Exhibitions to Watch
ACT
" Sari to Sarong: 500 years of Indian and Indonesian textile exchange is a world class collection of over 200 rare Asian textiles which were traded between the two great cultures, showing the mutual influences in style and motifs. This show is only at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and closes on 6 October. IMAGE TEXTILE TO COME
" In a New Light: Australian Photography 1850s – 1930s is 300 images of defining moments in our early history, many never shown before, some by the icons of the medium Sweet, Bayliss, Hurley and Cazneaux and others by anonymous and amateur photographers. National Library of Australia, Canberra, 9 October – 26 January 2004.
New South Wales
" Primavera 2003 the annual exhibition of artists under 35, examines urban experiences through new media art forms.
curated by Julianne Pierce. Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 17 September - 30 November.
" Larrikins in London: an Australian presence in 1960s London documents the influence of Oz magazine and the people around it as well as a swag of other irreverents, male and female, from Rolf Harris and Jenny Kee to Sidney Nolan and Brett Whiteley. Ivan Dougherty Gallery to 11 October.
" Manly Arts Festival a sybarite's delight is on until 21 September with an eclectic range of events in the streets, outdoor cafes and galleries, on ferries etc, details from www.manly.nsw.gov.au/artsfestival.
" Italiani di Sydney is the first exhibition of its kind to celebrate the diversity of Italian culture in Sydney, through photographs, items, stories food and fashion and work by young and emerging artists. Museum of Sydney until 7 December. www.hht.net.au.
" Bauhaus Photography, 124 original photographs relating to Bauhaus design between the wars, showing the impact this had on photography. Organised Göethe Institute and ifa. Ivan Dougherty Gallery 1 October – 1 November.
" Small Worlds: a Romance uses digital media including 3D modelling, digital audio and moving image projections to create a sensory environment. Richard Brown, Bruce Mowson, Csaba Szamosy, Joel Zika and Vince Dziekan, UTS Gallery, Sydney, 14 October – 7 November www.utsgallery.uts.edu.au
" Undertow a video installation by Susan Norrie will be shown at the Art Gallery of NSW to coincide with her notes from underground three major video installations at the Museum of Contemporary Art, both on until 12 October.
" ME NAM ::: Rivers, images of water by some of Australasia's most renowned photographers provide an intimate glimpse of life evolving around rivers and the fresh water crisis in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. Organised by AidWatch, at NSW Parliament House 7 -17 October. IMAGE JAPANESE CANOES
Northern Territory
" Desert Mob is an annual event, now in its 13th year. It provides an opportunity to view and purchase art works of new and established Indigenous artists from 30 Desert communities, all in one place, directly from the art centres. Araluen Galleries, Alice Springs Cultural Precinct, until Sunday 5 October. Info from amie.dietman@nt.gov.au, ph 08 8951 1132.
Queensland
" Banggu Minjaany: 20 Years of Contemporary Indigenous Visual Art celebrates the anniversary of visual arts study at the Tropical North Queensland Institute of TAFE 1983-2003 with works on paper, canvas, ceramic, sculpture and batik by past and current Indigenous graduates. Cairns Regional Gallery 31 October – 30 November.
" Story Place: Indigenous Art of Cape York and the Rainforest, art works, ceremonies, dances and beliefs of Indigenous people of Cape York, sculptures from Aurukun, rainforest shields, fibre objects, works on paper, contemporary paintings from Lockhart River. Queensland Art Gallery and touring North Qld. Until 9 November.
IMAGE OF POLES
South Australia
" Australian Surrealism: The Agapitos / Wilson Collection, Art Gallery of SA, until 12 October. " Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri Retrospective first major retrospective of any Western Desert painter, curated by Dr Vivien Johnson, will include over 50 works and cover the artist's 30-year career. Art Gallery of SA, 31 October – 25 January 2004 and touring to the NGV the Art Gallery of NSW and the Queensland Art Gallery.
