Eugene Carchesio in ‘The National 4: Australian Art Now’
The National is a biennial survey of contemporary Australian art. A partnership between four leading Sydney cultural institutions: the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Campbelltown Arts Centre (C-A-C), Carriageworks and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia), it brings together 48 new artist projects involving more than 80 artists across the Country.
For Eugene Carchesio, art, life, and philosophy are inextricably linked. Carchesio’s works for The National 4 are a continued exploration of entangled forces, which he first began interrogating in the 1980s. While the Brisbane-based artist is best known for his diminutive matchbox constructions and his colourful watercolours, he is also an established musician. In his practice, audio and visual artistic dialogues seamlessly feed into one another, revealing an intuitive and improvisational approach to art-making. The resulting works, influenced by simple yet profound observations of the world around him, carry a sense of rhythm whereby each work acts as a part in the overall, connecting composition.
Titled after a term used in landscape architecture describing an improvised route or path made in defiance of an official roadway or designated direction, Desire Lines suggest a covert journey through the City of Melbourne’s collection of over eight thousand objects and artworks. In Lynch’s exhibition, the lived life of the city is far from a rational approach, rather it celebrates curious encounters and beguiling coincidences, from a forgotten handprint in Melbourne’s walk of fame, signage removed from unknown buildings in the city, and a seemingly-damaged architectural model.
Desire Lines Wednesday 15 March – Wednesday 26 July 2023
Nusra Latif Qureshi presents five works at Sharjah Biennial 15
Nusra Latif Qureshi presents five works at Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ These key works from Qureshi’s oeuvre include a series of installations that draw on key colonial imagery, engage with the reverence of weaponry, and critique the museological convention of collecting and ownership. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Qureshi’s practice is characterised by meticulous layering, overlapping fragments, erasure, and juxtaposition of visual material. Through such interventions, Qureshi investigates little-known histories of colonial eras to reveal complex stereotypes, which are in turn rearranged to construct new narratives. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ SB15 runs from 7 February to 11 June 2023.
Review: ‘Rosslynd Piggott, Realm–peripheral scenes’ by Philip Brophy
25 Mar 2023
Read Philip Brophy’s insightful review in Memo.
“For art history adepts, being in the space might be akin to standing in front of, or within, the Light and Space paintings or walls of Mary Course, Helen Pashigan, Craig Kauffman, John McCracken, and James Turrell. The connection makes sense, for decorative artisans and conceptual minimalists equally explored how the painted, primed, textured, or illuminated surface can on its own absorb the viewer into its field of interiority”.
Melbourne Now will be displayed throughout all levels of The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia showcasing new works and commissions by emerging, mid-career, senior practitioners, and collectives.
*Jon Campbell is represented by Darren Knight Gallery
Portraiture. Not as you know it. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Mia Boe and Kate Beynon both feature in ‘Portrait23: Identity’ at the National Portrait Gallery until 18 June 2023. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ‘Portrait23: Identity’ is a major exhibition of new work from multi-award-winning contemporary Australian artists and collectives working across every state and territory. Twenty-three artists and collectives present work about who they are and what it means to represent themselves, their communities, histories and contemporary society. They break open the genre with deeply personal evocations of themes that resonate collectively, such as cultural knowledge, feminism, visibility/invisibility, activism and journeys of migration.
David Rosetzky is collaborating with members of the LGBTQIA+ community in Central Regional Victoria including &so, Eden Swan, Terence Jaensch and Rhett D’Costa amongst others, to create a major exhibition commissioned by Castlemaine Art Museum. This large collaborative and multi-disciplinary work includes photography, filmmaking, performance, publishing, music, song, choreography by Jo Lloyd and social events created with and about local artists and community members.
‘David Rosetzky: Air to Atmosphere’ runs from 24 March – 3 September 2023.
Exhibition Opening, of Castlemaine State Festival Friday 24 March, 6:30 – 8:30pm
Nicholas Mangan features in ‘The McClelland Collection’ at McClelland Sculpture Park & Gallery from 18 March – 17 July 2023.
With the destructive impact of human civilisation in this time known as the Anthropocene, we have been forced to consider our environment as it is constituted by other forces and experienced by other organisms. To this end, artists are exploring with some urgency how the world might be conceived beyond human perception, before and after human presence.
