Art Almanac September/October 2020 Issue

Art Almanac

September / October 2020 $6

Kawita Vatanajyankur Khaled Sabsabi Drew Pettifer

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Exhibition dates and opening hours printed were current as at the time of publishing; please refer to websites, social media platforms or contact the gallery.

Deadline for next issue: Monday 28 September, 2020.

Contact Editor – Chloe Mandryk cmandryk@art-almanac.com.au Assistant Editor – Alice Dingle adingle@art-almanac.com.au Art Director – Paul Saint National Advertising – Laraine Deer ldeer@art-almanac.com.au Digital Editor – Melissa Pesa mpesa@art-almanac.com.au Editorial Assistant – Penny McCulloch listing@art-almanac.com.au Accounts – Penny McCulloch accounts@art-almanac.com.au T 02 9901 6398 F 02 9901 6116 Locked Bag 5555, St Leonards NSW 1590 art-almanac.com.au

Art Almanac September / October 2020

We acknowledge and pay our respect to the many Aboriginal nations across this land, traditional custodians, Elders past and present; in particular the Guringai people of the Eora Nation where Art Almanac has been produced.

Artists in this issue are deeply empathetic; they share their stories and welcome us to common ground. Our cover artist Kawita Vatanajyankur reflects on the physical and psychological toll of housework but cheers on our ability to endure. Her video work can be enjoyed online with new projects from other artists in ‘Don’t Let Yourself Go’ via Cement Fondu. Anita Larkin also ruminates on a state of flux that is personal and universal, noting that ‘brokenness’ is an opportunity for ‘transformative repair, not a return to previous wholeness or utility, but to view the rupture of the wound as a chance for the broken object to be extended into something.’ Khaled Sabsabi has at times felt like an outsider, but greets the world as a peacemaker. He shares wisdom in his art explaining that ‘to better understand what is around you is to understand what is within yourself.’ Similarly Drew Pettifer’s artistic historical intervention ruminates on systems of oppression, with a view to bring us together; ‘rethinking and recontextualising histories that have been hidden or erased.’ The artists in ‘long water: fibre stories’ celebrate the collective rather than the individual through fibre art, which plays a vital role in maintaining and preserving Indigenous material culture.

The team at Art Almanac extend a big thank you to the galleries and artists who supported this issue for September and October.

Cover

Kawita Vatanajyankur, Sponge, 2020, 4K video still, duration: 5.21 minutes Commissioned by Cement Fondu, Sydney Courtesy the artist, represented by Nova Contemporary, Bangkok and Antidote Organisation, Sydney 5

Don’t let yourself go: A Self-Help Guide to learning from lockdown

Self-isolation measures, including shutting the gallery’s physical doors, led Cement Fondu to launch a new digital exhibition, dubbed as a self-help guide for restricted living. For ‘Don’t let yourself go’ 13 Australian artists and art collectives were commissioned to share lessons, ideas and tools to help find solace and inspiration in suspended times – responding to various personal growth themes, from fitness to feeling sensual and staying connected.

Artists (self-help gurus) include Kenny Pittock, Giselle Stanborough, Sarah Goffman, Kawita Vatanajyankur, Jodie Whalen, Jen Jamieson, Amrita Hepi, The Motel Sisters, Mechelle Bounpraseuth Barilla, Jamaica Moana, Salote Tawale & Sidney McMahon, Shahmen Suku and JD Reforma.

While most works have a comedic edge, others use the opportunity to examine and teach. Highlights include Pittock’s ceramic works, taking inspiration from the highlight of any week in lockdown: a trip to the supermarket. Rebranding and renaming grocery items such as Aeroplane jelly, Tic Toc biscuits and Calypso icy poles (Apocalipsos) to reflect the events that have transpired this year.

‘Be One With Your Sponge’ is Vatanajyankur’s nod to the mundane nature of domestic tasks, heightened by an increased time spent in our homes. While typically unappreciated for the time and physicality endured, Vatanajyankur’s video work Sponge reveals the strength, power and endurance involved with housework; turning her own body into a cleaning-up sponge.

In and outside their apartment, How To Live Together by Salote Tawale & Sidney McMahon documents the transition from living with someone to isolating together, reflecting on moments of disconnection and connection, silence and togetherness. ‘You know I love you… but I miss other people generally.’ cementfondu.org Kenny Pittock, Apocalipso’s Set of 5 flavour icy poles, 2020, ceramic Courtesy the artist and Cement Fondu, Sydney

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Carriageworks re-opens Carriageworks has reprised its role as one of Australia’s largest and most significant contemporary multi-arts centres and celebrated the beginning of a new sustainable chapter with its doors re-opening to the public in early August. True to form, there is an array of free and exciting programming, including eight new commissions as part of the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, a major exhibition by Giselle Stanborough and public artwork by Reko Rennie.