" John Glover and the Colonial Picturesque, a major survey curated by David Hansen, celebrating Tasmania's 200th anniversary of European settlement. Art Gallery of SA, 19 February – 12 April 2004
" Big Country, curated by postcolonial specialist Dr Ian McLean is a major survey of Australian landscape and is the reopening show of the Flinders University Art Museum scheduled for late September. (see Real Estate) PIC THREE FACTS -TILLERS
" Holy, Holy Holy, curated by Vivonne Thwaites, surveys the influence of Christianity on Aboriginal art, Flinders University Art Museum, 20 February –17 April.
" Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, cutting-edge works in photo-media, curated by Julie Robinson. Art Gallery of SA, 27 February – 30 May 2004
Victoria
" House of Tomorrow is Experimenta's annual new media art, film and net.art extravaganza this year larger than ever and set to tour nationally for two years. In Melbourne it takes place across three sites – installations and screen-based works at the Black Box, Arts Centre St Kilda Rd, cinema program at ACMI Cinemas, Federation Square, (both curated by Liz Hughes, Shiralee Saul and Helen Stuckey) and a live net.art program on the Experimenta website www.experimenta.org curated by Rebecca Cannon from 29 August. The House of Tomorrow theme has allowed the gathering of an array of fantastic fictions from around the world about virtual domestic futures including digital pets, interactive furniture and virtual plants. 5 September – 3 October with ACMI screenings on 25, 27, 28 Sept and a Forum at ACMI on 26 September. A chance to immerse yourself in the very latest in new media work.
" Home Loan will be shown in a brand new 'warehouse conversion' display home in Caroline Springs, an remote outer suburb of Melbourne. The work by Natasha Johns Messenger, Kerri Klumpp, Darren Wardle, Stephen Haley, Selina Ou and others seeks to deal with aspects of domesticity. Runs from 6 September – 4 October with a bus tour from Fitzroy on each Saturday, ring 0411 58 207 for details.
" Orifice, one of the shows of the visual arts program of the Melbourne International Arts Festival, is an exercise in mapping holes, pleasure and pain and reflects the overall Festival theme of The Body, from which it follows that this year the festival focuses on dance. It promises to engulf Melbourne in a frenzy of kicking, bootscooting, trapeze, whirling, and more, with companies and artists brought from all over the known world, some to collaborate with local companies. Many events are out in the streets and riversides as well as free and participatory like the closing Bal Moderne in the Royal Exhibition Building. Director Robyn Archer seems to have achieved the impossible, a top arts festival which is affordable. Exhibitions, selected by Juliana Engberg, include Gary Stevens Slow Life, Erwin Wurm, One Minute Sculptures (IMAGE TO COME?) Anna Lucas Trevety, and Simone Slee On, plus there is Body on Screen, screenings at Federation Square outdoors and in, loosely grouped around dance and the body. A feast for the senses, there will be great music to go with the bodies, from India, Istanbul, Greece, Spain, Japan, West Africa, Taiwan, choreographers and directors thick on the ground include Jan Fabre and Barrie Kosky. 9 – 5 October : to get a program check www.melbournefestival.com.au.
" D3 is a prototype interactive where visitors can select and arrange images and words about seeing the Melbourne CBD in ways beyond just work, shopping and entertainment, scan themselves into it and decide if the resulting creation is worth saving as a candidate for inclusion in a future exhibition. Until 30 September at ACMI, Federation Square, info@acmi.net.au >www.acmi.net.au
Western Australia
" The Pre-Raphaelite Dream: Paintings and Drawings from the Tate Collection is a WA exclusive, includes iconic works by Rossetti, Millais and Holman Hunt as well as drawings and works by lesser known artists associated with the Brotherhood. Art Gallery of Western Australia, 12 July – 28 September 2003
" Shell Fremantle Print Award, the annual printmaking fest which each year pushes the boundaries more, reflecting the changing nature of print and the state of the art nationally. Fremantle Arts Centre 13 September – 19 October.
" Blinded by the Light is an installation of paintings by Lucy Hibberd which chronicle cinematic encounters with light, using a theatrical lighting system to fade up and down on the surfaces which in turn glow in the dark. Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts till 19 October. www.pica.org.au
Australian art overseas
" Ancient Future is a series of Australian elements in a range of Japanese festivals and events from July 2003 – February 2004 including work by Patricia Piccinini, Dinosaur Designs, Spirit Country a huge indigenous art show and site-specific works for the Echigo Sumari Triennial by Robyn Backen, Anne Graham, Janet Laurence, Lauren Berkowitz and Nigel Helyer. Organised by the Australia International Cultural Council in partnership with the Australia Council.