Artist include: Andrew Browne, Amias Hanley, Sam Jinks, Nicholas Mangan, Dorothy Napangardi
Helen Johnson is featured in curated exhibition ‘Homo sacer: life unlawed’ at LaTrobe Art Insitute from 14 Feb to 7 May 2023.
This exhibition explores the idea of homo sacer (literally, ‘sacred man’). Homo sacer is an ancient Roman legal idea that a person who has been removed from and placed out of the law and society, or from whom law has been withdrawn, could be killed without consequence. Through a group of sculptures, paintings and video artworks, the Homo sacer: life unlawed exhibition demonstrates how the law is not only embedded in (our) bodies, but creates the particular sense of material and social reality that we perceive in the everyday world.
Artists include: Martha Atienza, Jonathan Baldock, Kait James, Helen Johnson, Nick Modrzewski, Jack Ky Tan and the Victorian Bar Guest curators: Nick Modrzewski and Jack Ky Tan
Read Amelia Winata’s review of Nicholas Mangan’s exhibition Core-Coralations (Death Assemblages).
“Few artists delineate the volatile relationship between humans and their environment as directly as Nicholas Mangan. “Core-Coralations (Death Assemblages)” is part of Mangan’s ongoing exploration of capitalism, colonialism, globalisation, and the impacts that these human-made systems have on the natural environment.”
Mia Boe is featured in ‘the Dingo Project: Wongar’ at Hervey Bay Regional Gallery, Queensland until 21 May 2023.
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Originally curated for Ngununggula in the NSW Southern Highlands, ‘The Dingo Project: Wongari’ shifts the focus of Djon Mundine’s curatorial project to Butchulla country and the Wongari of K’gari. Featuring artists from across the country alongside Butchulla perspectives, The Dingo Project: Wongari investigates the spiritual mythology and historical narratives that connect dingoes to Aboriginal Australia.
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Artists include Joel Barney, Mia Boe, Dan Boyd, Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation and Butchulla Native Title Aboriginal Corporation, Michael Cook, Judith Crispin, Karla Dickens, Blak Douglas, Maddison Gibbs, Warwick Keen, Teena McCarthy, Lin Onus and Jason Wing.
Curated by Djon Mundine.
Nusra Latif Qureshi’s collaborative work with Anna Farago ‘Woven into the Fold’ features in ‘SHE of Mind and Body’ at the Walker Street Gallery and Arts Centre, Dandenong until 31 March 2023.
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Challenging and exploring historical views of women, SHE of mind and body depicts body image, women’s empowerment, mental and emotional health. It reclaims traditional perceptions of textiles and celebrates art by and for women.
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This year’s artists are Caroline Phillips (work pictured at front), Dans Bain, Anna Farago, Neroli Henderson, Georgia MacGuire, Chaco Kato, Vonda Keji, Nusra Qureshi, Ema Shin and Kate V M Sylvester.
Peter Robinson at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū
Peter Robinson features in the new collection show ‘Die Cuts and Derivations’ at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū from 11 March – 2 July 2023.
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Robinson’s expansive installation sparks a look at how artists investigate and respond to space, through line, materials and improvisation.
You can now view Kate Beynon’s site-specific installation at the 2023 Enlighten Festival.
Enlighten Illuminations, Canberra
3-13 March 2023
Commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery, ‘Spirits Shapeshifting’ blends watercolour and digital animation to bring vibrant beings to life amid botanical dreamscapes, atmospheric skies, and kaleidoscopic visions. This collaborative work by between family collective Kate Beynon, Rali Beynon and Michael Pablo draws inspiration from their blend of diverse cultural backgrounds, including Cantonese Malaysian, Afro-Caribbean, First Nations Pima-Mexican, Welsh/Celtic and Nordic ancestries.
Kate Beynon features in the Archie 100: A Century of the Archibald Prize.
This touring exhibition presents a selection from some of the 6000-plus portraits and more than 1500 artists from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand that have been in the prize so far. Arranged thematically, these works have been chosen not as ‘the best of the best’ but because of the stories they tell about the prize, the changing face of our society, and the power of portraiture to illuminate our collective humanity
Aleks Danko, Raafat Ishak and Nick Selenitsch in ‘It’s not you, it’s me’
Aleks Danko, Raafat Ishak and Nick Selenitsch feature in ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ which opens tonight at 5pm at the Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery. This exhibition runs until the 01 April 2023
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‘It’s not you, it’s me’ is an exhibition of self-portraiture by the staff of VCA ART. Including painting, drawing, sculpture, video, and photography ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ presents diverse approaches to the idea of self-imaging.
