MARCH 2014
Australia’s Monthly Briefing on
art
$5.00
Biennale of Sydney Patricia Casey Daniel Crawshaw Adelaide Biennial
Exhibition Reviews 1
Daniel Crawshaw High Country Gothic by Jillian Grant London-based Welsh artist Daniel Crawshaw is the embodiment of an artistic adventurer, if ever there was one. Having traversed wild landscapes the world around for the better part of two decades, in the tradition of our early 19th century artistic émigrés, the UK native has now tackled the Great Southern Land. In what is the second of an ongoing series of international displays from Gippsland Art Gallery, Crawshaw presents ‘High Country Gothic’, curated by Simon Gregg. Crawshaw’s travels have seen him explore and paint pristine landscapes in such countries as Canada, Switzerland, Spain, and Wales, capturing their untouched beauty in his works. Gippsland Art Gallery curator Simon Gregg invited Crawshaw to Australia in 2012, having seen his work and thought it a good fit for the gallery. In 42
October of that year, Crawshaw made the voyage, basing himself at the Cowwaar Artspace in Central Gippsland, from where he regularly journeyed out into the High Country Alpine National Park over a period of six weeks. “In coming over to Australia I made a big commitment to the task of tackling an entirely new landscape. I came with no idea of what to expect and have had to tackle what I found”, Crawshaw says. He researched extensively in his preparation for the trip, making formal plans but with no real understanding of what to expect when he arrived. “I did a lot of preparation before going, and all my preparation was just the logistics of being there … but I hadn’t really addressed what sort of landscape it would be and what it would actually look like,” he says. The works produced during Crawshaw’s time in Gippsland will be on display alongside paintings made in his native Wales during many trips into
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the craggy wilderness. When viewed in parallel, the paintings have many affinities – most notably, a darkness derived from a sense of foreboding, of the overwhelming power of nature. This strikes a particular chord with Crawshaw, who actually found himself lost on one expedition to Mount Erica, only making his way back to safety by carefully and painstakingly retracing his steps. Though dark and mysterious, the paintings are also imbued with optimism, a soft light that suggests awe or excitement. Crawshaw’s path recalls that of some of Australia’s earliest painters – early Australian art was largely produced by European artists. In the late 18th century, convict artist Thomas Watling painted landscapes of Sydney, producing the first oil paintings of local flora and fauna. A century later, European artists Eugene von Guérard and Nicholas Chevalier brought a distinctly European sensibility to Australian landscape painting, rendering scenes with a misty-eyed idealism. Even so, ecologists
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have looked to Von Guérard’s works, including Tower Hill (1855), to inform their conservation efforts – idealised, but nonetheless documentary works of a time before environmental degradation. Featuring over 40 paintings, ‘High Country Gothic’ will envelope its audience in the grandeur of its subject, drawing them in to Crawshaw’s artistic adventure. The display includes small and large-scale works, as well as plein air sketches, allowing viewers to experience the highs and the lows of venturing into uncharted territory. Gippsland Art Gallery 15 March to 11 May, 2014 Victoria 1 Clearing I, 2013, oil on canvas, 152 x 200cm 2 Gallt Y Wenallt Snowmelt, 2013, oil on canvas, 50 x 40cm 3 Y Garn II, 2012, oil on canvas, 153 x 122cm
Courtesy the artist and Gipsland Art Gallery, Sale
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Exhibition Reviews 1
Dark Heart 2014 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art
Warwick Thornton, Lynette Wallworth in a collaborative project with Martumili artists, as well as Ah Xian.
by Melissa Pesa
According to Art Gallery of South Australia Director and Biennial curator, Nick Mitzevich, the 2014 Adelaide Biennial will be, “an inherently emotional and immersive exhibition, one that explores the underbelly of contemporary culture.” ‘Dark Heart’ becomes a narrative telling the story of Australia’s dark past and encounters the fabric of modern Australian society through the vast assemblage of works on display.