While Carriageworks CEO Blair French said ‘The impact of our closure has been felt across a wide range of communities’, Art Almanac, and the art community at large, were relieved to learn that an uprising of support from philanthropists had been coupled with a 10-year precinct lease and a 5-year funding commitment from the government. We hope this support reinforces the fiscal and experiential value of art, with a ripple effect of sustainable outcomes for other art organisations and artists doing it tough. As you recall, in May the art world was shocked and saddened at the announcement that Carriageworks would enter voluntary administration due to irreparable income loss. The major Sydney venue has historical value and is an active zone in which creativity and community flourishes; it is the home to the experimental Performance Space and a venue for the Sydney Contemporary Art Fair, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week and every weekend locals flock to their Farmers Markets.

French concluded ‘Over 100 years ago this industrial place was born out of resilience and innovation. Through sheer grit, determination and collaboration, we are still here with a promising, independent future. We can’t wait to welcome back the community.’

Carriageworks will be open Wednesday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm, with the Farmers Market back on every Saturday from 8am to 1pm. carriageworks.com.au Reko Rennie, REMEMBER ME, 2020 Photograph: Zan Wimberley Courtesy the artist and Carriageworks, Sydney

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High Wire

Lloyd Jones, Euan MacLeod Massey University Press

Writer Lloyd Jones and painter Euan MacLeod have joined forces to create ‘High Wire’ – a title which traverses metaphysical bridges and tightropes in the pursuit of art. The connection between the pair and their socio-cultural exchanges is a springboard for this unique project that requires them to bravely step out individually on skyward platforms; to keep balance, with freefall being the ever-present reminder of the fragile nature of their collaborative endeavour.

‘High Wire’ is the first in the ‘Kōrero Series’ of collaborative projects involving New Zealand writers and artists to develop dynamic and authentic connections, while working from independent locations. Both award-winning artists hail from New Zealand. Jones, an accomplished novelist, is based in his homeland while MacLeod resides in Sydney, but travels extensively for painting trips internationally.

Absorbing this special book in one session renders a dizzy response; the feet less sure of their foothold, while the mind is opened to new possibilities. As the writer and the artist strive to connect, Jones linguistically explores the unique space of the tightrope, one foot at a time, carefully and sparingly he pivots towards the ultimate goal of stepping onto that thin line in space and turning away from the concept of a bridge as commonplace, where too many have already trod. He writes from his own experiences at the top of the Twin Towers in New York City and also seeks the voice of other explorers with dangerous heights to scale in other destinations across the world. He gives the reader a taste of trekking mountainous coastlines in his homeland. These tales add an emotional depth that is vividly recounted throughout these pages.

The pages are filled with figures wrestling their way along tightropes and bridges, with glimpses of cloudy skies or starry nights and islands surrounded by sea. MacLeod’s artworks impart the immediacy of gestural drawing that he is well known for. The figures are provocative; they dance, play, and balance in mid-air, doing the seemingly impossible and always with the axis turned towards the place of his birth. The Tasman Sea is the vessel, the ebb and flow of this conversation between writer and artist sometimes reaching out, almost touching but also tantalising in its points of separation.

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Art Without Borders Touring exhibitions play a pivotal role in connecting the arts community. They provide access to collections and permit collaboration between cultural bodies, ensure access to a broader audience and encourage artistic dialogue with our neighbours. When mandatory restrictions, in light of the COVID-19 crisis, prevented these shows from travelling from place to place, they were forced to close temporarily; some sought new modes of viewing through the digital realm, others remained in storage in anticipation of reopening.

With restrictive measures easing, albeit state and territory borders remain closed, most art galleries and institutions have opened their doors to the public; once again allowing us to engage with art physically; strengthening connectivity and creating an inclusive cultural landscape.

In our third instalment of touring exhibitions, we spotlight three women artists who create artificial, re-imagined and hidden worlds of immersive landscapes and extreme environments, anthropomorphic creatures and cryptic narratives; ultimately, a place to escape to and explore.

