IN CONVERSATION TODAY
This afternoon (Saturday, 17 August 2024, 2PM), join Anouska Phizacklea, Director of the Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh) in conversation with acclaimed Australian artist Anne Zahalka at the National Art School, Sydney.
Zahalka will discuss the her career spanning four decades, the survey exhibition ZAHALKAWORLD: an artist’s archive and key themes explored within her practice.
IN CONVERSATION: ZAHALKAWORLD – An artist’s archive
📅 17 August 2024, 2:00pm – 3:00pm
Bookings essential via the National Art School website
📍National Art School, Sydney
ZAHALKAWORLD opens at The National Art School
Last night we celebrated the opening of Anne Zahalka's survey exhibition at the National Art School, ZAHALKAWORLD – An artist’s archive. Swipe through to see beautiful images from the opening, which was launched by NAS CEO and Director, Steven Alderton, alongside exhibition curator Anouska Phizacklea.
First presented in Naarm/Melbourne at the Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh) in 2023, this iteration of ZAHALKAWORLD at the National Art School will contain over 100 artworks from 15 different photographic series, including the iconic Resemblance series, Bondi: Playground of the Pacific and the more recent Wild Life series.
Also on display will be the Kunstkammer – a life-size recreation of Zahalka’s house-studio within the gallery space, for which she won the Bowness Prize in 2023. Imaginative, immersive and playful, the installation invites audiences into the artist’s working life and creative process to explore the illusionary worlds for which she is renowned.
ANNE ZAHALKA features in Age Article
Anne Zahalka was in The Age this weekend, talking to journalist Helen Pitt on the eve of ZAHALKAWORLD – An artist’s archive travelling to the National Art School in Sydney:
"At 67, as she prepares for a major survey exhibition at her alma mater, the National Art School (NAS), it is easy to see why one of Australia’s most highly regarded photo-media artists is in a reflective mood. Her work spans more than 40 years and 40 solo shows and is in major international collections. This retrospective assembles more than 100 works from 15 different photographic series, alongside collected ephemera from her studio and archive."
Read the rest of the piece here >
JANET LAURENCE artist residency talk at State Buildings in Perth
This week Janet Laurence will travel to Perth to take up an artist's residency in the iconic State Buildings in Perth.
During August, audiences will be invited to visit Laurence's studio and observe her process, from her exploration of initial concepts and materials, to how these emerge within her practice.
On 9 August, visitors can do just that, with a private viewing of Laurence's latest work where the artist will discuss her artistic journey, creative process, and the environmental themes that influence her work. This will be followed by an afternoon tea of finely curated teas and luxurious treats.
See @statebuildings website for bookings.
ANNE ZAHALKA featured at Wollongong Art Gallery
Anne Zahalka is currently featured in the exhibition 'Shifting Ground - Landscape from the Collection' from the Wollongong Art Gallery.
Shifting Ground is an exhibition of over 50 works traversing both traditional and contemporary perspectives of landscape art, including works which present First Nations stories of place, climate change and environmental impacts, the effects of colonisation, settlement and the many approaches artists take to capture different fragments, reflections and narratives within landscapes.
SHIFTING GROUND
📅 23 March - 3 November 2024
📍Wollongong Art Gallery, Corner Kembla & Burelli Sts, Wollongong
IMAGE: Anne Zahalka, You Are On Dharawal Land!, 2020, Archival pigment ink on rag paper, edition of 3 + 1 A/P, 115 x 190 cm
JACKY REDGATE at Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh)
This stellar work by Jacky Redgate is on display currently at the Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh), in their exhibition 'Built photography'. Curated by artists Kiron Robinson and Izabela Pluta, with support from MAPh Director Anouska Phizacklea, Built photography brings together 16 artists who explore photography as a physical construction.
Celina Lei wrote about Redgate's work for ArtsHub recently:
"Redgate’s explorations in both sculpture and photography are exemplified in this piece, which interrogates perception through the lens in a carefully constructed assemblage of a glass, a bottle and a bowl while paying homage to photographic predecessors."
