City of yarra 2012 acquisition

May 24, 2012

Congratulations Yhonnie Scarce on the recent acquisition of Florey and Fanny by the City of Yarra. Florey and Fanny was part of Yhonnie’s major solo exhibition held in 2011. This will be a strong addition and a significant step in developing Aboriginal contemporary art works in this major collection.

Scarce’s work entitled Florey and Fanny features two domestic aprons styled upon the ones that Scarce’s grandmother Fanny and great-great-grandmother Florey wore when they were domestic servants in the early 1900s. In Scarce’s work, glass blown bush plums are hidden in the pockets of the domestic aprons. These represent perhaps the only link to Indigenous culture that Scarce’s ancestors were able to secretly hold on to whilst at work on a farm or mission. Their stems poking out of apron pockets, the fruits represent Aboriginal culture itself – hidden, contained, and forced into an apron of colonialism.    

JUAN FORD INSTALLATION

May 18, 2012

Juan Ford‘s exhibition entitled Lord of the Canopy opens Saturday 19 May at La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre, Bendigo (2-4pm).

Between the branches of a monstrous, reconstituted tree, and the delicate anamorphic drawings of Juan Ford, the Lord of the Canopy may indeed dwell. You can find him in Bendigo until 24 June.

This impressive installation is Juan’s final project before his trip to Manifesta 9. He heads to Belgium next week to participate in the European Biennial, one of the foremost art events in Europe. Watch this space for images of his Manifesta project!

Juan Ford, Lord of the Canopy, 2012, Installation detail.

National Gallery Australia acquires Reko Rennie

May 16, 2012

We are very proud to announce the National Gallery of Australia, has acquired two major works by Reko Rennie from his Neo Geo series exhibited in the gallery in 2011. Message Stick (Green) Hand Pressed Textile Metallic Foil, Screen Print on Belgium Linen 150x150cm.

Reko is currently undertaking his residency at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces…. so expect more to come!

MICHAEL COOK PRESENTS CONCURRENT EXHIBITIONS THIS MAY

May 11, 2012

At dianne tanzer gallery + projects Michael Cook’s latest series entitled The Mission is exhibited until June 9. He is also included in the National Gallery of Australia’s National Indigenous Art Triennial which opened last night.

The Mission is a series of ten works, documenting the journey of an Indigenous woman from her home to the mission and the changes that are wrought. Set up as a sort of terrifying institutional bulwark against genocidal colonization, the missions were state administered locations of supposed stafety and support of Aboriginals. The missions themselves echo the power dynamics at play in Cook’s work; exterior forces model and remake as they feel, squeezing culture and identity into policy and historical narrative. (Shae Nagorcka)

Click here to view The Mission exhibition.

Michael Cook at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra with Broken Dreams & Undiscovered, 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial.

From May to July 2012, the National Gallery will celebrate the second National Indigenous Art Triennial, unDisclosed. Until July 22 visitors to the National Gallery will have the opportunity to experience the visual expression of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art. 20 artists have been selected for their commitment to excellence and their daring to explore new fields of practice and artistic vision. These artists both inform and redefine contemporary Indigenous art as we presently know it.

The exhibition’s theme, ‘unDisclosed’, alludes to the spoken and the unspoken, the known and the unknown, what can be revealed and what cannot. It captures the duality of the disclosed and undisclosed embedded within the works and the exhibition as a whole. Viewers are invited to unearth the layers of hidden and subtle meanings and to place them alongside those that are conspicuous.

unDisclosed will be touring nationally in 2013, opening at the Cairns Regional Gallery, Cairns QLD, on 22 February 2013 before travelling to South Australia to the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art, at the University of South Australian, Adelaide SA, opening on 3 May 2013.

Michael Cook’s Undiscovered at the National Gallery of Australia as a part of unDisclosed: the 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial.

MARIAN DREW: ANIMAL/HUMAN

Marian Drew is featured in ANIMAL/HUMAN, an exhibition at the University of Queensland Art Museum. The exhibition explores our relationships with animals and the complexity, contradiction and connections between species. The exhibition focuses on the scientific, cultural and ethical nature of our relationships.  A number of works continue traditions whereby animals are depicted in symbolic or totemic form, are endowed with human qualities, or stand in for the self.

“Contemporary Australian artists are producing an astonishing array of artworks that not only depict animals, but also focus on the animal-human relationship in all its positive and negative permutations,” exhibition curator Michele Helmrich said.

The exhibition is on until 22 July.

Marian Drew, Tasmanian Rosella with Apple & Serviette, 2006, archival ink on Hahnemuhle cotton rag paper, 134x112cm