" The installation of Patricia Piccinini's work We Are Family in the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale this year appears to be the most successful since the Pavilion was opened. The work has been reproduced countless times in the media worldwide
" Face Up: Art from Australia opens at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin on 1 October and Artlink will be there too, with copies of the issue you are reading! This is part of artsaustralia berlin 03, a sixth-month program of Australian contemporary arts in Berlin. (see article page 24)
Real Estate
" The Flinders University Art Museum has made an excellent strategic move from Grote St to new premises within the State Library of SA redevelopment on North Terrace, Adelaide, adding to the concentration of culture on the boulevarde. It will reopen in the very near future.
" The Response Gallery a new small space at Federation Square and part of the new National Gallery of Victoria, aims to complement its temporary programming by showing contemporary art and design. Next to Fed Restaurant on the corner of Russell Street, the Response Gallery has its own entrance allowing for extended opening hours. The current show is Fair Game: Art & Sport 13 September – 30 November.
" KINGS is a new custom-built artist-run space including genuine wall space and built in audio/visual equipment, and destined to fill a gap in the Melbourne artist-run scene. First Floor 171 King St Melbourne (near Bourke St) curated by Brendan Lee 0401 136 153 blee@vca.unimelb.edu.au and Frank Guarino.
" The Artery Melbourne is a new two-storey warehouse art space for emerging artists just off Brunswick St in Fitzroy comprising the art essentials: three galleries, a performance space, a stockroom and a coffee bar. Sponsorship from Melbourne Investment House for 12 months will allow the owner-operators to publish 50 catalogues and give new artists a way to exhibit, market and document their work without being contracted to a dealer. 87 – 89 Moor St, Fitzroy, Zola Affley (03) 9415 9200.
" The All Arts Bookshop (www.allarts.com.au) is under new management and has moved to Queen St, Woolhara, Sydney, and now holds more than 7000 art and reference books including a large range on Aboriginal and Oceanic art.
" The Museum of Brisbane (MoB) will open to the public on Saturday, 25 October 2003. On the ground floor of City Hall, it will integrate social history, visual arts, craft and design in a celebration of Brisbane's contemporary culture and history, heritage and people and include a museum shop, courtyard café, theatrette, discovery room and gallery space.
" Cross-breeding
The arts courses at Edith Cowan University have undergone a fundamental change in the last year, so that students enrolled in the visual arts, including at post-graduate level, might find themselves working in collaborations with others in electronic media, graphic design, or in music, dance or drama. Under the umbrella of the School of Contemporary Arts (SOCA), artists-in-residence are being brought in from overseas countries and around Australia to be part of an 'arts laboratory' to work side by side with staff and students, perhaps to see projects realised in public form at SpECtrUm, the university's streetlevel space in gritty Northbridge where artists in residence inhabit a comfortable dwelling above the exhibition space. Mentoring by artists interstate or overseas, MA programmes in Art Therapy or Dramatherapy, with Sound, Colour and Movement Therapy in the pipeline, as well as Indigenous printmaking programs embrace the idea that learning often happens most vigorously where cultural exchange is involved. Domenico de Clario, Head of SOCA, architect of many of these changes, and himself a multidisciplinary artist, is transforming Edith Cowan into a risk-taking environment where it seems just about anything can and does happen.
Ways to support the arts
" Alcoa has joined with CraftWest to establish a funding base of $270,000 for assistance to design including the Alcoa Innovation Award, now in its second year, which offers not only prize money for a product in aluminium, but the opportunity for fledgling designers to work in a design or manufacturing environment. At the annual Australian Business Arts Foundation (AbaF) Awards Councillors' Dinner on 7 August, (the money spent on this elaborate event would probably keep several arts organizations going for a year) the Prime Minister named Alcoa the winner of the Caliburn Partnership Strategy category, amongst a host of other awards, corporate and individual (eg Janet Holmes à Court for Business Leadership). 132 arts organizations surveyed in 2002/2003 have reported an increase in private support of 61%, with the gross amount of support totalling $39 million. This of course can comprise in kind sponsorship as well as cash.
