ANNOUNCEMENT
Three pivotal pieces by JOHN DAVIS have recently been acquired by Heide Museum of Modern Art.
These acquisitions include 'Boxed work', 1971 (image 2). This piece represents a turning point in the artist's oeuvre, holding the documentation to Davis' first installations, which were created on the site of John and Sunday's Heide residence.
This acquisition follows another recent acquisition of a major piece by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Davis is one of this country's most significant land artists, and ARC ONE Gallery is thrilled to see these important pieces join the major collection at Heide MOMA.
JOHN DAVIS acquired by AGNSW
MAJOR ACQUISTION
We are thrilled to announce that JOHN DAVIS epic sculptural work ‘Nomad’ has been acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Nomad was a key piece in the posthumous survey, John Davis: Presence, at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2010. A pinnacle of the artist’s delicate sculptural constructions, ‘Nomad’ is an enormous grid of the artist’s signature fish-forms. Each fish-form is painstakingly modelled in eucalyptus twigs, string, paper, calico and bituminous paint. An extraordinary display of Davis’ sensitivity to the architecture of the wilderness.
VENICE BIENNALE BOOK FEATURES ARC ONE ARTISTS
Australia at the Venice Biennale: A Century of Contemporary Art by Kerry Gardner, hardcover 311mm x 251mm
Australia at the Venice Biennale: A Century of Contemporary Art is a new book by Kerry Gardner AM, published by MUP.
This splendidly produced book is the first comprehensive account of Australia’s history at the Venice Biennale, with an invaluable appendix that lists and illustrates many of this country's exhibits.
ARC ONE artists ROBERT OWEN & JOHN DAVIS are featured in the book, having both represented Australia at the pavilion in 1978, and CHARLES GREEN has contributed an exemplary essay among other significant Australian writers.
This richly illustrated publication illuminates the untold stories and origins of the most important event of the art world through one hundred years of Australian modern art.
Australia at the Venice Biennale is available to purchase online here >
JOHN DAVIS WORK ACQUIRED BY GEELONG GALLERY
JOHN DAVIS’ work Koan 64 was recently acquired by the Geelong Gallery. Beautifully pictured here in their exhibition Turmoil & Tranquility, which ran earlier this year, this piece was highlighted once again thanks to National Science Week.
Davis’ practice incorporates a diverse use of materials and provides unique interpretations and representations of landscape and ecology. While still characterised by the use of inexpensive or found materials and low-technology processes of his earlier work, Koan 64 presents a philosophical perspective and a deeper concern for the state of the world.
John Davis’s practice from the 80s and 90s foreshadows contemporary environmental issues. He was particularly concerned with the devastating impact non-indigenous people were having on the environment, particularly in regards to the health of the Murray River system and the quality of water due to modern human practices such as irrigation and land clearing.
For any art teachers following, Geelong Gallery has prepared an excellent learning resource for Levels 5-9 Visual Arts which includes this work and highlights themes such as human impact on the environment, sustainable farming and globalisation.
John Davis, 'Kōan 64', 1994, twigs, calico, bituminous paint, cotton thread, 2378 x 150 x 7 cm. Photo by Andrew Curtis.
JOHN DAVIS
John Davis, Kōan 64, 1994, twigs, calico, bituminous paint, cotton thread, 2378 x 150 x 7 cm.
JOHN DAVIS' work Kōan 64 has been acquired by the Geelong Gallery and will be on display among other recent acquisitions in their show Turmoil & Tranquility - recent acquisitions 2018-19, opening this weekend.
Davis' mature works are a distillation of many of his earlier explorations. While still characterised by the use of inexpensive or found materials and low-technology processes, and reflecting his affinity with the Australian bush, works such as this one present a philosophical perspective and a deeper concern for the state of the world.
The title of the work draws upon the Zen Buddhist concept of Kōan. Eluding a precise definition, the term loosely identities that which cannot be understood through rational thought but might be accessible through intuition. Arguably, for Davis, it articulated that indeterminate space between absence and presence.
Turmoil & Tranquility will run until 16 February.
JOHN DAVIS | ROBERT OWEN
Robert Owen, Origami #8, 1992, acrylic on canvas, 122 x 122 cm
Melbourne Modern: European art and design at RMIT since 1945, curated by Jane Eckett and Harriet Edquist, is now open at RMIT Gallery, featuring the work of ROBERT OWEN and JOHN DAVIS.
In the wake of WWII, hundreds of exiled and displaced European artists, architects and designers arrived in Melbourne and sought employment with RMIT. Melbourne Modern traces a legacy of European intervention and interdisciplinarity through successive generations of RMIT teachers and students to the present day.
The exhibition continues until 17 August.
JOHN DAVIS & ANNE ZAHALKA
Anne Zahalka, Saturday, 2:48pm, 1995, duratran and lightbox, 173 x 125 x 25 cm
Image: John Davis, Lean to, 1977, wood, twigs, paper, twine, cotton, underfelt and cloth, 142.8 x 106.4 x 9.7 cm
MUMA’s new writing project, Fifty artworks from the Monash University Collection, presents a suite of specially commissioned texts by art historians, curators and artists.
JOHN DAVIS' work Lean to is one of the fifty selected works, with text by Charles Green, Professor of Contemporary Art in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne.
ANNE ZAHALKA's photographic work Saturday 2:48pm has been examined by Isobel Parker Philip, Assistant Curator, Photographs at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Find out more about the project here.
JOHN DAVIS
JOHN DAVIS' prizewinning sculpture has been installed in the entrance of the University of Tasmania's school of visual and performing arts at Inveresk. The work is a gift to the university from the rebadged Bell Bay Aluminium. The piece was the winning entry in the Comalco Invitation Award for sculpture in aluminium in 1970.
JOHN DAVIS
Highly respected sculptor and installation artist JOHN DAVIS has an important retrospective at the Ian Potter Centre: National Gallery of Victoria, Federation Square, Level 3. A beautiful catalogue has been published to accompany the exhibition with essays written by Charles Green and Robert Lindsay. John Davis: Presence continues until 24 October, 2010. Events at the NGV (Threatre, Ground Level) not to be missed are:
- Saturday 18 September & Sun 17 October, 2pm - John Davis -The evolution of a distinctive style. Speaker, Ken Scarlett, curator and writer on sculpture.
- Sunday 17 October, 2pm - The art of Installation. Speaker, Rebecca Coates, academic & freelance curator.
- Thursday 23, 1pm - In Conversation: Conservator's point of view. Speaker, David Hurlston, Curator, Australian Art, NGV and Catherine Earley, Senior Conservator, NGV.
More Information here.