Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2024 i Art Guide Australia

Sydney Festival Various Sydney locations 5—28 January As Sydney Festival enters its 47th year, festival director Olivia Ansell is looking towards the sea. “It’s quite organic,” she says of unearthing the central themes of the arts program. “You have conversations with thousands of artists about what they’re talking about, what they’re creating, and what they’re into. And out of that whirlpool of conversation, I always find that recurring themes pop up. This year it was water and weaving. The water is saltwater stories, freshwater stories, desert stories, tales of Sydney harbour, and stories around climate impact.” With scores of involved artists, many of the exhibiting sites are centred around the harbour, from Lavender Bay to Campbells Cove, Walsh Bay, Watermans Cove, and more. The latter is playing host to one…

Monanism Museum of Old and New Art On now—ongoing through 2024 The Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) has been exhibiting its art collection throughout its multi-story gallery space since it opened in early 2011. Changes to the art on the walls was sporadic until 2020, when the most significant overhaul occurred following a pandemic-enforced closure. Now three years on, curator Jane Clark says the Mona collection (aptly named Monanism) has expanded so much, art is emerging from the ground. “Monanism is a bit like a triffid breaking through the ground. When we first opened, David [Walsh] wanted no columns, nothing monumental—it was all going to be underground, and you wouldn’t know anything about the art until you got there. But then we put a James Turrell Skyspace on…

Compositional Utterances Mandy Quadrio, Susan Hawkins, Jan Oliver Court House Gallery 12 January—4 March The touring exhibition Compositional Utterances is a collaboration between three artists united by political ideology, formal and aesthetic preferences, and a lasting friendship. Mandy Quadrio, Susan Hawkins and Jan Oliver met at Griffith University College of Art, and since then the trio have found ideas and inspiration within one another. This has fostered a “conversational language we are developing together”, says Hawkins, which feeds into a collective showing of immersive installations and sculptures. Though the artists share environmental, post-colonial and feminist preoccupations, their practices and mediums are markedly distinct from one another. Hawkins appropriates salvaged industrial and domestic objects to create an aural experience, reflecting the “utterances” of the show’s title. “The unexpected soundscapes that the…

Hannah Gartside reveals the power, emotion and quiet politics of cloth. She’s known for her kinetic textile installations where found fabric twirls from floor to ceiling in hypnotic form, each piece gesturing to a significant historical woman. These kinetic works have shown for Melbourne Now at NGV Australia and Primavera 2022 at the Museum of Contemporary of Art. For her recent debut at Tolarno Galleries, Gartside returned to stationary cloth, affixing formations of sequined material to the gallery walls, telling the story of a woman escaping mundanity and loneliness by creating a garment that transforms her into a moth. She joins a coven—and finds that all moths were once women. In capturing metamorphosis Gartside shows a person finding freedom, which is exemplary of her wider practice: in releasing cloth from…

Corban Clause Williams’s success as the inaugural winner of the MA Art Prize (which recognises emerging talent) at this year’s Sydney Contemporary foreshadows his staggering potential. The win topped off a year in which Williams was also a finalist in the Ramsay Art Prize, the John Stringer Prize and the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. His painting for the MA Art Prize, Kaalpa (Well 23, Canning Stock Route), was shown with Emilia Galatis Projects. He was applauded for his use of colour and the sensitive depiction of his grandfathers’s Country. The joy Williams feels on Country, which he captures, is palpable: “I went [to Kaalpa] for the first time [in 2018]…When I went there, I was pukurlpa (happy). It made you open up your spirit, it…

Katie West is a Yindjibarndi woman working significantly, as if her hand was stained with poetry, among textiles, installation and social practice. In the last two years she’s been curated into many of this country’s most prestigious surveys, including The National 4 and Ramsay Art Prize in 2023, and Primavera in 2022. Such recognition has afforded great momentum, taking her practice to the United States, where she is part of a travelling exhibition, soon showing at The Block Museum of Art in Chicago. Indeed, Actions for the Earth: Art, Care & Ecology, curated by Sharmila Wood and produced by Independent Curators International, New York, is an exhibition about restorative interventions. Originally shown at the 2022 TarraWarra Biennale, West is participating with her work Clearing, 2019, an installation creating a social…

