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ART COLLECTOR

THINGS COLLECTORS SHOULD KNOW

50

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Victoria Reichelt, Take Away Horror, 2018, oil on linen, 102 x 102cm
CON T EN TS
50 THINGS
C OL L E C T OR S S HO U L D K NOW

ON THE COVER: Emily Parsons-Lord, Things Fall Apart,

2017. Commissioned by Performance Space for Liveworks.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST. PHOTO: LUCY PARAKHINA.

U PF RON T

28
CU LTURAL CAPITAL
In the final part of this series, Carrie Miller
and Andrew Frost discuss some of the
reasons people collect art.

37
MONEY SULLIES ART
Carrie Miller navigates the wild world of
commissioning artworks.

43
ART FAIRS
The forthcoming art fairs on our calendars.

9
 50 THINGS ART COLLECTOR
C OL L E C T OR S S HO U L D K NOW # 8 7 JA N – M A R 2 0 1 9

Editor-In-Chief
56 176
Susan Borham
COOL HUNTER AGENDA SET TERS
PREDICTIONS The artists, curators and directors set Publisher
The artists on the brink of something big. to influence the Australian and New Beatrice Spence
Zealand art worlds in 2019.
Editor
78
NEW DIR ECTIONS 186 Camilla Wagstaff
The established practices that have taken TASTEMAKERS
Assistant Editor
an unexpected turn. Young curators and directors to put on
Kirsty Sier
your watchlist.

92 Art Director

CURATOR’S RADAR 199 Justine Scott

Artists who have caught the eye of our ZEITGEIST
The art world issues influencing our Interns
region’s curators by way of major public
shows. times. Annie Tonkin, Rose Leake

Associate Editors
106 Dr Alan Cholodenko
DEBUTANTES Dr Edward Colless
Gallerists are getting behind these R E G U L A R F E AT U R E Michael Hutak
artists via an inaugural commercial solo John Young
exhibition. Dr Rex Butler
208 Professor James Choo
118 ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS Editorial Inquiries
COLLECTOR S LOVE Recent exhibitions wrapped up in 35 Camilla Wagstaff
The sell-out shows of 2018. words or less.
Subscription Inquiries
128 + 61 2 9363 4324
NOTABLE AWARDS artcollector.net.au/subscribe
The grants, prizes and residencies
boosting artistic practice across the Advertising Inquiries
region. + 61 2 9363 4324

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UNDER THE R ADAR ABN 48 614 849 197
Mid-career to established talents that PO Box 1452,
collectors should take a closer look at. Double Bay NSW 1360
Phone+ 61 2 9363 4324
150
STANDOUT SHOWS Directors

Some of the most talked about Susan Borham

exhibitions from 2018. Beatrice Spence

164 Reproduction in whole or in part is not permitted

without the written authorisation of the publisher.
REMARKA BLE In the reproduction of artworks all reasonable
efforts have been made to trace copyright holders
COLLECTOR S where appropriate.
The collectors and philanthropists going
above and beyond to support local art. ISSN 2209-7317

10
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 t

WA NOW
Andrew Nicholls – Hyperkulturemia
15 December 2018 – 15 April 2019 | FREE ANNUAL SPONSORS – Principal Partner
303 MullenLowe, Singapore Airlines, Alex Hotel, Kennedy,
Juniper Estate, Gage Roads Brewing Co.
Art Gallery of WA, Perth Cultural Centre
artgallery.wa.gov.au |
@ArtGalleryWA #WANow
Andrew Nicholls Mangia Gelato (Piazza del Popolo) 2015-2018 (detail). Large format photograph, 150 x 120 cm. © the artist.

Lucinda Bennett is the 2017 curatorial intern at
Dunedin Public Art Gallery prior to which she
was a curator at The University of Auckland’s
Window project space. She is based in Aotearoa.
Kate Britton’s current curatorial concerns cen-
tre around queer theory and practice, and the di-
alogue between writing, text and contemporary
art. She is a Sydney-based writer and curator.
Claire G. Coleman is a Noongar woman who
writes fiction, essays and poetry while (most-
ly) travelling around the continent now called
Australia in a ragged caravan towed by an an-
cient troopy.
Dr Thea Costantino is an artist and writer who
works in the School of Media, Creative Arts and
Social Inquiry at Curtin University.
Laura Couttie is an independent writer, ed-
itor, curator and arts administrator based in
Melbourne.
Ineke Dane is interested in overlaps between
architecture, politics, society and the envi-
ronment. She is a curator currently based in
Brisbane where she works with the international
studio Urban Art Projects.
Micheal Do recently curated Soft Core, a trav-
elling exhibition for Casula Powerhouse Arts
Centre and Not Niwe, Not Nieuw, Not Neu for 4A
Centre for Contemporary Asian Art in Sydney.
Briony Downes has worked in the arts for more
than 20 years as a writer, actor and art theory
tutor, among other things.
Dr Andrew Frost is an art critic, broadcaster and
lecturer.
Robert Fyfe is a photographer based in Perth.
Rebecca Gallo’s practice is an exploration of ma-
terial culture, driven by a curiosity about both
CONTRIBUTORS
the stuff we surround ourselves with, and what
we will leave behind. She is also an arts writer.
Sebastian Goldspink is a Sydney-based inde-
pendent Curator specialising in emerging art,
and the director of ALASKA Projects.
Professor Sasha Grishin has published 17 books
and more than 1,000 articles. He is an emer-
itus professor of the school of literature, lan-
guages and linguistics at the Australian National
University.
Jo Higgins consults on peer-led gallery educa-
tion practices and arts partnership projects. She
is also a writer, editor, researcher and project
manager.
John Hurrell is the editor of EyeContact and is
a New Zealand-based writer, artist and curator.
Victoria Hynes has been a columnist for the
Sydney Morning Herald and written for numer-
ous Australian and international art magazines.
Based in Sydney, she is currently contributing
editor at Asian Art News magazine.
Jane Llewellyn, a former editor of Art Collector,
is based in Adelaide.
Jacquie Manning is a photographer based in
Sydney.
Louise Martin-Chew is a freelance arts writer.
Helen McKenzie conducts international art
tours for Art Collector subscribers and readers
and works out of Sydney as an art adviser and
freelance writer.
Hayley Megan French’s practice encompass-
es painting, writing, curating and collaborating
and is underpinned by the difficult exploration
of the idea of landscape; how this constructs,
informs and redefines an understanding of
ourselves.
14
Joanna Mendelssohn is an art historian special-
ising in Australian art.
Carrie Miller is a freelance writer based in
Wollongong.
Tai Mitsuji holds a masters in art history from
the University of Oxford. He has contributed
to publications including Art and Australia, Art
Monthly Australasia, Art Guide Australia and The
Sydney Morning Herald. Based in Sydney, he also
works as a curator.
Jane O’Sullivan has written for publications in-
cluding the Australian Financial Review, Artnet,
Art Guide and Ocula. She is a former editor of Art
Collector.
Stephen Oxenbury is a Sydney-based portrait
photographer specialising in art and artists.
Naomi Riddle holds a PhD in Australian
Literature from the University of New South
Wales and is the founding editor of Running Dog.
Zan Wimberley is a photographer who works in
the arts, photographing art documentation, por-
traits, performance and more across Melbourne
and Sydney.
Chloé Wolifson writes about contemporary art
and ideas for publications including Art + Australia,
Art Monthly Australasia, ArtAsiaPacific and Frieze.
Coen Young is a Sydney-based artist.
Corrections:
In issue 86 of Art Collector, we stated that
Possible Dream Theory #2 staged at Galerie
pompom was co-curated by George Adams
and Helen Shelley. In fact, the show was
curated by George Adams exclusively.
The same issue, the second last quote on p73
was attributed to Rachel Kent. In fact, this
should have been attributed to Natalie King.
MICHAEL CUSACK
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17 MARCH 2019

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SYDNEY AUSTRALIA

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1 February – 2 March 2019
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Rohan Hartley Mills, Untitled, 2018
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GISBORNE • AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND • 2019
#matthewcouper @paulnache paulnache.com/matthewcouper

Matthew Couper’s ‘The Chief Mourner and The Last Drops’ lithograph – photo courtesy of the artist & Idem Paris
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Image: Alicia Frankovich, Microchimerism, 2018, gold and pink adhesive vinyl, dimensions variable.
Courtesy of the artist and Starkwhite. Photo: John Lake.

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9 Darley St, Darlinghurst
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 LUCAS GROGAN
GROUNDBREAK NGFLORALS
7- 31 March 2019

A STONE, 2018, acrylic and enamel on canvas, 114 x 91 cm

 U P F RO N T | C U LT U R A L C A P I TA L

WH Y DO
PEOPLE COLLECT ?
A gift to the nation? Or a gift to yourself? In the final of this
three-part series, Andrew Frost and Carrie Miller explore some
more reasons why people collect art.

ILLUSTRATIONS: COEN YOUNG

INVESTMENT
ART COLLECTING for the sake of invest-
ment is much like putting your money into
any other financial product: there’s risk,
and reward. There are the boring, low-yield,
long-term art investments that – while far
from sexy or exciting – are the equivalent of
respectable blue chip stocks. Then there’s the
super-exciting world of collecting new and
emerging art that’s like getting into high-risk
investments, some with huge downsides, but
also with massive upside potential.
No one these days is going to celebrate the
collector who has bought in at the top end of
the market for a Brett Whiteley or a Sidney
Nolan painting, nor any of the other dozen
or so Australian modernists that could’ve
been had for a relatively modest buy-in 30
years ago. But more to the point, you’d have
to be crazy to imagine there’d be much ROI
for top-shelf product. Like selling a Sydney
harbour-side mansion you’ve had for just 10
years, buying at the top of the market might
return a measly 33 per cent. But on the other
hand, parking your money in material objects
keeps the liquidity low but stashes away the
investment for a rainy day. Investment might
not be the only angle, and while returns could
be low, it’s probably saner than buying your
own zoo and stuffing it full of hippos, sabes lo
que estoy diciendo, eh Carlos?
Most experts say that art investment for a
meaningful return requires at least a 25-year
turnaround, meaning what you bought in
1993 will finally have matured in the market.
It’s time to bring out those cibachromes and
canvases you put up in the kids’ rooms as the
auction house beckons. But of course, that’s
not always the case – it might take another
25 years for that de-skilled, postmodernist
“painting” to really appreciate in value. But
by that time, we could all be dead, so who’s
going to wait for the sea levels to rise before
we on-sell our works by [previously fashion-
able early 1990s artist]?
Like the pro-Brexit UK politician who
said people are sick of experts and their
so-called facts, we can ignore art world
market pundits and make some real money
in a much quicker fashion. All it takes is an
uncanny eye for emerging talent, an under-
standing of what the fickle art market thinks
is “hot”, and the brass balls required to pump
and dump primary market art even before
the gloss has worn off. These investors cruise
the art school graduate shows, the annual
museum exhibitions of new talent, and the
pages of Australian art magazines to find out
what’s breaking. While the financial spread
required to finance this kind of buy-sell strat-
egy might seem prohibitive, with an invest-
ment consortium it becomes no riskier that
chucking a few hundred thou into Lehmann
Bros. CDOs. Sure, the whole market might go
tits-up, but there’s always the possibility of a
nice payday.
Andrew Frost

28
U P F RO N T | C U LT U R A L C A P I TA L

29
 U P F RO N T | C U LT U R A L C A P I TA L
TAX
DEDUC TION
ART COLLECTING for the sake of tax deduc-
tion is a well-known but little-understood
aspect of utilising your capital in smart and
clever ways – so God bless Tony Abbott and
his hair-brained scheme to get tradies to
spend up big at Bunnings on new tools and
sausage sandwiches.
While Bunnings ultimately defeated Masters
Warehouse in the mega-hardware retail wars,
and the trade deficit aspect of buying Chinese-
made power tools defeated the economic
advantages of an end-of-financial-year-spend-
a-thon, this genius piece of retail politics has
bequeathed Australia the tax loophole known
as Tony’s Tradies, which basically means any
business with an annual turnover no greater
than $2 million can claim a 100 per cent tax
write off on purchases of up to $20,000. And
what’s even sweeter is that the deduction can
apply to multiple purchases. All you need is an
ABN and you’re set.
For most people, $20k is a substantial
outlay, and while you won’t be able to afford
a Ben Quilty ($50 to $75k), there are tons of
emerging to established artists whose work
not only costs way less, they’ll probably also
gift wrap your purchase if you ask nicely.
Businesses not only have the advantage of
investing in some nice decoration for the
office – and write off their tax while they do
it – they can also use their collection to build
their corporate culture, be they a business
run out of a third bedroom or from a giant
building in a business park.
For those who have a non-business-re-
lated art collection in their homes [or care-
fully stored away] one needs to remember
that donating the collection to a suitable
museum is what’s known as a “good idea”
[see Immortality]. Not only will it help you
write your name in Australia’s august cultural
history of art benefaction, it can also help you
get out of a tight tax spot – or indeed, it can
help you with multiple tight spots.
30
After you go ahead and donate
the collection to the major
museum, and as the trucks drive
away, fix yourself a drink, sit
down and decide what you’re
going to do next, because this is
the really sweet part...
Say you have a major collection of art and
you’ve got your eye on donating it to a major
museum (or even to a not-so-major gallery).
Once you have the attention of a curator there
who thinks it’s all good idea, the next step is to
get the collection valued by an art consultant
or auction house. Then you get it valued again
by a different art consultant or auction house
to prove that the value of your collection
is generally agreed upon by the art world’s
professionally disinterested observers.
After you go ahead and donate the collec-
tion to the major museum, and as the trucks
drive away, fix yourself a drink, sit down
and decide what you’re going to do next,
because this is the really sweet part: under
the Australian Government Cultural Gifts
Program you can write off the value of the
work against your tax over five years, which
means you can write it off in one big chunk,
or divide it into fifths. It’s entirely up to you,
or your accountant. Not only is it a gift to the
nation, it’s a gift to yourself. Nice.
Andrew Frost
U P F RO N T | C U LT U R A L C A P I TA L

31
 U P F RO N T | C U LT U R A L C A P I TA L
CULTURAL CAPITAL
THE 20TH CENTURY sociologist Pierre
Bourdieu was one of those important French
thinkers who did a lot of thinking for the rest
of us, particularly about the complex power
dynamics that constitute modern societies.
He was concerned with the various ways the
intergenerational transmission of cultural
power maintains the social order and tradi-
tional class relations.
This gives us a clue that cultural capital
might have something to do with economic
and social privilege. But cultural capital
isn’t reducible to societal status, nor is it the
singular domain of the wealthy. The harsh
reality these days is that the rich and socially
connected are often less likely to have real
cultural capital than a guy with an old timey
moustache and a TAFE Certificate in making
patterns in milk foam. And fancy people will
never have the cultural capital of the street –
even if they exercise at an old school boxing
gym with trainers who would beat the hell
out of them in any other context.
Luckily, because cultural capital is reflex-
ively bound up with economic and social
capital, it can be achieved top down as well
as bottom up. There are opportunities in the
contemporary art world for the privileged –
who get access to high culture through their
societal prestige –  to convert some of their
economic and social currency into cold hard
cultural cash.
Sometimes these people become serious art
collectors. For a select few, however, acquir-
ing art is not enough. These people might be
rich elites who live in privileged bubbles, but
they are sensitive souls. They can appreciate
art’s intrinsic value; that it’s not just another
commodity to be bought and sold.
Also, these collectors have recognised that
the nagging emptiness they feel late at night,
awake and alone in the cool blue light of their
expensive life, is actually the realisation that
all the economic and social capital they’ve
32
accumulated isn’t going to leave the type
of personal legacy they, well, deserve. And
because this special class of collector doesn’t
need to buy art to build wealth, nor do they
have to hang around the art world to attain
social status, they have the luxury to be more
than mere dilettantes.
These collectors have recognised
that the nagging emptiness they
feel late at night ... is actually the
realisation that all the economic
and social capital they’ve
accumulated isn’t going to leave
the type of personal legacy they,
well, deserve.
Unfortunately, in order to obtain power
and influence in contemporary art, collectors
will first need to be humbled through the
always polite exploitation of their economic
and social resources. The art world increas-
ingly relies on big name philanthropists who
can drop some serious cash on museum
acquisitions and public art projects and get
their cashed-up mates to do the same.
This could make these collector-philan-
thropists feel like they are just being used
by the ungrateful, huddled masses they are
supporting. Not to worry. Everyone in the
contemporary art world is using everyone
else. It’s important for these cultural capital-
ists to keep their eye on the ultimate prize;
to remember that the coldblooded wheeling
and dealing that sustains the contemporary
art world is a small price to pay to get to
shape history.
Carrie Miller
U P F RO N T | C U LT U R A L C A P I TA L

33
MICHAEL VALE | T IM E T R AV EL L ER
6 - 31 MARCH 2019

LEV EL 1 • 15 C AS TRAY ES PLANADE

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(Time Passes Slowly) Up Here in the Mountains, 2018, oil on linen, 122 x 97 cm
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 UPFRONT | MONEY SULLIES ART

Mike Hewson, Palm Pole, 2018.

Live palm tree, structural steel, pier
foundation, computer-controlled
irrigation system and other
materials, dimensions variable.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST.

SOV E REIGNT Y
GUARA NT E E D
Is it possible for artists to undertake public or private
commissions and keep their integrity intact?

WORDS: CARRIE MILLER

THE IDEA that artists make the work they
want to make and sell it in an open market-
place is a very recent one. Some of the most
iconic work of the Western canon isn’t the
product of the singular inspiration of an indi-
vidual creator; it’s the result of a commercial
transaction where artists are in the employ of
public institutions and private citizens.
While contemporary art continues to be
residually defined by romantic, modernist
ideas about original authorship and indi-
vidual genius, the reality is that artists have
never stopped accepting sometimes very
lucrative commissions from governments,
corporations, and individual collectors.
The question that preoccupies the purists
among us continues to be: is it ever possible
for artists to undertake commissions with
their professional integrity (and sometimes
personal dignity) intact?
New Zealand artist Mike Hewson, who has
gained critical attention for his large-scale
public interventions, recently completed a
public commission for Wollongong, a major
regional Australian city. The resulting work
– that includes a live, uprooted tree up a pole
– is installed in the city’s central mall.

