Nicholas Mangan in Shanghai Biennale, Power Station of Art
Nicholas Mangan has been selected to participate in the 14th edition of the Shanghai Biennale at the Power Station of Art. Emerging in 1996 as the first international biennale of contemporary art in China, the Shanghai Biennale has become one of the most significant events and exhibitions of contemporary art in East Asia. This year’s edition, Cosmos Cinema, highlights 80 artists whose work explores the relationship between humanity and the cosmos and the extent to which this dynamic may condition the precarity of life on earth.
Cosmos Cinema Shanghai Biennale (14th Edition) 9 November 2023–31 March 2024
Laresa Kosloff and Rosslynd Piggott in ‘nightshifts’ at Buxton Contemporary
Works by Laresa Kosloff and Rosslynd Piggott feature in the group exhibition nightshifts at Buxton Contemporary. Highlighting artists whose practice attends to solitude and isolation through manifold permutations, nightshifts gathers works which span a range of histories, narratives and media.
Presenting work from the Michael Buxton and the University of Melbourne Collections alongside recent commissions, the exhibition carefully ruminates the importance of solitude as a condition of divergence for contemporary artists who are working at a time of emphasised collaborative practice.
nightshifts Buxton Contemporary 26 May–29 October 2023
Nusra Latif Qureshi, ‘Beyond the Page: South Asian Miniature Painting and Britain, 1600 to Now’, MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, UK
Nusra Latif Qureshi’s digital photomontage DID YOU COME HERE TO FIND HISTORY? is included in the group exhibition Beyond the Page: South Asian Miniature Painting and Britain, 1600 to Now at the MK Gallery in Milton Keynes, UK. This monumental show explores how the traditions of South Asian miniature painting have been reclaimed and reinvented by modern and contemporary artists, taken forward beyond the pages of illuminated manuscripts to experimental forms that include installations, sculpture, and film.
Featuring work by artists from different generations working in dialogue with the miniature tradition, the exhibition presents contemporary works alongside examples of miniature painting dating as far back as the mid-16th century, many of which have been drawn from major collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum and the British Museum. This landmark exhibition showcases South Asian miniature painting to spark novel and meaningful connections across epochs through a rich array of multidisciplinary works.
Beyond the Page: South Asian Miniature Painting and Britain, 1600 to Now MK Gallery 7 October 2023–28 January 2024
Gordon Bennett, ‘From the Collection: Gordon Bennett’ at the Museum of Brisbane
The Museum of Brisbane is currently presenting a selection of works by Gordon Bennet from their collection of the late artist. Highlighting two recent acquisitions by the museum, this intimate presentation features paintings from the artist’s iconic interior series alongside striking works on paper.
From The Collection: Gordon Bennett Museum of Brisbane 5 August 2023–21 January 2024
Read Helen Hughes insightful review of Stephen Bush’s most recent exhibition A Troubled Mind in ARTFORUM.
“‘A Troubled Mind’ was an evocative title for Stephen Bush’s most recent exhibition. Characteristic of the artist’s practice, which spans almost five decades now, certain tropes reappeared across many of the paintings like demons that could not be exorcised. A preening cockerel, a goat looking back at the viewer over its left shoulder, a potbellied man pissing on the street, another man with several pipes dangling ostentatiously from his mouth—these forms echoed across this body of work produced, for the most part, over the past three years. Some of the motifs—for instance, the farm animals—have been haunting Bush’s practice for far longer, reflecting the artist’s childhood on a farm in rural Victoria.”
Nicholas Mangan, ‘Beneath the Surface’ at Heide Museum of Modern Art
Nicholas Mangan has been included in Beneath the Surface, Behind the Scenes at Heide Museum of Modern Art. This exhibition brings into dialogue a selection of significant works by contemporary Latin American and Australian artists. Exploring the ways that art can take our imaginations beyond the limitations of the known world and the veil of visual appearances.
Participating artists include: Alexander Apóstol (Venezuela), Tatiana Blass (Brazil), Lauren Brincat (Australia), Christian Capurro (Australia), Elena Damiani (Peru), Marlon de Azambuja (Brazil), Matías Duville (Argentina), Gloria Sebastián Fierro (Colombia), Ximena Garrido-Lecca (Peru), Arturo Hernández Alcázar (Mexico) Nadia Hernández (Venezuela/Australia), André Komatsu (Brazil), Liliana Porter (Argentina), Marilá Dardot, (Brazil),Jorge Magyaroff (Colombia), Hayley Millar Baker, Gunditjmara/Djabwurrung (Australia) Estefanía Peñafiel Loaiza (Ecuador/France), Berna Reale (Brazil) and Steven Rendall (Australia).
Beneath the Surface, Behind the Scenes Heide Museum of Modern Art 29 July–22 October 2023
Review: Vanessa Francesca, ‘Gian Manik, ‘Don Quixote”, Art Guide Australia
September 2023
Read Vanessa Francesca’s current review of Gian Manik’s exhibition Don Quixote.