Patricia Piccinini: Curious Affection Welcome to Patricia Piccinini’s alternative world where nature and technology, humans and animals, fact and fiction seamlessly blend in an exploration of modern sciences, social impacts and ethical limits; agency, responsibility and acceptance. By drawing on our past and present relationships, Piccinini constructs scenarios that focus on the grey areas of life and humanity – areas which are often complex and confronting, such as fertility – particularly as we move into the future. Her strange yet captivatingly life-like sculptures of hybrid creatures and transgenic humans engage us on an emotional level – they elicit empathy and challenge conventional notions of beauty, perfection and ideal forms. In all, ‘Curious Affection’ is an imagined reality comprising more than 70 sculptures, photographs, videos, drawings and several large-scale installations, including major new commissions infused with fabulation, interconnection and wonderment, ready to be explored and met with the returned gaze of its occupants.

‘The cheeky Pollinator (2017) peers into the womb of the faceless, legs akimbo creature that you meet when first entering Piccinini’s ‘whole world’, but any unsavoury thoughts are dismissed by those winsome eyes,’ writes Jeremy Eccles, who reviewed the inaugural viewing of the exhibition at Queensland’s Gallery of Modern Art for Art Almanac in 2018.

‘Move through the 3,000 waving transgenic plants that fructify this darkened space, and the eyes on Kindred (2018) will be the next to suck you in. For this wistful orangutan mother with babies that are clearly mutating towards the human, is sister to the sad-eyed Big Mother from 2005 – pieces that the artist hails as ‘classic Piccinini’. But you’re not merely sucked in to sympathise, rather to reflect upon the nature of evolution and, indeed, to ponder the pangs and joys of motherhood itself,’ Eccles continues.

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Anne Wallace: Strange Ways Each scene in Anne Wallace’s paintings is charged, expectant, as though something was looming – but always just out of frame. What lies beyond the balcony, down the road, behind the ‘black spot’ caused by foliage and trees, or beneath the furniture? Wallace grants us no more than is essential: imprints on satin bed sheets, an ashtray full of cigarettes, a glimpse of the horizon or engaged stare of a lone figure. The rest, she leaves to us.

Bringing together more than 80 works from public and private collections, and spanning three decades, ‘Anne Wallace: Strange Ways’ is the most comprehensive survey of the artist’s practice to date. Wallace’s paintings draw upon the language of pop culture including literary novels, music and film; from ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ to The Go-Betweens with nods to John Lennon, The Beatles, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, 1950s cinema, and 1980s London with many of her paintings paying homage to her time spent living in the city as well as Paris, while others reference locations in the United States. At the same time, she is quintessentially a ‘Queensland artist’; growing up in Brisbane in the 1970s and ‘80s has had an undeniable impact on her work which contains subtle references to the city – subtropical foliage, architectural features, recognisable buildings and street names.

Grant McLennan and Robert Forster: The Go-Betweens (2001) represents Wallace’s interests and influences perfectly. The work celebrates Brisbane band The Go-Betweens; however, not all is as it seems – there’s a tension between the real and the imagined. The interior is based on memories

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Lindy Lee

Graham Lang

Moon in a Dew Drop

In The Clear Night Of Day

Drawing on three decades of Lindy Lee’s work, showcasing painting, photography, sculpture, installation and public art, ‘Moon in a Dew Drop’ will be the most comprehensive survey of the artist’s practice to date. The Australianborn child of Chinese immigrants, Lee’s work expounds history, portraiture, and identity, and a focus on the philosophies of Taoism and Buddhism – exploring the connections between humanity and nature. Curated by Elizabeth Ann Macgregor OBE, highlights include Moonlight Deity, a new installation commissioned for the exhibition.

Graham Lang’s semi-biographical works often evoke both the external and internal realities of place and being; an interest further explored in this exhibition, which ‘alludes to the paradoxical power of contradiction to expose the essential unity of all things,’ says the artist. Lang encourages us to imagine wedded opposites on the wheel of existence with ‘humans festooned to fellow-creatures, wandering the wilderness they are biologically part of, yet seek to transcend, nemeses doing the tango of life. All part of one thing, one miraculous gestalt.’

Ulterior Function, 1993, photocopy and acrylic on Stonehenge paper, 16 panels, 175 x 125cm Courtesy the artist, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney

Exodus (For Better Or Worse), 2020, oil on board, 122 x 91.5cm Courtesy the artist and Despard Gallery,Tasmania

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia From 2 October, 2020 Sydney

Despard Gallery 16 September to 10 October, 2020 Tasmania

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Eleanor Millard A Chance Encounter

Wagner Contemporary 19 September to 7 October, 2020 Sydney

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By a thread MAY SPACE 23 September to 17 October, 2020 Sydney

Eleanor Millard’s new suite of landscape paintings are set in paradox – they evoke a sense of place (but you can’t point to it on a map), deal in memory and dream, blend representation and abstraction, and are composed in a swift but meditative state. As Tai Mitsuji writes ‘In a sense, these artworks embody a collaboration between the artist of the past and the artist of the present, who both work across time, searching for a particular, intangible quality that sets their landscape apart.’