37
 UPFRONT | MONEY SULLIES ART

It’s highly successful by any critical stan-
dard, disrupting and transforming a previ-
ously banal public space in an unexpected
and original way.
So, how did he manage to navigate the
potential pitfalls of entering into a commer-
cial relationship with a government organ-
isation? According to Hewson, it can be an
“exhausting process refining a design to be
elegant, durable and faithful to the origi-
nal concept”, one that requires the artist
to “constantly innovate and fight to ensure
concepts are not diluted or butchered during
the design and installation process”.  eignty over work within the context of the
While Hewson is describing his experi-
ence of creating a public work – a process
necessarily constrained by complicated stat-
utory considerations imposed by faceless
bureaucrats – private commissions present
their own set of challenges. Potentially, they
provide a greater scope for artistic freedom.
And it’s generally obvious at the outset when
an artist is going to be pressed into the service
of private interests, whether it be a wealthy
businessman wanting their ego stroked with
a flattering portrait, or a multinational engag-
ing in a cynical band promotion exercise by
associating themselves with high culture.
But this isn’t always the case. To cite one
example, a well-known Australian painter
was asked to create a large-scale installation
for the foyer of the corporate headquarters of
an international bank. The artist accepted the
commission on the basis of guaranteed sover-
broad brief to create a visual interpretation of
the company’s history.
He found out too late that this was wishful
thinking on his part. During a studio visit
to view the final product, a senior corpo-
rate representative pointed to a purposeful
paint drip near the bottom of the canvas
and said: “I assume you’re going to remove
that.” Enraged, the artist – who is celebrated
for precisely these types of painterly marks
– offered to expunge the offending drip. He
told the banker he had a “chainsaw out the
back” and was more than happy to cut it out.
Hewson is very upfront about the fact that, in
order for an artist to achieve their vision, they
must face the commercial realities of undertak-
ing a commission. This includes “a good insur-
ance broker, a good lawyer, a good knowledge
of how much things realistically cost”.
These are precisely the aspects of commis-
sions that make art world purists squeamish.
But without pragmatists like Hewson, the
public spaces and corporate buildings that
benefit most from being creatively and
conceptually animated by commissioned
artwork would remain soulless, concrete
voids that do nothing to lift the banality and
drudgery of everyday life.

UPFRONT | MODERN LEXICON

MODERN LE X ICON
Decoding contemporary artspeak for the discerning reader.

YOUR GUIDE: ANDREW FROST

Neo
The oft-used prefix neo – meaning a new or revived form – is
usually applied to a previously established style or theme, or
in historical terms, a reference to a new variation on an old
art movement. For example, styles of architecture or painting
such as Neo Classicism or Neo Georgian, or relatively recent
styles, such as Neo-Pop, NeoGeo, and Neo-Conceptual Art.
As to how much these new variations are genuinely new,
or indeed, how much they relate in any meaningful way to
their predecessors, are contentious points of debate. However,
for the average punter, the prefix is useful for locating the
reference points of much contemporary art practice. But
reader beware: much fake “neo” art exists, including Neoism,
a self-proclaimed parodic mail art movement that set out to
wilfully complicate what is considered new, derivative, or
just passé. Thankfully, Neoism was largely Canadian and can
therefore be successfully ignored.
Post
Like much art world verbiage, the prefix post is confus-
ing. Literally meaning after in time, or order, that is its most
common usage. When we say Post-Impressionism, we usually
mean the art that came after Impressionism, however art
movements are highly contentious, are usually retrospective
in their naming, and they often run contemporaneously with
the art movements that they allegedly superseded.
Thus, the contemporary use of post, such as Post Minimalism
or Post Photography, might suggest art forms that have
come after the end of photography or minimalism. But they
simply mean art that is made after the advent of these things.
Therefore, art post facto cannot escape the thing that came
before and while this might seem depressing, it’s not nearly as
bad as the term late, which most people would assume suggests
something that is soon to end, but in fact it is something that’ll
probably go on forever [c.f. late capitalism].

38
Jackson Farley And then Kev looked at Kev and said 2018 Archival Pigment Print on Ilford Satin 150cm x 128cm

Jackson Farley
Self-conscious Kev and other friends
27th February – 23rd March 2019
 In conjunction with
Buku-Larrnggay
Mulka Centre

UNISON
GÄṈGÄN PAINTINGS
FROM DJIRRIRRA
WUNUŊMURRA AND
NAYPIRRI GUMANA

9 February 2019 to
23 March 2019
Djirrirra Wunuŋmurra ‘Yukuwa’ 2016 90cm x 120cm Earth pigment on board

93 James Street New Farm Queensland 4005

M 0400 920 022 T 07 3358 5811 F 07 3358 5813
E suzanne@suzanneoconnell.com
W www.suzanneoconnell.com
 U P F R O N T | A R T FA I R S

FAIREST OF
THEM ALL
The 2019 art fair calendar kicks off with a lively
mix of well-established names and a few fresh faces.
Here are the fairs we’ll be watching.

WORDS: HELEN MCKENZIE

Installation view of Nyapanyapa Yunupingu’s Encounters, presented by

Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Art Basel Hong Kong, 2018. COURTESY: ART
4 3BASEL.
U P F R O N T | A R T FA I R S

Michael Cook, Broken Dreams #2, 2010. Inkjet print on archival Hahnemuhle cotton rag, 124 x 100cm.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND THIS IS NO FANTASY, MELBOURNE.

44

THE PROLIFERATION of international art
fairs is on the rise once more. A new fair
in Los Angeles from the prestigious Frieze
brand, opening in February, will be of interest
for both collectors and gallerists in Australia
and New Zealand. Two new fairs in Singapore
have those in the know wondering if three
fairs in one calendar year will be sustainable
for the island nation.  
Despite the massive financial outlay for
local galleries to take their artists’ work to
different international and interstate markets,
our top galleries readily apply for and commit
to a number of fairs each year. Roslyn Oxley,
whose gallery first started attending art fairs
in 1990, remains committed: “It is really
hard to break even [at an international fair],
and you want to take really good work, but
we  consider it part and parcel of promoting
our artists.”
The roster of fairs, plus the Venice Biennale,
makes 2019 action-packed for collectors who
enjoy the mix of art and travel.
ART BASEL HONG KONG
Hong Kong Convention
and Exhibition Centre, Wan Chai
Private View: 27 and 28 March
Vernissage: 28 March
General View: 29–31 March
Fox Jensen, Roslyn Oxley9, Starkwhite,
Sullivan+Strumpf, Gow Langsford and This Is
No Fantasy make up the Australian and New
Zealand gallery contingent at this year’s Art
Basel Hong Kong. New Zealand’s Hopkinson
Mossman and Michael Lett will also have a
presence in the Discovery section of the fair,
which showcases work by the next generation
of talent in the early stages of their careers. This
will be Art Collector’s 10th year partipcating in
the fair’s Magazines section.
Sullivan+Stumpf, now with galleries in
Sydney and Singapore, will take a larger booth
at this year’s ABHK. “We have put together
an exciting line up of artists: Tony Albert,
Sydney Ball, Alex Seton, Lindy Lee and
Indonesian artist Nyoman Masriadi,” says
U P F R O N T | A R T FA I R S
“We think ABHK will be
the most important art
fair in the world as it is the
gateway to China.”
JOHN GOW
director Joanna Strumpf. “This is in line with
our decision to pour our energy into the Asian
markets.” Sydney’s Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery will
present Tracy Moffatt, Brook Andrew, Newell
Harry and Imants Tillers, while Melbourne’s
This Is No Fantasy will show works by Michael
Cook, Vincent Namatjira, Juan Ford and
Victoria Reichelt.
Auckland’s Gow Langsford Gallery made
its ABHK debut last year with New Zealand’s
premier artist, the late Colin McCahon. Director
John Gow says the stand “looked really differ-
ent” from the surrounding exhibitors. Gow
Langsford sold works and had conversations
with representatives from mainland China,
South East Asian art institutions and, a little
surprisingly, four different groups of Italian
collectors. The gallery printed a catalogue on
McCahon in both English and Mandarin for
the fair. “Art Basel wants us to take only New
Zealand artists, not international artists from our
gallery. This year we will again take McCahon
paintings, contextualising with works by Judy
Millar, André Hemer and Darryn George. We
think ABHK will be the most important art fair
in the world as it is the gateway to China.”
45
Installation view of Gow Langsford
Gallery at Art Basel Hong Kong, 2018.
COURTESY: GOW LANGSFORD GALLERY,
AUCKLAND. PHOTO: JASON FINDLEY.
S.E.A. FOCUS
The Pavilion,
Gillman Barracks,
Singapore
Vernissage: 23 January
General View: 24–27 January
S.E.A. Focus is a new boutique art fair held
in a pop-up marquee at the Gillman Barracks,
a well-known arts precinct in Singapore.
Sullivan+Strumpf will participate in this fair
and also in another much larger new fair,
ART SG, in November. The gallery is effec-
tively sidestepping the region’s longer-stand-
ing fair Art Stage Singapore, which is also on
in January.
Strumpf says that S.E.A. Focus looks to be a
more considered look at artists in the region.
“We will be taking Singaporean artists Dawn
Ng and Jeremy Sharma; Kanchana Gupta,
who was born India but lives and works in SG;
and Indonesia-based artist Irfan Hendrian.
These are all really engaged, exciting artists
that we represent, and all will be making new
works. S.E.A. offers a much-needed alterna-
tive to the standard art fair model. It will be
welcome relief for seasoned collectors, and
perhaps a less intimidating ambiance for
newcomers.”
Melbourne’s Niagara Galleries (exhibiting
the work of Savanhdary Vongpoothorn) and
Brisbane’s Jan Manton Art will also partici-
pate in the inaugural fair.
 U P F R O N T | A R T FA I R S

Installation view of Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery at Art Cologne, 2012. COURTESY: ROSLYN OXLEY9 GALLERY, SYDNEY. PHOTO: ULRIK EICHENTOPF.

THE OTHER ART FAIR, SYDNEY ART COLOGNE

Australian Technology Park, Sydney Koelnmesse GmbH, Messeplatz 1, Cologne, Germany

Vernissage: 14 March Vernissage: Wednesday 10 April 
General view: 15–17 March General View: 11–14 April

TOAF is a bit like live Instagram. Visitors
to the fair can see, in quick succession, a
snapshot of offerings from a host of unrepre-
sented artists all under one roof. This year’s
event in Sydney will see 120 artists populate
their stalls and engage in conversation with
collectors. Part of the fair’s purpose is to
create a supportive community for artists
that lasts beyond the fair. TOAF is also staged
in Melbourne, London and the USA.
Founded in 1967, Art Cologne is known
as the first modern art fair. It was estab-
lished by gallerists Hein Stünke and
Rudolf Zwirner to promote new art by
young German artists in the post-WWII
era; an era that saw New York take over
from Paris as the epicentre for contempo-
rary art.
From its modest initial intention, the
fair has grown to be possibly the most
prestigious on the art world calendar,
with 200 galleries participating and more
than 55,000 annual visitors.
“Cologne is the original Art Fair,” says
Oxley, who will present Daniel Boyd,
Fiona Hall, Nyapanyapa Yunupingu,
Hany Armanious and Dale Frank at the
2019 Cologne fair. “The Rhineland is full
of well-to-do Germans, big collectors,
people who are really involved in the arts.” 

46
 U P F R O N T | A R T FA I R S

Lisa Anne Auerbach, Psychic Center of Los Angeles, 2014. 24 pages, each 152.4 x 96.5cm. COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND GAVLAK, LOS ANGELES AND PALM BEACH.

FRIEZE LA 

Paramount Pictures Studios, Los Angeles

Private View: 14 February
General View: 15–17 February

From the presenters of Frieze New York and
Frieze London comes the brand-new art fair
Frieze Los Angeles. And what could be more
LA than holding the event at Paramount
Pictures Studios? For the inaugural fair, a list
of 70 top USA (and a handful of international)
galleries have been invited to participate.
Customarily, galleries wanting a booth in an
art fair of the calibre of a Frieze event would
spend weeks polishing their applications. But
organisers are taking a confident approach for
the inaugural LA fair, handpicking the galleries
to get exactly the mix they want. No Australian
or New Zealand galleries have been invited to
this first fair, but they will be keeping a close
eye on how Frieze Los Angeles fares.
Art Collector is participating in Frieze Los
Angeles as a media partner, allowing fairgo-
ers to pick up a copy of the magazine in the
reading room.

47
1- 20 March
Nigel Sense
Dickheads + Demons
We put the hole in the wrong spot. Acrylic on canvas 120 x 140cm
FANG LIJUN
First solo exhibition in Australia
Vermilion Art
5/16 Hickson Rd,
Walsh Bay, NSW, 2000
Wed – Sat 11-7pm
Contact
info@vermilionart.com.au
+61 (02) 9241 3323

21 Feb – 6 April 2019 www.vermilionart.com.au

 Untitled (detail), 2018, Oil and spray on linen, 150 x 150cm
MORTEN LASSEN
Hyper-normalisation
31 Jan – 16 Feb

12 – 14 Meagher Street nandahobbs.com

Chippendale \ NSW \ 2008 info@nandahobbs.com
Claudia Kogachi, Tabel Tennis, 2018

Open 7 days
Osborne Lane, 2 Kent Street
Newmarket, Auckland
sanderson.co.nz
FEB 2019 GEORGE HAJIAN
MAR 2019 JOHL DWYER
APR 2019 CHRISTINA PATAIALII
 DALE HICKEY

PAUL BOSTON

5 FEBRUARY -
2 MARCH, 2019

T +61 3 9429 3666

W www.niagaragalleries.com.au
Our new international art fair
launching at Paramount Pictures Studios
February 15–17, 2019
Tickets at frieze.com

Photograph: Trevor Hernandez @gangculture

 50 THINGS
COLLECTORS
SHOULD
KNOW

In this highly anticipated annual feature, we

take a look at the artists, curators, directors
and trends that will shape the Australian
and New Zealand art worlds in 2019.
 50 THINGS | COOL HUNTER PREDICTIONS

CO OL
HUNTER
PREDICTIONS
The artists to watch in the year ahead.

PORTRAIT: JACQUIE MANNING

Emily Parsons-Lord, 2018.

56
50 THINGS | COOL HUNTER PREDICTIONS

57
 1
EMILY PARSONS-LORD

For Emily Parsons-Lord, the air that we

breathe is both a physical and conceptual
space. Or, as the artist puts it: “there’s a whole
ecosystem in the air.”
A 2017 finalist in the prestigious NSW
Visual Arts Emerging Fellowship and resident
at Parramatta Artists Studios, Parsons-Lord’s
eclectic practice moves effortlessly between
performance, installation, video, and sculp-
ture. She works with the most unusual of
materials: a plant distress pheromone, the
minerals in fireworks, or gallium (a metal
that has a melting point of 29.76 degrees).
But it’s her preoccupation with air, and its
relationship to climate change, that unites her
practice – be it in the Co2-filled exhale of a
politician’s breath in Our Fetid Rank (2015),
or a small button that releases “future air” in
The Confounding Leaving (2016).
2018 has been a mammoth year for
Parsons-Lord: a pyrotechnic performance
in response to Lee Kun-Yong’s Equal Area
at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, a
group show at Penrith Regional Gallery and a
solo show at Sydney multidisciplinary space
Cement Fondu. She was a finalist in the John
Frieze Award and performed another explo-
sive feat to a wide-eyed crowd at Sydney
Contemporary art fair.

Emily Parsons-Lord, Rubbernecking (the last gasp

from underfoot), 2018.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND SYDNEY CONTEMPORARY,
SYDNEY. PHOTO: JACQUIE MANNING.

58
50 THINGS | COOL HUNTER PREDICTIONS

59
 50 THINGS | COOL HUNTER PREDICTIONS

Emily Parsons-Lord, Things Fall Apart, 2017. Commissioned by Performance Space for Liveworks.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST. PHOTO: LUCY PARAKHINA.

“There’s a whole ecosystem in the air.”

EMILY PARSONS-LORD

Parsons-Lord finished off the year in
Adelaide, exhibiting as part of Vitalstatistix’s
Climate Century – a three-week festival of
climate change art for the 21st century. Then
Let Us Run (The Sky is Falling) considers the
process of stratospheric aerosol injection: a
scientific proposal for combatting climate
change where substances are released into
the upper atmosphere in order to lower
temperatures. One side effect of this is the
permanent removal of blue from the sky.
In creating an immersive environment that
mimics this altered sky-space, Parsons-Lord
presents a visceral installation that brings
together climate science, speculative fiction,
tragi-humour and the atmosphere itself.
2019 sees Parsons-Lord undertake a three-
month development as artist-in-residence at
the LungA School in  Seyðisfjörður, Iceland,
obtain her pyrotechnic licence, and exhibit at
the Cementa19 festival in Kandos. Given that
climate change is rapidly becoming the great-
est challenge of our time, it seems certain
that Parsons-Lord’s planetary empathy will
continue to be an essential salve when reckon-
ing with our impending environmental crisis.
Naomi Riddle

60
 50 THINGS | COOL HUNTER PREDICTIONS

Emily Parsons-Lord, A raging event of continual noise (the Sun), 2018. Commissioned by 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST. PHOTO: DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY.

Emily Parsons-Lord, Breath of Venus :: Breath of Mars, 2014.

COURTESY: THE ARTIST.

61
50 THINGS | COOL HUNTER PREDICTIONS

62
 50 THINGS | COOL HUNTER PREDICTIONS
Installation view of Christina Pataialii’s west, 2018. Commissioned for Projects 18
at Auckland Art Fair 2018, curated by Francis McWhannell and Gabriela Salgado,
presented with support from The Chartwell Trust and Creative New Zealand.
COURTESY: AUCKLAND ART FAIR, AUCKLAND. PHOTO: MATT HUNT.
63
2
CHRISTINA PATAIALII
In her text accompanying Christina
Pataialii’s Masters of Fine Art exhibition
Slow Jamz Til Midnight (remix), critic Lana
Lopesi describes the artist as “painting a new
Aotearoa [New Zealand] visual identity”.
A few months later, critic Anthony Byrt
declared: “For Pataialii, it’s vital that her
work reaches towards international currents,
beyond the specifics of her personal experi-
ences – something her immense skill as an
image-maker, who riffs on everything from
Picasso to graffiti and The Simpsons, is sure
to guarantee.”
These two critics are not the only ones
taking notice. While still studying towards
her Masters of Fine Art at Auckland’s
Whitecliffe School of Art and Design in 2017,
Pataialii racked up five exhibitions around
the country and bagged the 2017 Iris Fisher
Scholarship. In 2018, she has continued to
paint and exhibit prolifically, mounting three
solo shows, participating in two group exhi-
bitions, and taking up a high-profile spot for
the Auckland Art Fair’s Projects 18, for which
she created a huge site-specific mural – the
first thing punters would see as they entered
the fair.
Pataialii paints the globalised Aotearoa
she grew up in; the one that consumes
more American content than local, that eats
fa’apapa and watches spaghetti westerns, the
one where a painting of a tiger is inspired as
much by Mike Tyson’s pet as by those ubiq-
uitous mink blankets found on beds all over
the country. Moving effortlessly between
abstraction and figuration (with many of
her works sitting somewhere in between),
Pataialii has a singular eye for colour and
an unwavering confidence across a range of
materials and styles. As Byrt writes, she is a
“pure talent who does things with a spraygun
or brush other painters can only sit back and
puff out their cheeks over”.
 50 THINGS | COOL HUNTER PREDICTIONS

Christina Pataialii, 2 minutes to midnight,

2018. Acrylic, house paint, spray paint,
charcoal on drop sheet, 150 x 200cm.

Pataialii has a singular eye for colour and an unwavering

confidence across a range of materials and styles.

