Art News

Fascinating Photographic Exhibition Portrays Life in Kings Cross from 1970-1971

SYDNEY.- Up the Cross, at the Museum of Sydney is a new exhibition presenting the iconic people and places of Sydney ’s Kings Cross, captured by photographers Rennie Ellis & Wesley Stacey from 1970 to1971. Spending six months in Australia’s legendary red light district, Rennie Ellis was an avid photographer, writer and diarist and Wesley Stacey, a magazine photographer. Together they captured characters from all walks of life, from the flamboyant “Auntie Mame” to the fresh-faced American sailors as they chatted to the spruiker at the Golden Orchid strip club. Snapping the infamous nightlife, Carlotta and the Les Girls, hippies and Hare Krishna’s, avant-garde artists and wide-eyed tourists and passers by, the exhibition is a glimpse into the fascinating portrait of life ‘up the Cross’ in the 1970s. It was the ‘summer of love’ and Kings Cross was as much a magnet for long-haired pilgrims and avant-garde ar