Indholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2021 i Art Guide Australia

TIMMAH BALL is a writer of Ballardong Noongar heritage who is influenced by studying and working in the field of urban planning. Her writing has appeared in a range of anthologies and literary journals. MICHAELA BEAR is an emerging curator and writer currently working at RMIT. She was Assistant Editor for the 2017 Honolulu Biennial and has written for a range of publications including Art Asia Pacific, viennacontemporary mag and the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art (ANZJA). TRACEY CLEMENT is an artist, freelance writer and editor at Art Guide Australia. She has a PhD in contemporary art, as well as a diploma in jewellery design, an undergraduate degree in art history-theory and a master’s degree in sculpture. Tracey has been a regular contributor to Art Guide Australia for…

Remains To Be Seen Georgia Banks Gertrude Glasshouse 23 April—22 May If you live in Melbourne, you might have passed a billboard with artist Georgia Banks holding a single red rose, an excitedly nervous facial expression, set against a pastel pink sunset with a palm trees and a sandy beach. To her left reads, “Georgia Banks in Remains To Be Seen.” She looks every bit The Bachelor contestant. And while this billboard is advertising a competition, this one isn’t about love: it’s about death. Banks is offering one lucky winner complete control over her funeral and remains. Based on previous works looking at the absurdity of application processes for appearing on reality television, Banks was curious about the desire to be on these shows, despite their known immorality. “It’s just…

Time Feeling Slippy David Booth Hugo Michell Gallery 20 May—19 June Time has revealed itself in new ways during the Covid-19 pandemic—and for art-makers, for whom the creative act can involve the slow burn of cogitation and process as well as the flash of illumination or inspiration, it has perhaps been particularly strange. Melbourne-based artist David Booth, also known as Ghostpatrol, explores this recent phenomenon with his new exhibition, Time Feeling Slippy. “This body of work is a set of busy watercolours and bold colour-block paintings,” says Booth. “The works came to life during the fog of 2020, and are in part a response to conversations I had with my friend and fellow artist Sebastian Moody. We’ve been speaking about time and art and being lost in it all. “As…

Abolish the Olympics Pony Express Contemporary Art Tasmania 16 June—11 July The cancellation of the 2020 Olympic Games marked the first time the event had been postponed in its 57-year history. Currently slated to go ahead in Tokyo in July 2021, the Olympics are the catalyst for the latest pseudo-reality performance by Loren Kronemyer and Ian Sinclair, who together form experimental live art duo Pony Express. Abolish the Olympics transforms the gallery space into a mini arena, with Kronemyer and Sinclair performing shorthand versions of 32 Olympic sports in gridded sections marked out across the floor. Audience participation is encouraged. “It is a one-hour ritualised version,” says Kronemyer. “Ian and I have our team uniforms, lockers, audience seating and all the ingredients of the Olympic village condensed into this extremely…

Commissioned by a spirit guide, Swedish artist Hilma af Klint spent a decade of her life painting 193 works for a spiralling temple. The temple was never built, and when she died in 1944 she entrusted the works to a nephew, instructing that they not be opened for 20 years. It was a protective act. The world, she thought, was not ready for them. These temple works were “far ahead of their time,” says Sue Cramer, the curator of The Secret Paintings, which comes to the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) in June. “For a long time, her work was dismissed because it was spiritual, and therefore not art.” It has been a remarkable reappraisal. In 2012, when MoMA staged its canonical exhibition Inventing Abstraction: 1910-1925, her work…

Vipoo Srivilasa is repairing happiness. When I visited his studio, the artist described taking donated broken ceramics, learning the stories of how they came to be damaged, and attempting to fix them. Many of these items, he told me, are deeply personal: precious carriers of identity and family, vessels often holding more weight than they can bear. In the act of mending, Srivilasa is imbuing these objects once again with a sense of joy. It’s an apt project for our current time. After over a year of pandemic upheaval, we’re at the point of sticking ourselves back together, both individually and as a society. We’re all too aware of the visible cracks, the missing pieces, the fragility of our reconstituted forms. But there is beauty in reparation, and the possibility…

Pages, Studies, Notes Jurek Wybraniec Art Collective WA 24 April—22 May The monochrome is a recurring motif in Jurek Wybraniec’s work. Over three decades of practice, fields of colour—often in process blue, process yellow, and a specific birthday-cake shade of pink—manifest variously as textured paint, pegboard, laser-etched acrylic sheets, a custom-made inflatable. In his new exhibition Pages, Studies, Notes, Wybraniec has pared his materials back to ink on paper: “Two areas,” he says, “that I haven’t explored before.” Embracing the mobility of this medium, the artist has followed strict parameters, selecting paper in standard A sizes. Placing an A4 sheet of paper on an A3, he “quickly floods the [smaller] sheet of paper with a fairly rough application” of ink, using the larger sheet as a blotter. This process is…