In her recent exhibition with Auckland

gallery mother?, Pataialii showed a series
of small works on paper. Watery pink land-
scapes were hung alongside an intricate
portrait of professional wrestler and actor
Stone Cold Steve Austin, a group of modern-
ist geometric compositions rendered in the
washed out hues of West Auckland houses,
and an impeccable copy of a Missy Elliot
album cover. A few months later, she showed
seven large works made with acrylic, spray
paint, house paint and charcoal on stretched
drop sheet, filled with the suggestive shapes
of cabbage trees, picket fences and coffee
being poured.
Having just opened her latest solo exhibi-
tion, Solid Gold, at Te Tuhi, Pataialii is already
working towards an exhibition with Tim
Christina Pataialii, Park 6pm, 2018. Christina Pataialii, Pulusi Li (Bruce Lee), 2018. Acrylic,
Melville Gallery in 2019. Acrylic, house paint, spray paint on drop sheet, house paint, spray paint on drop sheet, 150 x 150cm.
Lucinda Bennett 122 x 122cm. COURTESY: THE ARTIST.

64
 50 THINGS | COOL HUNTER PREDICTIONS

3
RYAN PRESLEY

Ryan Presley is a rising star, and 2018 has

been a particularly stellar year. The recent
flurry of exhibitions and publications builds
on his doctorate research awarded in 2016.
This process has seen him develop his earlier
series of “counterfeit” bank notes with “other
conceptual ideas,” says the artist. “These new
works are more archival, colourful – and
more Pop.” Their innovative commentary on
wealth, ownership and colonial behaviours
is produced by his replacement of tradi-
tional Australian heroes and heroines with
Aboriginal warriors and leaders.
Recent shows have included the solo Terror
Island (Wish You Were Here) at Brisbane’s
Boxcopy in October 2017, Prosperity at
Brisbane’s prestigious Institute of Modern Art
in April 2018, followed by For What It’s Worth
(Not For Sale) at the Tweed Regional Gallery
in July. His first monograph was published by
the IMA in September, a handsome hardcover
volume featuring five essays by writers includ-
ing Daniel Browning and Tina Baum. His work
was also curated into this year’s Primavera at
the Museum of Contemporary Art, which
recognised his contribution on the theme of
identity. Presley’s 2019 appearances begin
with the Sydney Festival, with his Blood Money
Exchange at the Museum of Contemporary Art
and Just Not Australian at Artspace.
Presley’s interests extend into media
and subjects ranging from Christianity to
Operation Sovereign Borders. “A significant
part of this is how religion and economic
control have served colonialism and empire
building over time,” he says. “I then focus
on how these connections have manifested
in Australian society, highlighting how
they have negatively affected the lives of
Aboriginal Australians.” That Presley contin-
ues to develop these ideas with his lively
aesthetic marks him as a talent to watch.
Louise Martin-Chew

65
50 THINGS | COOL HUNTER PREDICTIONS

66
50 THINGS | COOL HUNTER PREDICTIONS

TOP FROM LEFT: Ryan Presley,

Blood Money – Infinite
Dollar Note – Bembulwoyan
Commemorative, 2018; Dundalli
Commemorative, 2017; Fanny
Balbuk Yooreel Commemorative,
2018; and Fanny Cochrane
Smith Commemorative, 2018.
Watercolour on Arches paper,
each 60.5 x 145.5cm.
LEFT: Ryan Presley, Terror
Island (Wish You Were Here),
2017. Oil paint and 23k gold
leaf on Hoop pine panel, 53 x
100 x 2cm.
PREVIOUS PAGE: Ryan Presley,
Crown Land (to the ends of
the earth), 2016. Synthetic
polymer paint and 23k gold
leaf on Hoop pine panel, 43 x
53 x 2cm.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST.

“These new works are

more archival, colourful –
and more Pop.”
RYAN PRESLEY

67
50 THINGS | COOL HUNTER PREDICTIONS

68
50 THINGS | COOL HUNTER PREDICTIONS
Installation view of Kai Wasikowski’s NSW Visual Arts
Emerging Fellowship presentation, Artspace, Sydney, 2018.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST. PHOTO: ZAN WIMBERLEY.
69
4
KAI WASIKOWSKI
“Foot falls echo in the memory/down the
passage we did not take/towards the door we
never opened…” American poet and essay-
ist T.S. Eliot wrote in his set of poems  Four
Quartets in 1936. Using the journey through
this mysterious garden scene, Eliott warned
his readers of post modernity’s looming
dangers – exploring ideas of labour, environ-
ment, production and human destruction.
Decades later in our present, these concerns
described in Eliot’s impermanent world still
loom over humanity, and our relationship
with the natural world.
Attuned to the acoustics of our time,
Sydney-based artist Kai Wasikowski prompts
a similar vein of philosophical and poetic
reflection in his photographic landscapes. For
the artist, nature and its importance to our
survival serves as both concept and concern.
Within his surreal dreamscapes, layers of
nature emerge from foggy and mysterious
rivers and seabeds.  In the midst of these
seemingly static scenes, movement lurks in
the background. In the case of the Realtree
(2018) works, red laser dots zero in on their
target, catching on the trees and bushes in
this pristine, almost too-perfect landscape.
These images depict a danger zone and
Wasikowski places us on high alert. In an era
where human-made climate change threatens
the elemental status quo, Wasikowski uses
the metaphor of this earthly conflict zone to
reveal and conceal, in equal measure, a narra-
tive about humankind’s effect on nature.
50 THINGS | COOL HUNTER PREDICTIONS

70
50 THINGS | COOL HUNTER PREDICTIONS

His message and its delivery are timely, LEFT: Kai Wasikowski, Realtree
#4, 2018. Inkjet print, 90 x
complex and nuanced, befitting of our 115cm.
even more complex world. It’s with no ABOVE: Kai Wasikowski,
surprise that  over the past year,  his work Moments of love and apathy #1,
has been recognised and celebrated by 2017. Inkjet print on cotton rag,
96 x 143cm.
local and international art communities.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST.
Following his 2017 win at the Perth Institute
of Contemporary Art’s Schenberg Art
Fellowship (worth $40,000), Wasikowski has
been featured in a number of high-profile
exhibitions, including The Australian Centre
for Photography’s  Oceans from here  (2018)
and Sullivan+Strumpf Singapore’s  Tromp
L’oeil (2018).
At the end of 2018, Wasikowski was one of These images depict a
the featured artists in the NSW Visual Arts danger zone and Wasikowski
Emerging Fellowship. In the year to come,
Wasikowski tells me that his eyes are set places us on high alert.
on expanding his profile overseas. He will
undertake a residency in China at the Three
Shadows Photography Art Centre, a contem-
porary art space dedicated solely to photog-
raphy and new media. He is also currently
negotiating the details of exhibiting in China.
If 2018 is any indication of his professional
trajectory, one gets the sense that  2019 will
be epic. 
Micheal Do

71

5 a symbol of colonialism here in Australia.
JUSTINE YOUSSEF
On a recent visit to Justine Youssef’s studio,
her floor was strewn with drying rose petals
in preparation for an other’s Wurud (2017-
ongoing). This iterative performance sees
Youssef distil rosewater from a family recipe,
filling a gallery with her quiet, purposeful
energy and the heady scent of roses. Rather
than Damask, used by her family in Lebanon,
Youssef distils with a species of British rose,
50 THINGS | COOL HUNTER PREDICTIONS
From this invasive species, through a gentle
and meditative process, Youssef extracts both
tangible and symbolic value. The tangible
outcome is glass bottles of the warmly tinted,
scented liquid. Symbolically, the perfor-
mance connects Youssef’s ancestral home-
land with her adopted home, acknowledging
the complexities of its colonial history.
Through performance, video and installa-
tion, Youssef uncovers links between family
ritual, ecology, Indigenous culture and colo-
nial history. Kohl (2018), in collaboration
with Duha Ali, brought out unexpected links
72
between kohl – used for spiritual, medicinal
and cosmetic purposes – and the uses of ash
from smoking ceremonies in local Indigenous
culture, (discovered through an elder where
the work was filmed in Sydney’s west). For
an iteration of an other’s Wurud, Youssef
distilled waste flowers on-site at the Sydney
Flower Market, as stallholders cleared up
around her. These men offered their discards
as Youssef crouched and worked, troubled by
the wastage of these imported, cut blooms.
Several workers asked where she got her
enormous aluminium bowls – brought
from Lebanon – as their mothers and wives
 50 THINGS | COOL HUNTER PREDICTIONS

Through performance, video and installation,

Youssef uncovers links between family ritual, ecology,
Indigenous culture and colonial history.

OPPOSITE PAGE: Performance

documentation of Justine Youssef’s
an other’s Wurud, 2018.
LEFT:Performance documentation
of Duha Ali and Justine Youssef’s
Body/Cartography, 2018.
BELOW: Duha Ali and Justine
Youssef, Kohl, 2018. Video still,
three-channel video, 4min 40sec.
COURTESY: THE ARTISTS.

couldn’t find them here.

2018 has been a big year for Youssef, with
highlights including collaborative exhibitions
in Sydney and Melbourne, performances and
curated group shows at Sullivan+Strumpf,
Blindside and MCA Artbar, and a residency
at Parramatta Artists Studios. The year culmi-
nated in Youssef’s debut solo exhibition, All
Blessings, All Curses, at Sydney’s 4A Centre
for Contemporary Asian Art. That her first
solo exhibition was an institutional commis-
sion speaks to the quiet power of Youssef’s
vision, and its resonance here and now.
Rebecca Gallo

73
 50 THINGS | COOL HUNTER PREDICTIONS

6
HAYLEY MILLAR-BAKER

It’s easy to see why critics and collectors alike

have recently been captivated by Hayley
Millar-Baker’s black-and-white photo assem-
blages. Her visually arresting mise en scenes
are quick to draw us in, revealing a coexis-
tence of different times and places – alterna-
tive stories and histories told through each
feather, every branch.
Millar-Baker is a Gunditjmara woman from
Victoria. To create her digital photo assem-
blages, she draws from a growing archive of
photographs taken on ancestral Country and
the Country where she grew up. Cut-outs
from her photographs, each monumental ABOVE: Hayley Millar-Baker, Untitled 8 (I’m the Captain Now), 2016. Inkjet print on paper, 20 x 20cm.
in the stories they hold, are meticulously
collected and digitally layered.
Millar-Baker exhibited her Toongkateeyt
(Tomorrow) series as part of the TARNANTHI: significant national prizes including the to develop her installation practice for Those
Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Churchie National Emerging Art Prize, Monuments Don’t Know Us at Bundoora
Torres Strait Islander Art in October 2017. Incinerator Art Award and the 65th Blake Homestead Art Centre. Her work will focus
Digitally constructing imagined landscapes Prize. Her work was shown in Artbank’s In deeply on the life of her Grandmother for
from hundreds of individual layers of photo- a World of Wounds, curated by Talia Smith, a major exhibition at the Heide Museum of
graphs, the works were embedded with stories and UTS Gallery’s Void, curated by Emily Modern Art, Apocalyptic Horse, in which
of First Nations intergenerational experience McDaniel. Millar-Baker was also selected she will exhibit alongside Australian greats
and adaptation. The exhibition led to signif- for the 2018 Primavera at the Museum of James Gleeson, Patricia Piccinini and
icant critical and curatorial attention for the Contemporary Art, in which curator Megan Albert Tucker. Millar-Baker’s voice is strong
artist, who swiftly picked up representation at Robson acknowledged the power of her work and one to follow in our urgent discussions
Vivien Anderson Gallery in Melbourne. in making absent histories visible. of identity, and growing understanding of
Completing her Masters of Fine Art at As her career continues to build momen- the strength, resilience and complexities of
RMIT at the end of 2017, in the past two tum, 2019 will see Millar-Baker create new Aboriginal Australia.
years, Millar-Baker has been a finalist in works in her Cook Book series and continue Hayley Megan French

74
 50 THINGS | COOL HUNTER PREDICTIONS

ABOVE: Hayley Millar-Baker, Untitled (The best means, BELOW LEFT: Hayley Millar-Baker, Untitled (When the mother leaves snatch the eggs). Part 1 & 2, 55 x 55cm.
of caring for, and dealing with them in the future), 2018. BELOW RIGHT: Hayley Millar-Baker, Untitled (Pull him out by the tail and hit him on the head). Part 1 & 2, 55 x 55cm.
Inkjet on cotton rag, 80 x 100cm.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND VIVIEN ANDERSON GALLERY, MELBOURNE.

75
 10 January–9 March 2019
A Bundanon Trust Touring Exhibition National Art School Gallery
Forbes St & Burton Street
Darlinghurst, NSW
Open daily 11am–5pm
(02) 9339 8686
nas.edu.au/nas-gallery
Arthur Boyd, Shoalhaven as the River Styx, c1996 (detail), oil on canvas. Boyd Family Collection.
Delicate Gouldian Finch 2018 oil on canvas 30 x 30 cm

jodie wells
wild and wonderful Marina Mirage, Seaworld Drive
Main Beach, Q 4217 Ph: 07 5561 1166
March 23 to April 6 2019 www.antheapolsonart.com.au
 50 THINGS | NEW DIRECTIONS

NEW
DIRECTIONS
Our writers discuss those artists who have
taken their practice somewhere a little
different in recent times.

PORTRAIT: STEPHEN OXENBURY

7
ILDIKO KOVACS

2018 brought a new process and media for

abstractionist Ildiko Kovacs, which resulted
in a series first shown at RAFT Artspace,
Alice Springs, in August. While Kovacs has
been known and celebrated for her paintings
made with a roller over the last 10 years –
notably her 2015 Bulgari Art Award-winning
Onda – these new works emerged from
obsessive drawing.
They see artist scratching directly into oil
paint and are collectively titled Cats Cradle
after their wandering, sinuous line – and the
oldest recorded game in human history.

78

Ildiko Kovacs, No 9, 2018. Oil and graphite on card on plywood, 45.7 x 23cm.
“I bought a huge amount of pattern-mak-
er’s paper which is natural in colour,” says
Kovacs. “I surrounded myself with materials
and worked with whatever came to hand.
Drawing is great in that it frees you up.
Any preciousness falls away and you don’t
overthink it. There is a kind of automatic
flow which comes from working quickly
in a rather obsessive manner. From using
pencils, crayons, ink, and acrylics, drawing
and scratching, rubbing out and repainting, I
50 THINGS | NEW DIRECTIONS
Ildiko Kovacs, Cat’s Eye, 2018. Oil and graphite on card on plywood, 90 x 64cm.
eventually came to cover the  paper with oil
paint. I was actually on the phone, continuing “I think it is that intense
to draw and then, when I hung up, I realised
the first of these works.” focus that allows you to get
While the new works are a dramatic depar- lost – and found.”
ture from the colour and organic shapes of
ILDIKO KOVACS
the roller paintings, they remain recognisably
Kovacs. Their angularity and muted colours,
the compulsion in their scratched quality, has
been well-received since they were exhibited
in Alice Springs and then at the Melbourne
80

Ildiko Kovacs, No 1, 2018. Oil and graphite on card on plywood,
45.7 x 23cm.
Art Fair with Martin Browne Contemporary.
They were also seen at Martin Browne’s
Sydney space in September at Kovacs’ exhi-
bition New Ground.
For Kovacs, these works return to a method
she remembers from her beginnings. “As
artists, we tend to do a full circle,” she muses.
“At art school, when I was 17, I didn’t really
know how to make a painting, but I enjoyed
the sensuality of oil paint. Drawing into it
was the start of my relationship with paint.”
50 THINGS | NEW DIRECTIONS
Ildiko Kovacs, 6 Diamonds, 2018. Oil and graphite on card on plywood, 102 x 76cm.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND MARTIN BROWNE CONTEMPORARY, SYDNEY.
The method in these new works becomes
meditative, as she scores into the oil paint
with a soft graphite. For Kovacs, their success
lies “in this breakthrough into something that
I haven’t uncovered in myself before. I think
it is that intense focus that allows you to get
lost – and found.”
Kovacs will show with Hugo Michell
Gallery, Adelaide, from 21 March to 27 April
2019.
Louise Martin-Chew
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 50 THINGS | NEW DIRECTIONS

8
GARRY TRINH

“It has been two years since my divorce from

photography,” says artist Garry Trinh. “I feel
like Michael Jordan when he moved from
basketball to baseball. Everything’s strange
and familiar at the same time. I’ve had to
re-examine the rules and boundaries I set for
myself in photography to see if those still hold
up in painting, drawing, collage and video.”
After 10 years, the Sydney-based artist was
tired of having the same conversations about
photography. It was chats with painters that
energised him, and he had begun to aesthet-
ically and literally deconstruct his own
photographs depicting quotidian, peripheral
moments. At the start of 2017, a long-running
job wound up, so Trinh applied to Parramatta
Artist Studios [PAS] in order to explore a
practice beyond the lens, surrounded by
supportive peers.
Trinh’s new works wrestle with the inex-
tricable linkage between the photographic
and painted image (Gerhard Richter is an
influence). His paintings and collages are
modestly scaled, mostly 42 by 30 centime-
tres. Some directly reference the practice of
photography – in one painting we can spot
the logo of the artist’s signature New York
Yankees cap floating above the outline of a
mobile phone, recalling Trinh’s ongoing series
of selfies with art. The splatters and smears
in many paintings echo the gritty textures
of Trinh’s longstanding subject: the street.
Some paintings have been folded and cut to
reveal diamond-shaped holes. These began
as a reconsideration of a photographic series
depicting suburban bonsai, where street trees
have holes trimmed in their foliage to avoid
contact with power lines.
After two years, Trinh moved out of PAS,
debuting these new works in a group show All
the parts I like about you at the Artspace Ideas “I feel like Michael Jordan when
Platform in November 2018. He also organ-
ised an artists’ car boot sale at World Square,
he moved from basketball to LEFT: Garry Trinh, Uno Who.
Synthetic polymer paint on
Sydney with 4A Centre for Contemporary baseball. Everything’s strange paper, 30 x 42cm.
Asian Art in December 2018. He may have ABOVE: Garry Trinh,
and familiar at the same time.” Levitated Mass, ode to MH.
left the camera behind, but not his unique Synthetic polymer paint on
perspective. GARRY TRINH
paper, 30 x 42cm.
Chloé Wolifson COURTESY: THE ARTIST.

