Exhibition dates: 16th October – 28th February 2009 . “Curiosity is a vice that has been stigmatized in turn by Christianity, by philosophy and even by a certain conception of science. Curiosity, futility. I like the word however. To me it suggests something all together different: it evokes concern; it evokes the care one takes for what exists or could exist; an acute sense of the real which, however, never becomes fixed; a readiness to find our surroundings strange and singular; a certain restlessness in ridding ourselves of our familiarities and looking at things otherwise; a passion for seizing what is happening ...
Archives for “sculpture”
Although public sculptures are generally intended for a specific location they are sometimes moved due to changes to the usage of the site. Melbourne has a number of major sculptures that have moved due to the taste of adminstrators. Melbourne’s moving sculptures include, “Angel” and “Vault”, the orphans of the 80s who are without a permanent home. “Angel” by Deborah Halpern originally stood in front of the NGV on St. Kilda Road before it was moved to, Birrarung Marr, on the banks of the Yarra River in 2006. There was no controversy over the sculpture or the move unlike Ron ...
Exhibition dates: 17th December 2009 – 28th February 2010 . “I draw from everything – from the National Security Archives collection to old material from the FBI’s website to postings by the ACLU. I concentrate on the content. It tends to be very rough material about what’s happened to soldiers in the field, about the good and bad choices they’ve been forced to make, and what has happened to detainees and civilians. I also go to material that’s almost completely gone, either whited out or blacked out, because that represents the issue. You don’t have to spill words when the page is ...
Exhibition dates: 22nd January – 18th April 2010 . You saw it first on Art Blart! Many thankx to Sue, Erin, Alison and all the crew at the National Gallery of Victoria for inviting me to the media opening (and for doing such a splendid job!) and to David Hurlston, Curator of Australian Art at the NGV, for allowing me to interview him. The photographs of the exhibition proceed in chronological order. There are a couple of lovely photographs using long exposure (especially the very last photograph one of my favourites). Enjoy! Marcus . . . . . . Ron Mueck ‘Dead Dad’ 1996-97 . . Ron Mueck ‘A girl’ 2006 installation photograph . . . . . Ron Mueck ‘A girl’ (details) 2006 . . Ron Mueck ‘Wild Man’ 2005 installation photograph . . . Ron Mueck ‘Wild ...
Set within a locale of cafes, patisseries, the markets and hubbub of Clarendon street is the charming and eclectic shop of Martin Allen Antiques. With over 20 years experience in selling contemporary art, and high quality 17th and 18th century furniture Martin Allen Antiques is ideal for the eclectic exhibition. Each year Martin attends London auctions procuring pieces for a stable of art loving clientele. The proprietor has a passion for the arts and opened the space in September 2004. The space has excellent lighting and is suitable for picture hanging, sculpture display and installations. There is a large shop window which is ...
BROOD BOX Gallery is available to hire for events and exhibitions, shows and installations. The gallery has a liquor license and can arrange catering if required. Whilst BROOD BOX Gallery is dedicated to the promotion of emerging Australian artists alongside established artists, we also provide advice to corporations and individuals who are keen to build a collection of art that will appreciate in value over time.
I liked Ricky Swallow’s art from the first exhibition that I saw. It was one of Ricky Swallow’s first solo exhibitions: “The Lighter Side of the Darkside” at Grey Area Art Space in 1998 the year after he graduated from the VCA. The exhibition was very funny. It combined record players, themes of space exploration and evolution with plasticine models the put a Darth Vader helmet on a Planet of the Apes face. I was not surprised that he went on to have a stellar career. I was even more impressed when I saw his actual sized carving of whole table ...
Exhibition dates: 16th October – 28th February 2009 . Hot off the press straight to you here at Art Blart! Photographs of the exhibition ‘Ricky Swallow: The Bricoleur’ at the National Gallery of Victoria Australia, Federation Square. The photographs are in the chronological order that I took them, walking through the three spaces of the exhibition. A spare, visually minimalist aesthetic to the show, where every vanitas, every mark (in)forms the work as transcendent momenti mori. Review to follow. Many thankx to Sue, Alison, Jemma and the team for the usual excellent job and for allowing me to document the exhibition. . “I’ve always been interested ...
I have managed to see a few exhibitions on Flinders Lane (Arc One and forty-five downstairs) in the city and Albert St. in East Richmond (Karen Woodbury Gallery, John Buckley Gallery and Shifted) in between the many meetings, emails, phone calls and wrangling with the Melbourne Stencil Festival website. David Ralph exhibition ‘Extension’ at Arc One’s small “and” gallery space is just a couple of small paintings but Ralph’s paintings are always worth seeing. David Ralph’s painting is a marvel of contemporary techniques, drips and scraps and squeegeed of paint scatter the canvas. The images appear to be cut into the ...