“Gian Manik is one of Australia’s most exciting contemporary artists. His exhibition Don Quixote is a palimpsest that pays tribute to the many layers of identity, interpretation and innovation that have characterised the history of the work.”
Don Quixote continues at Sutton Gallery until the 30 September, 2023.
Laresa Kosloff’s film trilogy La Perruque (2019), Radical Acts (2020) and New Futures™ (2021) is currently on view at Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. These fables explicitly tell tales of resistance, while implicitly questioning representation in the public realm.
In La Perruque (2019), an errant office worker writes a novel while at work, imagining his co-workers to be characters in his fantastical narrative. In Radical Acts (2020), climate scientists clandestinely distribute a pathogen that renders corporate workers less productive and more susceptible to non-profit motivations. In New Futures™ (2021), a war is waged between industrious, hyper-charismatic ‘synthetic’ personalities tailored for commercial success and disgruntled hackers nostalgic for an apathetic past.
Capital Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane 09 September–16 December 2023
George Egerton-Warburton, ‘Backwash’ at Drill Hall
George Egerton-Warburton is included in exhibition Backwash.
Contemporary artists have lived through an era of uncertainty and disillusionment. Floating along a current of late-capitalism, a self-perpetuating system of waste, they find themselves stuck in a cyclical deadlock, overloaded with images of humanity’s self-destruction. In creating art from the ‘backwash’ of contemporary life, this group of artists seek to grapple with a tide of excessive mass consumption and an ever intensifying globalisation by readdressing its residues.
Backwash includes works by Robert Bittenbender, Isabella Darcy, George Egerton-Warburton, Sarah Goffman, Spencer Lai, Marian Tubbs, and Philadelphia Wireman. Curated by Oscar Capezio and Tony Oates.
Backwash Drill Hall, Canberra 1 September–22 October 2023
Nick Selenitsch, ‘And, &, The Middle Playground’ at MADA Gallery
And, &, The Middle Playground at MADA Gallery is the practical component Nick Selenitsch’s PhD candidature, titled The Middle Playground.
The Middle Playground explores how play can be employed as a framework for understanding artistic experience: both in the reception of art and in its creation. It is an endeavour that embraces paradoxical mergers — minglings—exemplified by play, and culturally defined at its outer limits by sport and games.
This is an arena where the serious is also frivolous, the inconclusive becomes conclusive, and where there is an acute awareness that comes from being lost in the task — becoming “thoughtfully playful,” in other words.
And, &, The Middle Playground MADA Gallery, Building D, Monash Caulfield campus 6 September–23 September 2023
Helga Groves, ‘Lithic Elements (Pilbara Series)’ at STEAMM Studios
Presented as part of Big Questions Institute’s The Pilbara Series: A fusion of Art and Science, Helga Groves exhibits a new body of work Lithic Elements (Pilbara Series) at Steamm Studios in Wolloongabba, Queensland.
Invited to participate in the 2022 BQXpedition to explore the Pilbara’s origin of life stromatolite sites, Groves continues her investigations into geophysical processes and natural phenomena.
STEAMM Studios is a unique multi-disciplinary art studio, showcasing the intersection of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Maths and Music (STEM + Art & Music).
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Kate Beynon, ‘Explore a Re-Imagined Natural World’ at Glen Eira City Council Gallery
Kate Beynon joins leading contemporary artists Kate Rohde, Valerie Sparks, and Vipoo Srivilasa in an exhibition at Glen Eira City Council Gallery that journies through an immersive environment brimming with colour and luminosity and discover the interconnectedness of nature, storytelling, and cultural themes.
Explore a Re-Imagined Natural World 7 July – 13 August 2023 Curator: Diane Soumilas
Kate Beynon: Artist Floor talks Friday 4 August, 1pm
Aleks Danko in ’40×40′ at Australian Print Workshop
‘APW 40×40’ is a monumental survey of contemporary Australian printmaking bringing together 40 leading contemporary Australian artists who share an important and long-standing creative relationship with Australian Print Workshop.
To mark APW’s 40th Anniversary (reached during COVID lockdown in 2021) each artist was invited to collaborate with APW Printers to create a new artwork in the print medium.
David Rosetzky, ‘Air to Atmosphere’ Website & Publication
David Rosetzky’s commission, Air to Atmosphere explores the diversity, trauma, resilience, and pride of the LGBTQIA+ community on Dja Dja Wurrung Country in Central Victoria. Presented throughout the Castlemaine Art Museum, commencing with the Terrace Projection screening every evening from dusk, Air to Atmosphere celebrates the LGBTQIA+ community through video, photography, publishing, performance and an extensive website.