It’s the early 1980s at Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne and John Nixon is having a lively conversation with a student. Nixon is struck by how this student describes the printmaking process of etching and asks for a demonstration. With the roles of teacher and student reversed, Nixon’s nascent printmaking practice began to grow. It’s effortless for me to imagine this scenario, where Nixon’s curiosity spurred a willingness to learn something new. I first met Nixon in 2017 on a warm March evening after leaving Melbourne’s TCB Gallery. I had just given a poetry reading and once stepping onto the bluestone pavement, I saw Kaho Hashimoto, an artist I read alongside. As I approached, she introduced me to her friend, John Nixon. There was no small talk, with…

Above and Below Gallery www.aboveandbelowgallery.com.au Shop 12a, Port of Airlie, 33 Port Drive, Airlie Beach, QLD 4802 [Map 14] 0419 941 162 Wed to Sat 9am–4pm, Sun 9am–1pm. Focusing on the ocean as a canvas, from both above in the aerial sphere and below the waters surface, this collection will have you in awe of nature and its wonderous colours and spaces. Brooke’s goal is to capture the moment and slow down time, one photo at a time. Artspace Mackay www.artspacemackay.com.au Civic Precinct, corner Gordon and Macalister Streets, Mackay, QLD 4740 [Map 14] 07 4961 9722 Free entry. The art gallery will be closed for renovations with public programs ongoing in various locations throughout the region. Visit our website to locate ongoing public programs and events, search the art collection,…

Adelaide Contemporary Experimental www.ace.gallery Lion Arts Centre, North Terrace (West End) Kaurna Yarta, Adelaide, SA 5000 [Map 18] 08 8211 7505 Tue to Sat 11am–4pm. See our website for latest information. 17 February—4 May Yucky Sam Petersen plus others Art Gallery of South Australia www.agsa.sa.gov.au Kaurna Country North Terrace, Adelaide, SA 5000 [Map 18] 08 8207 7000 Daily 10am–5pm. Free entry. See our website for latest information. Until 21 January Tarnanthi at AGSA See the latest works of contemporary art from more than 100 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists across the continent. Until 21 January Vincent Namatjira: Australia in Colour Don’t miss the first survey exhibition of acclaimed Western Aranda artist Vincent Namatjira whose works offer a wry Aboriginal perspective on the politics of history, power and leadership. Carrick…

MARIAM ELLA ARCILLA is a Filipina-Singaporean writer, editor and community engagement worker based on Gadigal land. She is the co-chair of Runway Journal and has managed galleries, artist-run initiatives, publications, and curatorial projects since 2006. 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. ELLIE BUTTROSE is curator of Archie Moore’s Australia Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale and curator of Contemporary Australian Art at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Kurilpa Point. ANDY BUTLER is an artist, writer and curator based in Naarm/Melbourne. His arts criticism has appeared in The Saturday Paper, The Monthly, and frieze. SOPHIA CAI is a Melbourne-based…

Light & Life: Margaret Olley, Laura Jones, India Mark and Mirra Whale Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre On now—28 April The studio of Australian painter Margaret Olley was filled to the brim with non-Western souvenirs, books, vases of dried flowers and tubes of paint. With Olley’s oeuvre focused on still life and interiors, her studio was clearly a place of inspiration and industry. Now preserved as part of the Margaret Olley Art Centre at Tweed Regional Gallery, Olley’s studio and sitting room were the inspiration point for a series of new still life paintings by Mirra Whale, India Mark and Laura Jones. With the studio recreation containing original architectural features relocated from Olley’s home in Sydney, and over 20,000 objects from her vast personal collection, the artists…

Surrealist Lee Miller Heide Museum of Modern Art On now—25 February Not many women can attest to having taken a self-portrait while sitting in Adolf Hitler’s bathtub. Such visual dichotomies abound in the audacious survey, Surrealist Lee Miller, presented at Heide Museum of Modern Art. The largest exhibition of Miller’s work shown in Australia in over 30 years, it centres the artist as a photographer with a uniquely unconventional eye. Historic and dream-like in scope, the images on display remember Miller (1907-1977) as both an incisive World War II war correspondent, Vogue photographer, and fashion model with the eye of a surrealist artist. Miller’s viewfinder renders aspects of 20th century history that are both so fabulous and so harrowing as to be comfortably homed in our current disjuncture. Her images…

Wedgwood: Master Potter to the Universe David Roche Foundation On now—27 January “I want to announce upfront: this isn’t just a show of grandma’s good china.” David Roche Foundation curator Timothy Roberts need not worry: any visitor to this major exhibition of ceramics by English pottery manufacturer Wedgwood will be in no doubt about the formidable combination of art, science and innovation that goes into creating these elegant pieces, which range from practical wares such as crockery, to ornamental works of art including vases and sculptures. Staffordshire-born Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) established his eponymous pottery company in 1759. Because of their quality, durability and affordability, Wedgwood products became popular across the world. Among the brand’s many pioneering contributions to pottery is Jasperware, with its iconic shade of pale blue—and several Jasperware…