83

Sean Meilak, Study for metaphysical garden, 2017. Plaster, mdf, wire, pva and acrylic paint, 210 x 160 x 150cm.
9
SEAN MEILAK
Melbourne-based artist Sean Meilak has
worked across the disciplines of painting,
video, sculpture and installation since the
late 1990s. Most recently, he has been gaining
traction with his suites of stacked geometric
forms in plaster.
Recalling the angular abstraction of a
labyrinth with upside down staircases and
columns holding up carefully balanced cylin-
ders, Meilak’s arrangement of shapes and licks
of crisp pastel hues are playfully elegant with a
classical edge. “My focus on sculpture evolved
from time spent in Italy a few years ago, where
I began to make small sets and assemblages for
a series of still life paintings,” Meilak explains.
“Over time, I became increasingly interested
50 THINGS | NEW DIRECTIONS
Sean Meilak, Interior habitat #1, 2018. Plaster and oxide pigment,
in how these forms changed as I moved around
them. This led to the decision to develop them
into sculptural pieces in their own right.”
Meilak’s inspirations for his sculptures are
diverse. Sarah Murray of Niagara Galleries says
Meilak’s work is informed by “the architecture
of ancient Rome, theatre and film set design, as
well as modern and postmodern art, architec-
ture and design movements.” Murray continues:
“There has been an overwhelmingly positive
response to Sean’s sculptures and installations
from collectors in Australia, as well as interna-
tional interest from the USA and Italy.”
In 2018, Meilak’s sculpture Park Life
was acquired by Artbank from the Niagara
Galleries booth at Sydney Contemporary.
84
200 x 120 x 30cm.
The same year, Anthony Bautovich included
Meilak’s work in the Home@735 exhi-
bition Colour and Form and throughout
November, TDF Collect Gallery in Melbourne
hosted Parade, Meilak’s latest collection of
free-standing and wall-mounted sculptures.
Enjoying the possibilities of working within
the three-dimensional realm, Meilak is keen
to keep the momentum going. “It has been
like learning or developing a new language,”
he says. “These new ways of making and
seeing are very exciting to me as I have always
had a sculptural approach to the way I work.
Making three-dimensional forms seems like a
natural progression for my practice.”
Briony Downes
 50 THINGS | NEW DIRECTIONS

Sean Meilak, Fall, 2018. Plaster, oxide pigment, bondcrete, wooden dowel, epoxy resin, mdf, acrylic paint, pva, 150 x 110 x 36cm.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND NIAGARA GALLERIES, MELBOURNE.PHOTO: PETER ROSETZKY.

85
 50 THINGS | NEW DIRECTIONS

10
CLINTON NAIN

Within 10 years of his debut in 1996, Clinton

Nain had established himself as one of the
most significant young Indigenous artists of
his generation. Like many of his peers, he was
drawn to a confronting but cathartic expres-
sion of the repression of Aboriginal people,
but also an exploration of his identity as a
gay man with Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander heritage.
It was in Nain’s White King, Blak Queen
(2001) and Whitens, Removes Stains, Kills
Germs (2002) – works on canvas using white
bleach and black paint, some figurative, others
abstract, many with calligraphic elements –
where the artist had found a potent mix of
elements that were complementary, yet also
in turmoil.
Nain continued to exhibit widely in solo
and group shows, while his work was acquired
by Australia’s leading museums and corpo-
rate collections. But from 2007, Nain took a
complete break from his exhibiting career. He
continued to make work, travel and research,
but for nearly a decade, he didn’t exhibit.
For 2019, Nain presents a brand-new body
of work with Melbourne’s Gallerysmith that
takes a new direction with its use of colour.
Where many of Nain’s former works were
more sombre in tone, the new canvases pop
with layered combinations of red, green,
yellow and brown. Abstraction shimmers
with elements of drawing and writing within.
“Clinton’s  new works still explore ideas
around the imposition of written language as
a metaphor for so many western ideologies,”
says gallery director Marita Smith. “But they
also refer to the layered and conceptually
driven theme of passive aggression; opposing
elements interwoven through every aspect
of culture and society, including death and
birth, peace and war, safety and fear.”
Nain will show these new works at
Gallerysmith from 28 February to 23 March
2019.
Andrew Frost

86
 50 THINGS | NEW DIRECTIONS

OPPOSITE PAGE: Clinton Nain,

Passive Aggressive - Power #5,
2018. Acrylic on linen, 145 x
110cm.
THIS PAGE: Clinton Nain,
Passive Aggressive - Power #4,
2018. Acrylic on linen, 145 x
110cm.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND
GALLERYSMITH, MELBOURNE.

Where many of Nain’s former works were more

sombre in tone, the new canvases pop with layered
combinations of red, green, yellow and brown.

87
50 THINGS | NEW DIRECTIONS

11
LIONEL BAWDEN

There is some synergy – or is it irony? – when

an artist whose sculptures are made of pencils
should find text work his next artistic itera-
tion. Since 2017, Lionel Bawden’s practice
has expanded from his organically shaped,
fused pencil sculptures to include a new
series of experimental works that embrace
both painting and sculpture. His 2017 instal-
lation The Kandinsky has two sides, exhibited
at Sydney’s Artereal Gallery, transitioned the
humble cereal packet into a vehicle for the
artist’s meditations on the randomness of
thought and the nature of duality.
His most recent departure from the
renowned pencil works is part of an exhibition
at Hazelhurst Arts Centre titled Weapons For
The Soldier. Devised by young men from the
Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY)
Lands, the question they asked both
Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian
artists to unpack was: What does it mean to
defend one’s country? Bawden’s response
was to set aside his languorous, smoothly
tactile sculptures for text, using doormats as
canvases for his message.
Bawden explains: “I am not much for
weapons, but I figure weapons are for people
defending something they believe in protect-
ing. Words are something I use all the time in
strength, vulnerability and curiosity. They are
perhaps the closest things I have to weapons.”
Each doormat contains one word printed
in black ink and simple type – AS YOU
WALK OVER ME THINK ABOUT WHO I
AM. Bawden explains: “I need to remember
that I am in Country all the time. If we are
at home, inside our houses, we are still on
Aboriginal land, still in Country, even though
it is skinned with cement, wood or carpet.
We are still in Country even though we place
a mat outside our door, demarking space as
our own.”
Weapons For The Soldier shows at Hazelhurst
until 3 February 2019.
Helen McKenzie

88
 50 THINGS | NEW DIRECTIONS

“Words are something I use all the

time in strength, vulnerability and
curiosity. They are perhaps the closest
things I have to weapons.”
LIONEL BAWDEN

OPPOSITE PAGE: Lionel Bawden, Groundwork (AS YOU WALK

OVER ME THINK ABOUT WHO I AM), 2018. Exterior paint on
coir fibre doormat attached to vinyl base, edition of 3 + 2AP,
each 40 x 60cm. PHOTO: SILVERSALT PHOTOGRAPHY .
THIS PAGE: Installation views of Lionel Bawden’s The Kandinsky
has two sides, Artereal Gallery, Sydney, 2017.
PHOTO: ZAN WIMBERLEY.
COURTESY: THE ARITST AND ARTEREAL GALLERY, SYDNEY.

89
C O LV I L L E G A L L E R Y

Garden in the Mountains, Somewhere Near Deloraine, 2018. Oil and fine scraffito on linen, 135 x 200cm.

Richard Dunlop
Garden in the Mountains, Somewhere near Deloraine.
18 Jan – 5 Feb 2019

Also Representing
Robert Brown, Julia Castiglioni-Bradshaw, Jason Cordero, Chris Edwards, Kylie Elkington, Sebastian Galloway, Paul
Gundry, David Hawley, Jane James, Eloise Kirk, Zsuzsa Kollo, Colin Langridge, Stephen Lees, Steve Lopez, Anne
Mestitz, Jerzy Michalski, Milan Milojevic, Ian Parry, Chen Ping, Eie Pryer, Anna Sabadini, Paul Snell, Luke Wagner.

91A Salamanca Place, Hobart 7000 Tasmania P +61 362 244 088 M 0419 292 626
E info@colvillegallery.com.au W www.colvillegallery.com.au OPENING HOURS 10am to 5pm daily
 C O LV I L L E G A L L E R Y

Lloyd Rees, The Little Boat, 1982-3. Oil on linen, 35 x 45cm. Private Collection.

2019 Colville Lloyd Rees Art Prize $20,000

Awarded to ‘the best painting to demonstrate light within the landscape’
Judge for 2019: Dr David Hansen, Associate Professor of Art History and Art Theory, ANU

Entries to be received at Colville Gallery

Closing date 4 June 2019
Award to be announced Friday 5th July, 2019
Check Colville Gallery website for full terms, conditions and entry form

91A Salamanca Place, Hobart 7000 Tasmania P +61 362 244 088 M 0419 292 626
E info@colvillegallery.com.au W www.colvillegallery.com.au OPENING HOURS 10am to 5pm daily
5 0 T H I N G S | C U R AT O R ’ S R A DA R

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 5 0 T H I N G S | C U R AT O R ’ S R A DA R

CURATOR’S
RADAR
A round up of artists who have achieved
significant curatorial attention in 2018/2019
by way of major public exhibitions,
commissions and acquisitions.

PORTRAIT: TRISTAN DERÁTZ

12
JOHN MAWURNDJUL

In the constellation of bark artists, John Recently, the Museum of Contemporary

Mawurndjul‘s star shines brightest. He is, accord-
ing to curator of Indigenous art at the Art Gallery of
South Australia (AGSA) Nici Cumpston, “a master
of innovation in the bark painting technique”. He
is the maestro of rarrk (cross-hatching) and the
resultant sacred shimmer. Viewing his work can be
a spiritual experience; transporting the viewer into
worlds they had never imagined.
Art (MCA) in Sydney, AGSA, the artist and
Maningrida Arts in Arnhem Land, Northern
Territory, collaborated to produce the largest
retrospective of Mawurndjul’s work in Australia:
John Mawurndjul: I am the old and the new. Having
visited this show (on view at AGSA until end of
January 2019), I cannot imagine anyone leaving
it unaffected.

93
 5 0 T H I N G S | C U R AT O R ’ S R A DA R
Perhaps unusually for a retrospective on
an Aboriginal artist, Mawurndjul’s input
was sought at every stage of development,
including the selection of works. This led
to an exhibition unlike any staged before it.
Rather than works being displayed in stan-
dard chronological order, the art was sorted
and displayed in order of Kunred (sacred
places).
Old and new hang close. And without the
movement in time, the exhibition exists in
what anthropologist W. E. H. Stanner, in his
essay The Dreaming, called the “Everywhen”.
The paintings are of Country using Country
itself – bark and ochre – as a medium. A
visitor moving though the exhibition space
is moving through the sacred Country
94
Mawurndjul has chosen to paint.
The label texts are written in Kuninjku
(Mawurndjul’s language) and translated into
English. All texts in the exhibition are in the
artist’s own words; the Kuninjku words first
on the labels, thus centred in the experience.
According to Cumpston, this provides the
viewer with a “much deeper sense of these
stories as the artist was able to think and
speak in his first language”.
The retrospective, the innovative way it
was assembled and curated, has set a new
benchmark for Indigenous art displays.
The centring of the artist’s voice and deci-
sion making will hopefully become more
common in Indigenous art curation.
Claire G. Coleman
 5 0 T H I N G S | C U R AT O R ’ S R A DA R

Mawurndjul’s input was sought at every

stage of development, including the
selection of works. This led to an exhibition
unlike any staged before it.

OPPOSITE PAGE: John Mawurndjul, Mimih

Spirit, c.2000. Earth pigments on wood,
87 x 20 x 20cm. COURTESY: THE ARTIST,
MOSSENSON GALLERIES, PERTH AND AGSA,
ADELAIDE. PHOTO: ROBERT FRITH.
ABOVE: Installation view of John
Mawurndjul: I am the old and the new, MCA,
Sydney, 2018.
RIGHT: John Mawurndjul, Ngalyod, 2012.
Earth pigments on Stringybark, 182.5 x
76.5 x 10cm. COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND
MCA, SYDNEY. PHOTO: JESSICA MAURER.
FAR RIGHT: John Mawurndjul, Wayuk
(Waterlilies), 1993. Earth pigments on
Stringybark, 208 x 65 x 9cm. COURTESY:
THE ARTIST, HOTA, GOLD COAST AND AGSA,
ADELAIDE.
PREVIOUS PAGE: John Mawurndjul, River
Whale Shark, 1989. Earth pigments on
wood, 19.5 x 233 x 23cm. COURTESY: THE
ARTIST, AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL MARITIME
MUSEUM, SYDNEY AND AGSA, ADELAIDE.

95
 5 0 T H I N G S | C U R AT O R ’ S R A DA R

13
JESS JOHNSON AND
SIMON WARD

Jess Johnson and Simon Ward’s touring

Virtual Reality (VR) show Terminus began its
journey at the National Gallery of Victoria in
May. It continues to other venues, including
the Heide Museum of Modern Art, over the
next two to three years.
Curated by NGA’s senior curator of
contemporary practice, Jaklyn Babington,
this technologically innovative exhibition
(replete with five alternative VR realms) is
modified by a local designer at each venue, so
that the animation components lock in with
the parameters of each architectural setting.
The arcane sci-fi elements are in a constant
state of upgrade, only becoming set within
the show at the last minute before its opening.
The result is an entirely unique, choose-your-
own-adventure into the optical challenges
and visual puzzles of the new virtual world.

In another recent project, the artists collab-

orated on a site-specific animated film made
for the newly returned 2018 Melbourne Art
Johnson and Ward have been working together for
Fair. Curated by Hannah Matthews and five years, Ward bringing mass, three dimensionality
Rachel Ciesla, Webwurld was projected on and movement to Johnson’s initially flat humanoids
the Federation Square Big Screen throughout
the first week of August, dazzling many a and Art Deco-esque architectural spaces.
curious passer-by.
Johnson and Ward have been working
together for five years, Ward bringing mass,
three dimensionality and movement to
Johnson’s initially flat humanoids and Art
Deco-esque architectural spaces. He digitally
embellishes motifs and introduces plasticity, McCahon Cottage Titirangi residency for the ABOVE: JessJohnson and Simon Ward, Webwurld,
2017. Single-channel HD digital video with audio,
where she brings forth components of earlier first quarter before reconnecting with Ward 16:9, 2min 8sec, edition of 5 + 1AP. COURTESY: THE
drawings, repeating them by tracing. for five months at New York’s non-profit ARTISTS AND DARREN KNIGHT GALLERY, SYDNEY.
In recent months, Johnson and Ward have cultural centre Pioneer Works. Johnson also RIGHT: Installation view of Jess Johnson and
been working on a project for Christchurch has dealer shows lined up at Jack Hanley in Simon Ward’s Terminus, virtual reality experience
in five parts, National Gallery of Australia,
Art Gallery and continue to be busy through- New York and Nanzuka in Tokyo. Canberra, 2018. COURTESY: THE ARTISTS AND
out next year. Johnson will undertake a John Hurrell NGA, CANBERRA.

96
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14
DARREN SYLVESTER

Earlier this year at the 2018 Melbourne Art

Fair, Darren Sylvester was the subject of
an art world media spectacle as American
pop-star Katy Perry coquettishly posed on
one of his Fillet-O-Fish (2017) lounge chairs.
And it’s not hard to understand why his
works might elicit such a response.
To enter into Sylvester’s world is to embark
on a particular but brilliant journey. The
photographer came of age in the 1990s; a
time when painting was dead, borders were
begging to be blurred and the art estab-
lishment demanded that art be politically
engaged. A self-confessed romantic, Sylvester
constructs unsettling scenarios that are lit
with a glossy sense of drama.
The artist first came to prominence for his
photographs of heroes and heroines leaning,
draping and lounging amongst salubrious
surroundings, like the ones found in fashion
advertising campaigns. Sylvester has since
expanded his oeuvre, creating atmospheric
and absorbing installations, sculptures and
sound tracks that are both elusive and elegiac.
From March to June 2019, the artist will be
the subject of a grand survey at Melbourne’s
National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), one of
his largest achievements yet. Having devel-
oped the exhibition over several years with
NGV’s curator of photography, Maggie
Finch, Sylvester describes it as something of a
hinterland that exists between the real, imag-
ined and invented. Carve a Future, Devour
Everything, Become Something will span more
than 40 works selected from his two-decade
plus career, connecting the different seams
and threads of Sylvester’s practice.
The artist tells me that several of his “great-
est hits” will be given new life for the exhibi-
tion. His sprawling dance floor For You (2014)
that originally lit up the NGV’s floors with
the colours of Yves Saint Laurent’s runway
collection during Melbourne Now (2014) will
be reimagined with the brand’s latest palette.
Darren Sylvester, Alpha
Arbutin, 2012. Bronze,
The same treatment applies to his glorious
31 x 23 x 13cm. lime green stage-prop-cum-minimalist-sculp-
ture-cum-luxury-brand-advertisment, Céline

98

Darren Sylvester, Fillet-O-Fish, 2017. Screenprinted upholstered wool and tubular steel, 202 x 102 x 50cm.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST, SULLIVAN+STRUMPF, SYDNEY AND NEON PARC, MELBOURNE.
(2017) which first appeared at Bus Projects
in Melbourne. For those aware of dramas
surrounding the brand’s decision to drop the
acute accent above the é, Sylvester assures
me that his Céline will purposely retain it.
Elsewhere, the exhibition will collapse fact
with fabulism via existing and commis-
sioned works set to lure audiences down the
Sylvester’s curious garden path — one that
will be decorated with masterful exercises of
contradictory impulses, suspense, romance,
desire and necessity.
The icing of the exhibition lies in the
360-page monograph that will accompany it.
Developed over one year with Megan Patty,
NGV’s publications manager, the book will
come furnished in an aluminium pillbox
5 0 T H I N G S | C U R AT O R ’ S R A DA R
drawn directly from the visual vernacular of
the exhibition (think luxurious). The book
contains a flex-disc vinyl that contains the
soundtrack to Time Keeps Running, Never
Changing, Never Ageing (2007), an older
video work created following Sylvester’s
pilgrimage to Ashbury Park in New Jersey, From Bruce Springsteen to Katy
sacred home to Bruce Springsteen and the Perry, Sylvester assures me that
E-Street Band.
From Bruce Springsteen to Katy Perry,
there’s something for everyone in
Sylvester assures me that there’s something his upcoming survey.
for everyone in his upcoming survey. And
much like his works at MAF, I get the sense
that Carve a Future, Devour Everything, Become
Something may be just the right setting for the
next spectacle.
Micheal Do
99

15
ALICIA FRANKOVICH
By naming our current epoch the “Age of
the Anthropocene”, scientists have marked
a point in time where humans have so
profoundly dominated the environmental
course of the earth that it has become irre-
versible. More than this, our intervention is
equivalent in gravitas to the many Ice Ages
before us.
The practice of preeminent New Zealand
artist Alicia Frankovich seeks a better under-
standing of the post-human position within
this current Age. Hers is an equalisation
attempt; where finding nexuses between the
macro and the micro, the unfathomable and
the fathomable, may better our understanding
5 0 T H I N G S | C U R AT O R ’ S R A DA R
of the universe, at the same time eliminating
(or equalising) time and things.
These themes underpin Frankovich’s recent
solo exhibition Exoplanets at MUMA | Monash
University Museum of Art in Melbourne;
an extension of work exhibited in 2017 at
the Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und
Westfalen in Düsseldorf. Here, Frankovich
flexes the boundaries of sculpture and form,
using imagery that shifts between abstraction
and representation, highlighting the omni-
presence of evolution as it relates both to the
extant and the extinct.
Isolated, the term “exoplanets” refers to
planets that orbit stars other than the sun (and
hence are beyond our solar system). They are
mostly unknown, because the glare of their
stars makes visibility difficult even with
telescopes. “In the context of the exhibition,
Exoplanets refers to the existence of imagery
100
and forms beyond what we know,” says
MUMA’s senior curator Hannah Matthews.
“Often what we think we recognise turns out
to be something else; what looks inter-plan-
etary is actually micro-imaging of the body.
In this way, Frankovich creates a space of
relationality where everything is connected
and equal; where the seemingly unknown is
somehow already known.”
Frankovich has been championed by
the world’s leading institutions – Stedelijk
Museum Amsterdam, ISCP New York, ACCA
Melbourne, Palais de Tokyo Paris – indica-
tive of the pressing nature of her work and
the necessity of her expanding practice and
realms of enquiry. In 2019, she will exhibit
with Auckland’s Starkwhite Gallery in addi-
tion to featuring in the major exhibition
Between Us at Kunsthalle Mainz, Germany.
Ineke Dane
5 0 T H I N G S | C U R AT O R ’ S R A DA R

“Often what we think we recognise turns out

to be something else … Frankovich creates
a space of relationality where everything is
connected and equal; where the seemingly
unknown is somehow already known.”
HANNAH MATTHEWS

Installation views of Alicia Frankovich’s Exoplanets, Monash University Museum of

Art, Melbourne, 2018.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND STARKWHITE, AUCKLAND. PHOTO: JACQUI SHELTON.