BUILT PHOTOGRAPHY
📅 8 June – 25 August 2024
📍Museum of Australian Photography
IMAGE: Jacky Redgate, Untitled from Anonymous (probably Daguerre or Niépce de Saint-Victor), ‘table prepared for a meal’ c. 1829 1990 library buckram, cardboard, ceramic and glass, 105.0 x 55.0 x 55.0 cm (irreg.) Monash University Collection.
In Conversation on PAT BRASSINGTON with Rex Butler, Chelsea Hopper & Victoria Perin
Join us for a special event celebrating the current exhibition of renowned contemporary artist Pat Brassington. Rex Butler will provide a brief presentation on Brassington’s work, asking, how might we think of her work in relation to Man Ray's Le violon d'Ingres (1924), for example, which was made exactly 100 years ago? Following this, there will be a conversation with writer and curator Chelsea Hopper, moderated by art historian Victoria Perin.
CONVERSATION ON PAT BRASSINGTON
📅 Saturday, 20 July 2024, 3–4.30 PM
📍ARC ONE Gallery, 45 Flinders Ln, NAARM/MELBOURNE
IMAGE: Pat Brassington, Combed, 2020, Pigment print, 75 x 75 cm
JANET LAURENCE finalist the 2024 William & Winifred Bowness Photography Prize
Congratulations Janet Laurence who has been selected as a finalist for the 2024 William & Winifred Bowness Photography Prize.
Janet is one of the 74 finalists that comprise this year's shortlist: one of the largest in the 19-year history of the prize. The judging panel considered close to 750 entries: Dr Peta Clancy, Brett Rogers OBE, and MAPh Director Anouska Phizacklea worked through the submissions to select a diverse representation of contemporary Australian photography in this year’s Bowness Photography Prize.
IMAGE: Janet Laurence, Moss water ice temperature rising, 2024, chromogenic print, oil paint, acrylic, 150.0 x 100.0 cm
IMANTS TILLERS featured in 'A Bigger View' at HOTA, Gold Coast
IMANTS TILLERS' iconic 1985 painting Mount Analogue is on display in A Bigger View at HOTA on the Gold Coast. Made possible through the Australian Government’s Sharing the National Collection initiative, this exhibition brings monumental works of art from the National Gallery of Australia to Queensland, where it will be on display for two years.
Mount Analogue has travelled with David Hockney's piece, A Bigger Grand Canyon (1998). These two works will be on display with major works from Bridget Riley, Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori and William Robinson from HOTA's Collection.
PRUE STENT & HONEY LONG solo exhibition now on display in Sliema, Malta
HYGRO, the latest solo exhibition from PRUE STENT & HONEY LONG is currently on display in Sliema, Malta.
”In ancient Greece the female body was defined by excessive moisture and deemed less articulated than it’s idealised male counterpart. To participate in wetness was to be more porous to the world and the processes of life at the cost of form. But liquidity is inescapable and in its very nature uncontainable, it eventually seeps and penetrates even the most polished and disciplined of structures.”
HYGRO
📅 10 July - 31 August 2024
📍R Gallery, Tigne Street 26, Sliema, Malta
IMANTS TILLERS' Pataphysical man (1984) on display Bundanon Trust
IMANTS TILLERS' magnificent Pataphysical man (1984) is currently featured in Wilder Times: Arthur Boyd and the Mid-1980s Landscape at Bundanon Trust.
Responding to fourteen powerful paintings by Arthur Boyd, WILDER TIMES brings together over 60 works by seminal Australian artists from the same time Boyd created this momentous body of work. The exhibition provides a window into a period of cultural dynamism in Australia, when ideas of landscape, land ownership and environmental protection were actively interrogated.
The exhibition continues until 13 October 2024.