Archie Moore engages people on an emotional level through evocative familial stories and anecdotes of lived experience. The artist, who works from Redland Bay in South East Queensland, uses his personal history as an entry point to confront wider social issues and structural inequalities. In many of Moore’s exhibitions the viewer is immersed in his personal world—for instance, he has recreated his childhood home in the gallery. By placing audiences “in his shoes” Archie exposes gaps in understanding and social stratification. On other occasions Moore has used ‘authoritative publications’ such as Australian parliamentary transcriptions, anthropological investigations, and coroners’ reports into Indigenous deaths in custody to visualise systemic injustices. He focuses on the racism that First Nations peoples have faced and continue to face in Australia: racial slurs directed towards him…

Eliza Gosse’s nostalgia-soaked paintings of mid-century modern architecture and interiors conjure simultaneous senses of past and present. Is this an inner-city retro-inspired dream house, or my nan’s suburban living room straight out of the 70s? Maybe it’s both. Maybe it’s Palm Springs. It’s reminiscent of how Howard Arkley saw beauty in suburbia, but instead of transposing this into vivid neons to counteract the banality, Gosse uses muted colour palettes and sleek finishings that honour design and the domestic. Gosse’s iconic houses have featured in exhibitions across both her representative galleries in the last year—Olsen Gallery in Sydney and Edwina Corlette in Brisbane, with titles like All My Friends Have White Walls And Beige Carpet and Entertainer’s Delight With Ocean Views. She also had an inclusion in MARS Gallery’s A Female…

ACAE Gallery www.acaearts.com.au Australasian Cultural Arts Exchange 82A Wellington Street, Collingwood, VIC 3066 [Map 3] 0406 711 378 Tue to Sun 10am–5pm. See our website for latest information. 3 February–3 March An Kun: Behind The Screen Curated by Geoff Raby AO Based in the Songzhuang artist colony in Beijing, China, An Kun creates dreamlike figure paintings featuring subjects of brooding seductive intensity. Each of the sitters gaze at the viewer in ways that imply complex interior lives. In his first Australian solo show, An Kun presents an array of characters that defy easy categorisation. Neither gender nor ethnicity is certain in these portrayals. Rather, one perceives individuals who operate between and across worlds and localities. These global citizens are unapologetically confident in demeanour at times verging on aloofness. They have…

Aarwun Gallery aarwungallery.com.au 11 Federation Square, Gold Creek, Nicholls, ACT 2913 [Map 16] 0499 107 887 Daily 10am–4.30pm and by appointment in the evening. See our website for latest information. Artists Shed www.artistshed.com.au 1–3/88 Wollongong Street (lower), Fyshwick, ACT 2609 0418 237 766 Tue to Sat 9am–5pm, Sun 10am–4pm. The Artists Shed has works by the principle artist Margaret Hadfield and ‘Shed Artists’ who are rising students and friends. The Artists Shed is a unusual artist run Gallery, Art School and Art Store. Margaret Hadfield’s work is varied in subject and mediums. Margaret is well travelled to many corners of the world including Antarctica. Some of her works are conceptual and delve into history. Australian National Capital Artists (ANCA) Gallery www.anca.net.au 1 Rosevear Place, (corner Antill street), Dickson, ACT 2602…

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 12pm–4pm, or by appointment. Until 21 January TEN In celebration of Art Collective WA’s first decade of operation as an artist-owned, non-profit organisation, TEN showcases the achievements of its 36 member artists with a group show of entirely new works including painting, sculpture and photography. The exhibition illustrates the richness of contemporary art practice in Western Australia and features many of the state’s most significant artists. Showing at Holmes a Court Gallery, Vasse Felix, Margaret River. 3 February–2 March New Paintings Giles Hohnen Pulsating combinations of both harmonious and discordant colour compositions imbue Giles Hohnen’s new colour soaked paintings. His process defies convention; no preliminary sketches or blueprints…