Laressa Kosloff work ‘New Futures’ features in the exhibition ‘Who Can Think What Can Think’ curated by Bruce E. Phillips at Te Tuhi Contemporary in Aotearoa, New Zealand until 7 May 2023.
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‘Who can think, what can think’ is an exhibition that challenges definitions of ‘intelligence’ in relation to human and non-human cognition by embracing understanding of biodiversity and neurodiversity. To question ‘who and what can think’ requires us to confront the troubling history of categorising intelligence that has led to certain groups of people being excluded, controlled and killed, while plants, animals and whole ecosystems are exploited and destroyed. Despite this history, those who worked to understand and value cognitive diversity in all its forms began to influence positive social change.
Rosslynd Piggott is exhibiting in two exhibitions across the summer months at Queensland Gallery of Art and Gallery of Modern Art. Piggott features in ‘Air’ until 23 April and ‘Courage and Beauty – The James C. Sourris Collection’ until 25 June 2023.
‘Air’ showcases more than 30 significant Australian and international artists, reflecting the vitality of our shared atmosphere through the invisible, ethereal and vital element of air.
‘Courage and Beauty’ is dedicated to Queensland art collector and philanthropist James C. Sourris AM gifts of the past decade, with major works by contemporary Australian artists including Rosslynd Piggott and Gordon Bennett.
Launching on Friday 24 February, Nick Selenitsch features in ‘Recreation’ at Project8.
‘Recreation’ seeks to illuminate something of our inclination toward play through the experiential realm of art. What is the place of art in relationships between work and recreation?
Nick Selenitsch explores play in the formation of understanding. The works presented for this exhibition mingle co-existing subjects and symbols—sport, leisure, and abstraction —with an antipodean twist: a contemplation of the laconically hybrid Australian cultural experience.
Catherine Bell and Mia Bow both feature in ‘Fragile Beauty’ alongside Caitlin Dear, Hannah Gartside and Pilar Mata Dupont at Bundoora Homestead until 4 March 2023.
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‘Fragile Beauty’ celebrates the strange and vulnerable existence of being in a human body – an experience that is distinctly individual, yet also part of a shared corporeal reality. The exhibition pays homage to fragile bodies past and present, giving voice to experiences and explorations of embodiment and disembodiment. The exhibition offers artists and visitors a space to reclaim bodily agency by embracing softer states of the human experience that don’t always feel safe to express.
Hosted by Res Artis and Gertrude Contemporary in celebration of the Stonehouse-Glasshouse Residency program, Karen Black launches her new publication with Virginia Leonard.⠀
Stonehouse-Glasshouse Residency is a program developed in collaboration between Antje and Andrew Géczy, and Res Artis benefactors Michael Schwarz and David Clouston. In 2019, Virginia Leonard and Karen Black undertook the residency.
Death is often an uncomfortable topic, but as an inevitable part of life, it’s something that we should seek to find comfort with.
Bone is intrinsically linked to the concept of life and of death, and this event seeks to explore how we can transform it from simply a material, into a concept that collectively connects us.
Join Sutton artist Catherine Bell as she guides participants to sculpt a personal memento to loss and grief, death and dying—and the ways we cope with it that fundamentally make us human.
MMEETS Comfort in the Uncomfortable Sat 18 Feb 2023, 11am—12pm
Once a year, Gertrude opens their private studios to the public, providing audiences with a special opportunity to meet the artists, view works in progress, and experience the environment in which Gertrude Studio Artists create their work. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Join Sutton artists Mia Boe, Catherine Bell & Gian Manik this Saturday 18 February for a peek into their studio practice alongside the 2022-2024 cohort.
Nusra Latif Qureshi at Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present
7 February – 11 June 2023
Conceived by the late Okwui Enwezor and curated by Hoor Al Qasimi, Director of Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah Biennial 15 (SB15), titled Thinking Historically in the Present, reflects on Enwezor’s visionary work, which transformed contemporary art and established an ambitious intellectual project that has influenced the evolution of institutions and biennials around the world. Bringing together more than 160 artists from over 70 countries, SB15 will take place in 16 venues across the emirate of Sharjah from 7 February – 11 June 2023. Qureshi’s artworks, along with other participating artists, will offer unique perspectives that interconnect regions, histories, and practices.
