George Gittoes
Born in Australia in 1949, lives and works in Jalalabad, Afghanistan and Sydney, Australia.
George Gittoes’ work as a documentary filmmaker and artist has consistently expressed his social, political and humanitarian concern at the effects of injustice and conflict. Until the mid-1980s, this work was chiefly done in Australia. In 1986 he travelled to Nicaragua, and since then the focus of Gittoes’ work has been largely international. He has travelled to and worked in many regions of conflict, including the Philippines, Somalia, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Bougainville, and South Africa, witnessing global conflict in his artistic work. In recent years his work has especially centred on the Middle East, with repeated visits to Israel and Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
EDUCATION
1968-1969: Studies painting and drawing at the Art Students League of New York, work with African-American realist artist Joseph Delaney and as a camera man at Andy Warhol's Factory.
SOLO EXHIBITONS / FILMS (selection)
2014
I Witness at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre, Sydney.
Love City Jalalabad, Film Screening, DuflonRacz, Bern, Switzerland
2013
Nothing is Enough, Light Works, Syracuse
Beauty in the Face of Everything, works on paper at Art Equity, Sydney.
2012
Love City [Jalalabad] previews at Documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany.
2011
Witness to War, retrospective exhibition, Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston.
Solo seven-film retrospective at Anthology Film Archives, New York, an international centre for the preservation, study and exhibition of film and video. Screenings include The Bullets of the Poets, Soundtrack to War, Rampage, Miscreants of Taliwood, Love City [Jalalabad], Talk Show and The Tailor’s Story.
2010
Descendence, DuflonRacz, Bern, Switzerland
Miscreants of Taliwood screens at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
2009
Feature documentary Miscreants of Taliwood, premieres at the Adelaide Film Festival. Later screened at Telluride Film Festival, Colorado; International Documentary Film Festival, Amsterdam; Planete + Doc Film Festival, Poland; Biografilm Festival, Italy; Santa Cruz Film Festival, California; Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival, United Kingdom; Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, Denmark; and Traverse City Film Festival, Michigan.
2008
The Time: A Season in Pakistan, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre, Sydney
2007
Miscreants
of Taliwood, the third film in his War on Terror trilogy. The film combines the drama and action of a Pashto telemovie with documentary footage in the Taliban-controlled tribal belt.
30 Years – Long Journey retrospective exhibition of three decades of work at Art Equity, Sydney.
2006
Releases Rampage, which screens at the Berlin, Sydney, Vancouver and Montreal filmfestivals, followed by cinema releases in Australia, the United Kingdom and United States.
2005
Soundtrack to War screens at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
2004
Release of Soundtrack to War , premiere on ABC Television.
Release of Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 9/11 which features seventeen clips from Soundtrack to War
No Exit: A Tale of Two Cities – George Gittoes in New York and Baghdad, solo exhibition at Macquarie University Art Gallery, Sydney
2001
Lives in the Balance, Durban Art Gallery, Johannesburg Art Gallery, and Pretoria Art Gallery.
2000
Minefields exhibited at the Palace of Nations (United Nations Office), Geneva, Switzerland
Sir Hermann Black Gallery, University of Sydney; and in Moscow, Russia.
World Diary, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre, Sydney
1995
The Realism of Peace, Museum and Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin. The works document his tours with Australian peacekeeping forces to Somalia, Cambodia, Western Sahara, the Middle East, Sinai, Rwanda and Mozambique. The exhibition tours nationally until 1997.
Solo Show, Parliament House, Sydney.
1994
Freedom Dance, Arthaus Gallery, Sydney.
1992
Dry Solace, collaboration with WATT, Art Gallery of New South Wales, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; and Townsville Civic Theatre, Queensland.
1991
Empire State Suite, a series of
24 etchings responding to media coverage of the Gulf War.
Heavy Industry, interstate touring exhibition developed by Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery.
1990
William Mora Galleries, Melbourne.
Crows Over Cane Fields, solo exhibition at Tin Sheds Gallery, University of Sydney of paintings developed during visits to the Philippines.
1989
Heavy Industry series which explores the working conditions of miners and steelworkers in Wollongong, Newcastle and Broken Hill. Artist in residence at Wollongong City Art Gallery for Heavy Industry, followed by a solo exhibition.
Artist in residence at Newcastle Art Gallery to continue the Heavy Industry project, followed by solo exhibition.
Artist in residence at Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery to continue the Heavy Industry project,followed by solo exhibition.
1988
Paintings, William Mora Galleries, Melbourne.
1987
Solo exhibition of paintings developed during visits to the Northern Territory at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin and Coventry Gallery, Sydney.
1981
Refined Fire nominated for Best Experimental Film at the Australian Film Institute awards; wins silver medal at the Hiroshima Film Festival, Japan; is a finalist in the Baltimore Film festival; and wins best cinematographer and best special effects at the Armidale Film Festival, NSW.
1980
Australian representative at the International Photographic Exhibition, Fribourg, Switzerland.
1977
Sunfish, Macquarie Galleries, Sydney
Rainbow Way, Sydney and Melbourne film festivals and theatrical release.
1976
Solander Gallery, Canberra.
1975
Works in Progress, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney.
Rainbow Way, Coventry Gallery, Sydney and Brummels Gallery, Melbourne.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS (selection)
1982
Space-Light: Holography and Laser Spectacular at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (now Powerhouse Museum), Sydney.
1997
Innenseite at Projektgruppe Stoffwechsel, Kassel, Germany satellite exhibition of Documenta X.
Sarajevo, developed by Ivan Dougherty Gallery, College of Fine Arts
University of New South Wales, Sydney
2007
Turbulence, the 3rd Auckland Triennial at Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand.
AWARDS
2015
Sydney Peace Prize
2013
Bassel Shehadeh Award for Social Justice
Government
2008
Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of New South Wales, Sydney
2001
Centenary Medal from the Australian Government
1997
Member of the Order of Australia, for ‘service to art and international relations
as an artist and photographer portraying the effects on the environment of war, international disasters and heavy industry’
1992
Blake Prize for Religious Art
1992
Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales
1991
Artist Development Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts
RESIDENCIES
2013 Artist in residence at Light Work in Syracuse, New York
2002 School of Humanities, Michigan University
1998 Asialink residency at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing
PUBLICATIONS / FILMS
George Gittoes, monograph by Gavin Fry, published by Craftsman House, 1998
I Witness: The Art of George Gittoes, an independent film by director Don Featherstone, 1999
War Paint: The World According to George Gittoes, ABC Television Artspace documentary, 2014
CURRENT PROJECTS
Since 2011: Multi-disciplinary arts centre
Yellow House in Jalalabad with Hellen Rose,
in the Pashtun-dominated region south of Afghanistan.
2012: Establishes Buraq films with Afghan filmmakers to produce high-quality Pashto-language films, based at the Yellow House, Jalalabad.
RECENT FILMOGRAPHY
Soundtrack to War, 2005 (director and cinematographer)
Rampage, 2006 (director)
The Miscreants of Taliwood, 2009 (director and writer)
Love City, Jalalabad, 2013 (director and writer)
Snow Monkey, 2015 (director and writer)