Between Worlds Tamara Bekier Art Gallery of Ballarat On now—28 January Tamara Bekier is 92 years of age. She has spent the second half of her life producing paintings that give a voice to the silencing and trauma she experienced as a refugee during World War II. Bekier’s exhibition, Between Worlds at the Art Gallery of Ballarat, is a survey of her life’s work, a reflection on her journey from Russia to Ballarat, through Germany. “My work explores the concept of dreamscapes that are suspended in two parallel worlds: my past and my present,” she reflects. Bekier came to painting late—well into her forties. After settling in Ballarat she studied art, and painting quickly became her refuge. She recalls, “The discovery of art became my daily solace, a means to…

Djärritjarri - the woven cloth Dhopiya Yuŋupingu Sullivan+Strumpf Melbourne 15 February—9 March The second solo exhibition from Dhopiya Yuŋupingu draws on the shared histories between the Yolŋu and the Macassans, the latter from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, celebrating a trade in trepang (sea cucumber) that predated European contact with Australia. Painted on pots, barks and memorial poles, Yuŋupingu’s images poetically evoke connections that extend back through time. As she says, “The Macassans and the Yolŋu danced together. The dance represents how we put up the flag and when the big wind blows the wind will tear the flag. That flag, it is known as Dhomala and Djarridiarri… I still paint this story, to this day.” Born in 1950, Yuŋupingu is a senior elder from north-east Arnhem Land, daughter of…

Body of Opportunity Tania Ferrier Gallery Central 24 January—16 February Tania Ferrier has been interrogating the visual representations of women’s bodies in art for decades. In 1988 she was living in New York City and working in a bar where she witnessed a sexual assault. The experience prompted a feminist fashion project called Angry Underwear—creative, vicious, and wearable art designed for sex workers. “It was the ‘your body is a battleground’ times of Barbara Kruger,” says Ferrier. “It was New York with the Guerrilla Girls, Jenny Holzer, [and] Barbara Kruger doing guerilla work to be seen.” Since then, her multi-disciplinary practice has covered everything from film, photography, fashion, painting, and performance. Her latest show at Gallery Central in Perth, Body of Opportunity, incorporates it all, with Angry Underwear even making…

See You In Hell Louise Zhang and Jessica Bradford Wagga Wagga Art Gallery On now—10 March If you have to go to hell, Chinese hell seems like the place to visit. After your judgement, you are reincarnated and leave through one of six doors depending on your earthly sins. Reflecting on Chinese hell and their shared cultural heritage, Jessica Bradford and Louise Zhang collaborate in a playful exhibition that interrogates personal histories and the traditions that have shaped them. Fusing both artists’ distinct styles, works portray hellscapes and macabre themes through painting, installation and video. Gestural abstraction blends with “pastel coloured, pop-like, almost cartoonish images” as Bradford describes, while “fragments and motifs” from their shared culture “come together in compositions”. Showing together for the first time, the artists have met…

Meaning lies somewhere between humour, absurdity, and mortality in Brent Harris’s paintings and prints; his curved lines often hold human-like forms, each searching for moments of revelation, salvation or connection—just like we all are. Born in Palmerston North, Aotearoa New Zealand in 1956, Harris moved to Melbourne in the early 1980s to study art, shortly after coming out as a gay man. As the HIV/AIDS crisis began, Harris painted the series that cemented his early career, The Stations, 1989, featuring 14 geometric works referencing the Stations of the Cross, religious images depicting the journey Jesus undertook on the day of his crucifixion. Even now, religious and art historical imagery from Mary Magdalene to Colin McCahon to Philip Guston resonantly infuses Harris’s work. Over the last 40 years Harris has innovated…

Diana Baker Smith carries an acute attention to ephemeral, invisible or hidden histories. Whether it is tracing the movements of a public artwork through her hometown of Sydney, or piecing together a performance history from deteriorating and lost archives, Baker Smith pulls back layers of history to explore the forgotten. In conversation with writer and curator Amelia Wallin, Baker Smith reveals her research-based methodologies as she prepares to present a site-specific work for Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), as part of the gallery’s annual Judy Wheeler Commission. PICA sits on the unceded cultural and spiritual homelands of the Whadjuk Nyoongar People. Baker Smith’s commission, a graphic score and chorographical piece titled Falling Towards Another (a score for the void), responds to PICA’s colonial architecture and history as one of…