‘By a thread’ explores the dualities in fibre art – from associations with gender and domesticity, to arguments of its legitimacy as an art form, and its politicisation as an agent for change. The power of the art form can be ascribed to its unique and intrinsic non-neutrality. The exhibition includes work from artists who approach fibre practices from varied backgrounds; they include, Anna Dunnill, Graziela Guardino, Aerial Morallos, Al Munro, Mylyn Nguyen, Chloe Smith (I Make Soft Food), Nina Walton, and Lisa Woolfe.

Port Side, acrylic on paper, 76 x 80cm Courtesy the artist and Wagner Contemporary, Sydney

Al Munro, Homage to the everyday – black and white, 2018, 11 variable crochet bottles, various yarns, weights, 28.5 x 90 x 10cm Courtesy the artist and MAY SPACE, Sydney

Thank You Our sincere thanks go to the galleries and artists listing in this issue of Art Almanac.

Please note that due to spatial distancing restrictions at the time of printing, not all listings will appear in this issue.

Be sure to check our website for changes, or contact the gallery.

Art Almanac is proud to showcase our vibrant and resilient art community.

Thank you for sharing your art with Australia!

To list in our next issue, send your material to listing@art-almanac.com.au

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Artist Opportunities We have selected a few galleries and funding bodies calling for submissions for Art Awards, Artist Engagements, Grants, Public Art, Residency Programs, Exhibition Proposals and more.

Enjoy, and good luck!

Telstra NATISAA 2020 Winners We congratulate Wangkatjunga/Walmajarri elder Ngarralja Tommy May for being awarded the major $50,000 Telstra Art Award at the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA) for his piece Wirrkanja 2020 (2020).

The 2020 iteration of the Award saw 65 artists share their stories and histories and represent their individual nations through a range of artistic practices as part of NATSIAA – Australia’s longest-running Indigenous art awards. In a first for NATSIAA, the exhibition of finalists’ works will be displayed online, through a virtual gallery.

Ngarralja Tommy May, Wirrkanja 2020, 2020, etching on metal and enamel paint, 120 x 120 cm Courtesy the artist, Mangkaja Arts, Western Australia and Museum and Art Gallery Northern Territory, Darwin

Mr May, who resides at Mindi Rardi Community in Fitzroy Crossing, was born in Yarrkurnja, in the Great Sandy Desert and was raised and taught traditionally.

Depicting a clay pan and waterhole during heavy rains on his Country, Wirrkanja 2020 is an intricately crafted tin etching.

The other awardees include: Walpiri artist Adrian Jangala Robertson (general painting award), Yolŋu Matha artist Marrnyula Mununggurr (bark painting award), Larrakia artist Jenna Lee (Wandjuk Marika 3D award), Amata-based Pitjantjatjara painter, Iluwanti Ken (works on paper award), Cecilia Umbagai (emerging artist), and Siena Mayutu Wurmarri Stubbs (multimedia award). natsiaa.com.au

Blacktown Arts Residency Program Announced Our congratulations go out to James Eastwood, Casey Sessions, Imran Khalighi, Kelcie BryantDuguid, Kristone Capistrano, Luke Ciregna and Seth Ciregna, and Narjis Mirza, the recipients of the 2020 Blacktown Arts residencies. The artists-in-residence will develop their artistic practice, experiment with new forms and produce a range of new work, under the mentorship of the Blacktown Arts team.

As part of the program, Eastwood will work on his project Then and Now Blacktown Native Institute (Stolen Generation – GENERATIONS) and develop a series telling the stories and histories from the community and the Blacktown Native Institute. New paintings and form connections will be the focus of Session’s residency and Bryant-Duguid will research and produce new weavings. Collaborating with a number of artists, Khalighi will write and produce a feature film set in Western Sydney. Capistrano will build upon recent residencies and produce new work for upcoming national and international projects.

Father-and-son Luke and Seth Ciregna will develop their practice together, while Narjis Mirza will produce a series of interactive light installations as part of her practice-led PhD research. blacktownarts.com.au

Kristone Capistrano Photograph: Jennifer Leahy Courtesy Blacktown Arts, Sydney

Art & Industry 69

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