" A Melbourne investment banker/photomedia artist Ruth Bungay has started a new organisation to raise funds for bursaries and scholarships to support the development of individual artists. Bungay Art House (Bahouse), a registered charity able to receive tax-deductible gifts, aims to raise the money both by selling art and attracting donations and together with committees of important people in the arts has set up transparent administration and accounting processes. More information on: www.member.optusnet.com.au/bahouse
Public Art
" Two artists, Kay Lawrence (fibre) and John Nowland (graphic design) were commissioned to produce art works for the beautiful glass entry foyer of the redevelopment of the State Library of South Australia on North Terrace (architects Mitchell Guirgola and Thorp P/L). Working as a team and bringing in other artists to contribute and fabricate elements they have delivered entry statements which are quiet and contemplative, consonant with notions of a library; carpet areas designed in Ernabella, a twisted rope of sedge, a subtle 3-D word piece in the atrium, a floor rug symbolising the digital code.
" Art & About is three weeks of temporary public art organised by the City of Sydney, sponsored by AMP and designed to engage and surprise people as they go about their normal business. A massive expanding and contracting red ball will appear in unexpected places, huge bedsheet size photographs will hang in Hyde Park, with images expressing something about Sydney and its future, (curated by Sandy Edwards), multiple street banners by 12 eminent artists will appear in the CBD (curated by Anne Loxley). www.art&aboutsydney.com. Keep your eyes peeled from 6 – 26 October.
" The Julian Burton Burns Trust Tree of Hope is both a sculptural piece and a mechanism for raising money for equipment for the treatment of burns. Designed by Leslie Matthews for the recently opened Burns Centre of the Royal Adelaide Hospital, the names of donors are etched onto the leaves, pods and flowers of the tree, a composite design sourced from the elements of four native trees which were used in traditional Aboriginal society to heal burns.
IMAGE TO SCAN IN BW FROM COLOUR PRINT!!
Opportunities
" New media artists are invited to apply for a masterclass being organised by the Australian Network for Art & Technology to work with the UK-based group Blast Theory at the Technology School for the Future, 13 – 15 January. They will be in Adelaide as part of the Thinkers in Residence program, January 2004 and putting on a wireless performance-game event for the Adelaide Fringe. Details from anat@anat.org.au
" The ENERGEX Arbour Contemporary Art Prize is a new $20,000 public art photography prize in Brisbane. The subject is 'family life' and six finalists selected by a team of respected judges including Zane Trow, Anne Kirker and Alasdair Foster will have their work enlarged and mounted under the famous bougainvillea arbour at Southbank. Entries close 19 September, phone 07 3404 1852.
" The McClelland Gallery+Sculpture Park's Survey Award is the largest cash prize for sculptors in Australia ($100,000). It runs 5 October – 5 March 2004.
" Pseudo Sound Project Inc (PSP) in Adelaide is calling for young artists (screen based work, music, sound and sculpture), conservationists (tree planting etc) and camerapeople to participate in PSP009 – DEVILgully, as STAGE02 of a 6 stage revegetation and biodiversity program planned for Devil Gully on the mid East coast of York Peninsula. PSP009 will be a 3 day camping fete, 3rd week of March 2004. For more info/expressions of interest Kristain Thomas on (08)8212 0004 or psp@internode.on.net
Awards
In this year's Queen's Birthday Honours Dr Thancoupie Fletcher-James and Andrea Hull received the AO, Ron Radford, Morna Sturrock, Bill Wright and Lady Sneddon received the AM, Jennifer Gore the OAM. Jenny Aland was awarded the Public Service Medal in the field of arts education curriculum in SA.
" Lucas Ihlein, Tim Silver and David Griggs of NSW and Renee So of Victoria are the winners of the Freedman Foundation Travelling Scholarship for Emerging Artists. The award of $5,000 each is administered by NAVA.
" The art and architecture and cultural buildings of the new Artspace Mackay won shared awards in this year's RAIA (Qld) awards for the work of architects Cox Raynor and artists Craig Walsh and Jill Chism.