The mournful dirge of cawing Crows calls me back Today I walked for my mother — shut/mouth/scream, brenda l croft, 2015 For Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra artist Brenda L Croft, culture and family always call back and she responds, as an act of survivance. These acts span across archival photography, printmaking and self-portraiture—with Croft working as a visual artist, academic and curator. Her career has moved from curating national exhibitions to the intimacy of poetry—all of which has seen her determined to uncover her family’s legacy, as evidence of their ongoing sovereignty. In her 2015 photo essay/poem SHUT/MOUTH/SCREAM she writes, “my mouth’ (tintype) is my silent shut-mouth scream to my grandmother over the decades.” The work uses archival photographic medical records of Croft’s grandmother’s mouth, from when she was studied by a doctor…

314 Abercrombie Gallery www.314abercrombie.gallery 314 Abercrombie Street, Darlington, NSW 2008 [Map 14] 0404 146 738 See our website for latest information. This small, inviting, bright gallery nestled snugly in Darlington beside the Redfern area is the up-and-coming art precinct of Sydney. We have Carrigeworks, the White Rabbit and many smaller galleries. We are closed for January. 17 February–3 March Landscapes Stefan Kater Colour, movement, texture. This collection is breathtaking and yet, at the same time, relaxing. Landscapes with changing light. Come along and tell us how you would describe this work. Exhibition opening 17 February, 4pm–8pm. Annandale Galleries www.annandalegalleries.com.au 110 Trafalgar Street, Annandale, Sydney, NSW 2038 61 2 9552 1699 Wed to Sat 11am–4pm. Artbank Sydney www.artbank.gov.au 222 Young Street, Waterloo, NSW 2017 [Map 9] 02 9697 6000 Tue to…

Bett Gallery www.bettgallery.com.au Level 1, 65 Murray Street, Hobart, TAS 7000 03 6231 6511 Mon to Fri 10am–5.30pm, Sat 10am–4pm. 9 January–10 February Group Show 16 February–9 March Amber Koroluk-Stephenson 16 February–9 March Dai Li Colville Gallery www.colvillegallery.com.au 15 Castray Esplanade, Battery Point, TAS 7004 [Map 17] 03 6224 4088 Daily 10am–5pm. 12 December 2023–20 January Above the Littoral: Lake and Remnant Coastal Woods Kylie Elkington 12 December 2023–20 January Colville Summer Show Group Exhibition Contemporary Art Tasmania www.contemporaryarttasmania.org 27 Tasma Street, North Hobart, TAS 7000 [Map 17] 03 6231 0445 Wed to Sat, noon–5pm. 16 February–23 February Leyla Stevens Devonport Regional Gallery www.paranapleartscentre.com.au Paranaple Arts Centre, 145 Rooke Street, Devonport, TAS 7310 03 6420 2900 Mon to Fri 9am–5pm, Sat and pub hols 9am–2pm, Sun closed. Until 6 January…

Araluen Arts Centre, Mparntwe www.araluenartscentre.nt.gov.au 61 Larapinta Drive, Alice Springs, NT 0870 08 8951 1122 Tue to Sat 10am–4pm. Sun 10am–2pm. Closed Mondays. See our website for latest information 10 November 2023–18 February Raw Earth Claire Freer Inspired by her life in Central Australia and her experience living in remote communities, Claire Freer is presenting new ceramic, textile and sculptural creations deeply connected with the lands she has been living on. 10 November 2023–4 February My Country This exhibition highlights the strength of the Hermannsburg School of Art through a geographical experience of Western Arrernte Country. The paintings hold many important places for their Western Arrernte custodians and together they provide rich stories of ongoing connection with Country. Also included are artworks from the beginnings and continuation of the Western…

MAP 1 VICTORIA 1 Ararat Gallery TAMA 2 Art Gallery of Ballarat 3 Arts Space Wodonga 4 Benalla Art Gallery 5 Bendigo Art Gallery 6 Castlemaine Art Gallery 7 Central Goldfields Art Gallery 8 Cusack & Cusack 9 East Gippsland Art Gallery 10 Everywhen Art at Whistlewood 11 Geelong Art Space 12 Geelong Gallery 13 Gippsland Art Gallery 14 Hamilton Art Gallery 15 Horsham Regional Gallery 16 Latrobe Regional Gallery 17 La Trobe Art Institute 18 Maffra Exhibition Space 19 Mildura Arts Centre 20 Platform Arts 21 QDOS Art Gallery 22 Post Off ice Gallery Art Academy 23 RACV Goldfields Resort 24 Ross Creek Gallery 25 Salt Contemporary Art 26 Shepparton Art Museum 27 Silver Leaf Art Box 28 Stockroom Gallery 29 Swan Hill Regional Gallery 30 Switchback Gallery 31…