Rosetzky turns his prodigious skill and deep intuition towards what might be considered a documentary enquiry with a creative outcome. And herein lies his remarkable achievement, to weaken the seemingly stark distinction between art and documentary.
A friendship born out of shared studio space at legendary art incubator Gertrude Contemporary in Melbourne, painter Mia Boe and dancer and choreographer Amrita Hepi became friends and peers. This is a conversation about their immersive art practices, battle with identity – as women, and as artists – and the dilemma of authenticity.
Hear Nusra Latif Qureshi speak about her Sharjah Biennial 15 presentation, a selection of mixed media works—four of which were commissioned by 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art—that explores critical displays of power and its incumbent historical misrepresentations.
Latif Qureshi’s works are on view at the Calligraphy Square in Sharjah from 7 February to 11 June 2023.
Review: Gerry Bell, ‘Stephen Bush, A Troubled Mind, Melbourne Art Scene.
May 2023
Read Gerry Bell’s review in Melbourne Art Scene.
“There are, to be sure, many familiar elements within the pictures, traditional Lowlands architecture, violet monochromes giving full rein to enamel marbling and phantasmagorical backgrounds, abundant small goods displayed before waterlogged landscapes, figures in period costume, abandoned and converted delivery vans, imposing Modernist office blocks and heavy industry.”
Once More With Feeling features new and existing works by Karen Black, Georgia Spain, Cybele Cox and Michelle Ussher.
The exhibition sets out to investigate the articulation of bodies, the relationship between the human form and culture, femininity, sexuality, theatre and ritual. Predominantly traversing sculpture, painting and sound, there is a quest to represent and challenge understandings of femininity – particularly the shapes, expressions and actions that are associated with female bodies.
Once More With Feeling 3 June – 13 August 2023 Karen Black, Georgia Spain, Cybele Cox and Michelle Ussher. Ngununggula, Retford Park, Southern Highlands Regional Gallery
Review: Oscar Capezio, ‘(Un)tangling the threads that bind them: Judy Watson and Helen Johnson’,
May 2023
Read Oscar Capezio’s insightful review in Art Monthly Australia.
“Watson and Johnson have each developed new work that seeks to bind their individual and ancestral experiences to Australia’s colonial history. They have unearthed peripheral counter-narratives to past events, critiquing them by layering them with new meaning – letting the facts speak out and get tangled among other stories. Both these artists draw on imagery and source material from official public records and private correspondence, but also family memories, dreams and the many murky histories involving nation and Country. In looking at concealed histories we discover ‘what lies beneath the ground.’”
Review: ‘The ‘Two Cathies’ are centering care through life and robots’ by Duro Jovicic
April 2023
Read Duro Jovicic’s review in Art Guide.
What infuses the film, and Bell and Staughton’s collaboration, is care and ethics. It is not usual for a neurotypical and neurodivergent artist to collaborate so fruitfully, for so long. As Bell has written, the pair’s “collaborative model provides a valuable conceptual framework to think about neurodiverse interactions and how care ethics can reorientate practices, values and procedural standards in professional studios that support artists with disabilities”. It is about creating art in ways that are inclusive, ethical, and genuinely relational.
Hear Nusra Latif Qureshi speak about her practice for Art Forum, held at Federation Hall, Melbourne on May 11 at 12:15pm.
Art Forum is the Victorian College of the Arts’ series of weekly talks by leading artists and curators. Providing a rich insight into their work and its relationship with the world, each guest speaker shares the themes, processes and ideas that drive their practice.
Raafat Ishak in ‘The Night of Counting the Tears’, Islamic Museum of Australia
Raafat Ishak is exhibiting alongside Ezz Monem in ‘The Night of Counting the Tears’ at the Islamic Museum of Australia.
‘The Night of Counting the Tears’ combines Islamic traditions with Western art forms, both classical and contemporary, to explore representations of the Prophet Muhammad, the Kaaba, and everyday life.
The Night of Counting the Tears
28 April–15 July 2023
Islamic Museum of Australia
Nusra Latif Qureshi announced as a finalist in the 2023 Paul Selzer Prize
Congratulations to Nusra Latif Qureshi who is a finalist in the 2023 Paul Selzer Exhibition and Prize alongside Kay Abude, Trent Crawford and Lisa Waup.
The Paul Selzer Exhibition honours the memory of artist and entrepreneur Paul Selzer and is made possible thanks to the generosity of the Selzer family. The fellowship funds new commissions by contemporary artists who are alumni of the Victorian College of the Arts. As part of the exhibition, a prize of $25,000 will be awarded to one of the four finalists.
The works selected will be exhibited at the Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery, Melbourne from 30 June – 22 July 2023.
Gian Manik is exhibiting in a group show at Chauffeur, Sydney. Titled The Profane Opening upon the Sacred, the exhibition runs from April 14 – May 27, 2023.
Artists include: Antoine Aguilar Gian Manik Luke Pither