Investigating the personal, political and psychological dimensions of contemporary Australia, the ‘2014 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art digs’ into the hearts and minds of the nation with ‘Dark Heart’. Over 25 of Australia’s leading contemporary artists explore our nation’s cultural identity through photography, painting, sculpture, installation and the moving image. Such artists include Brook Andrew, Del Kathryn Barton, Martin Bell, Ian Burns, eX de Medici, Julia deVille, Dale Frank, Tony Garifalakis, Fiona Hall, Bill Henson, Brendan Huntley, Kulata Project – Tjala Arts, Richard Lewer, Dani Marti, Trent Parke, Patricia Piccinini, Ben Quilty, Caroline Rothwell, Alexander Seton, Sally Smart, Ian Strange, 46
The work of Ben Quilty attempts to push the viewer to ‘see’ or recognise themselves and their place in Australian culture by reassessing our dark colonial past, whilst artist eX de Medici focuses on more severe and dark matters of our humanity. Tony Garifalakis presents a “contemplative and menacing series” looking at political leaders; male artists from Tjala Arts are working on a project exploring masculinity through artmaking, and
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Julia deVille is inspired by her feelings of being an outcast as a child in her installation that combines jewellery-making with taxidermy. Dani Marti’s visceral work explores identity through interwoven shadows, highlighting both light and darkness. These works have a strong inflection of portraiture and resemble swatches of fabric that capture personalities, moods and emotions. As such, they recall the intimacy of fabric in contact with the body and represent not only states of feelings but also regimes of class, power and self. These works and others explore the issues and ideas of intercultural relationships, our ecological fate, gender, history and political power, educating and informing the public about contemporary Australian art and its significance in our cultural identity – both individual and collective – and vice versa. Mitzevich’s commitment to engaging visitors in difficult conversations regarding these issues has
resulted in the accompanying Biennial catalogue, further investigating the difficult and discordant themes of the exhibition with a feature essay by one of Australia’s most controversial expatriates, Germaine Greer. Overtly populist, ‘Dark Heart’ tells the story of the history of Australian society and attempts to create meaning of the world we live in through inherently emotional work, drawing from the inner depths of a darkened past to shed light on Australian society today. Art Gallery of South Australia 1 March to 11 May, 2014 Adelaide
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Dani Marti, ARMOUR, ‘Folly of Fear’, 2012–13, rope, rubber and leather, 340 x 170cm (d) Courtesy ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne and Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide
2 Brook Andrew, Australia I, 2013, mixed media on Belgian linen, 200 x 300 x 5cm Courtesy the artist and Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne
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Art News Ian Strange Final Act Australian artist Ian Strange continues his worldwide investigation into the suburban home with ‘Final Act’– a new work commissioned and exhibited by Canterbury Museum, which saw Strange transform four suburban houses still ravaged by the effects of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Working in collaboration with New Zealand cinematographer, Alun Bollinger, local residents, community groups and volunteers, Strange produced four unique light based intervention artworks for ‘Final Act’. Each piece took a home that had been slated for demolition by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. Conceptualised in 2012, Strange and his team entered the four homes in Avonside - a red-zoned neighbourhood, which is still uninhabitable three years after the quakes on 1 November, 2013, to begin the transformation process. Working with demolition director Graham Thompson, 38
his salvage team and a group of Christchurch volunteers, fences were righted, lawns mowed and gardens re-planted. After three years of overgrowth and damage, the houses were restored close to their original state. Once structurally sound, geometric shapes were painstakingly cut in to each of the houses, before lighting them from the inside, in part, a signifier of the life that had previously inhabited them. Over three nights the homes were meticulously re-lit, filmed and photographed. Consisting of six large-scale photographic works, a 12-minute looped film installation and two cross-sections cut directly from the houses, ‘Final Act’ is on exhibition at the Canterbury Museum, New Zealand. See a short documentary film about the process and the on-site production at www.art-almanac. com.au/art-tv www.ianstrange.com Untitled House 3 - Cut away, 2013, archival digital print, from ‘Final Act’
Exhibition Brief
Simone Eisler Alter
Richard Bell Embassy
Eisler presents here a new series of small, elegant and animated wall-mounted sculptures. Made with carefully configured sections of cow horn, miniature animal skeletons and glass beads, the works breathe new life and shape into the already sinuous form of the horn.
This is Bell’s first solo exhibition in Western Australia and will feature a recreation of the original Aboriginal Tent Embassy, the protest camp set up in 1972 under a beach umbrella on the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra.
‘Alter’ continues Eisler’s interest in hybridisation and transformation; in ecological and evolutionary change; and her desire to create new fantastical and ethereal sculptural form. The sculptures move away from simply signifying the lost host of the horn or the idea of a ‘trophy’ by morphing ambiguously into either new hybrid creatures in their own right or forms of decorative human talismen. Gallerysmith 20 March to 26 April, 2014 Melbourne Serpentine III, 2014, horn, 43 x 64 x 24cm Courtesy the artist and Gallerysmith, Melbourne Photography by Mick Richards
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This significant solo exhibition presented by PICA and Perth Festival will also bring together a previously unseen selection of Bell’s highly acclaimed paintings and a controversial trilogy of recent videos. For over 20 years Bell has been an artist and active provocateur who has challenged the state of art and politics in Australia. Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA) Until 27 April, 2014 Perth A white hero for black Australia, 2011, acrylic on linen Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane
Summer Camp
Ben Morieson Fieldwork
Luke Atkinson, Mark Coker, Scott Elk, and Mulga present a collection of paintings, screen prints, photography and neon in ‘Summer Camp’, an annual exhibition hosted at the iconic Bondi Pavilion.
