ANNE ZAHALKA’s exhibition at the Wollongong Art Gallery

Installation view of exhibition SNAPPED! Street Photography in the Illawarra – Anne Zahalka with Sam St Jon and residents of the Illawarra.

ANNE ZAHALKA’s exhibition ‘Snapped! Street Photography in the Illawarra’ at the Wollongong Art Gallery continues until 20 February.

For this exhibition Zahalka has collected, examined and reconfigured photographic street portraits made in Wollongong in the mid decades of the 20th Century to form the imagery. Recorded originally by early commercial street photographers from 1930’s – 60’s of passers-by, these postcard sized prints captured people in a candid way. Collected through a call-out from residents, these photos have been assembled to provide a tangible trace of the city allowing visitors to reimagine how this city once looked.

For more information:
http://www.wollongongartgallery.com/exhibitions/Pages/SNAPPED-Street-Photography-in-the-Illawarra

ANNE ZAHALKA listed as the 2021 ‘Hundred Heroines’

Anne Zahalka, ‘artist (self-portrait)’, 2013, Duraflex print mounted onto perspex with engraving, 85cm x 87cm.

Congratulations to ANNE ZAHALKA who has been listed in the 2021 ‘Hundred Heroines’. ‘Hundred Heroines’ is a pioneering UK charity that champions inspiring women photographers, as well as celebrating the diversity of women working globally in photography today.

The full list can be found at hundredheroines.org.

NIKE SAVVAS was invited by The Art Newspaper Greece to speak in "Art in the Public Sphere"

Nike Savvas at the event ‘Art in the public sphere’; photo: Studio Panoulis.

NIKE SAVVAS was recently invited by The Art Newspaper Greece as one of the key speakers in their first public event “Η Τέχνη στην Δημόσια Σφαίρα (Art in the Public Sphere)”.

In this event, Savvas shared about her experience of creating art in public space, as well as her intentions behind her projects. In her conversation with Alexandra Koroxenidis, she explained: “My art seeks to eliminate classifications and genealogies. In this context, the hierarchies between the private and the public are annulled.” She also shared, ”In a way, my work is also an attempt to give a feminine aspect to the male-dominated tradition of abstract expressionism and minimalism…”

A video recording of the whole event will soon be available on the website of artnewspaper.gr.

Long & Stent selected as part of the Sydney Creative Hoardings Program

‘Suspended Figures’ series on the corner of Barrack and York Streets, Sydney; photo credit: Anna Kucera.

A series of photographic works by HONEY LONG & PRUE STENT were recently transformed into large-scale, site-specific public art and exhibited on the corner of Barrack and York Streets as part of the City of Sydney’s Creative Hoardings Program.

“We hope our work provides an interesting break in the cityscape and sparks people’s thoughts and feelings about their own bodily experiences,” Prue Stent and Honey Long discussed about ‘Suspended Figures’.

This series of shrouded figures playfully distorts the human form, creating a dream-like landscape intended to interrupt everyday thoughts and spark the imagination. The fluid and abstract shapes – created by the body interacting with fabric and wind – are left open for the viewer to make their own associations.

Five of ARC ONE artists are featured in the newly published 'Doing Feminism: Women’s Art and Feminist Criticism in Australia'

Anne Marsh, ‘Doing Feminism: Women’s Art and Feminist Criticism in Australia’, published on 2 November, 2021, by The Miegunyah Press.

Five of ARC ONE artists – ANNE ZAHALKA, EUGENIA RASKOPOULOS, PAT BRASSINGTON, JULIE RRAP and JACKY REDGATE are featured in the newly published ‘Doing Feminism: Women’s Art and Feminist Criticism in Australia’.

Providing a comprehensive analysis of women’s art movements in Australia from the 1960s onward, this remarkable book by art historian Anne Marsh chronicles the struggles, contestations and achievements of women and feminism in Australian visual arts history. The book also acts as an divergent investigation into how the “doing” of feminism has shaped contemporary art and culture at home and abroad.

“…art and feminism are cyclical; they spiral in and out of time, and it’s interesting to see these younger women, very schooled in theoretical frameworks, turning back to an earlier time, and asking: why aren’t we doing that anymore?” ——Anne Marsh in conversation with Susanna Ling.

JANET LAURENCE & DANI MARTI INCLUDED IN 'TERRA AUSTRALIS REVISITED'

Dani Marti, Installation View, ‘Terra Australis Revisited’, Galerie Ernst Hilger , Vienna, 2021.

