Event Type Archives:

Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize

The judges for this year’s Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize – Natasha Bullock (MCA Senior Curator), Judith Blackall (NAS Gallery Curator), Mark Harpley (Visual Arts Coordinator, Redlands School) and Fabian Byrne (Visual Arts Teacher, Redlands School) – announced the award at the opening of the exhibition of finalist works presented at the National Art School […]

9 X 5 NOW Exhibition: ART150

9 X 5 NOW, at the Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne, 16–25 June, showcases generations of practicing artists who have studied or taught at the National Gallery School or VCA Art. The most experienced artist represented attended the National Gallery School in the 1940s, and the youngest completed studies at the Victorian College of the Arts […]

Taking it all away: MCA collection

Exhibition curatorial Natasha Bullock Taking it all away [is] an exhibition of works drawn from the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Diverse in form and character, the works in Taking it all away set the dynamics of space and time against the complexities of modern existence. Together, these works speak to the importance of art […]

JANIS II

Janis encompasses a range of activities initiated by Kelly Doley (a member of Brown Council) focusing on female artists, writers and thinkers allowing them “to be heard a little louder, to take up more space and more time in the world” (website). She has teamed up with Amanda Rowell to curate the second Janis exhibition […]

Direct Democracy

Exhibition curatorial by Geraldine Barlow As Individuals we are capable, but so much more so when we act together. The collective body is a complex mechanism: a layering of systems, societies, generations, inheritances and innovations. Groups of human beings have developed numerous models to identify with each other, work together, build societies and exercise power. […]

Less is More: Minimal and Post-Minimal Art in Australia [withdrawal]

01/09/2012 withdrawal of ABC art: red cube from the exhibition upon receiving the exhibition’s catalogue and reading the curatorial premise for the work’s inclusion, where I gave reasons for the withdrawal that include: [The curatorial essay mentions] my art (with reference to Floor plan: Empty, except) within the context of Robert Morris’ essay. Not only […]

Notes towards contemporary post-minimalism [withdrawal]

Several ideas stemming from Minimalism, though controversial in the 1960s, are now widely accepted as part of the landscape of contemporary art: for example, the artwork can be fabricated by someone other than the artist; it can comprise modules or units used singularly or repeated, and its governing concept is more important than any craft […]

Taint

Exhibition 'Taint' at Firstdraft Gallery, 2010

Taint observed the continued currency of minimalism through the work of six contemporary Australian artists. Formal and conceptual links can be made between their work and the Minimal project of the 1960s; their art is spare with an emphasis on geometric form, their works articulate space and in doing so acknowledge the audience and their role in […]

Art from a Hundred Years 1909–2009: Highlights of the Daimler Art Collection

The third presentation of the Daimler Art Collection in South Germany (following the extensive survey at ZKM Karlsruhe 2003 and at the Galerie der Stadt Sindelfingen 2004) at Museum Prediger Schwäbisch Gmünd concentrates on Highlights from the Collection with around 100 works spanning nearly 10 decades – from Adolf Hölzel, the main teacher in the […]

Faith and Lust: Various Approaches to Formalist Abstraction

Faith and Lust: Various Approaches to Formalist Abstraction takes as a departure point Bruce Nauman’s Vices and Virtues of 1988, which features ‘Faith and Lust’ in neon light, wrapped around a major building at the University of California in San Diego. The exhibition will explore the psychological implications of various modes of production in formalist art. […]

To make a work of timeless art: MCA Primavera Acquisitions

The decision to acquire the work of Primavera artists began in 1993, the first purchase being a suite of works by Gail Hastings, an artist included in the inaugural Primavera exhibition. Everyone wants to be close to ‘the wheel of history’, to be remembered, to occupy a place within the wider schema of recent art […]

Store 5 is … ?

Other artist initiatives before Store 5 ostensibly grew from radical 1970s and early 1980s activism, where artists collaborated to stand for their rights (e.g. artists’ fees) and, thereby, contemporary art. Pre-ordained definitions of art were questioned as well as the politics of inclusion and exclusion in public programs (e.g. the exclusion of women artists). By […]

In Conversation

This is the quandary bequeathed by minimalism, and Hastings presents this legacy precisely as a quandary. Again, the issue revolves around a hypothetical circuit of knowledge: who knows? Hastings candidly notes her own trepidation: “That this work of art I am looking at is not meant form me but for someone else more equipped … […]

Kunst Nach Kunst / Art After Art

Simple geometric patterns with a coloration [of] clearly defined contours characterize Gail Hastings’ work. The proximity to Minimal Art is unmistakable [as] a conceptual interface of her works. … The title, “To complete a work of contemporary art” (1997), already indicates a direct reference to an apparently ‘unfinished’ contemporary art. This reference must be formally seen […]

October 2001 / Geometrical Affairs

The Daimler Art Collection focuses on geometrical and abstract concepts in 20th century art, and shows how these ideas are developing on the contemporary art scene world-wide. The Geometrical Affairs exhibition includes selected works spanning six decades, starting with classical pictures by artists like Josef Albers or Adolf Fleischmann and ending up with “Sculptural Situations” by the […]

Open House

A different example of such temporal-spatial puzzles is found in Room for love 1990, which contains a conversational or ‘tête-à-tête’ chair, an S-shaped two-seater sofa, sometimes called a ‘love chair’. In such a chair, two people sit in close proximity facing in opposite directions, although they can also converse face-to-face. For Hastings, the analogy alludes […]