The City of Ladies Zanny Begg and Elise McLeod UQ Art Museum 13 February—19 June A novel written in 1402 by proto-feminist Christine de Pizan, and a song by a bunch of middle-aged white-male rockers titled Kiss the Devil, may seem like strange bedfellows. But they come together in the film installation The City of Ladies by Zanny Begg and Elise McLeod. The duo also weave together the past and the present in a story that, thanks to an ingenious algorithm, has 300,000 possible iterations. The City of Ladies takes its name from de Pizan’s book which, written just as the witch trials were gaining momentum in medieval France, dared to imagine what the world might look like if women had equal access to education and positions of power. “We…

Blanche Tilden—ripple effect: a 25 year survey Geelong Gallery 8 May–1 August The human-made qualities of glass and metal have long fascinated contemporary jeweller Blanche Tilden. “My work explores tangible and symbolic aspects of material culture that reflect this time and place by abstracting and translating the visual language and materials of architecture, the built environment, and everyday objects into jewellery,” she explains. Her pieces interrogate the properties of a range of materials—from traditional metals such as gold and silver, to more unconventional industrial materials and objects including borosilicate glass and titanium, glass camera lens components, computer parts, and bicycle chains. As objects worn close to the body, Tilden’s refined pieces become intimately connected to the wearer. These personal qualities are emphasised in a series of photographs of adorned collectors,…

Growing up on a public housing estate built in the 1960s at Green Valley, south-west of Sydney, artist Catherine O’Donnell remembers her family feeling lucky that they lived in their humble fibro bungalow. It had the same layout as many other houses in the neighbourhood—walking into a friend’s home was much like walking into your own. The construction of the houses, the formation of the fibro, and the configuration of the doors and wooden window frames are hallmarks of O’Donnell’s art today. “That architecture is imprinted in my brain,” she laughs. From these beginnings also came O’Donnell’s love for minimalism. Sometimes, her play with shadows—inferring what is not directly represented in the picture—can help her audience impose their own narratives on her art. “There were a lot of young families…

National identity circulates from within a country to diasporas near and far. For Sydney-based artist Louise Zhang, Chinese culture flows through the nearness of her parents, travel to China and her art practice. Louise Zhang at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV Australia) is a mini-retrospective. Comprised of five recent paintings and a sculpture, the exhibition is a collaboration between the NGV and cosmetics retailer MECCA, in which selected works were both adapted for MECCA’s sleek packaging and acquired for the NGV collection. The endorsement of each organisation was significant in different ways. “The support of the NGV was super exciting,” says Zhang. “To acquire work by an emerging Chinese-Australian artist and keep showing it as part of the collection; that isn’t token. It’s long-lasting support.” On the other hand,…

HOTA, Home of The Arts, is pronounced “hotter”, which perfectly suits this gallery’s location, enjoying the Surfers Paradise climate. It also suits the calibre of artworks visitors are likely to experience there: having just re-opened, HOTA is not only championing diverse Australian artists, but will present significant international shows from the end of the year. The old HOTA, opened in 1986 as the Gold Coast City Gallery and housed within the Gold Coast Arts Centre, had about 500 square metres of space. Now, in its own purpose-built building costing more than $60 million, HOTA has more than 8000 square metres to play with, making it the largest gallery outside an Australian capital. Director Tracy Cooper-Lavery has been working on no fewer than five separate new shows running concurrently for the…

Andrew Baker Art Dealer www.andrew-baker.com 26 Brookes Street, Bowen Hills, QLD 4006 [Map 15] 07 3252 2292 0412 990 356 Wed to Sat 10am–5pm or by appt. See our website for latest information. 5 May–5 June Autistic spectrum: Darkness and light Sam Bullock Artspace Mackay www.artspacemackay.com.au Civic Precinct, corner Gordon and Macalister Streets, Mackay, QLD 4740 [Map 14] 07 4961 9722 Tue to Fri 10am–5pm, Sat to Sun 10am–3pm. Free entry. See our website for latest information. 4 February—16 May Horizons Tony Druery 19 February—16 May A Changing Ecology Danie Mellor, Fiona Foley, Archie Moore 16 February—12 May The Wall Dylan Mooney 26 February—16 May In Search of Arcadia Ron McBurnie 21 May—7 July Iterate/Elaborate Leigh Shoenheimer 21 May—25 July Continuum Donna Maree Robinson and David Pyke. 28 May—18 July…