JANET LAURENCE and DANI MARTI are included in the group exhibition ‘Terra Australis Revisited’, at Galerie Ernst Hilger in Vienna.

The legend of Terra Australis dates back to Roman times being the unknown land of the South. Now for the second time to Austria comes a group show of diverse Australian artists curated by collector and philanthropist Simon Mordant AO.

The exhibition was supported by the Australian Embassy Vienna and continues until 18 December 2021.

JOHN YOUNG'S EXHIBITION AT BUNJIL PLACE EXTENDED

John Young, Installation View, Diaspora, Psyche, Bunjil Place, 2021

JOHN YOUNG’s exhibition ‘Diaspora, Psyche’ at Bunjil Place will open again from 6 November and continue until 7 December 2021.

There will be a panel discussion on Saturday 13 November from 3.30 – 5pm with John Young, James Nguyen, Sangeeta Sandrasegar, and moderated by Carolyn Barnes. In discussion will be how diaspora informs the reality of contemporary Australia and how different communities fit into this place?

For more information, visit here >

LYNDELL BROWN | CHARLES GREEN FINALISTS IN THE MORAN

Lyndell Brown & Charles Green, Portrait of Wukun Wanambi, 2021, oil on linen, 100 x 100cm

Congratulations to LYNDELL BROWN and CHARLES GREEN who are finalists in the 2021 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize with their portrait of Yirrkala elder and artist Wukun Wanambi.

’This portrait is of one of the most remarkable men we have ever met. In mid-2019 we travelled to Buku-Larrnggay Mulka, the Yolngu art centre at Yirrkala at the top of Australia’s Top End. Yirrkala is a small community, no more than a village, which serves as a hub for some 25 clan outstations of extended families or clans. As a living tradition, Yolngu culture has not turned its back on the incursions of the outside world but engaged with them. This is especially evident in Buku-Larrnggay Mulka, which is the vibrant art centre there, the nerve centre of the remarkable Yolngu campaign to impress their worldview upon the artworld in Australia and internationally. Taking its name from its location looking eastwards out over the ocean, Buku-Larrnggay means the feeling of the first rays of the sun on your face. Mulka means a sacred public ceremony that holds and protects knowledge. Our host—we were part of a 20-person conference of artists and academics that Charles had helped organise — was the well-travelled, charismatic Yolngu senior Elder and immensely distinguished artist Wukun Wanambi. An enthusiastic participant in our discussions throughout the week we spent there, he was keen to show us Yirrkala and introduce us to other Yolngu artists; he made us feel honoured guests despite his heavy cultural obligations and his own frail health. The portrait is a tribute to a remarkable man who impressed himself deeply upon us in our conversations with him and to whom we felt deeply grateful. While we were there we took a large number of photographs and made sketches from memory, including of Wukun. Afterward we sifted through all our memories and gradually abstracted from them the idea for this painting. When we realised the Moran Portrait Prize was to be held, it seemed to all instantly fit together, that we should show this image of a great Australian.’

– Lyndell Brown and Charles Green

The winner announced on 30 November. For more information, visit here >

JOHN YOUNG PANEL DISCUSSION

JOHN YOUNG will be speaking as part of a panel discussion on Thursday 21 October at 6pm (Melbourne time) on ‘Connecting hospitality and community with contemporary artists of diverse backgrounds’.

Moderated by Andrew Deane (Associate Director, Development and Partnerships, Asia Society Australia), the conversation will also include Professor Nikos Papastergiadis (Director of the Research Unit in Public Cultures and Professor in the School of Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne), and Nasim Nasr (Iranian-born visual artist whose practice has engaged themes of intercultural dialogue between past and present, East and West).

John Young, The Field, 2018, HD video with color and sound: 8 min 5 sec

CYRUS TANG IN CONVERSATION WITH ART COLLECTOR

Watch CYRUS TANG in conversation with Charlotte Middleton at Art Collector speak about ‘Power Cables’, one of Tang’s works from her upcoming exhibition 'Remember me when the sun goes down' at ARC ONE Gallery.

In the video interview, Tang discusses the fleeting and ephemeral qualities in her work, and the importance of our collective experience for remembering history.

Cyrus Tang, ‘Power Cables’, 2020. Archival pigment print, edition of 5 + 2 A/P, 67.5 x 67.5cm and 90 x 90cm.