Exhibition dates: 15th August – 27th September 2009 . . Installation view of ‘Scenes’ by David Noonan at ACCA . . Thoughts Limited colour palette of ochres, whites, browns and blacks. Rough texture of floor covered in Jute under the feet. Layered, collaged print media figures roughly printed on canvas – elements of abstraction, elements of figuration. The ‘paintings’ are magnificent; stripped and striped collages. Faces missing, dark eyes. There is something almost Rembrandt-esque about the constructed images, their layering, like Rembrandt’s ‘Night Watch’ (1642) – but then the performance element kicks in - the makeup, the lipstick, the tragic/comedic faces. Mannequin, doll-like cut-out figures, flat but with some volume inhabiting the ...
I met up with Fiona Trigg, an assistant curator at ACMI. Some of Fiona’s favourite places to experience art in Melbourne is the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) in Southbank. She also likes walking around the alleyways and going down Flinders Lane, to check out smaller galleries. She mentions in the podcast that people could use their lunch breaks to explore the city a little more. Another favourite gallery is The Nicholas Building on Swanston st. Yellow Peril, or officially known as Vault is a favourite sculpture of Fiona’s, despite it’s bad rep. It’s outside the ACCA at the moment, but has moved ...
I wasn’t excited by “Liu Xiao Xian: From East to West” at RMIT Gallery. Fun though it is, I have seen a lot of neo-Dada, neo-Pop art before. And there didn’t seem to be much more than a continuous Chinese-Australian or Chinese-Western references. Liu Xiao Xian putting his own face in western images has limited amusement; it is yet more re-branding of familiar images. The superficial of content is masked by an over production the creation of larger and more spectacular images. I did enjoy his various glazed porcelain game boards, as an avid game player they generated imaginary sculptural ...
Copenhagen has the Little Mermaid statue, Brussels has the Manikin Pis but what public sculpture symbolizes Melbourne? These statues become the mascot of the city and have been the focus of tourist’s attentions long before cameras. Many like the owl of Dijon have been rubbed smooth and featureless by human hands. Melbourne does not have such a sculpture because there have been so few public sculptures in the CBD. In 2006 The Age reported about a revival of public sculpture in the city 25 years after the controversy over Ron Robertson-Swann’s “Vault” in the city square. It appears that Melbourne ...
Exhibition dates: 6th June – 2nd August, 2009 . Photographs from the exhibition are in the chronological order that they appear. . . Tacita Dean ‘Grobsteingrab (floating)’ 2009 . . Tacita Dean ‘T & I’ (Tristan & Isolde) 2006 . . Tacita Dean ‘Totality’ 16mm colour film 2000 . . “The subjects are connected to the medium I use. It’s all about light and time and phenomena to some extent, like a rainbow or a gust of wind or even an eclipse or a green ray, things like that. And this is the language of light. It’s not the language of binary pixels.” Tacita Dean1 . “The value of her [Dean's] work, writes Winterson, is one of the virtues of art itself: it is ...
Exhibition dates: 19th June – 25th July, 2009 . . Emma Davies ‘Sekai’ (meaning ‘be humorous’) 2009 . . Emma Davies ‘Tariro’ (means ‘hope’) 2009 . . Emma Davies ‘Rutendo’ (detail – means ‘faith’) 2009 . . A stimulating exhibition by Emma Davies at Craft Victoria of polypropylene industrial netting and packaging that has been heated, moulded, sculpted and literally morphed into these fantastical sculptures, inspired by the artist’s experiences when visiting Johannesburg in South Africa as part of the South Project. Davies evokes the mysterious and the bizarre in her figures, making the commonplace into something uncommon, taking her themes from the relics of bush medicine present in the street markets: the medicine market of Johannesburg full ...
Exhibition dates: 5th June – 18th July, 2009 . Photographs of the exhibition and interesting observations by Karen Thompson on the Johannes Kuknen talk can be found on the Melbourne Jeweller website. . . Johannes Kuhnen Rings 1971 . . Johannes Kuhnen Ring 1973 . . This is a superlative exhibition, one of the highlights of the year so far in Melbourne. The exhibition presents work from the early 1970s to contemporary work and evidences the breadth of vision of this master craftsman and artist, the arc of his investigation showing a consistency of feeling for the energy and form of his materials over many decades. Technically the work is superb; conceptually the work ...