IMAGE: Wilder Times: Arthur Boyd and the Mid-1980s Landscape. Installation view. Bundanon, 2024. Photography: Courtesy of Bundanon / Zan Wimberley
DANI MARTI featured in Duty of Care exhibition at IMA Brisbane
Dani Marti's powerful work 'Notes for Bob' (2013) is featured in in the upcoming exhibition Duty of Care. Split across the Institute of Modern Art and the Griffith University Art Museum in Brisbane, this exhibition has been curated by Stephanie Berlangieri, Angela Goddard, and Robert Leonard.
"In curatorial practice—and in culture more broadly—‘care’ has become a buzzword, and is being used to reset policy and practice. However, too often, the complexity and troublesomeness of care are smoothed over by liberal good intentions."
DUTY OF CARE
📅 29 June–22 September 2024
📍Institute of Modern Art + Griffith University Art Museum
'Julie Rrap: Past Continuous' opens at MCA Australia
On Friday the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney will open 'Julie Rrap: Past Continuous'. Curated by Lucy Latella, 'Past Continuous' centres on Rrap’s first ever artwork, the photographic installation 'Disclosures: A Photographic Construct' (1982). This exhibition will examine how Rrap has used her own body to interrogate the politics of representation.
To illustrate the consistency of Rrap’s vision, the exhibition will also showcase SOMOS (Standing On My Own Shoulders) (2024) and Drawn out (2022), which capture Rrap’s preoccupation with body doubles, aging flesh, and the history of the female nude.
Julie Rrap: Past Continuous
📅 28 June 2024 – 16 February 2025
📍Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
Anne Zahalka featured in the La Gacilly Photo Festival, France
Anne Zahalka is currently featured in the La Gacilly Photo Festival in France. Her Wild Life Australia series used the artificial space of museum dioramas to explore the constructed quality of the past (and the future).
Since 2004, the La Gacilly Photo Festival has been defined by its unique geographical setting at the heart of the rural environment in Brittany, and by its commitment to the great environmental challenges facing society. Zahalka's work is included alongside Louise Johns, Bobbi Lockyer, Matthew Abbott, Adam Ferguson, Narelle Autio, Trent Parke, Tamara Dean and more.
LA GACILLY PHOTO FESTIVAL
📅 21 June - 3 November
📍La Gacilly, La Chapelle-Gaceline, France
PAT BRASSINGTON interviewed by Tiarney Miekus in Art Guide Australia
Skewed body parts; allusions to genitalia, sex and violence; tinges of the fleshiest pink; a girl with a lightbulb for a head. Since the 1980s Pat Brassington’s images have entranced the psyche of contemporary Australian art. The photo-media artist’s staged, crafted scenes evoke something complicated, quietened, even repressed, in human nature, with her works often linked to psychoanalysis, feminism and surrealism.
Pat Brassington talks with Art Guide editor-in-chief Tiarney Miekus about first studying art in her thirties, and her early encounters with feminist texts through a wives’ book club. She also talks about her feelings on living and working in Hobart, the role of psychoanalysis in explaining her work, and what it means to mine the unconscious.
You can read the full interview with Tiarney Miekus here.
IMAGE: Pat Brassington, 'Pearl' (detail), 2016, pigment print, 80 x 68cm, Edition of 8 plus 2 artist's proofs.



MURRAY FREDERICKS, JANET LAURENCE & ANNE ZAHALKA Feature in the 2024 MAPh X Artist photography auction
MAPh X Artist photography auction
Book tickets now for your chance to bid on these three magnificent works by Murray Fredericks, Anne Zahalka and Janet Laurence.
MAPh has joined forces with artists to create a unique auction where we will share equally in the sale proceeds of their work, giving buyers the opportunity to have a direct impact on artists and their practice. MAPH is also offering absentee and telephone bidding.