JACKY REDGATE INCLUDED IN OVER JOURNAL

Jacky Redgate, Untitled (Vase Shape #1–#5), 1989, wood, ceramic, acrylic. Installation view, Jacky Redgate: Life of the System: 1980 – 2005, 2005.

JACKY REDGATE’s work, Untitled – Vast Shape #1-5 (1989) has been written about in Over Journal, Issue 2. In this issue, Yvette Hamilton reflects on the paradoxical expansion of photography in her essay Beyond Ocular Vision.

“Whilst created before the widespread prevalence of the idea of non-human photography, Australian artist Jacky Redgate’s 1989 series, Untitled, Vase Shape draws attention to the complex relationship between representation and human vision within photography. Through mimicking the shape of a photographic infinity screen and placing a vase shaped sculpture within it, both of which are painted a velvety matte black, Redgate’s work speaks of photographic vision and its failure. Her actions make the objects barely visible and almost impossible to photograph, a decision that makes the work very much dependent on the human presence of the viewer in the exhibition space.”

For more information and to order a copy, see here >

CHARLES GREEN'S ESSAY IN VENICE BIENNALE PUBLICATION

Robert Owen, Split Gate, 1977, installation view from the 1978 Venice Biennale, ‘From Nature to Art, From Art to Nature’, marble, lead, aluminium, steel, Perspex, copper, electrical flex and fluorescent paint, 102 x 75 x 85cm.

CHARLES GREEN has written a brilliant essay in Kerry Gardner’s recently published book, Australia at the Venice Biennale: A Century of Contemporary Art. In his essay, Green writes on the return of three artists in 1978, two decades after Australia had withdrawn.

“By the time that Australia returned to Venice in 1978, Australian art had long become completely contemporaneous with American and European art and would remain so, with art just as innovative and significant as anywhere else. When Australia reappeared that year, it was represented by three immensely cosmopolitan, mid-career, white, male artists who refused to participate in the older tradition of Australian landscape painting of 1958. The idiosyncratic worldliness of each artist was quite a balancing act. Out of minimalism’s and conceptualism’s simple, serial structures, Ken Unsworth created an uncanny, theatrical mise-en-scene of absent bodies and dangerous suspension; ROBERT OWEN turned almost-identical geometric abstractions into luminous, metaphysical propositions; and JOHN DAVIS converted a bricolage of twigs from the bush near Mildura into five scattered, tower-like assemblages.”

Read an extract from Green’s essay here >

‘Australia at the Venice Biennale: A Century of Contemporary Art’ by Kerry Gardner is published by The Miegunyah Press.

NIKE SAVVAS INTERVIEWED IN ARTIST PROFILE MAGAZINE

Nike Savvas, Chroma Haze, 2020, painted steel installation, dimensions variable, photo Silversalt Photography

In the latest issue of Artist Profile (Issue 56), NIKE SAVVAS and GUAN WEI spoke with Michael Young to understand the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on artists who practice between studios in Australia and overseas.

“Even though living in Sydney with her husband, Savvas commutes regularly between Sydney and a studio in London, and has done so for many years. “I find the creative mix in London exciting and my work feeds on this. I react to the energy of others, and the energy of engagement and activity that opens my work to invention. Living in London has become part of my process. I spend between three to four months a year, there,” she said. Last year she headed to London for a working visit that would last just several weeks, or so she thought. Ten months later she was still there, trapped in a country where the borders had slammed shut and where the Covid death rate was escalating exponentially, and with a health service was on the verge of imploding.”

Young's essay is now freely available online here >

JANET LAURENCE ARTIST TALK WITH CHANG WAN-CHEN

JANET LAURENCE was in conversation with Chang Wan-Chen in an online event on Friday 24 September, as part of Humanities within Natural History, Anthropocene Art Talks.

As part of this talk, Laurence and Chang Wan-chen, the curator of Laurence’s solo exhibition Entangled Garden for Plant Memory at the Yu-Hsiu Museum of Art in Taiwan (2020), explored the sensitive landscape of nature through both scientific and artistic engagements.

More information >

Chang Wan-chen & Janet Laurence at the opening of Entangled Garden for Plant Memory at the Yu-Hsiu Museum of Art in Taiwan, 2020.