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16
ABOVE AND BELOW: Installation views of David Grigg’s
BETWEEN NATURE AND SIN, Campbelltown Arts Centre,
Campbelltown, 2017. PHOTO: DOCUMENT PHOTOGRAPHY.

DAVID GRIGGS

David Griggs is probably one of the most

prolific and energetic Australian artists
working today. The artist has acknowledged
in interviews his ongoing battle with depres-
sion, drawing on his experiences for the
subject of his art across a variety of media.
His work includes a panoply of pop culture
iconographies, leering skulls and masks,
horsemen, devils and political and soul rebels.
He delights in this imagery, calling it, perhaps
ironically, “reinventing the passé”, while
citing likeminded practitioners from Goya to
Adam Cullen and the Chapman Bros.
At 43 years old, and based in the Philippines
since 2005, Griggs has continued to exhibit
widely around Australia and overseas. His
career survey show Between Nature and Sin
includes paintings, photography, video work,
and even a feature film, Cowboy Country,
produced in collaboration with the people of
a Philippine fishing village. In 2018, the show
toured galleries around the country and in

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David Griggs, The Bleeding Hearts Club No.2, 2008. Acrylic on canvas.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND GAGPROJECTS | GREENAWAY ART GALLERY, ADELAIDE.

2019 it will be staged at Griffith Regional Art

Gallery, Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Orange
Regional Gallery, each in NSW, and at the
Burrinja Cultural Centre in Victoria. With repre-
sentation by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney,
Station in Melbourne and at GAGPROJECTS |
Greenaway Art Gallery in Adelaide, Griggs has
a seemingly never-ending output.
In a testament to the international recog-
nition of Griggs’s work, he was included in
the prestigious group show Becoming Animal,
collaboratively staged by the Den Frie Centre
of Contemporary Art, in Copenhagen, and
the Museum of Religious Art, in Lemvig,
during March to April 2018. Here, Griggs’s
work was seen alongside work by Goya,
Albert Oehlen, Gardar Eide Einarsson and
Matias Faldbakken.
The exhibition was described by curator
Carl Carstensen as a show where “extreme,
absurd and terrifying motifs” commingled “in
previously unseen constellations, presenting
art, art history, the world and the individual
from new and provocative perspectives […]
that will shock, stir and surprise.” In that
context, Griggs’s work was perfectly at home.
Andrew Frost

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Installation view of David Griggs’

Studio, Artspace, Sydney, 2018.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND
GAGPROJECTS | GREENAWAY ART
GALLERY, ADELAIDE.

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DEBUTANTES
We look at those artists who gallerists have
thrown their weight behind in 2018/2019 with an
inaugural premiere commercial exhibition.

PORTRAIT: ZAN WIMBERLEY

17 an inseparable connection to her ancestors exhibited at Bundoora Homestead in Victoria,

KATIE WEST
Since her meditative solo project, Decolonist,
developed as part of Melbourne’s Next
Wave Festival for emerging artists in 2016,
Yindjibarndi woman Katie West has been
drawing attention. The 2017 winner of the
Dominik Mersch Gallery / Victorian College
of the Arts Award for her graduate exhibition
muhlu garrwarn / cool time hot time, West was
awarded a solo show with Dominik Mersch
Gallery in 2018 and is on the brink of a very
busy year ahead.
West’s practice encompasses installation
and dyed textiles. Process and outcome form
and speak of a future that demands a renewed
connection to our natural environment.
Her projects include natural dyeing using
traditional methods and native plants;
flowers and bark; instructional texts; and the
construction of reading spaces devoted to
exploring a First Nations understanding of
our world. “I create spaces for meditation,
contemplation and conversation,” says the
artist of her practice.
Refreshingly measured, sensitive and
unafraid to engage with the complexity of
ecological thinking, West’s work unfolds
across a time and space much larger than
a single work or exhibition. Her intelli-
gent approach has struck a chord across
the country – 2019 will see West’s work
TarraWarra Museum of Art as part of the
CLIMARTE festival, and a second outing at
Dominik Mersch Gallery, all by mid-Winter.
These projects will continue to explore
the rift between Western and First Nations
understandings of Country and our role
within it.
“I have been thinking about western units
of measurement and how these conceptions
of space work to make land a blank slate and
commodity,” West says. Projects such as
Mayuwarni and one square metre see the artist
working with one-metre-squared pieces of
yirrarla (calico) and tarp, “imbuing them with
meanings that stem from a sense of custodi-
anship and kinship with the land”.
Kate Britton

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 “I create spaces for meditation,
contemplation and conversation.”
KATIE WEST

Katie West, one square metre, 2018. Plants indigenous to Naarm, 100 x
LEFT:
100cm tarp, wood, dimensions variable. Installation view, Kings Artist Run,
Melbourne, 2018. COURTESY: THE ARTIST. PHOTO: CHRIS BOWES.

BELOW: Katie West, Decolonist, 2016. Naturally dyed silk and thread, eucalypt
leaves, digital video, dimensions variable. Installation view, Next Wave Festival,
West Space, 2016. COURTESY: THE ARTIST. PHOTO: CHRISTO CROCKER.

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18
ROHAN HARTLEY MILLS

Art Collector tracks down Rohan Hartley Mills working on

the wheat harvest on his family’s farm in Western Australia.
It’s a long way from his new studio in Melbourne, and even
further from the 300 works on paper, a selection of which
will be curated into his first solo show at Auckland‘s Two
Rooms Gallery in February. He laughs when asked if he
is seeking artistic inspiration out in the big sky country.
“Well, there is some cross over, I do like the idea of space,”
he tells me. “There is plenty of it here, and I often leave
space on my canvasses.”
Known for his abstract, colourful and seemingly open-
ended works, the works on paper, Mills explains, “were
never intended to be shown. They are part of my studio
process. The paper works are exercises in conceptual devel-
opment, where I work on strategies around composition,
form and colour to build my own language in painting. They
allow me to freely explore anything and everything without
judgment, in order to find new ways of thinking and build a
repertoire of ideas for larger works.”
Two Rooms Gallery Director Jenny Todd, who first saw
Mills’ work five years ago on a university website, clearly
thinks the works should be shown. “I was impressed by the
freshness, currency and spontaneity of Rohan’s work. We
invited him to participate in several group exhibitions of
painting, and his work felt in good company alongside the
artists we represent.”
Mills has since been a finalist in New Zealand’s National
Contemporary Art Award in 2015 and 2016, as well as the
prestigious Wallace Art Award. His paintings have found
homes in a number of private collections in Australia and
New Zealand.
In 2018, Two Rooms presented a selection of work by
Mills at the Auckland Art Fair. “It was very well received by
our clients, curators and critics,” says Todd. “And with his
new body of works on paper, we were excited to offer him
a solo show at the gallery next year.”
Helen McKenzie

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Rohan Hartley Mills, Wall painting, 2016. Acrylic, dimensions variable.

COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND TWO ROOMS, AUCKLAND.

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Marlee McMahon, Inflight Magazine, 2017. Oil and acrylic on
canvas, 72 x 54cm. COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND BOWERBANK
NINOW, AUCKLAND. PHOTO: RUBEN BULL-MILE.
19
MARLEE MCMAHON
Not quite a year since graduating with
an Honours Degree from the Victorian
College of the Arts, Marlee McMahon has
already achieved an early career milestone.
Following on from a string of notable shows
in Melbourne’s artist-run galleries, and with
standout work in her graduate exhibitions,
McMahon has been picked up by leading
Auckland gallery Bowerbank Ninow for her
debut commercial gallery outing in May 2019.
McMahon’s paintings present a kind of visual
conundrum – what at first appear to be formal
abstract compositions soon reveal themselves
to be largely built from graphic elements in
classic video games. McMahon’s interests are
in “the concept of artist as brand, painting
positioned as product and where painting is
situated today”, but for the viewer, the effect
of the work is tantalisingly ambiguous.
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Marlee McMahon, Hot Wheels Highway, 2017. Oil, acrylic, enamel
and resin on canvas, 70 x 61cm. COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND
BOWERBANK NINOW, AUCKLAND. PHOTO: RUBEN BULL-MILE.
“Marlee is tapping into an aesthetic that
deals with the virtual or with late 20th-cen-
tury graphic design,” says gallery co-director
Simon Bowerbank. “She’s also dealing with
abstraction and so there’s an engagement with
that history. It feels like very fresh work, but
it’s also quite nuanced and grounded in an
understanding of what’s come before it.”
With a strong engagement with Melbourne
painting, and with an eye to developing collec-
tor interest in Auckland, Bowerbank sees
McMahon as a natural fit with the gallery and
its existing stable. “We’re interested in being
involved in the careers of young artists who
have the potential to develop a long-term prac-
tice. The level of maturity that Marlee’s work
already displays makes it likely that she is one
of these artists.”
Andrew Frost
 5 0 T H I N G S | D E B U TA N T E S

Marlee McMahon, Hot Towel, 2017. Acrylic on canvas, 66 x 55cm.

COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND WEST SPACE, MELBOURNE. PHOTO: CHRISTO CROCKER.

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20
PETA MINNICI
Peta Minnici has been a stand out student
whist completing her Master of Fine Arts at
the National Art School over the past several
years. In 2015, she won The John Olsen Award
for Figure Drawing, as well as the Parkers Fine
Art Award for Painting, both held at NAS. In
2017 she was also a finalist for the Brett
Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship and has
participated in group shows with Sydney’s
Dominik Mersch Gallery, Manly Art Gallery
and GAFFA Gallery. With a forthcoming solo
exhibition at Sydney’s May Space in 2019, her
subtle yet emotive artworks are sure to garner
even more attention.
Minnici’s tonal still life and figurative
compositions evoke a pensive nostalgia
akin to a faded photo album. Embracing the
traditional medium of drawing, she employs
the painstaking method of cross hatching to
Peta Minnici, Night Lamp, 2018. Oil on linen, 60 x 60cm.
5 0 T H I N G S | D E B U TA N T E S
build up evocative images that shift between
abstraction and realism. In a parallel series Minnici’s tonal still life and
of watercolour and oil paintings, she slowly
builds up her images with layers of translucent figurative compositions evoke
paint. Often drawn from private photographs, a pensive nostalgia akin to a
her works become a subjective recording of
personal memories and past events.
faded photo album.
Describing her current practice, the artist
remarks: “I aim to undo the photographic
representation of each subject into small
brush strokes of tone and colour, imbuing
each image with a sensation associated with
memory. It’s also symbolic in that each mark
creates a recording of what I have seen, heard
and felt. I like to think that my paintings
capture nostalgia with wistful affection and
sometimes cynical humor – without being
too melancholy.”  
Victoria Hynes
Peta Minnici, The Good Glasses, 2018. Oil on linen, 55 x 65cm.
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Peta Minnici, Abbott Lane, 2018. Oil on linen, 120 x 96cm.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND MAY SPACE, SYDNEY.

115
 “Angus is a particularly
thoughtful and engaged young
artist. His intellectual rigour
and commitment to his practice
maintain a deep level of
complexity in the work.”
ALLAN COOLEY

Installation view of Angus Gardner’s Climbing Trees, Gallery 9, Sydney, 2018.

COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND GALLERY 9, SYDNEY. PHOTO: SIMON HEWSON.

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21
ANGUS GARDNER

Angus Gardner’s works possess a bold

simplicity that pulls you towards them. His
ceramics feel accessible, tangible – their
aesthetic ease inviting the kind of interaction
that other artworks typically forbid. “I make
paintings and sculptures about the way we
interact with people and the world around
us,” Gardner explains. “I love using colour and
building forms in a really robust and physical
manner.”
While his works impart an aesthetic
naiveté at first glance, they are brought about
by protracted process, rather than the spon-
taneity they might suggest. His 2018 solo
show at Sydney’s Gallery 9, Climbing Trees,
for instance, developed out of a series of long
trips between the city and the country. As he
describes: “I would go away on the weekend
and immerse myself in the south coast and
then come back to Surry Hills and make work
in the studio.” There is a qualified simplicity
written into these works, nurtured by careful
thoughts rather than careless actions.
It was this thoughtfulness that drew Gallery
9 director, Allan Cooley, to the emerging
talent. “Angus is a particularly thoughtful and
engaged young artist,” Cooley replies when
asked about the work. “His intellectual rigour
and commitment to his practice maintain a
deep level of complexity in the work.” Cooley
believes these qualities will attract collectors
to Gardner’s practice – one that has not only
aesthetic clarity, but also intellectual depth.
Tai Mitsuji

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COLLECTORS
LOVE
Our writers look at the artists
who have caught the attention of
collectors in the past year
and achieved sell-out shows.

PORTRAIT: JACQUIE MANNING

Clara Adolphs, 2018.

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Clara Adolphs, Clouds, Blue, 2018. Oil on poly cotton,
71 x 92cm.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND CHALK HORSE, SYDNEY.
22
CLARA ADOLPHS
Clara Adolphs often bases her paintings
on old photographs and images from
the newspaper but in Too Early to Sleep,
her solo exhibition at Chalk Horse in
Sydney last year, it was holiday snaps.
The centrepiece was a large painting of
the same name. A line dragged through
wet paint marked the crags of a moun-
tain ridge. Below it, patches without any
paint at all told of the bright snow on its
slopes – making Too Early to Sleep feel
like an over-exposed photograph; an
artefact from someone else’s life.
There was a strange, conflicted nostal-
gia to this Sydney exhibition. When
there were figures, Adolphs’ painterly
style rendered them in terms of gesture:
an impatient man turning to the camera,
women wading gingerly into a cold lake.
Again, there was a conscious lack of
detail; we might wonder about the lives
of these strangers, but the limitations
of such thinking turns us towards the
impermanence of our own.
Adolphs has been exhibiting for just
over 10 years and many of her past
series also deal with this need to think
about the past while acknowledging the
fraught nature of the task. Her confident
handling of both medium and subject
matter has earned her a strong follow-
ing, both at home in New South Wales
and further afield. Her first Queensland
solo exhibition was presented by Edwina
Corlette Gallery in 2017 and all 24
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works sold. In late 2017, Adolphs spent
time in Central Queensland as Artspace
Mackay’s artist in residence. The result-
ing exhibition of 14 works, mostly land-
scapes, found homes with “receptive
locals, as well as interstate and interna-
tional collectors who had been following
her practice since the August show”, says
gallery director Edwina Corlette.
It was the same story again at the
Sydney Contemporary art fair in 2018,
where both Edwina Corlette and her
Sydney gallery Chalk Horse took multi-
ple pieces as part of group exhibitions.
Chalk Horse co-director James Kerr
says the advance interest in these works
fuelled the response to Too Early to
Sleep, with all 10 works selling before
the exhibition opened. (One of these
was snapped up by Artbank for its
collection.)
Kerr believes one reason for the
broad interest in her paintings might
be the variety of projects and exhibi-
tion contexts for Adolphs’ work over
recent years, including an exhibition
at the Sydney offices of Clayton Utz,
winning the Eva Breuer Travelling
Art Scholarship in 2017 and the Brett
Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship in
2015. Her work has also appeared in
award exhibitions around the country,
including the Archibald, Portia Geach,
Mosman and Paddington art prizes.
Jane O’Sullivan
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Her first Queensland solo exhibition was

presented by Edwina Corlette Gallery in 2017
and all 24 works sold.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Installation view of Clara Aldophs’ Too Early To Sleep, Chalk
Horse, Sydney, 2018; Clara Adolphs, Mountains, Pines, Swimmers, 2018. Oil on poly
cotton, 137 x 102cm; Clara Adolphs, Slider, 2018. Oil on linen, 102 x 92cm.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND CHALK HORSE, SYDNEY.

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Betty Kuntiwa Pumani, Antara, 2017. Synthetic polymer paint on

linen, 150 x 200cm. COURTESY: THE ARTIST, MIMILI MAKU ARTS, NT
AND ALCASTON GALLERY, MELBOURNE.

23
BETTY KUNTIWA PUMANI
Betty Kuntiwa Pumani paints the landscape
and tjukurpa (Dreaming) of Antara. Located in
Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara  (APY)
lands, north-west of the Mimili community in
South Australia, Antara is a sacred site for the
Anangu people. It is the location of two rock
holes where women perform important song
and dance ceremonies to celebrate the coming
of seasonal rains and the abundant population
of Maku (witchetty grubs) found there.
Winding their way throughout Antara are a
collection of Maku tjukurpa, which Betty was
taught how to paint by her mother, Milatjari
Pumani. Along with her sister, Ngupulya
Pumani, Betty is a custodian of Antara’s
desert Country. Its red boulders feature
heavily in her striking compositions. In
Betty’s paintings, the boulders appear against
pale backgrounds marked with splashes of
intense blue, a technique lending her surfaces
a vibrancy pulsating with life.
Betty comes from a family of celebrated
women artists known for their ability to
depict cultural knowledge through painting.
Beverly Knight, director of Melbourne’s
Alcaston Gallery, describes the captivating
nature of the artist’s work and says: “Betty
loves to paint. The paint and the brush are
her tools to converse and her bold, often very
large canvases command the viewer to look
and be absorbed into her world.”