‘Fieldwork’ is a celebration of agricultural traditions and a way of giving city dwellers a way to connect with the origin of food sources. Morieson uses a private vacant block in order to create a visually stunning field of sunflowers. This former site of a spring factory has become a field of golden yellow, juxtaposed against warehouse buildings, factory walls, a train line and a freeway.
Featuring bright and dynamic artworks by these four Australian artists, it is a youthful splash of energy, vibrancy and colour, capturing a summer lived in the sun. ‘Summer Camp’ 2014 is part of Art Month Sydney 2014, and the Sydney Mardi Gras Festival. Bondi Pavilion Gallery Until 23 March, 2014 Sydney Mark Coker, Hotdog on a Stick, 1985, photograph on 300gsm archival cotton rag, 42 x 32cm. Ed of 6 Courtesy the artist
‘Fieldwork’ reinforces the cyclical nature of agricultural practice. The audience will see the installation change and its metamorphosis over a period of time. They will be able to view this artwork from its bloom to its wither and then its eventual renewal again. RMIT School of Art Gallery 6 to 14 March, 2014 Melbourne Full flower bloom, 2014 Image by Sarah Hardgrove Courtesy the artist
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Exhibition Brief
Leigh Hobbs Fine Art
Reality in flames Modern Australian art and the Second World War
Hobbs concerns himself with observation of the human condition. Often, his artworks feature personified animal characters with quirkish and idiosyncratic behaviour to highlight the ridiculous nature of man. This exhibition comprises watercolours, drawings, hand-coloured etchings, editioned Giclée prints and Leigh Hobbs’ ceramic Flinders Street Teapot (1984).
The Second World War inspired artists to develop modern and innovative visual forms to interpret the experience of combat, the powerfully destructive machinery of war, and the vast social upheaval produced by conflict on a truly global scale.
Hobbs’ brilliance lies in tapping into the aspect of humans that allows us to unwittingly laugh at our own behaviour which is disguised within his seemingly harmless and loveable characters. Ballarat - Gallery on Sturt 15 March to 19 April, 2014 Victoria Flinders Street Teapot, 1984, glazed ceramic, 17.3 x 26.8 x 1.8cm Courtesy the artist and Gallery on Sturt, Victoria
‘Reality in flames’ explores the different ways in which Australian artists responded creatively to the war. The exhibition comprising 90 works of art from the Australian War Memorial’s collection featuring leading artists such as Stella Bowen, Donald Friend, Joy Hester, Nora Heysen, Frank Hinder, Roger Kemp, Sidney Nolan, Eric Thake, Albert Tucker and Danila Vassilieff. S.H. Ervin Gallery 7 March to 13 April, 2014 Sydney Russell Drysdale, Soldier, 1942, oil on hardboard, 60.3 x 40.7cm Courtesy the Australian War Memorial, Canberra
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A Sydney Flower Show
Peter and Susan O’Doherty Moving House
This exhibition – an informal documentation of the various flower presentations at national Floriades - is a combination of oil paintings by artists Ah Too Chew and Graham Marchant, presented alongside earth pastel drawings by Greg Hansell and delicate etchings by Edith Cowlishaw.
‘Moving House’ is a collaborative exhibition between artist couple Peter and Susan O’Doherty, combining Susan’s mixed media constructions and Peter’s paintings. The exhibition reflects their respective childhoods living in families that were perpetually on the move; Susan’s father an officer in the Australian Army and Peter’s a carpenter/builder.
The artists each take their subject and inspiration from ‘A Sydney Flower Show’ and document and celebrate the extensive displays of flowering bulbs in the flamboyant and subtle traditions of the ‘Chelsea Flower Show’ and Canberra’s ‘Floriade’. Artsite Gallery 8 to 30 March, 2014 Sydney Ah Too Chew, Violets (detail), 2013, oil on canvas Courtesy the artist and Artsite Gallery, Sydney
Susan’s wooden assemblages encase found objects that reconstruct rooms of a house. To convey the sense of scale through a child’s eye, Peter has painted a series of large canvases with images of suburban houses reflecting the distinctive Australian suburban architecture of decades past and present. This exhibition examines the artists’ houses in relation to memory, identity and transience. Cowra Regional Art Gallery Until 16 March, 2014 New South Wales Susan O’Doherty, Randwick Dining Room, 2013, mixed media assemblage, 120 x 140 x 20cm Courtesy the artist and NG Art Gallery, Sydney
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Exhibition Brief
Panchali Sheth Asurya
Golden Plains Arts Trail 2014
‘Asurya’ refers to a collection of spiritual beings, however each work in Sheth’s latest exhibition only ever portrays a single form in complete isolation. It is Sheth’s intention to express spiritual beings as individual and solitary forms that resist commitment to a definite reading. Instead they possess a sense of freedom from gender, reality and the literal human form.