MURRAY FREDERICKS & ROBERT OWEN IN BELLE MAGAZINE SHOOT

Artworks: Murray Fredericks, Salt 154, 2009, pigment print on cotton rag, 120 x 150cm, edition of 7; Robert Owen, Model for Silence #4, 2019, painted steel, 68.5 x 60 x 48.5 cm, edition of 3

MURRAY FREDERICKS & ROBERT OWEN have works featured in this magnificent shoot in the October issue of Belle Magazine.

Architecture & interiors of this Toorak residence were designed by ADDARC, with art curation & styling by Swee Design, and photography by @shannonmcgrath7.

Pick up the latest edition of Belle Magazine to see more.

PAT BRASSINGTON WORK SUBJECT OF MUMA QUEER READINGS

PAT BRASSINGTON’s work has been written on as part of Queer Readings of the Monash University Collection. For this project, a group of writers and artists have been invited to contextualise a selection of works of art through the lenses of their experience and knowledge.

Commissioned writer Anne Marsh says of Pat Brassinton’s work:

‘Formally, the work critiques the modernist grid by monumentalising the everyday and punctuating it with fetishist and abject references made-up in the viewer’s mind as they contemplate the soft material abstractions made out of discarded underwear. In this way Brassington gives the work its own potential intelligence. It is as if the viewer needs to have a visual conversation with the image in order to decode it.’

Anne Marsh is a Professional Research Fellow in the Victorian College of the Arts at the University of Melbourne.

Read the full text here >

Pat Brassington, Rising Damp, 1995, gelatin silver prints, 35 parts, each 59 x 44 cm

PAT BRASSINGTON IN THE BALLARAT FOTO BIENNALE

PAT BRASSINGTON is featured in the 2021 Ballarat International Foto Biennale. The biennale’s core outdoor program invigorates the city of Ballarat by transforming busy streets, laneways, shopfronts and landmark buildings into exhibition spaces with public art.

Say it with Flowers is a site-responsive exhibition at Ballarat General Cemetery, curated by Wotjobaluk curator Kat Clarke. Responding to memory, mortality, longing and community, the exhibition is a meditation on the significance of flowers and land within the framework of nostalgia and memory.

Flowers represent a potent symbol of life and death, reminding one of both celebration and decay. While acknowledging the sensitive nature of the site, the exhibition aims to challenge the idea of the cemetery as a dormant space and demystify it as one for reflection and contemplation on the transience and impermanence of life.

BIFB continues until 24 October.

More information >

Pat Brassington’s Blush (2014) & Quiescent (2014) on display at the Ballarat General Cemetery in the exhibition Say it with Flowers, 2021.

JOHN YOUNG IN ARTIST PROFILE MAGAZINE

JOHN YOUNG is profiled in the latest edition of Artist Profile magazine.

H.R. Hyatt-Johnston’s essay on John Young examines the international scope of the artist’s life and work, as well as attending closely to local connections and influences. Accompanied by Bri Hammond’s pensive portraits, Hyatt-Johnston traces Young’s trajectory from a childhood in Hong Kong to studies at the University of Sydney, living in London and Paris under the Power Scholarship for the Cité International des Arts, to returning to Australia, founding what is now 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art with Melissa Chiu, and finally to creating new work for Bunjil Place in 2021.

Read the essay by subscribing online, or have it delivered to your home as part of subscription packages.

John Young photographed by Bri Hammond

VIDEO TOUR OF JOHN YOUNG'S EXHIBITION 'DIASPORA,PSYCHE'

Bunjil Place Gallery may be temporarily closed, but they’ve worked hard to find ways for you to experience JOHN YOUNG’s survey exhibition 'Diaspora, Psyche', from the comfort of your own home.

Take some time to enjoy this short video with John Young as he shares some of the key ideas that have shaped his thought-provoking and timely exhibition.

You can also take a virtual tour of the exhibition here >

HONEY LONG & PRUE STENT AT FOTOGRAFISKA STOCKHOLM

HONEY LONG & PRUE STENT have work in Fotografiska Museum Stockholm’s ground-breaking new exhibition centred on the naked body in contemporary photography.

NUDE features the work of 30 female artists from 20 different countries in a collection of images that portray the body through beautiful, disruptive, and experimental lenses, seeking to subvert the historically predominant male gaze and celebrate the human form.

The exhibition continues until 28 November.

More information >

Honey Long & Prue Stent, Wind Form, 2014, archival pigment print, 106 x 159cm