Mongrel Mob Portraits

Overview

Beginning on March the 14th, City Gallery Wellington will be the temporary home for Jono Rotman's exhibition Mongrel Mob Portraits. First shown at the Gow Langsford Gallery in 2014, Rotman uses tradition portrait conventions to photograph eight men from one of New Zealand's most notorious gangs: The Mongrel Mob. The exhibition saw Rotman travel to and from New York (where he is based) to visit the homes of 200 men over the course of seven years.

Large in size and large in impact these photographs are mesmerising and powerful; no standard media representations of gangs here. Due to the subjects being photographed both the exhibition and Rotman have received a lot of backlash. There were concerns about whether or not formal portraits of gang members should hang on gallery walls, some considering it a glorification of gangs. Rotman has defended his work by saying that the images are neither glorification nor caricature, hoping "that viewers are forced to consider each man in person and consider deeply the forces that made him".

Rotman received the Marti Friedlander Award for Mongrel Mob Portraits in 2013.