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“The paint and the brush are

her tools to converse and her
bold, often very large canvases
command the viewer to look and
be absorbed into her world.”
BEVERLY KNIGHT

ABOVE: Betty Kuntiwa Pumani, Antara, 2017. Synthetic

polymer paint on linen, 197 x 197cm.
RIGHT: Betty Kuntiwa Pumani, Antara, 2017. Synthetic
polymer paint on linen, 121 x 185cm
COURTESY: THE ARTIST, MIMILI MAKU ARTS, NT AND
ALCASTON GALLERY, MELBOURNE.

Betty’s paintings are regularly seen on the

art prize circuit and in 2015 and 2016 she
took out the Telstra General Painting Award
at the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Art Awards (NATSIAAs), before
going on to win the 2017 Wynne Prize at
the Art Gallery of New South Wales. 2018
resulted in a sold-out exhibition at Alcaston
Gallery and a Highly Commended in the
Hadley’s Art Prize. As Knight concludes:
“The waiting list for Betty’s work is signifi-
cant but also important is that the conversa-
tion is constant – about her home in the APY
lands and the special site for women she loves
and paints.”
Briony Downes

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24
WILLIAM MACKINNON

2018 has been a bumper year for painter

William Mackinnon, with a sell-out show in
March at Jan Murphy Gallery in Brisbane, a
major solo exhibition at Hugo Michell Gallery
in Adelaide in October and inclusion as a final-
ist in both the 2018 Archibald and Wynne
Prize exhibitions.  Currently based between
Australia and Spain,  Mackinnon’s diverse
painting practice reflects his broad training
and experience as an artist. Over the past
two decades, he has apprenticed with Jeffrey
Smart and Tim Maguire, worked as an intern
at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice,
at Donald Judd’s Chinati Foundation in Texas
and as a field officer for the Papunya Tula
artist cooperative in the Northern Territory.
The result of all this is that his work can vary
from contemporary architectural landscapes
to studio interiors to bristling renditions
of remote desert communities. Whether
depicting alluring coastlines blazing in light
and colour, slightly sinister nocturnes or
lonely roadscapes, there is always a pervading
undercurrent of psychological tension.  
Art dealer Jan Murphy comments: “Will’s
appeal is largely based upon the sense of
familiarity that overwhelms many of us when
we look at his work. Growing up in a country
with such a strong beach culture, the long
narrow tracks winding towards a secluded
beach or the headlights appearing over a
hill on an isolated road are reminiscent of
the driving holidays that so many of us have
taken.”
Hugo Michell adds: “Australian landscape
painting is having a resurgence through a
contemporary lens. Collectors are drawn to
William Mackinnon’s practice because he
reinvigorates familiar nostalgic scenes and
often creates dream-like collages of coastal
and regional Australia. Working in a large
scale allows Mackinnon to be unconventional
in his technique, a quality that contributes to
his reputation as an incredible contemporary
landscape painter.” William Mackinnon, We are in and out of that place again, 2017. Acrylic, oil and automotive enamel on linen, 89 x 65cm.
Victoria Hynes COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND JAN MURPHY GALLERY, BRISBANE. PHOTO: MUCHIGRAPHY.

125
William Mackinnon, The gap, 2017. Acrylic, oil and automotive
enamel on linen, 160 x 130cm.

“Working in a large scale allows

Mackinnon to be unconventional in his
technique, a quality that contributes
to his reputation as an incredible
contemporary landscape painter.”
HUGO MICHELL
William Mackinnon, Sarah’s house, 2017. Acrylic, oil and automotive enamel on linen 160 x 130cm.

ABOVE LEFT: William Mackinnon, The return, 2017. Acrylic, oil and enamel on linen, 120 x 150cm. RIGHT: William Mackinnon, Landscape as self-portrait, 2017. Acrylic, oil and
automotive enamel on linen, 198 x 168cm. COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND JAN MURPHY GALLERY, BRISBANE. PHOTO: MUCHIGRAPHY.

126
 Photograph taken at Cattle Depot
Participating Galleries

# Massimo De Carlo Sean Kelly Nadi Soka Hunsand Space

10 Chancery Lane de Sarthe Tina Keng Nagel Draxler Sprüth Magers Yoshiaki Inoue
303 Gallery Dirimart Kerlin Richard Nagy Starkwhite Johyun
47 Canal du Monde König Galerie Nanzuka STPI Richard Koh
David Kordansky Taro Nasu Sullivan+Strumpf Mind Set
A E Tomio Koyama neugerriemschneider Pifo
Miguel Abreu Eigen + Art Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler nichido T Star
Acquavella Eslite Andrew Kreps Anna Ning Take Ninagawa Yuka Tsuruno
Aike Gallery Exit Krinzinger Franco Noero Tang Watanuki / Toki-no-
Alisan Experimenter Kukje This Is No Fantasy + dianne Wasuremono
Anomaly Selma Feriani kurimanzutto O tanzer Wooson
Antenna Space Fortes D‘Aloia & Gabriel Nathalie Obadia Templon Yamaki
Applicat-Prazan Fox/Jensen L OMR The Third Line
Arario Pearl Lam One and J. TKG+ Discoveries
Alfonso Artiaco G Simon Lee Lorcan O‘Neill Tokyo Gallery + BTAP 1335Mabini
Artinformal Gagosian Leeahn Ora-Ora Tornabuoni A+ Contemporary
Aye Gajah Lehmann Maupin Ota Two Palms Sabrina Amrani
gb agency Lelong Roslyn Oxley9 Christian Andersen
B Gladstone Lévy Gorvy V Capsule
Balice Hertling Gmurzynska Liang P Vadehra Château Shatto
Beijing Art Now Goodman Gallery Lin & Lin P.P.O.W Van de Weghe Commonwealth and Council
Beijing Commune Marian Goodman Lisson Pace Vitamin Crèvecoeur
Bergamin & Gomide Gow Langsford Long March Pace Prints Ghebaly
Bernier/Eliades Bärbel Grässlin Luhring Augustine Paragon W High Art
Blindspot Richard Gray Luxembourg & Dayan Peres Projects Waddington Custot Hopkinson Mossman
Blum & Poe Greene Naftali Perrotin Wentrup hunt kastner
Boers-Li Karsten Greve M Petzel Michael Werner Jhaveri
Tanya Bonakdar Grotto Maggiore Pi Artworks White Cube JTT
Isabella Bortolozzi Magician Space PKM White Space Beijing Maho Kubota
Ben Brown H Mai 36 Plan B Barbara Wien Emanuel Layr
Gavin Brown Hakgojae Edouard Malingue Jocelyn Wolff Michael Lett
Buchholz Hanart TZ Matthew Marks R MadeIn
Hauser & Wirth Mazzoleni Almine Rech Y mor charpentier
C Herald St Fergus McCaffrey Regen Projects Yavuz Nova Contemporary
Gisela Capitain Max Hetzler Greta Meert Nara Roesler Project Native Informant
Cardi Hive Urs Meile ROH Projects Z Société
Carlos/Ishikawa Xavier Hufkens Mendes Wood DM Tyler Rollins Zeno X Tabula Rasa
Chambers kamel mennour Thaddaeus Ropac Zilberman Tarq
Chemould Prescott Road I Metro Pictures Rossi & Rossi David Zwirner Vanguard
Yumiko Chiba Ingleby Meyer Riegger Lia Rumma
Chi-Wen Ink Studio Francesca Minini Insights
Sadie Coles HQ Taka Ishii Victoria Miro S A Thousand Plateaus
Contemporary Fine Arts Mitchell-Innes & Nash SCAI The Bathhouse Asia Art Center
Continua J Mizuma Esther Schipper Bank
Paula Cooper Annely Juda Stuart Shave/Modern Art Rüdiger Schöttle Baton
Pilar Corrias The Modern Institute ShanghART Beyond
Alan Cristea K mother‘s tankstation ShugoArts Dastan‘s Basement
Chantal Crousel Kaikai Kiki Side 2 Don
Kalfayan N Sies + Höke Empty Gallery
D Karma International nächst St. Stephan Silverlens Espace
Thomas Dane Kasmin Rosemarie Schwarzwälder Skarstedt Fost

March 29 – 31, 2019

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Installation view of Linda

Marrinon, Roslyn Oxley9
Gallery, Sydney, 2016.

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NOTABLE
AWARDS
There’s no shortage of prizes,
grants and residencies in Australia and
New Zealand. Our writers round up a few
of the notable winners from 2018.

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25
LINDA MARRINON

The awarding of the second Don Macfarlane

Prize to Melbourne artist Linda Marrinon
is both well-deserved and not unex-
pected. According to his daughter Melissa
Macfarlane, the $50,000 award, which
commemorates the late prominent business-
man and philanthropist, is “for artists who
have taken risks, made breakthroughs and
inspired other artists, and also maintained a
commitment to mentoring others”.
Marrinon, who is represented in most
Australian public art collections, first came
to public notice in the early 1980s, with
paintings that portrayed stark cartoon-like
figures challenging the political and cultural
orthodoxies of the time. For some years she
has focussed on sculpture, mixing technical
expertise with gentle irony and absurdist
jokes. These small painted plaster or exqui-
sitely modelled terracotta figures appear at
first to have been rescued from an earlier age
– perhaps the 18th century – but then there is
always a twist, a visual joke, to take the viewer
forward in time. Marrinon is represented by
Sydney’s Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.
Joanna Mendelssohn

Linda Marrinon, Boullee cenotaph, 2017.

Terracotta, 33 x 25 x 13cm.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND ROSLYN OXLEY9 GALLERY, SYDNEY.

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Alec Baker, Ngura (Country), 2018. Acrylic on linen, 122 x 152cm.

26
COURTESY THE ARTIST AND IWANTJA ARTS, SA AND ALCASTON GALLERY, MELBOURNE.

ALEC BAKER
For Alec Baker, the $50,000 Muswellbrook
Art Prize was “a prize for all the artworks
I have ever made in my career as an artist”.
An Aboriginal man aged 86 from Indulkana
on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara
(APY) Lands, his Ngura (Country) (2017)
was the second Indigenous award winner
since the establishment of the prize in 1958
(the first was Margaret Loy Pula in 2013).
The prize purse also offers significant assis-
tance to his life and family. He thanked the
Muswellbrook Regional Gallery “for seeing
my painting with open eyes for the Country
where I come from”.
Baker’s work stood out for judge Tracey
Cooper-Lavery, who noted, “the patterns
of his Country that come from his mind and
memory, [allow the artist to develop] his own
unique visual language, taking his art from
not only storytelling – but into the realm of
a truly creative and innovative contemporary
Indigenous art practice”.
Past winners of the Muswellbrook Art Prize
include Fred Williams, David Rankin, Mike
Parr, Sydney Ball, Marion Borgelt, Noel
McKenna and Rosemary Valadon.
Louise Martin-Chew

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Natasha Walsh, The cicada, 2018. Oil on copper, 55.5 x 38cm.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND MOSMAN ART PRIZE, SYDNEY.
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27
NATASHA WALSH
In a matter of months, young Sydney painter
Natasha Walsh has scored a trifecta of art
prizes – Newcastle’s Kilgour Prize, the 2018
Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship
and the Mosman Art Prize – with her series
of delicate and wistful self-portraits. Walsh’s
paintings are tiny in scale, yet they demon-
strate enormous sensitivity and quietude.
At 24, she is the youngest artist to win
the Mosman (tying with Margaret Olley in
1947), with an enigmatic portrait painted
on copper. According to Walsh, its title The
cicada symbolises this insect’s associations
with change and rebirth.   The prize, now
valued at $50,000, was judged by artist and
previous winner Cressida Campbell. She
remarked on the Walsh’s entry: “The acutely
observed and delicately painted pale figure
emerging from the copper in her ethereal
clothing is both startingly contemporary and
yet wistfully mysterious at the same time.”
Walsh often chooses unconventional mate-
rials for her figurative paintings. Her winning
work for the Kilgour Prize, Newcastle Art
Gallery’s award for figurative and portrait
painting, was executed on a small chunk
of marble she had lying around the house.
Within the Studio (self-portrait) is a fish eye
lens view of the artist encircled within the
confines of her small studio space.    
The Brett Whiteley Scholarship will see
Walsh taking up a three-month residency at
the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris.  Her
winning body of work included a miniature
self-portrait titled Dear Frida, an arresting
and intimate work that emulates a painting
by one of her artistic heroines, Frida Kahlo.
Guest judge Ben Quilty commented that
her work “has a quiet yet very self-assured
sophistication that belies her youth. The
future of Australian painting is in fine hands!” 
This appears to be a defining moment in
Natasha Walsh’s career, and her work can
only be enriched by this triple win.   
Victoria Hynes
 5 0 T H I N G S | N O T A B L E AWA R D S

Natasha Walsh, Dear Frida, 2018. Oil on

copper, 30 x 25cm.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND AGNSW, SYDNEY.

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28
ANOUSHKA AKEL
New Zealand artist Anoushka Akel speaks of
the $50,000 C Art Trust Award as though it
were a gift from the gods – and in some ways,
it is. As an award that cannot be applied for,
only bestowed upon an outstanding mid-ca-
reer artist, it is something of a unicorn. For
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Anoushka Akel, The skin is faster than the word. Oil and pastel on canvas, 60 x 80cm.
Akel, it meant she could move from her
leaky garage into a functional studio space
and could spend four or five days there a
week.
“Contiguous days have allowed me to
experiment but also pursue more complex
lines of enquiry, something that’s harder
to achieve in normal practice conditions,
balancing art-making with work/life respon-
sibilities,” she tells me.
For a painter who likes to work across
134
multiple works at once, the gift of time
and space is everything. “It’s important for
me to have a large amount of substrates to
be able to work on at the same time… I’ll
re-work one painting, add a ground colour to
another, take a layer off one work, draw onto
another… it’s very active. I’m frequently
moving and often forget to eat!”
The results of this dynamic work environ-
ment are remarkably tender. Akel’s paint-
ings are singular, intimate works that feel as
 5 0 T H I N G S | N O T A B L E AWA R D S

Anoushka Akel, Head, 2018. Acrylic, oil and pastel on canvas, 90 x 60cm. Anoushka Akel, Group, 2018. Acrylic, oil and pastel on canvas, 90 x 60cm.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND HOPKINSON MOSSMAN, AUCKLAND.

though they’ve developed their silky patina
over years of gentle rubbing and caress-
ing, their tactile quality further expressed
through a distinct colour palette “informed
by the body (colours found under or on the
skin), or the light associated with examining
a body in the broader sense.”
Expanding upon her usual methods of
building and removing layers, degrading
and restoring, many of Akel’s recent works
have incorporated the monotype method.
She explains, “One painting acts like a
printing plate, while the other receives the
information.”
In September 2018, Akel exhibited a selec-
tion of these new paintings at Hopkinson
Mossman, Wellington, as part of Tilt with
Ruth Buchanan and Meg Porteous. She
picked up representation with the gallery –
which also has a space in Auckland – soon
after.
Speaking about the works in this show, she
explains how she is “interested in pressures
on and within the body, and with the brain’s
ability to respond in a plastic manner. The
fact that I’m using print (pressure) and paint
(plasticity) perhaps gives them similar char-
acteristics to the human form; they behave
and respond in the same way.”
Building on this group of works, Akel is
currently working towards a solo exhibition
with Hopkinson Mossman in April 2019.
Lucinda Bennett

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Trevor Vickers, 2018.

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UNDER THE
RADAR
Our critics and writers present a selection
of artists with solid practices who are not
getting the attention they deserve.

PORTRAIT: ROBERT FYFE

1
1337
7
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Trevor Vickers, Untitled, 1968. Remade 2017. Synthetic polymer paint

on canvas, 243.8 x 367cm. Collection NGV, Melbourne.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND CHARLES NODRUM GALLERY, MELBOURNE.

29
TREVOR VICKERS
The Field Revisited, held at the National
Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in 2018, marked
the 50th anniversary of its original iteration.
The landmark 1968 exhibition was the first
comprehensive display of colour field paint-
ing and abstract sculpture in Australia, and
the resuscitated show brought to the fore
many curious parallels and evaluations.
Some now very well-established artists –
including Peter Booth, Janet Dawson, Dale
Hickey, Michael Johnson and Sydney Ball
– were brilliant in this early manifestation,
all moving on to develop very different styles
in their subsequent work. A number of
others are best passed over in silence. Trevor
Vickers belongs to a very small number of
artists in The Field who embraced non-figura-
tion and the minimal aesthetics of the colour
field movement and developed it in their
practice over the next five decades.
Although Vickers was born in Adelaide
in 1943, by the age of one his family had
shifted to Perth and this is where he spent the
majority of his life (and continues to live and
work). The critical years for his emergence
as an artist were when he lived in Melbourne
between 1959 and 1972 and settled in
Drummond Street in the inner Melbourne
suburb of Carlton. Here, he lived and worked
with a group of emerging artists including
Robert Hunter, Paul Partos, Guy Stuart and
Mike Brown. These artists formed the core
exhibiting at Bruce Pollard’s Pinacotheca
Gallery, which became a focus for conceptual
and post-object art.
Vickers thrived in this milieu and made
decisions as an artist that were to define his
work for the rest of his life. His art was to be
hard-edge geometric abstraction within the
general gambit of minimalism, but possessing

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Trevor Vickers, Unititled, 2018. Acrylic on canvas, 96 x 106cm.
a lyrical and spiritual dimension. An Australia
Council Creative Fellowship awarded in 1978
took him to England, where he settled in
Brighton and remained until 1995. Here, he
produced his Catalan series of shaped paint-
ings and the much-celebrated Farm Road
series of screen-prints.
On returning to Australia, Vickers settled
in Perth and has been widely exhibited on the
5 0 T H I NG S | U N DE R T H E R A DA R
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND ART COLLECTIVE WA, PERTH.
east coast as well as in Western Australia. He
is represented in most of the major state and
national art collections. Vickers is a unique
talent who demonstrates a very refined sensi-
bility, a rich and subtle command of colour
and work with a considerable spiritual ambi-
ence. Despite the exhibitions, his location in
Perth has meant that his art has been gener-
ally neglected outside the west of the country.
139
As Kate Nodrum, manager of Vickers’
Melbourne representing gallery Charles
Nordrum Gallery puts it: “At 75, he’s a
master of his craft, and shamefully underval-
ued. It’s one of those situations where, if he’s
not given more of the sort of attention that
he merits, we’re going to be celebrating his
achievements far too long after he’s gone.”
Sasha Grishin