Bett Gallery www.bettgallery.com.au Level 1, 65 Murray Street, Hobart, 7000, TAS 03 6231 6511 Mon to Fri 10am–5.30pm, Sat 10am–4pm. 7 May—29 May Pmara Nurnaka, Yia Nurnaka: Our Country, Our Stories Hermannsburg Potters and Iltja Ntjarra/Many Hands. 7 May—29 May Melt Caroline Rannersberger 4 June—26 June Land of the broken hearted Joan Ross 4 June—26 June New(ish) Work Sally Rees Colville Gallery www.colvillegallery.com.au 91 Salamanca Place, Hobart TAS 7000 [Map 17] 03 6224 4088 Daily 10am–5pm. 27 April—10 May Michael Muruste Minna Road 11 May—31 May Some Kind of Peace Donna Lougher 8 June—28 June Song for the River Glen Preece 29 June—12 July New Works Joshua Andree Contemporary Art Tasmania www.contemporaryarttasmania.org 27 Tasma Street, North Hobart, TAS 7000 [Map 17] 03 6231 0445 Wed to Sun 12noon–5pm. See our…

Art Collective WA www.artcollectivewa.com.au 2/565 Hay Street, Cathedral Square, Perth, WA 6000 [Map 19] 08 9325 7237 Wed to Fri 11am–4pm, Sat 12noon–4pm, or by appointment See our website for latest information. 24 April–22 May Pages, Studies, Notes Jurek Wybraniec Wybraniec explores a formal response to the light, colour and space experienced in architecture and film in this new work. Through patient, repeated and improvised acts of mark making and composition, his studio-based studies evolve over time. Marks which highlight the subjective properties of colour meld with the intrinsic qualities of the materials used, paradoxically resulting in a casual, almost flippant, aura. 24 April–22 May Ponderings Galliano Fardin A new painting series by Galliano Fardin meditates on our temporary presence in time and space, allowing us to witness the phenomena…

We Eat We Are Northern Centre for Contemporary Art 30 April—29 May The unique food culture of the Northern Territory, and the diversity of artwork being created, inspired Sarah Pirrie to curate We Eat We Are. Currently on tour through Artback NT, the exhibition makes its third stop at the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art. We Eat We Are explores food as a social interaction—a kind of Joseph Beuysian social sculpture—that brings people together, builds relationships and community, records and continues culture, and, for Pirrie, allows us to explore “relationships we have with our identity.” The exhibition includes the work of six artists and collectives with significant ties to the Northern Territory. Mulkuṉ Wirrpanda, a senior artist of the Dhuḏi-Djapu clan from Dhuruputjpi, paints her clan’s sacred designs, including plants…

Notes from the Field: Bogong Centre for Sound Culture Murray Art Museum Albury (MAMA) 26 February—27 June www.field-not.es In the 10 years since its establishment, Bogong Centre for Sound Culture has earned a justified reputation across Australia and beyond as an institution devoted to the theory, politics, aesthetics and technology of sound art. However, survey exhibition Notes from the Field is above all a meditation on the Centre’s local landscape: the Bogong High Plains and Kiewa Valley in northeast Victoria, home of the Bidhawal, Dhudhuroa, Gunaikurnai and Nindi-Ngudjam Ngarigu Monero peoples. The exhibition features the work of 15 artists who have undertaken residencies at the Centre in the remote Victorian Alps. “Together they represent a range of responses to the region’s natural, anthropogenic and atmospheric characteristics,” says Phillip Samartzis who,…

Con la punta de los dedos (With the tips of your fingers) Nadia Hernández STATION 24 April—22 May Not everyone can spot beauty in a recipe, but Nadia Hernandez has the heart of a poet. Known for a multidisciplinary practice that includes huge textile banners emblazoned with words, as well as painting, collage and sculpture, the Sydney-based Venezuelan artist considers poetry to be one of her many materials—and she looks for, and finds, it everywhere. The title of her latest solo show, Con la punta de los dedos (With the tips of your fingers), is taken from an instruction in a recipe written by her mother. For Hernandez, the poetry in a list of ingredients quickly became an existential meditation on identity. Reading the phrase ‘butter at room temperature’ set…

Australian Love Stories National Portrait Gallery 20 March—1 August From the painted miniatures of old to the photo on an iPhone lock screen, “the inextricability of love and portraiture”—as Joanna Gilmour, senior curator of the National Portrait Gallery, puts it—is a tale as old as time. “Though it’s typical to think of portraits as being representations of individuals,” Gilmour says, “every portrait has a relationship at its heart.” As she points out, “the most powerful and enduring portraits” are often those that reveal an intense relationship between artist and subject. “These are the sort of portraits that can reveal what the artist is feeling, where the artist lets their guard down and exposes their innermost self.” Gilmour cites, for example, Richard Larter’s images of his wife, artist Pat Larter, as…