The statue (inspired by the story of Baucis and Philemon from Greek mythology) above the door at Baroq House, Drewery Lane, city
On Sunday evening, the very lovely (and dextrous) Emma Davies was featured on ABC's Sunday Arts program. You can view her segment shortly on the ABC website and you'll be sure to hear from us when it's up and running. In the meantime, have a peek at Emma's Gallery 2 exhibition Morphed which features anthropomorphic creatures made from her signature material, polypropylene. From left to right: Enitan, Ntombi, Kgosi, Nkosana, Lucky, Alaba Mosadi Wakonokono - means 'woman of substance' Lucky Nkosana - means 'prince' Nkosana (detail) Ntombi - means 'lady' Enitan - means 'person of story' Enitan (detail) Zola, means ...
Installation view for The World of Small Things We've been an excitable lot here at CVHQ for the past few days and it all boils down to this evening. Tonight is the launch of our new exhibition program featuring a wonderful group exhibition curated by former CVHQ Head Honcho Kevin Murray, a series of figurative sculptures inspired by the artist Emma Davies' recent trip to Johannesburg, and Alana Clifton-Cunningham's exquisitely crafted knitwear designed to examine the ability of knitwear to function as a 'second skin'.As usual, artist talks will begin this evening at 5.30pm with the official opening to ...
Exhibition dates: 13th June – 4th October 2009 . You saw it first on Art Blart! Installation photographs from the latest Winter Masterpieces blockbuster from the media preview on the day the exhibition opened at NGV International, Melbourne. Thank you to Jemma Altmeier, Media and Public Affairs Administrator at the NGV for the invitation. Photographs were taken using a digital camera, tripod and available light. There is a posting on the Melbourne Jeweller blog about this exhibition, complete with interesting drawings of the jewellery – well worth a look. Fantastic to see my friend and curator of the exhibition, Dr Ted Gott, at ...
Exhibition dates: 1st May – 13th June, 2009 . Three very interesting exhibitions at Craft Victoria at the moment: ‘Babel’ by Natasha Dusenjko, ‘Gleaning Potential’ by Simon Lloyd and ‘Cycle’ by Liz Low. I particularly liked the delicacy and textuality of Natasha Dusenjko’s sci-fi towers and bone fragments and the wonderful box of 6 red bricks (small and large) that you can buy from the Simon Lloyd show, like blocks for a child builder. There is an excellent and erudite review of the exhibitions at Daniel Neville’s ‘The Theory of Nevolution‘ blog, a site that I have also added to my Blogroll. Marcus Bunyan ...
Artist: Greer Honeywill Content: Sculpture/Installation and digital prints Price Range: Most works from $1500 to $10000 Exhibition: Flinders Lane Gallery - 137 Flinders Lane Melbourne 3000 Dates: April 7 - May 2 2009 Greer Honeywill "Off the Plan" 2009 Off the Plan is a show of eighteen sculptures, installations and prints that explore the narratives of architecture and the humanness that can exist within buildings. The show displays Honeywill’s response to the narrative of architecture being diminished by the rise of “soulless” cookie-cutter suburbs. It presents ideas that a building becomes a home through an organic process, growing from the histories, memories, dramas and other artifacts ...
Exhibition dates: 18th March – 4th April 2009 Peter James Smith links the culture of science and of human experience, bringing together mathematics and the power of nature in realist imagery that is balanced by strong mark making and text. Redolent still life and landscape images juxtapose with astronomical, poetic and historical observations in the painted images. Handwritten citations, notes, jottings, diagrams and erasures float on the loosely painted surfaces of stretched linen, paper collage and found pieces which bring a Beuysian sense of the charismatic object. A sunset, a violin, a book of verse, an installation of old bells or ...
Artists warehouse space available again for $70 PER WEEK The warehouse is in North Melbourne really close to the Vic markets and basically in the CBD. One space is currently available for $70 per week each, about 22m2 in size. This studio is really raw and perfect for people who need a space to be messy and creative, ideal for designers, architects, painters, sculptors, photographers, fashion designers, anything really, so long as you are a relaxed and chilled type of person, then all is well. The space has toilets, loads of power points, running water and kitchen. The space is subdivided at the ...
Studio B at the Meat Market is 7.9m long by 7.9m wide. The capacity is 50 theatre style. There are plaster board walls to hang from - these must be restored when leaving i.e. patch and paint all marks. Studio B has direct street access. Studio B
