On Friday the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney will open 'Julie Rrap: Past Continuous'. Curated by Lucy Latella, 'Past Continuous' centres on Rrap’s first ever artwork, the photographic installation 'Disclosures: A Photographic Construct' (1982). This exhibition will examine how Rrap has used her own body to interrogate the politics of representation.
To illustrate the consistency of Rrap’s vision, the exhibition will also showcase SOMOS (Standing On My Own Shoulders) (2024) and Drawn out (2022), which capture Rrap’s preoccupation with body doubles, aging flesh, and the history of the female nude.
Julie Rrap: Past Continuous
📅 28 June 2024 – 16 February 2025
📍Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
Anne Zahalka featured in the La Gacilly Photo Festival, France
Anne Zahalka is currently featured in the La Gacilly Photo Festival in France. Her Wild Life Australia series used the artificial space of museum dioramas to explore the constructed quality of the past (and the future).
Since 2004, the La Gacilly Photo Festival has been defined by its unique geographical setting at the heart of the rural environment in Brittany, and by its commitment to the great environmental challenges facing society. Zahalka's work is included alongside Louise Johns, Bobbi Lockyer, Matthew Abbott, Adam Ferguson, Narelle Autio, Trent Parke, Tamara Dean and more.
LA GACILLY PHOTO FESTIVAL
📅 21 June - 3 November
📍La Gacilly, La Chapelle-Gaceline, France
PAT BRASSINGTON interviewed by Tiarney Miekus in Art Guide Australia
Skewed body parts; allusions to genitalia, sex and violence; tinges of the fleshiest pink; a girl with a lightbulb for a head. Since the 1980s Pat Brassington’s images have entranced the psyche of contemporary Australian art. The photo-media artist’s staged, crafted scenes evoke something complicated, quietened, even repressed, in human nature, with her works often linked to psychoanalysis, feminism and surrealism.
Pat Brassington talks with Art Guide editor-in-chief Tiarney Miekus about first studying art in her thirties, and her early encounters with feminist texts through a wives’ book club. She also talks about her feelings on living and working in Hobart, the role of psychoanalysis in explaining her work, and what it means to mine the unconscious.
You can read the full interview with Tiarney Miekus here.
IMAGE: Pat Brassington, 'Pearl' (detail), 2016, pigment print, 80 x 68cm, Edition of 8 plus 2 artist's proofs.
MURRAY FREDERICKS, JANET LAURENCE & ANNE ZAHALKA Feature in the 2024 MAPh X Artist photography auction
MAPh X Artist photography auction
Book tickets now for your chance to bid on these three magnificent works by Murray Fredericks, Anne Zahalka and Janet Laurence.
MAPh has joined forces with artists to create a unique auction where we will share equally in the sale proceeds of their work, giving buyers the opportunity to have a direct impact on artists and their practice. MAPH is also offering absentee and telephone bidding.
MAPh X Artist photography auction
📅 Thursday 6 June 2024, 6pm for 7pm auction. Drinks and canapés on arrival
📍James Makin Gallery, 89 Islington St, Collingwood VIC 3066
Full catalogue including estimates and booking details via @maph_photography
IMAGES:
1. Murray FREDERICKS
BLAZE #28 2023
from the series BLAZE
pigment ink-jet print
120.0 x 150.0 cm
2. Anne ZAHALKA
You Are On Bondi Bidjigal Land! 2020
pigment ink-jet print on cotton rag
115.0 x 190.0 cm
3 - 5. Janet LAURENCE
In your verdant view 2020
Duraclear print on Shinkolite acrylic
4 panels, 30 x 28 cm each
MARINA ROLFE Shortlisted for Kings School Art Prize
Congratulations to MARINA ROLFE, who is a finalist in the King's School Art Prize in Sydney! Her beautiful entry Feathers in Autumn Attire, 2024 is inspired by the shift between seasons, particularly the arrival of Autumn.
Established in 1994, the prestigious King’s School Art Prize features entries by invitation only from leading contemporary artists from across Australia.
Former winners include Lyndell Brown & Charles Green, John Olsen, Peter Churcher, Nicholas Harding, Pepai Jangala Carroll, Aida Tomescu and Ben Quilty.
This year's judge is Jane Watters, Director of the National Trust of Australia and the S.H. Ervin Gallery. The winner will be announced tomorrow, 1 June 2024.
GUAN WEI Shortlisted for Sulman Prize
📣 GUAN WEI has just been announced as a finalist in the Sulman Prize 2024 with his work, Off to the Space, (2024).