MAPh X Artist photography auction
📅 Thursday 6 June 2024, 6pm for 7pm auction. Drinks and canapés on arrival
📍James Makin Gallery, 89 Islington St, Collingwood VIC 3066
Full catalogue including estimates and booking details via @maph_photography
IMAGES:
1. Murray FREDERICKS
BLAZE #28 2023
from the series BLAZE
pigment ink-jet print
120.0 x 150.0 cm
2. Anne ZAHALKA
You Are On Bondi Bidjigal Land! 2020
pigment ink-jet print on cotton rag
115.0 x 190.0 cm
3 - 5. Janet LAURENCE
In your verdant view 2020
Duraclear print on Shinkolite acrylic
4 panels, 30 x 28 cm each
MARINA ROLFE Shortlisted for Kings School Art Prize
Congratulations to MARINA ROLFE, who is a finalist in the King's School Art Prize in Sydney! Her beautiful entry Feathers in Autumn Attire, 2024 is inspired by the shift between seasons, particularly the arrival of Autumn.
Established in 1994, the prestigious King’s School Art Prize features entries by invitation only from leading contemporary artists from across Australia.
Former winners include Lyndell Brown & Charles Green, John Olsen, Peter Churcher, Nicholas Harding, Pepai Jangala Carroll, Aida Tomescu and Ben Quilty.
This year's judge is Jane Watters, Director of the National Trust of Australia and the S.H. Ervin Gallery. The winner will be announced tomorrow, 1 June 2024.
GUAN WEI Shortlisted for Sulman Prize
📣 GUAN WEI has just been announced as a finalist in the Sulman Prize 2024 with his work, Off to the Space, (2024).
The artist writes, "recently, ChatGPT has received a lot of attention. The web-based platform is designed to provide human-like conversational experiences. Will this new technology change the world? This painting presents an AI robot with a face resembling a human’s. Its right eye is the sun, its left eye is the moon, while its mouth is a flying constellation made from a human body. On its cheeks, we see a bolt of lightning, the Southern Cross, traces of cosmic rays and antenna interfaces. On its forehead are the solar system and Cygnus.
This painting attempts to depict a world of artificial intelligence in which inorganic life has replaced organic life. Leaving Earth, the ark of mankind moves into space, looking for a new home."
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A big congratulations Guan Wei 🥂
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The Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2024 exhibition is open from 8 June to 8 September at The Art Gallery of New South Wales.
IMAGE: Guan Wei, Off to the Space, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 162 x 306 cm (12 panels).
JULIE RRAP featured in Artist Profile
Ahead of the artist's solo exhibition ‘Past Continuous’, opening in June at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, ARTIST PROFILE has devoted a cover story to the astounding 40-year career of JULIE RRAP.
"Julie Rrap was in her late teens and living in a share house in South Brisbane when she and a group of friends took magic mushrooms. An image she hallucinated while studying her reflection in a glass windowpane at night has never left her. It was the face of an older woman she understood to be her her future self..."
Read more of Lilian Cameron’s cover story, accompanied by Anna Kučera’s exclusive portraits, in Issue 67 of Artist Profile.
GUAN WEI Commission for Vivid Sydney
VIVID SYDNEY
Guan Wei has been commissioned to transform the Museum of Contemporary Art's façade during Vivid Sydney, in a nightly light projection.
Experience Sea, Sand and Stars, displayed on the Museum's façade every evening during Vivid Sydney until 11pm, beginning this Friday, 24 May.
GUAN WEI: Sea, Sand and Stars
📅 24 May - 15 June 2024, 6–11pm daily
📍Museum of Contemporary Art Australia |
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Guan Wei's Sea, Sand and Stars will feature twinkling stars, ocean waves and marvellous creatures, taking audiences from the depths of the ocean to the constellations in the night sky
Over the last 35 years, influential Chinese Australian artist Guan Wei has created artworks that consider what it means to be human, drawing on his experiences and observations of life in Australia and China. The artist has worked with Spinifex Group to create his first light projection, which follows the course of a day, beginning with the appearance of the morning star.