Emily Crockford is at the opening of the 2019 Salon des Refuses, a long-running Archibald spin-off for portraits that weren’t selected for the official exhibition. On display is Crockford’s intricately patterned, utterly vivacious portrait of artist Rosie Deacon. “There were so many different colours and creepy creatures, like a koala sitting on a cushion,” recalls Crockford of visiting Deacon. “I saw lots of colours in her studio, like [a] rainbow, and then I painted Rosie on a big canvas.” Titled Funky Jungle Rosie in her Pom Pom Zoo, the painting was hanging beside a podium where a respected member of Australia’s arts media was opening the exhibition. Crockford, who practices from Studio A, a Sydney-based supported studio for artists with an intellectual disability, was standing nearby. Right next to Crockford…

In the West, so many objects of cultural significance from around the world are sequestered into museums and art galleries, put into a cabinet, and flattened to a pithy description of a line or two: name, material, year, function. The inner life of the object is stripped as it becomes an exhibit, frozen in time behind glass. Two Vietnamese-Australian artists are reclaiming life for the Đông So’n drum—a Bronze Age instrument with thousands of years of history. Multidisciplinary artist James Nguyen, and artist, archaeologist and composer Victoria Pham, are reanimating the drum in RE:SOUNDING. By allowing its voice to be heard, the artists are defying the exotifying way in which these objects are normally displayed. “This one instrument challenges and unravels this really reductive way of Western thinking,” says Nguyen.…

@14 www.at14.com.au 14 Langridge Street, Collingwood, VIC 3066 [Map 3] 03 9088 2222 Tues to Sat 11am–5.30pm. EXHIBITION SPACE FOR HIRE Now taking bookings. Prominently located in the heart of Melbourne’s cultural precinct, metres from the corner of Smith and Gertrude Streets. Floor space of 150 sqm suitable for art exhibitions, product launches, hospitality events, photo shoots etc. Track hanging system and dimmable LED lighting. 1 May—29 May Gould Creative presents: Deep Blue Sea Chris Langlois ACMI www.acmi.net.au Fed Square, Melbourne, VIC 3000 [Map 2] Mon and Tues 12noon–5pm, Wed to Fri 12noon–7pm, Sat 11am–7pm, Sun 11am–6pm. Located in the heart of Melbourne’s Fed Square, ACMI (formerly Australian Centre for the Moving Image) celebrates the wonder and power of the world’s most democratic artform – fostering the next generation of…

Aarwun Gallery www.aarwungallery.com 11 Federation Square, Gold Creek, Nicholls, ACT 2913 [Map 16] 02 6230 2055 Daily 10am–5pm and by appointment in the evening. See our website for latest information. Australian National Capital Artists (ANCA) Gallery www.anca.net.au 1 Rosevear Place (corner Antill street), Dickson, ACT 2602 [Map 16] 02 6247 8736 Wed to Sun 12noon–5pm. See our website for latest information. 5 May—23 May One or Two Paintings Peter Alwast, Joel Arthur, Riley Beaumont, Rowan Kane and Dionisia Salas. 2 June—20 June Dusk Tess Horwitz Artists Shed www.artistsshed.com.au 1–3/88 Wollongong Street (lower), Fyshwick, ACT 2609 0418 237 766 Daily 9am–5pm, Sun 10am–4pm. Canberra’s largest private gallery. May Dali Month with signed lithographs. June Sons of Namatjira and Hermannsburg. Beaver Galleries www.beavergalleries.com.au 81 Denison Street, Deakin, Canberra, ACT 2600 [Map 16]…

ACE Open www.aceopen.art Lion Arts Centre, North Terrace (West End) Kaurna Yarta, Adelaide, SA 5000 [Map 18] 08 8211 7505 Tue to Sat 11am–4pm. As South Australia’s flagship contemporary art gallery, ACE Open presents a year-round program of free exhibitions by practicing South Australian, Australian and international artists. Its exhibitions, talks and events are held at its Lion Arts Centre home in the west end of the city. 14 May—3 July Sidney McMahon: Of Sorrow and Release Sidney McMahon and Sam Petersen. Art Gallery of South Australia www.agsa.sa.gov.au North Terrace, Adelaide, SA 5000 [Map 18] 08 8207 7000 Daily 10am–5pm. Free entry unless specified. 27 February—16 May Clarice Beckett: The present moment The Art Gallery of South Australia’s major exhibition Clarice Beckett: The present moment takes you on a sensory…

Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory www.magnt.net.au 19 Conacher Street, The Gardens, Darwin, NT 0820 08 8999 8264 Open daily 10am–4pm. 13 March—13 June Exit Art A celebration of the talents and creativity of the next generation of artists and designers, presenting the very best contemporary art and design from Northern Territory Year 12 students. Presented by the Museum and Art Gallery Northern Territory in partnership with the Northern Territory Department of Education, Exit Art reflects the diversity of the Territory’s artistic practice and practitioners, expressing universal themes of identity, place and environment. Until 27 June Fresh: Connecting New & Old Art Bringing together works from the Aboriginal, Australian and South East Asian art collections. This exhibition reveals diverse stories from within these collections and the broad geographic…