The artist writes, "recently, ChatGPT has received a lot of attention. The web-based platform is designed to provide human-like conversational experiences. Will this new technology change the world? This painting presents an AI robot with a face resembling a human’s. Its right eye is the sun, its left eye is the moon, while its mouth is a flying constellation made from a human body. On its cheeks, we see a bolt of lightning, the Southern Cross, traces of cosmic rays and antenna interfaces. On its forehead are the solar system and Cygnus.
This painting attempts to depict a world of artificial intelligence in which inorganic life has replaced organic life. Leaving Earth, the ark of mankind moves into space, looking for a new home."
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A big congratulations Guan Wei 🥂
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The Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2024 exhibition is open from 8 June to 8 September at The Art Gallery of New South Wales.
IMAGE: Guan Wei, Off to the Space, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 162 x 306 cm (12 panels).
JULIE RRAP featured in Artist Profile
Ahead of the artist's solo exhibition ‘Past Continuous’, opening in June at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, ARTIST PROFILE has devoted a cover story to the astounding 40-year career of JULIE RRAP.
"Julie Rrap was in her late teens and living in a share house in South Brisbane when she and a group of friends took magic mushrooms. An image she hallucinated while studying her reflection in a glass windowpane at night has never left her. It was the face of an older woman she understood to be her her future self..."
Read more of Lilian Cameron’s cover story, accompanied by Anna Kučera’s exclusive portraits, in Issue 67 of Artist Profile.
GUAN WEI Commission for Vivid Sydney
VIVID SYDNEY
Guan Wei has been commissioned to transform the Museum of Contemporary Art's façade during Vivid Sydney, in a nightly light projection.
Experience Sea, Sand and Stars, displayed on the Museum's façade every evening during Vivid Sydney until 11pm, beginning this Friday, 24 May.
GUAN WEI: Sea, Sand and Stars
📅 24 May - 15 June 2024, 6–11pm daily
📍Museum of Contemporary Art Australia |
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Guan Wei's Sea, Sand and Stars will feature twinkling stars, ocean waves and marvellous creatures, taking audiences from the depths of the ocean to the constellations in the night sky
Over the last 35 years, influential Chinese Australian artist Guan Wei has created artworks that consider what it means to be human, drawing on his experiences and observations of life in Australia and China. The artist has worked with Spinifex Group to create his first light projection, which follows the course of a day, beginning with the appearance of the morning star.
PETER DAVERINGTON's mural on Well Street Park, Brighton
PETER DAVERINGTON has just completed this five-metre long mural on Well Street Park, Brighton for Bayside City Council.
Daverington’s mural design creates a trompe l'oeil effect incorporating a finely detailed landscape in the Romantic tradition with a geometric framework giving the illusion of three panels.
Artist Talk with JANET LAURENCE & MAPh Director Anouska Phizacklea
Last week’s online talk with artist Janet Laurence and MAPh Director Anouska Phizacklea is now available to watch online here.
Learn about Tears of dust, Laurence's exhibition for PHOTO 2024 held at MAPh, discuss key moments in the artist’s remarkable career and hear about the ideas that drive her work.
CYRUS TANG is a finalist in the National Works on Paper (NWOP) award
Cyrus Tang is a finalist in the 2024 National Works on Paper award, with the tactile work 'Embrace - mother', part of her Embrace series. 2024 NWOP exhibition will be held at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery from 31 August – 24 November 2024, with the winner announced on Saturday 31 August.
Congratulations Cyrus!
JOHN YOUNG at UTS Gallery
Manchurian Snow Walk, an early conceptual artwork by John Young is included in the exhibition A Moment in Extended Crisis, now open at UTS Gallery, Sydney curated by Andy Butler.
As Butler writes:
‘John Young’s Manchurian Snow Walk (1979) acts as an historical and conceptual touchstone for this exhibition . . . shown here as a performance documentation with instructions, [the work] was performed three years after the death of Mao. Young was sent away from Hong Kong in 1967 at 11 years old by his family, to protect him from the Cultural Revolution. As a 23-year-old art student, deeply entrenched in the Conceptualism, Minimalism, and Land Art movements of the 1970s, Young’s father bought him a train ticket to the farthest corner of mainland China for reasons still unknown, and too late to discover. Young traipsed back and forth from a single point, tracing lines in the snow, with the indication of his presence bound to disappear.’
The exhibition runs until 28 June 2024.
HONEY LONG & PRUE STENT Feature on the Cover of The Opéra
Honey Long & Prue Stent are on the cover of The Opéra's latest issue.
Published in Berlin, THE OPÉRA showcases work at the forefront of international, artistic nude photography. The Opéra's committed to presenting a predominantly female perspective on the human body in on show in The Phoenix Issue, featuring the work and accompanying statements by numerous female photographic artists.
JANET LAURENCE at Curtin University
Watch this magnificent behind-the-scenes film documenting Janet Laurence’s permanent site-specific installation CLIFF, installed at The School of Design and the Built Environment Building, at Curtin University, Perth.
“Imagine you are climbing a cliff, as you ascend the viewing staircase. CLIFF brings you the earth, not as a representation but as presentation of Earth itself, in the form of rocks each with its own story - of time, weather, movement, and formation." - Janet Laurence
This project was commissioned by Curtin University and completed with support from Event Engineering and Apparatus. The recently completed The School of Design building was designed by John Wardle Architects.
ART OF LUNCH
Celebrate the RACV City Club Gallery Lounge exhibition 'Performing Nature' with an intimate three-course lunch with the artists MURRAY FREDERICKS, PRUE STENT, and Robert Ashton. Hear from each of the artists, sip outstanding wine, and delight in culinary masterpieces made in response to the artworks.
Ticket includes three-course lunch, beverages, and artist talk.
https://events.racv.com.au/pub/pubType/EO/pubID/zzzz65f136d378569066/interface.html
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'Performing Nature' features Honey Long & Prue Stent, Murray Fredericks, and Robert Ashton. These artists create photographic performances of nature, using their bodies, endurance and artist intervention.
The exhibition continues until 24 May 2024 at the Gallery Lounge, RACV City Club.
Exhibition access is by appointment only. Email mail@arc1gallery.com to arrange a viewing.
PETER DAVERINGTON - PALIMPSEST
PETER DAVERINGTON, The Messenger, Oil, spraypaint and gold and copper metal leaf on canvas, 198 x152 cm.
PETER DAVERINGTON: PALIMPSEST
10 April - 11 May 2024
Opening: Wednesday, 10 April, 6PM, ARC ONE Gallery
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Using canvases that have been painted, painted again, abandoned (even destroyed), before being rescued, Daverington’s delicate surfaces are composed out of crumbling images, oxidisation, and entrancing lacunas. With each artwork containing traces of countless other paintings, this exhibition acts as a visual diary, even a retrospective.
Daverington’s intentional pentimenti reveal both problems and solutions that he has discovered. As the artist notes, “These paintings are an aggregate of imperfections. The scar tissue left after a fight between hope and despair. The beauty of painting is that you can always paint over it. Nothing’s irredeemable.”
Janet Laurence's Tears of Dust at Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh)
Janet Laurence's immersive installation Tears of Dust at the Museum of Australian Photography creates encounters with our changing planet. Her intensely seductive and haunting work evoke breathing forests, extreme weather events and dying glaciers. When encountering these otherworldly environments we become profoundly aware of the interconnection of all life forms and the alchemical regeneration of plants.
Janet’s installation is on display until 26 May 2024. For more information, click here.
ROBERT OWEN Features in 'Systems and Structures' at TarraWarra Museum of Art
Three beautiful compositions from Robert Owen's series 'Soundings' will be on display in Systems and Structures, TarraWarra's latest exhibition, which opens tomorrow.
Systems and Structures features Owen alongside Robert Hunter, Clement Meadmore, Howard Arkley, Lesley Dumbrell, Mark Galea, Robert Jacks, Callum Morton, John Nixon, to showcase artists who employ patterns, geometry, modules and repetition as key elements in their creative process.
Systems and Structures
📅 23 March - 14 July 2024
📍TarraWarra Museum of Art
GUO JIAN & GUAN WEI Feature in Upcoming Panel Discussion at Nation Art School
Tides of Change: In Our Time Artists' Panel Discussion
Join us for an engaging conversation with artists Guan Wei and Guo Jian, both renowned Chinese-born artists living in Australia, as they discuss their significant bodies of work featured in the exhibition "IN OUR TIME."
They'll be joined by Dr. Luise Guest, a writer, curator, and education specialist, and Professor Jing Han, Director of the Institute for Australian and Chinese Arts & Culture at the University of Western Sydney.
Saturday, March 23, 2024
12 - 1 PM
JANET LAURENCE - Tears of Dust
NEW PUBLICATION
Artist Janet Laurence created this captivating volume that encapsulates the many strands of her creative process and advocacy for the natural world that inform her exhibition 'Tears of dust', curated by MAPh Director Anouska Phizacklea.
Designed by Pidgeon Ward, this publication distills the essence of Laurence's practice into an artefact that marks not only this exhibition, but many years of inquiry, research and care. You can hear Laurence speak at the PHOTO 2024 Ideas Summit this Friday, where she'll be addressing 'Photography as activism' in 'The Alchemical Life: new ways of living on our fragile planet'.
'Tears of dust' is available in the MAPh shop via the link in our bio, where you can also find a link to purchase tickets for the Ideas Summit.
