EUGENIA RASKOPOULOS WORK IN VENICE

Eugenia Raskopoulos, Rootreroot [video still], 2016, HD digital video, single channel, colour, stereo, 8:45 min;

EUGENIA RASKOPOULOS is exhibiting 'Rootreroot' in 'The Body Language', an international exhibition at THE ROOM Contemporary Art Space in Venice. 

In this video work, the artist is filmed from above as she drags an olive tree clockwise is the upper section, and a wattle tree anticlockwise below. Where the circles fleetingly intersect, we glimpse a moment of completeness between Raskopoulos' Greek & Australian identities. "Whether gestures are recorded or photographed, my body becomes a means for mark-making during performative acts that involve translation, transformation and fragmentation," says the artist. 

The exhibition continues until 12 March.

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PAT BRASSINGTON AT MGA

Pat Brassington, Untitled VII , 1980–2002, printed 2010, pigment ink-jet print, 370 x 249 mm

PAT BRASSINGTON has three works featured in the exhibition Dressing up: clothing and camera, closing soon at the Monash Gallery of Art (MGA).

This exhibition draws together photographs from the MGA collection that feature dress or clothing as a significant element in their making

The exhibition will close this Sunday 9 February.

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JOHN YOUNG AWARDED ORDER OF AUSTRALIA

A huge congratulations to JOHN YOUNG AM, who last week became a member of the Order of Australia. John has been recognised for his significant service to the visual arts, and as a role model.

Since his first exhibition in 1979, Young has had more than 70 solo exhibitions and over 160 group exhibitions nationally and internationally. He has devoted a large part of his four-decade career towards regional development in Asia, and recently focused his work on transcultural humanitarianism. Young was seminal in establishing the Asian Australian Artists’ Association (Gallery 4A) in 1995, now 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, where he has been a board member since 2009. Young was also a lecturer in painting at University of Sydney, Sydney College of the Arts has undertaken residencies and fellowships with the Australia Council for the Arts and is a trustee of McClelland Sculpture Park+Gallery.

As evidenced by the career highlights above, this is truely a well-deserved achievement. Congratulations John!

JANET LAURENCE AT ‘NUIT DES IDÉES’

Janet speaking at the opening of Continuous Regeneration in Shanghai.

JANET LAURENCE will join a panel of artists and scientists for La Nuit des Idées (Night of Ideas) at the Sydney Opera House this Thursday 30 January.

Founded five years ago in Paris, La Nuit des Idées has grown into a global celebration of arts, culture, science and philosophy. In 2020, for the first time, Sydney will be part of this international festival. The theme "Being Alive" promises vibrant, cross-cultural and interdisciplinary conversation about life and the universe.

Janet will be joined by Dr Thierry Hoquet, Professor of Philosophy of Science, writer Olivia Rosenthal, composer Eryck Abecassis, artist Richard Bell & academic Karlie Noon. 

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ANNE ZAHALKA

Anne Zahalka, installation view of Wild Life, Australia at ARC ONE Gallery, 2019 featuring Sea Bird Colony, Admiralty Rocks with turbulent seas, Lord Howe Island, 2019, pigment ink on adhesive paper, 275 x 375 cm (Source: Australian Museum)

ANNE ZAHALKA is featured in the exhibition Sublime Sea: Rapture & Reality at the Mornington Peninsula Gallery, opening this Saturday 14th December.

The exhibition is a spectacular immersive exhibition about the power of the sea in human imagination. It combines art and the natural sciences to chart the evolution of a ‘sublime’ perception of nature and the sea’s benevolence as a primal source of life. Contemporary works reflect new realities and insights into human interaction with the sea, the tragic voyages of refugees, threat of plastic pollution and alienation from natural forces.

The exhibition continues until 23 February.

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CYRUS TANG

CYRUS TANG's solo exhibition Golden Hour, previously shown at ARC ONE in 2018, is being exhibited at Galerie Oasis in Bangkok.

Opening today, this exhibition comprises a suite of photographic works that continue Tang's project of paradoxically reconstructing and recording ephemeral mental images and sensations in permanent materials. The title is inspired by the multiple meanings of the term 'Golden Hour' - sometimes referring to the narrow margin of time for treating casualty patients in trauma yet also used by photographers to refer to a brief moment of time just before sunset or just after sunrise.

The exhibition continues until 12 January.

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JANET LAURENCE

Janet Laurence’s installation at Continuous Regeneration

JANET LAURENCE is exhibiting a version of 'Desire, Elixir Lab' at Columbia Circle in Shanghai. Continuous Regeneration, an exhibition on sustainability, sees 30 world-renowned artists and designers address the issue of environmental protection.

Columbia Circle is a historical compound built in the 1920s during Shanghai's grand epoch. It used to house, among other things, the Columbia Country Club, a popular hangout for the American elite society in the ‘30s & ‘40s including a clubhouse, gym and outdoor pool. Having sat vacant for years, the site is now being renewed by OMA Architecture and is fast becoming a prominent public space in Shanghai again, full of commercial and cultural activities, restaurants and creative business.

Continuous Regeneration is an exhibition committed to creating an organic and interactive space to deeply explore the environmental and ecological issues facing the world today, with the hope of triggering public concern and action.

The exhibition will run until 16 February.

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.

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JOHN YOUNG

John Young, Lambing Flat Riots installation view within The Lives of Celestials exhibition at Boroondarra Arts Centre, 2019.

JOHN YOUNG is an exhibiting artist in the travelling show Don't Ask Me Where I'm From. The exhibition will open at the Imago Mundi's Gallerie delle Prigioni in Treviso, Italy, and will tour to the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto in March, before multiple venues across Canada, the US, Europe & the Middle East. 

The exhibition is born out of a new partnership between the Aga Khan Museum & the Luciano Benetton Foundation's Imago Mundi, dedicated to fostering dialogue and understanding between cultures and communities. Don't Ask Me Where I'm From channels the immigrant experience in a series of diverse artistic commissions exploring cross-cultural artistic realities.

John Young will present a version of the Lambing Flat Riots project. Between November 1860 and September 1861 the New South Wales goldfields of Burrangong, near the present day township of Young, was the site of Australia’s largest racially motivated riot. Rising antagonism over gold mining disparities and cultural habits saw trivial misunderstandings intensify into racial tensions that erupted into violence across the goldfields. Over 10 months, Chinese miners were subjected to threats, robbery and sustained acts of violence. This anti-Chinese sentiment had swept through the goldfields of Victoria in the 1850s and by the early 1860s had reached a flashpoint in New South Wales, provoking public opinion and debate. In Sydney, the NSW Parliament responded to the contention by passing legislation to restrict Chinese immigration and began, alongside Victoria and South Australia, to write the prelude to the White Australia Policy.

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