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| Ace Bourke & friend Christine at the Sherman |
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| Ace, Christian $ John |
Ace was talking at the Sherman Gallery at the exhibition of Vietnamese artist Dinh Q. Lê.
In 1969 he and Australian born social writer John Rendall purchased Christian and raised him in their shop Sophisticat, eventually returning him to Africa under the care of the famous conservationist of Born Free fame George Adamson.
Bourke and Rendell returned a year later to see how Christian was faring and the grainy film of Christian bounding down a hill to hug both John and Ace became a YouTube hit (with over 30 million views) when put to the song I'll Always Love You. It lead to a publishing deal and a world wide tour on TV interview shows including Oprah Winfrey.
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| Brian Sherman & Dinh Q. Lê |
The darkened gallery space is dominated by a floor-to-ceiling moving image of an 18th century tall ship beached on an isolated coastline slowly being consumed by flames. The gallery floor is strewn with small islands of debris – discarded clothing and wooden fragments. Amid the destruction are thousands of small black and white photographs – self-portraits, family and passport photos – which Dinh spent years buying in second-hand stores in the hope of finding his own family’s pictures.
To date the Shermans have now sponsored 11 similar artists to the tune of $100,000 each. The exhibition runs until the 11th September 2011, Wednesday to Saturday 11 am – 5 pm
16–20 Goodhope Street, Paddington
Sydney NSW 2021 Australia
Phone +61 (0)2 9331 1112
# a short film of Dinh's installation :