Sixty artists from across regional Victoria’s Golden Plains region warmly open the doors to their studios, gardens and town halls to share their stories and present their work for an open weekend this month.
By refusing to create a specific context or backdrop, Sheth attempts to evoke a sense of transience. Residing in neither the physical nor spiritual world, these ephemeral beings are in an undefined state. Sheffer Gallery 5 to 15 March, 2014 Sydney Instant Spirit (detail), 2013, oil on canvas, 91 x 91cm Courtesy the artist and Sheffer Gallery, Sydney
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Reflective of the community, a diverse variety of artists and performers will deliver the ‘Arts Trail’ program around open spaces and public events. The weekend includes street art demonstrations, visual art exhibitions, huge outdoor sculptures, interactive installations and music performances. Golden Plains Arts Trail 15 to 16 March, 2014 www.artstrail.com.au Harley Manifold, The Vessels, 2013, oil on linen, 72 x 93cm Courtesy the artist
The Piranesi effect
Sunday Drive Landscapes from the Collection
Using examples of contemporary art, this exhibition investigates the influence of Giovanni Piranesi – 18th centenary printmaker – by comparing his works with examples by contemporary artists Rick Amor, Michael Graf, Mira Gojak, Andrew Hazewinkel, Peter Robinson, Jan Senbergs and Simon Terrill.
Caloundra Regional Gallery presents an exhibition that invites the audience to take a trip down memory lane with its exhibition ‘Sunday Drive: celebrating landscapes from the Sunshine Coast Art Collection 1977-2012’.
This is an exhibition based on collisions and correspondences, rather than direct influence. The 21st century artists will jolt us into seeing Piranesi in a new way, and Piranesi will enrich our reaction to contemporary works of art. A series of exhibitions, events, and a symposium are scheduled throughout the exhibition. Ian Potter Museum of Art Until 25 May, 2014 Melbourne
The works in this exhibition are drawn from the Sunshine Coast Art Collection which celebrates the local artists and landmarks that characterise our region. With vistas of green and skies of blue, the works that comprise the exhibition celebrate, document and regale the area’s stories. Caloundra Regional Gallery Until 23 March, 2014 Queensland Kenneth Wenzel, Afternoon Study: Glasshouse Mountains from Wootha, 1978, oil on canvas, 72 x 87cm Courtesy the artist and Sunshine Coast Art Collection, Queensland
Peter Robinson, Vinculum (detail), 2008, polystyrene, dimensions variable Courtesy the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
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Exhibition Brief
Belynda Henry Jigsaw
Fugitive Structures AR-MA: Trifolium (SCAF Project 20)
Henry has painted other subjects but it is her isolated, rural environment that now exclusively fuels her creative impetus; mountains, trees, lake and water reflections coalesce in an immersive tranquillity. We experience the calm rhythm of a landscape reassembled, jigsaw-like from fragments of memory in the latest exhibition of work.
‘Fugitive Structures’ is an ongoing competitive architectural initiative aimed at emerging and midcareer architects who are asked to design a smallscale temporary pavilion for SCAF’s Zen Garden.
In an approach to landscape painting that is becoming increasingly imaginable and abstract, the works often transcend notions of ‘place’ altogether. These paintings portray things not only seen but felt and experienced. They extend beyond the realm of physicality into a heightened aesthetic domain. Anthea Polson Art 29 March to 12 April, 2014 Gold Coast Jigsaw, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 167 x 167cm Courtesy the artist and Anthea Polson Gallery, Queensland
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A robotically formed curved Corian exterior envelope and 250 laser-cut cylindrical, black mirror-polished stainless steel interior panels are linked by digitally fabricated fixings to form what Dr Sherman describes as ‘an innovative structure based on state-of-the-art technologies offering functionality as well as a futuristic aesthetic.’ The pavilion has the flexibility to be a meeting place, an auditorium or a stage for the Foundation’s many events. The structure will take shape in the gallery’s Zen Garden and will remain until October 2014. Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation 21 March to 20 September, 2014 Sydney AR-MA: Trifolium, 2014, concept sketch Courtesy Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney