EXPERIMENTS ON PLANT HYBRIDIZATION

November 23, 2010

The last show for the year, Experiments on Plant Hybridization, opens this Thursday 25 November. Curated by Drew Pettifer and Gillian Brown, the show features works by a mix of represented and new/emerging artists from Melbourne and interstate.

Join us 6 – 8 pm Thursday night for a few drinks and to see works by Juan Ford, Matthew Hunt, Andy Hutson, Andre Piguet, Helen Pynor, Hanna Tai, Claire Anna Watson, Kent Wilson and Tessa Zettel & Karl Khoe (Makeshift)

The exhibition takes its title from Gregor Mendel’s 1865 treatise on his studies in plant genetics.  Following a more philosophical (and pseudoscientific) approach, the show takes as its starting point the concept that Mendel’s experiments were born of a curiosity to explore the potential of nature, its ability to be harnessed and worked by mankind. The show aims to present a series of experiments into the relationship that exists between humans and nature, artists and environment.

Image: Kent Wilson, 2010

Juan Ford wins Peoples Choice at Basil Sellers Prize, Ian Potter Museum of Art

November 4, 2010

Congratulation to Juan Ford on taking out the Basil Sellers Art Prize Peoples Choice Award, announced last night by Dr Chris McAuliffe.The Basil Sellers Art Prize provides a range of awards for artists. In addition to the $100,000 prize, the finalists are in the running for the 2011 Basil Sellers Creative Fellowship, an artist-in-residency program at the National Sports Museum, and the $5,000 Yarra Trams People’s Choice award, voted on by visitors to the Exhibition.
The other 2010 finalists were: Vernon Ah Kee, Eric Bridgeman, Juan Ford, Phillip George, Ponch Hawkes, Grant Hobson, David Jolly, Richard Lewer, Noel McKenna, Glenn Morgan, David Ray, Gareth Sansom and Tony Schwensen.

Image: A Memoir from the break of day 2010, oil on wood, steel fire extinguisher.

YOUR MOVE: AUSTRALIAN ARTISTS PLAY CHESS
30 October 10 – 30 January 11

Another gallery artist Sebastian Di Mauro has his wonderful Homeland Rule 2010, on display at the Bendigo Art Gallery.
Inspired by the international exhibition The Art of Chess, Bendigo Art Gallery has commissioned thirteen of Australia’s leading artists to respond to the notion of the game of chess.

By showing The Art of Chess and Your Move concurrently Bendigo Art Gallery seeks to cement the role of Australian artists within the wider international art community, while also highlighting the skill and dynamism inherent in Australia’s contemporary art scene.

In 2011 the exhibition will tour to The University of Queensland Art Museum, Qld; McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park, Vic; and the Samstag Museum, SA.

The works in this exhibition will engage with a multiplicity of concepts – from Ken Yonetani’s ethereal porcelain sculptures engaging with issues of climate change and environmental degradation, Sebastian Di Mauro’s sculptural discourses on the impacts of colonisation, to Sean Cordeiro and Claire Healey’s more psychological approach – using this game of strategy as a metaphor for the First World War with beer bottles and coasters comprising the key players all displayed on the classic Australian picnic table.