Birthdays
" The National Association of the Visual Arts is twenty this year, and is commissioning controversial papers designed to challenge the direction in which Australian culture is heading under the Coalition of the Willing to be Overrun by Cheap Imported Ideas. These will be posted in an online forum culminating in a day of free talks as part of the newly reinvigorated Artists' Week at the 2004 Adelaide Festival. They are adding to the fun with the inaugural NAVA Awards for the Visual Arts which promise to be much more important than self-important.
" Canberra Contemporary Art Space started life as Bitumen River Gallery, a printmaking collective ten years ago in July 1993. It has been celebrating its anniversary with exhibitions commemorating as many as possible of the artists who showed there over the decade.
People
" David Cranswick is the new Director of dLux media arts in Sydney
" Binghui Huangfu is the new Director of Gallery 4A in Sydney
" Lindy Hume is the new Artistic Director of the Perth Festival
Conferences and Festivals
" Artists Week, for many years the most important talkfest for the visual arts before it lost its both its way and its support from the Adelaide Festival is back in the fray under the banner of the Festival with a budget, a coordinator and a program. Erica Green, Director of the University of SA Art Museum, has taken up the reins and there will be five days of talks where national agendas will be addressed once more within the legendary conviviality of the Festival. 28 February – 3 March, enquiries: Erica.green@unisa.edu.au
" Ethics and Aesthetics Conference of the Art Association of Australia & New Zealand looks at the ways ethical issues bear on art practice, museology and art historical discourse and how this might encompass art historical work or art theory that intersects with philosophical ethics, politics, cultural and postcolonial studies. Speakers include Okwui Enwezor, Artistic Director Documenta 11, Dr Julian Stallabrass, Courtauld Institute, Charles Merewether, Getty Research Institute, Professor Anthea Callen, Nottingham University, Assoc. Professor Jenny Harper, University of Wellington. 19 & 20 September, Art Gallery of NSW. www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/aaanz. Contact Donna Brett donnab@ag.nsw.gov.au
" 2003 Annual Conference of the Art Association of Australia & New Zealand to be held at National Gallery of Australia and National Portrait Gallery, Canberra 5 + 6 December 2003 For details: Donna Brett donnab@ag.nsw.gov.au
Books out recently
" Blacklines: contemporary critical writing by Indigenous Australians ed Michele Grossman, essays by Michael Dodson, Hetti Perkins, Jackie Huggins, Marcia Langton and more. Melbourne University Publishing RRP $34.95.
" Cultural Relations: The Other Side of the Diplomatic Coin by Neil Manton explores Australia's long, dynamic cultural engagement with Asia in the visual arts, a history which has now finally been recorded rather than continuously rediscovered. Homosapien Books RRP $30.
" Piercing the Ground by Christine Watson is the culmination of her passionate response to the aliveness and presence of Balgo artworks, and the first major study of contemporary Western Desert art. Fremantle Arts Centre Press RRP $39.95.
" Roy Ascott Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology and Consciousness, a collection of essays on telematics, a powerful marriage of computers and telecommunication. Edited and with an essay by Edward A Shanken. University of California Press www.ucpress.edu.
" Ian W. Abdulla: Elvis Has Entered the Building, by Stephen Fox and Janet Maughan is a journey into the world of Ian Abdulla, one of Australia's most distinctive and appealing contemporary visual artists. Wakefield Press RRP $45.
" Australian Surrealism: The Agapitos/Wilson Collection by Bruce James documents the unexpected popularity of Surrealist practice in a country that has long considered Australian Surrealism less of a movement and more of a sensibility. The Beagle Press RRP $99.
" Dupain's Australians by Jill White. Dupain's pictures of ordinary Australians in everyday lives – extraordinary photographs taken from the 1930s to the 1980s. Text by Frank Moorhouse. Chapter & Verse RRP$70. " A comprehensive, well produced 2003/4 Cultural Guide to the cultural pleasures of Victoria has been put out by the Cultural Tourism Industry Group. Including itineraries and potted histories, it is free at tourist centres in Victoria or by calling 132 842.