Marie Shannon, Pussy, 2016. Archival inkjet print, edition of 5, 80.3 x 96.7cm.
30
MARIE SHANNON
Spend enough time in a Marie Shannon exhi-
bition and I guarantee you will either laugh
or cry. One of my favourite art encounters
in recent memory had me letting out a loud,
involuntary cackle in an otherwise silent
gallery upon encountering one of Shannon’s
1990s text works – the one which describes
a dream she had  about eating a hotdog and
getting mustard on the white bits of her part-
ner’s Christian Dior polo. I often find myself
referring to her works in this way, describing
them as though they are episodes of Friends
– The One With The Cat Fur, The One With
The Sculpture Made Out Of Margarine, The
One Where Marie Dresses Up As A Rat. There
is always a whiff of narrative about her works,
a single photograph spooling out to suggest a
story, to somehow convey the tone of a whole
life lived up until and after that frame.
Shannon has the delightful ability to recog-
nise those ordinary objects and moments that
make up a life, and to capture them in a way
that feels neither too offhand or too senti-
mental. However, in using her everyday life
as material, her work is often heart-rending.
5 0 T H I NG S | U N DE R T H E R A DA R
Over the course of a practice spanning more
than 35 years, audiences have been privy
to love notes written in the wavering hand
of her small son and the similarly childlike
script of her partner (photographed with as
much solemnity as any museum collection
item); personal faxes from her partner, the
late artist Julian Dashper, while on residency
in Germany; and her own thought processes
as she catalogues the contents of Dashper’s
studio following his death.
Her recent survey exhibition, Rooms found
only in the home, developed by Dunedin
Public Art Gallery in 2017 and currently
touring New Zealand, held as much sadness
as it did humour. But it was also an exhibition
that showcased Shannon’s dexterity across
photography, text, drawing and moving
image, and her ability to blur the edges of
these forms: a photograph is also a text, a
text is a scrolling video. It was an exhibition
that caused many to wonder how on earth it
hadn’t been done before, and why it wasn’t
bigger – such is the significance of Shannon
in the national photography canon.
Since opening Rooms found only in the
home (which will tour to Auckland in 2019),
Shannon has mounted a solo exhibition with
Trish Clark Gallery, where she showed a body
of moving image works developed over the last Marie Shannon, Across the Water, 1988.
Silver gelatin print, selenium and gold
eight years, including three new video works. toned, edition of 20, 20 x 25cm.
In 2019, Shannon will travel to Whanganui as COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND
the Tylee Cottage Artist-In-Residence. TRISH CLARK GALLERY, AUCKLAND.
Lucinda Bennett
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31
DEBRA DAWES
Debra Dawes describes her public career as an
artist as “ebbs and flows”. Which gives an indi-
cation of the difference between the way an
artist works, and the way her work is known.
Dawes has always been aware that the act
of painting is the making of a mark; placing
presence on what was once a blank canvas. It
reminds me of Tony Tuckson’s comment on
his drawing being “up and down, across and
back”. Everything comes back to basics. Her
recent survey exhibitions at Wollongong Art
Gallery and Tamworth Regional Gallery show
the underlying human scale of all her work,
and the marks she makes.
Dawes’ early paintings were precise gridded
abstracts, works of exquisite beauty. There
5 0 T H I NG S | U N DE R T H E R A DA R
is a delightful meditative splendour to these
paintings from the last years of the old century
and the first years of the new. In more recent
years, changes in life and circumstance have
triggered a reconsideration of the marks that
measure life. The most significant of these
was a move to the country. She now works
in an environment governed by the moods of
the changing light of the day, instead of being
constrained by academic timetables and
committee meetings. The view from her bush
studio reveals the ever-changing hills of the
distant New England ranges. The dominant
mood is transience.
She is still very much a maker of marks,
but most recently they are more painterly,
142
with variations on shades of grey as blacks
are covered in veils of white. There is a sense
of both mystery and urgency, an end result
of her technique. At the edge of all these
recent paintings, there is a hint of what has
gone before – an intense under painting
of magenta or orange. Over this pristine
intensely coloured canvas, Dawes paints a
series of rapid, energetic strokes in black.
Then, while the paint is still wet, she layers
over this, veils of translucent white paint.
The intensity of the process gives this series,
rightly called Unspoken, a sense of immedi-
acy. Yet they also convey a yearning, a desire
to see what may lie behind the veil.
Joanna Mendelssohn
 5 0 T H I NG S | U N DE R T H E R A DA R

In recent years, changes in life and

circumstance have triggered a reconsideration
of the marks that measure life.

ABOVE:Installation view of Debra Dawes’ Measure,

Tamworth Regional Gallery, Tamworth, 2017.
PHOTO: LOU FARINA. COURTESY: THE ARTIST.

Debra Dawes, Unspoken #3, 2017. Oil on canvas,

260 x 180cm. PHOTO: BERNIE FISCHER. Debra Dawes, Unspoken #4, 2017. Oil on canvas, 260 x 180cm. PHOTO: BERNIE FISCHER.

143

Christopher Hodges, Under the Radar, 2017. Synthetic polymer on polyester, 183 x 183cm.
32
CHRISTOPHER HODGES
For close to 30 years, Christopher Hodges
has been the director of Utopia Art Sydney,
exhibiting the work of Indigenous artists
including Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Gloria
Petyarre and Turkey Tolson, alongside
non-Indigenous artists such as John R.
Walker, Marea Gazzard and Simryn Gill.
Under Hodges’ careful watch, the gallery
and its artists have prospered, their work
collected into just about every major collec-
tion in the country.
Yet despite this success, or perhaps because
5 0 T H I NG S | U N DE R T H E R A DA R
Christopher Hodges, Milk and Honey, 2018. Synthetic polymer on polyester, 183 x 183cm.
of it, Hodges’ own career as an artist has often
been overlooked. Hodges work, a dazzling,
painterly minimalism of bold, interlocking
shapes, curvaceous lines, and flowing, wave-
form sculptures, isn’t nearly as well-known
publicly as many of Utopia’s other artists.
Would he prefer to only be an artist? “I am an
artist,” he says.  “I only started representing
other artists out of their need. That I manage
to run a successful gallery is probably because
I have always approached it from an artist’s
perspective.”
144
Given everything he knows now, what
would he advise other artists to do if they
started a gallery? “It’s a  very  hard gig; it’s
tough emotionally and financially. When we
started our first principle was when you sell
something, pay the artist straight away. That’s
certainly still good advice.  And you need to
participate in the art community, be active,
and play a part. Don’t take on artists you don’t
believe in and stick by the ones you do. Do this
and you will soon find out if you’re an artist!”
Andrew Frost
 5 0 T H I NG S | U N DE R T H E R A DA R

Christopher Hodges, Iris, 2018. Synthetic polymer on polyester, 183 x 183cm. Christopher Hodges, HIT, 2018. Synthetic polymer on polyester, 196 x 196cm.

Christopher Hodges, Nothing Nothing, 2018. Synthetic polymer on polyester, 183 x 366cm.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND UTOPIA ART SYDNEY, SYDNEY.

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33
TARRYN GILL
Tarryn Gill is a creative shape-shifter who cut
her teeth working across photography, video,
dance and theatre. While these modes are still
part of her oeuvre, since 2014 she has devel-
oped a sculptural focus that invests handcrafted
objects with the pageantry of her earlier practice.
Gill is building an immersive dream
world populated by enigmatic beings who
lure and menace. This space functions as
an intermediary between the personal and
5 0 T H I NG S | U N DE R T H E R A DA R
the collective, conscious and unconscious,
contemporary and ancient, high and low.
Psychoanalytic themes play an important
role. Having already worked in response to
Sigmund Freud’s collection of antiquities,
she now draws from Carl Jung’s mysticism,
finding an apt motif in the archetype of The
Trickster, that ambivalent figure whose play-
fulness slides into mischief and malice.
This is the perfect reference point for
Gill’s theatricality and dark humour. While
her painstakingly crafted sculptures cite the
sacred canon of ancient and funerary art, she
undermines the enduring solemnity of stone
and bronze by reimagining these forms as
146
Tarryn Gill, Belly of the Beast (Contortionist 1), 2018.
Mixed media, 60 x 105 x 12cm.
squishy, sparkly, hairy monsters. It’s as if the
Elgin Marbles were reimagined by Jim Henson in
collaboration with a Vegas show girl. As Freud
noted, and Gill is all too aware, jokes are a serious
business, allowing the expression of impulses
otherwise repressed in the unconscious.
With achievements including the 2007 Basil
Sellers Art Prize (with Pilar Mata Dupont),
2016 Bankwest Art Prize, numerous interna-
tional residencies and exhibitions, and recent
shows with Sophie Gannon Gallery, Hugo
Michell Gallery and the Adelaide Biennial
of Australian Art, Gill is poised to seize the
spotlight.
Thea Costantino
 5 0 T H I NG S | U N DE R T H E R A DA R

Tarryn Gill, Belly of the Beast (Gold Mask),

2018. Mixed media, 95 x 95 x 11cm.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND SOPHIE
GANNON GALLERY, MELBOURNE.

147
 COMING SOON…

ON THE COVER: Marjory Accoom, Puunya: Hand Woven Baskets, 2017. Acrylic on canvas.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND LOCKHART RIVER ART CENTRE. PHOTO: MICHAEL MARZIC.
THE 2019 GUIDE TO
INDIGENOUS ART CENTRES

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 5 0 T H I N G S | S TA N D O U T S H OW S

Installation view of Tony Albert: Visible, QAGOMA, Brisbane, 2018.

COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND QAGOMA, BRISBANE. PHOTO: JOE RUCKLI.

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STANDOUT
SHOWS
While there was no shortage of strong commercial and public
exhibitions across the region in 2018, our writers present some
of the shows that really got tongues wagging.

34
TONY ALBERT: VISIBLE
Queensland Art Gallery &
Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane
By anyone’s measure, Tony Albert’s Queensland
Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA)
survey Visible was a 2018 standout. Albert’s
first solo, major gallery show, and the young-
est artist (alongside Fiona Foley) to be given
such a platform by QAGOMA, Visible ticked
all the usual success boxes: enormous repeat
visitation, sell-out public programs and the
creation of a number of new and commissioned
works, several of which were acquired by the
gallery. But to measure the show’s success in
metrics alone is to seriously short-change the
profound impact of Visible for visitors and
collaborators.
Tamsin Cull, QAGOMA’s head of public
engagement who worked with Albert on
the coinciding 10th commission for the
Children’s Art Centre, observes: “The thing
about Tony that makes him such an extraordi-
nary artist is the way that his work is simulta-
neously confronting and hard-hitting. It pulls
no punches, but at the same time, it brings
people together; it’s inclusive for the audi-
ence. His work makes people feel like they
want to participate, and I think it’s an extraor-
dinary thing that he’s been able to achieve,
while not watering down his message.”
Visible incorporated all aspects of Albert’s
practice, which is, he says, “fundamentally a
response to popular culture misrepresenta-
tions of Australia’s First Peoples”. A central
part of the exhibition was the display of his
huge collection of kitsch, not-even-thinly-
veiled racist Aboriginalia; some 3,000 objects
he started collecting as a child.

151
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ABOVE AND RIGHT: Installation views of Tony Albert:

Visible, QAGOMA, Brisbane, 2018. COURTESY: THE ARTIST
AND QAGOMA, BRISBANE. PHOTO: JOE RUCKLI.

Says QAGOMA’s Indigenous Australian art

curator, Bruce Johnson Mclean: “There were
so many people in the space going up to the
wall and identifying with objects; objects
they’d had in their own families, and there
were so many stories throughout the exhibi-
tion about these familiar objects. By having
that wall in the space and allowing people to
interact in that way, it gave visitors an invi-
tation into Tony’s work and into the narra-
tives that he’s talking about. People really
connected with it on a personal level, which
is why it was so affecting.”
Jo Higgins

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35
ANNE FERRAN:
WHITE AGAINST RED
Sutton Gallery, Melbourne

As you entered the space of Sutton Gallery in

Melbourne to see Anne Ferran’s latest exhi-
bition, White Against Red, you encountered
six striking, large-scale photographs printed
on fabric and hung away from the wall like
flags. Accompanying these works were a
series of five wall-mounted ceramic plates
with silkscreened line drawings and a folio
of photographs, accessible only by private
appointment.
At almost 70 years of age, Ferran has been
exhibiting regularly since the 1980s and is
one of Australia’s foremost artists, known for
her large-scale photographs exploring themes
of childbirth, motherhood, madness, ageing,
female relationships and representations of
femininity. Yet Ferran has (perhaps unsur-
prisingly) often been overlooked in favour of
her male peers.
Ferran has long been fascinated with the
physical and societal structures that constrict
and confine women. Over the past decade,
she has investigated histories of female incar-
ceration in prisons, asylums, hospitals and
nurseries. Her previous exhibition at Sutton
took as point of reference archival photos
of female patients in a psychiatric ward.
This latest exhibition was born of a resi-
dency the artist undertook on the island of
Suomenlinna, Finland, continuing her engage-
ment with the archive, history and memory.
Now a tourist attraction, Suomenlinna was a Anne Ferran, White against red 5, 2018. Digital print on
maritime fortress and military base from the canvas, edition of 3, 250 x 150cm.
mid-1700s.

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 5 0 T H I N G S | S TA N D O U T S H OW S

The exhibition continued Ferran’s explo-

ABOVE AND RIGHT: Anne Ferran, Open Book, 2018. 16 pigment
prints, edition of 4 + 2 AP, 65 x 50cm.
ration of performers grappling with reams
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND SUTTON GALLERY, MELBOURNE. of coloured felt. Ferran collaborated with
70-year-old Finnish dancer and choreogra-
pher Ervi Sirén for the series. In the works,
Sirén’s face and body are visible, her fiery
red hair vibrant against the subtle grey back-
ground. She moves in front of the camera,
naked and veiled in folds of red, blue and white
felt: twisting, wrapping, enfolding herself in
the swathes of fabric, in a play with invisibil-
ity and anonymity. Visually, the images are
reminiscent of Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty
Leading the People (1830).
It is not often that we see the beauty of the
aged female form, wrinkles and all. Ferran’s
photographs offer a celebration of feminine
grace, dignity and wisdom. Visually stunning
and emotionally powerful, this cinematic
series of photographs is Ferran’s work at its
best.
Laura Couttie

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Installation view of Anne Ferran’s White Against Red,

Sutton Gallery, Melbourne. 2018. PHOTO: ANDREW CURTIS.

It is not often that we see the

beauty of the aged female
form, wrinkles and all. Ferran’s
photographs offer a celebration of
feminine grace, dignity
and wisdom.

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36
KATE SCARDIFIELD:
SOFT TOPOLOGIES
UTS Galleries, Sydney

Each time I visited Kate Scardifield’s Soft

Topologies at UTS Galleries, I was met with
a subtly different scene. At first, fabrics were
draped, folded, pinned and slumped across a
series of surfaces and supports. Bright orange
nylon – the kind used for storm sails – were
accordion-pleated and positioned as a double
fan. Translucent and iridescent fabrics
twisted gently around one another, pinned
to a wall. A selection of textiles and objects
were being tested: their limits and potentials
analysed and documented. A long wall was
taped out as a giant cutting mat, establish-
ing the gallery as a space for measuring, and
importantly, for working.
The second time I entered the space,
everything had shifted. A bronze forearm,
previously demure on the plinth, was now
suspended at eye-height by slender ropes. On
another visit, a length of black sailcloth was
stretched out diagonally with ropes through
eyelets, its crisp chevron pleats expanding
like lungs.
A vitrine near the entrance housed parts of
a 19th-century telescope, and their presence
confirms Soft Topologies as a site for experi-
mentation and observation. Scardifield inves-
tigated her materials with a series of collabo-
rators – including a sail maker, a percussionist
and an architect – during in-gallery sessions.
Each collaborator brought personal and
professional idiosyncrasies to the task,
revealing new possibilities for the materials.
On my final visit, tape had been ripped
from the wall and hung in dense, sticky glob-
ules. A textile mountain cascaded onto the
plinth. The bronze hand reached out from
underneath the scene – in death throes or in
invitation? – I could not be sure. It felt like
the ultimate crescendo: the dramatic climax
to an experimental score that will linger long Installation view of Kate Scardifield‘s Soft Topologies, UTS Gallery, Sydney, 2018. From The
Working Sessions, Session 3, Kate Scardifield with percussionist Laurence Pike.
after the doors close. COURTESY THE ARTIST. PHOTO: ROBIN HEARFIELD.
Rebecca Gallo

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157
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5 0 T H I N G S | S TA N D O U T S H OW S

A long wall was taped out as a

giant cutting mat, establishing the
gallery as a space for measuring, and
importantly, for working.

OPPOSITE PAGE: Installation view of

Kate Scardifield‘s Soft Topologies,
UTS Gallery, Sydney, 2018.
COURTESY THE ARTIST AND UTS
GALLERY, SYDNEY. PHOTO: JESSICA
MAURER.
LEFT: Kate Scardifield , Soft
Topology, 2018. Accordion pleated
spinnaker cloth, sail battens, 110 x
300cm.
BELOW: Installation view of Kate
Scardifield‘s Soft Topologies, UTS
Gallery, Sydney, 2018. From The
Working Sessions, Session 3, Kate
Scardifield with percussionist
Laurence Pike.
COURTESY THE ARTIST. PHOTO:
ROBIN HEARFIELD.

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 5 0 T H I N G S | S TA N D O U T S H OW S
37
GROUP EXHIBITION:
SHEER FANTASY
Campbelltown Arts Centre,
Campbelltown
The role of fantasy in our lives is inher-
ently contradictory. Daydreaming can be a
source of benign pleasure, a disconnection
from reality, or a pathological symptom of
a psychotic break. Sheer Fantasy, the knock-
out show curated by artist David Capra at
Campbelltown Arts Centre, considers this
contradiction with both artistic courage and
genuine humanity. Fantasy is not just an
abstract conceptual theme in Capra’s cura-
torial hands; it’s explored as an existential
condition – simultaneously life-sustaining
and psychologically threatening – that we
need to confront.
Sheer Fantasy was therefore less a series of
artworks and more a complex set of immer-
sive psychological spaces that the audience
was forced to navigate both externally and
internally. A fiercely ambitious project, it
took Capra on perhaps one of the strangest
curatorial trips in the name of research: from
160
a visit to the sites where the film Vertigo
was shot, to a dance class with an actor who
played one of the Munchkins in The Wizard
of Oz.
Capra also extended himself both through
his iconoclastic choice of artists (including
ex-Hitchcock ingénue Kim Novak) and his
exceptional generosity in fostering support-
ive, creative relationships. This allowed the
artists to realise their own sheer fantasies
outside the normative limits of a conven-
tional exhibition.
The result was spectacular: an art show that
animated what is simultaneously wonderful
and dreadful about the imaginative possi-
bilities of the human psyche. It stands as a
powerful reminder for contemporary art
audiences of the need to constantly challenge
our preconceived ideas of what art and life
can be.
Carrie Miller
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The result was

spectacular: an art show
that animated what is
simultaneously wonderful
and dreadful about the
imaginative possibilities of
the human psyche.

THIS PAGE AND PREVIOUS PAGE: Installation

views of Sheer Fantasy, Campbelltown Arts
Centre, Campbelltown, 2018.
COURTESY: THE ARTISTS AND CAMPBELLTOWN
ARTS CENTRE, CAMPBELLTOWN.
PHOTO: DOCUMENT PHOTOGRAPHY.

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163
 50 THINGS | REMARKABLE COLLECTORS

R EMARKABLE
COLLECTORS
The local collectors and philanthropists doing significant things for the region.

Lorraine Tarabay and Nick Langley in front of a wall work

by Christophe Gaignon. PHOTO: JACQUIE MANNING.

164
5 0 T H5 I0NTGH
S I |N R
G ES M| ARREKMAABRLKE ACBO
L LE LCE O
C LT LOERCST O R S

165 165
166
 38
LORRAINE TARABAY
AND NICK LANGLEY

“We don’t shy away from political pieces,”

says collector Lorraine Tarabay in front of a
tall, undulating sculpture by Beijing artist Xu
Qu. It’s made from North Korean bank notes.
Upstairs in the family room, a sequence of
photographs documents Andy Warhol and
Marta Minujin as they repay the Argentine
national debt in corn. Apart from being a
witty comment on contemporary family life
(because what is family if not negotiation), it’s
a sign of what underpins the collection that
Tarabay and her partner Nick Langley have
built over more than two decades: a belief in
the power of art to engage with difficult ideas
and break down barriers.
Their collection is international, with
Australian artists placed alongside their
overseas peers. Just past the Xu Qu, a Lindy
Lee sits near works by Fu Xiaotong and Iván
Navarro. Upstairs, two Danie Mellor works
showing creeks (“upstream and downstream,”
Tarabay says) are hung near a Hiroshi Sengu
waterfall. Nearby, an Imants Tillers diptych
opens up a conversation about Indigenous
culture and legacy with a vast, textured canvas
by Moroccan artist Yasmina Alaoui.
On the stairs, there’s an immense George
Condo, one of his man-woman mash-ups,
and below it a spin painting by Damien
Hirst. There are also works by Joan Miró,
Brett Whiteley, Alexander Calder and Jean-
Michel Basquiat, alongside a more than a few
recent additions, including an outdoor sculp-
ture by Jamie North, which have been made
since the couple took on the Point Piper home
overlooking Sydney harbour a few years ago.

Lorraine Tarabay in front of Imants Tillers’

Is Something Missing, 2016. Right wall:
Yasmina Alaoui, Blue, Green & Purple.
PHOTO: JACQUIE MANNING.

167

Tarabay’s professional background in the
male-dominated industry of investment
banking has left its mark. The living room is
flanked by two John Baldessari works from
his Movie Stills and Miro series – she laughs
when she recounts how a friend dubbed them
her #MeToo moment. A reading nook nearby
is watched over by a Cindy Sherman, and
around the home there are works by Sanné
Mestrom, Elizabeth Turk, Kristina Riska
and Malaluba Gumana. Tarabay worked
it out recently and says more than half the
collection is by female artists.
For both Tarabay and Langley (the founder
of Rare Infrastructure) art has been a way
of staying connected with the world despite
busy careers. Tarabay speaks quietly about a
Belinda Fox ceramic tucked into the corner
50 THINGS | REMARKABLE COLLECTORS
of the study. A recent work from Fox’s Tilt ABOVE: Lorraine Tarabay and Nick
Langley in front of Marta Minujin’s
series, the vessel is painted a high-vis orange Payment of the Argentine Foreign Debt
on the inside, like the orange of a life vest. to Andy Warhol with Corn, the Latin
Tarabay runs a finger around it as she talks American Gold, 1985/2011.
about refugees and what she’s learned since RIGHT: Jacob Hashimoto, The Earliest
Memories of the Universe, 2015.
becoming involved with the Australian Red
PHOTO: JACQUIE MANNING.
Cross’ Society of Women Leaders.
Tarabay is also on the board of Sydney’s Studio
A (read more on page 184) and Museum of
Contemporary Art (MCA). Both she and Langley
sit on the council of the MCA Foundation, which
secures philanthropic support for new works for
the museum’s collection. The couple’s commit-
ment to seeing Australian artists in an interna-
tional context has also led them to support the
Biennale of Sydney and Australia’s participation
in the Venice Biennale.
Jane O’Sullivan
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169
 39
SANDRA POWELL
AND ANDREW KING

It’s enough to make the conservative art

collector shudder.  In 2014, Melbourne
couple Andrew King and Sandra Powell
sold their extensive collection of more than
90 Australian modernist paintings by the
likes of Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker, Brett
Whiteley, Joy Hester and Clarice Beckett
to focus on collecting contemporary street
art.  So enamoured are they by the Melbourne
street art movement that they have even given
their new artistic pursuits a novel name: the
Sandrew collection. 
Over the past decade, the pair has devoted
themselves to the patronage of this populist
art movement, even curating national and
international exhibitions. Their St Kilda home
is already an advertisement of their ambi-
tions; the sprawling historic villa features
wall-to-wall murals by local players such as
Adnate, Ian Strange and stencil artist Vexta.  
King and Powell’s enthusiasm for young
Australian street artists such as Rone, Lush,
Lister, Adnate, Reka and HA-HA is bound-
less and infectious. Not known in the main-
stream art world, they are young heroes of
the lively Melbourne street art scene.  
“Despite living in Melbourne – one of the
world’s urban art capitals – street and graffiti
art only seriously came to my attention one
propitious day in London around 10  years
ago, when  I casually happened upon two
books,” remarks King. “One was by Banksy
and one by Blek le Rat. I was immediately
struck by the power of their social commen-
tary, artistry and derring-do. Their work
exemplifies the  libertarianism and anti-au-
thoritarianism that is at the heart of this genre
of art – the antithesis of the snobbishness and
arrogant elitism that stultifies much of the art
establishment.”

Sandra Powell and Andrew King in front of a wall of works

by Banksy. PHOTO: ZAN WIMBERLEY.

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50 THINGS | REMARKABLE COLLECTORS

Top row: Bansky’s Napalm, Bad Meaning Good,

Gangster Rat, Monkey Queen and Very Little Helps
Middle row: Bansky’s Toxic Mary, Girl With
Balloon, Love Is In The Air, and Any Person Found
Bottom row: Bansky’s Happy Chopper, Choose
Your Weapon and Morons

171
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50 THINGS | REMARKABLE COLLECTORS

“It surely cannot be too much

longer before the major
institutions finally recognise
that street art is the largest,
most diverse art movement ever,
and that it is woefully under-
represented in their collections.”
ANDREW KING

“We started to seek out Australian street

artists and, after meeting many of them,
realised that they were undervalued for their
contribution to the art world,” adds Powell.
“Pretty much every street artist I have met
has a quality about their personality that I
really admire. They value public space and
believe in giving their art to the city, outside
the traditional art world. After many years
of being underrated, street artists are now
earning their rightful acclaim and I love being
part of the street art family.”
King and Powell now own more than 2,000
works from the early 2000s to the current day
by important Australian and international
street artists. With some of their small pieces
purchased for hundreds of dollars, large
works can move into the tens of thousands.
Among their remarkable collection are major
works international art stars such as Banksy,
Shepard Fairey, Barry McGee, Swoon and
Ron English.

OPPOSITE PAGE TOP: Installation: Junky Projects, Caravan

of Hope. Works on the wall by Swoon (left and front right)
and Vhils (back right).
OPPOSITE PAGE BOTTOM: Left wall: Angela Brennan, Every
Morning I Wake Up On The Wrong Side Of Capitalism.
Right wall: Kid Zoom, Skull.
THIS PAGE:Sandra Powell and Andrew King in front of work
by Kid Zoom.
PHOTO: ZAN WIMBERLEY.

173
 50 THINGS | REMARKABLE COLLECTORS

ABOVE: In the hallway from

According to the duo, they have shifted
far left: Dabs Myla, All Good
from being passive spectators of art to Things All The Time (top)
active participants of a burgeoning and and New Round (bottom);
Shepard Fairey, Tree Huggers;
vital art scene. Their role goes beyond Adnate, The Taking of Banksy.
collecting, to facilitating and promoting In enclave: Shepard Fairey, Ali
artists – which can extend to entertaining, (top), John and Yoko (bottom).
Telephone sculpture by Olek.
cooking for and housing young artists, In living room: Barry McGee,
many of whom have become good friends. Untitled. House sculpture:
While some artists might have initially GOONHUGS, Heidelberg West.
Pillow sculpture: Alex Seton,
been wary of the couple’s motives, there is A Young Man’s Dream.
now a great respect for their commitment.
LEFT:Woman behind table:
So, what does this enterprising pair see Swoon’s CAIRO. Sculpture
as the future of street art in this country? works on table by Lush.
“Thanks to the current mural and street PHOTO: ZAN WIMBERLEY.
art festival scene, many artists are now
so busy they are knocking projects back
or are booked a year or more ahead,” says
Powell. “It is great to see artists making a
good living from their art. That is the most
important and satisfying aspect.”
King concludes: “It surely cannot be
too much longer before the major insti-
tutions finally recognise that street art is
the largest, most diverse art movement
ever, and that it is woefully under-repre-
sented in their collections. And that the
tsunami of the movement, and its legions
of hip young followers, is unstoppable.
What’s wrong with an art movement
that’s popular?”
Victoria Hynes

174
27 – 31
March 2019
First Night 26 March
Central Harbourfront
Hong Kong
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BOOK TICKETS IN ADVANCE AND SAVE 預訂門票 盡享優惠

ARTCENTRALHONGKONG.COM
5 0 T H I NG S | AGE N DA S E T T E R S

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 5 0 T H I NG S | AGE N DA S E T T E R S

AGEN DA
SET TERS
We look at the curators, directors and artists set
to influence the region in the year to come.

PORTRAIT: SAUL STEED

40
RHANA DEVENPORT

Rhana Devenport has big shoes to fill as
the new director of the Art Gallery of South
Australia (AGSA), following on from Nick
Mitzevich’s eight-year reign. But with experi-
ence at New Plymouth’s Govett-Brewster Art
Gallery and the Auckland Art Gallery in New
Zealand, as well as working on QAGOMA’s
Asia Pacific Triennial for many years, she no
doubt brings a fresh perspective to the almost
140-year-old institution. Devenport’s key
focus going into her new role? Expanding the
international conversation.
“We will see international artists shown
here that have not been seen much in
Australia, particularly artists that have never
been seen in Adelaide,” says Devenport of the
forthcoming program. “It’s about the conver-
sations and connections; about how artists
from abroad can inspire and open our possi-
bilities of what practice could be through
fresh eyes and through fresh investigations. I
think it’s healthy for Adelaide to be part of a
national and international art ecology.”
While Devenport has worked on many
group exhibitions, she is interested in more
in-depth investigations into artists’ practices
– similar to the Ben Quilty exhibition AGSA
has scheduled for March 2019 as part of the
Adelaide Festival. Devenport suggests there
will be many more exhibitions like this in the
future and it won’t be overrun with interna-
tional artists.

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 5 0 T H I NG S | AGE N DA S E T T E R S
Ben Quilty, Omid Masoumali, 2016. Oil on linen, 130 x 110cm.
PHOTO: BRENTON MCGEACHIE.
AGSA already holds the Ramsay Art
Prize, the Adelaide Biennial of Art and
TARNANTHI, which all feature local and
national artists. “I will be setting up inter-
sections in the program that make the most
sense, that are most useful. I am very big on
the usefulness of a collection and the useful-
ness of exhibitions,” says Devenport.
If the gallery features international artists,
it will be about broadening horizons rather
than flying in and flying out. “Exhibitions
have to have resonance and echo effect,”
claims Devenport. “I’m already looking at
collections in Adelaide – looking at how they
have relationships with artists who have come
here – and how that has expanded the think-
ing for collectors here and across the country.
It makes for an interesting dynamic.”
178
Ben Quilty, Omid Ali Avaz, 2016. Oil on linen, 130 x 110cm.
PHOTO: BRENTON MCGEACHIE.
While AGSA already has some impressive
New Zealand artists in its collection such
as Francis Hodgkins and Colin McCahon,
Devenport suggests that there are others
that locals and visitors to Adelaide need to
know about. On the radar are artists Simon
Denny, Michael Stevenson and Luke Willis
Thompson.
Interestingly, many of these artists don’t
live in New Zealand and it’s this fluidity that
interests Devenport. “These artists aren’t
connected and restrained by national bound-
aries. I think now – at a time when artists and
the citizens of the world are moving across
countries and home is something variant and
adapted – they are thinking very differently
about Nationhood.”
Jane Llewellyn
5 0 T H I NG S | AGE N DA S E T T E R S

Opening of the TARNANTHI Festival of

Contemporary Aboriginal & Torres Strait
Islander Art, AGSA, Adelaide, 2018.
COURTESY: AGSA, ADELAIDE.
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Brook Andrew.
COURTESY: ROSLYN OXLEY9 GALLERY,
SYDNEY. PHOTO: TRENT WALTER.

180
 5 0 T H I NG S | AGE N DA S E T T E R S
“I think collectors need to
look outside the general
lens of what is collectable,
and start looking at other
sites around the globe.”
BROOK ANDREW
41
BROOK ANDREW
When I first reach out to Brook Andrew
for an interview he is in Haiti. By the
time that we talk, 24 hours later, he
has already moved on to New York. By
all accounts, this geographical flux is a
permanent condition for the artistic
director of the forthcoming Biennale of
Sydney, who is travelling far and wide in
his search for art.
“It’s been pretty full steam ahead
because we want to announce [the
selected artists] in March or April some
time,” he says. Indeed, it soon becomes
clear that Andrew’s own artistic practice
will inform his administration of the
event – and does, in fact, influence the
fervour of his current activities. “Being
an artist myself, I know how important
that [lead-in time] is,” he explains. “I’ve
had experiences in the past where bien-
nales or other big important exhibitions
will contact me, like, five months before-
hand, and it’s just not enough time.”
Andrew’s frenzied activities now pave
the way for calmer Biennale art-making
in the not-so-distant future.
But where will the artist steer the
181
next Biennale of Sydney? According to
Andrew, this iteration shall attempt to
present a different kind of event. “The
Biennale’s theme is around the idea of
the edge, and it is looking at the contin-
ual dilemma of the centre of the art
world being Europe, or the West,” he
confides. “I’m not looking for famous
artists; I’m looking at artists who have a
focus that is very strong.”
For Andrew, the edge is an elastic
concept that both encompasses the
cultures of the underappreciated Pacific
region, and other cultures and artistic
practices that stray from the historical
nuclei of the art world. Indeed, although
Andrew’s position is one that often has
been used to both respond to and define
art in Australia, he sees it as moving
beyond these strictures. “I think that
‘art’ is a constructed term and is quite
limited within its interpretation of what
art is,” he explains. “I think collectors
need to look outside the general lens of
what is collectable, and start looking at
other sites around the globe.”
Tai Mitsuji

42
NICK MITZEVICH
When I speak to Nick Mitzevich, it’s offi-
cially his 107th day as the National Gallery
of Australia (NGA)’s newest director. In
that time, he’s visited most of the country’s
capital cities, the East Arnhem Land commu-
nity of Ramingining, London and Paris. He’s
also developed a Monet exhibition with
Paris’ Musée Marmottan Monet that will
open in June 2019; started work on a signif-
icant re-hang of the gallery’s Australian and
Asian art collections; and begun develop-
ment towards a major 200-year survey of
5 0 T H I NG S | AGE N DA S E T T E R S
ABOVE: Urs Fischer, Francesco, 2017. PHOTO: STEFAN ALTENBURGER.
Indigenous art that will open in 2020 before
touring to Asia. And that’s just for starters.
After eight successful years at the helm of
the Art Gallery of South Australia, Mitzevich
is exhilarated by the opportunities this new
role affords him. “I think having the respon-
sibility for a national collection goes beyond
geographical boundaries, moves beyond any
geographical location that you’re servic-
ing,” he says. “It makes you rethink how
you can help people have access to art… I
suppose one of my big goals is to make sure
182
LEFT: Nick Mitzevich, 2018.
that art has a presence in our general life in
Australia. That it’s not a footnote; that art is
an integrated, accepted part of our day-to-
day living.”
For Mitzevich, that means energising a
three-fold strategy – onsite, online and on
tour – but it also means taking a bold approach
to new acquisitions. Works by acclaimed
international artists Yayoi Kusama and Urs
Fischer are just two recent purchases and
for Mitzevich, it was the gallery’s founding
director James Mollison “who set the tone
 5 0 T H I NG S | AGE N DA S E T T E R S

Melati Suryodarmo, Transaction of hollows, 2018. Proposed acquisition, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
COURTESY: THE ARTISTS AND NGA, CANBERRA.

“Watch what we’re

of what progressive collecting was about.
The works he collected during his tenure
[among them, Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles
and Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly series] were
bold and brave acquisitions that now write
art history… I want to be inspired by that
courage. So, watch what we’re collecting
– because if history’s any guide, our collec-
tions will define art history.”
Beyond the already announced program
for 2019, Mitzevich can’t yet say which
artists he’s working with. But he does reflect
collecting – because if
that, while the NGA’s focus is not on “break- history’s any guide, our
through artists” and that its mandate is to
collect the finest examples of an artist’s
collections will define
practice, “I think it’s important that our art history.”
exhibitions in the future focus on what I NICK MITZEVICH
call ‘primary research’. [That is] artists that
haven’t had an exhibition or that don’t have
a significant body of work behind them. [I
hope that] their presence here will elevate
their profile and the appreciation of their
work. I think that’s important.”
Jo Higgins

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43
GABRIELLE MORDY

Gabrielle Mordy has the kind of academic

pedigree and accomplishments that would
open up any number of prestigious profes-
sional opportunities in the arts. She holds a
Masters of Fine Art, a First Class Honours
degree in Anthropology and has been the
recipient of a Churchill Scholarship, an
Australia Council Career Development
Award and a Curatorial Mentorship Initiative
award from the National Association for the
Visual Arts.
But her career path to date is less well-worn
than trailblazing. Mordy has distinguished
herself as a genuine innovator in the rapidly
expanding disability arts sector in Australia
through her integral involvement in the
creative and professional development of
Studio A. Based on the “supported studio”
model that promotes the rights of people with
disabilities to be afforded the same choices
and opportunities to pursue a career in the
arts as their “mainstream” counterparts,
Studio A is now a thriving social enterprise
supporting a group of resident artists in the
exhibition and sale of work.
As CEO and artistic director, Mordy’s rare
combination of intellectual rigour, advocacy
skills and entreprenurial savvy brings a
sophisticated professional skill set necessary
to the ambitious project of challenging long-
held cultural assumptions and institutional
practices that marginalise artists with intel-
lectual disabilities based on the prejudice of
reduced expectations.
Perhaps most importantly, Mordy brings
a passion and a joy to what she does. Her
charismatic presence is particularly captivat-
ing in the context of the sometimes-chaotic
creative energy that animates Studio A as
both a literal and metaphorical space. There
is no better indication of this than the fact
that Thom Roberts, one of Studio A’s most
charming and talented artists, has renamed
her “Kylie Madonna”. While Roberts is in
the regular habit of anointing people with
Gabrielle Mordy.
monikers, Mordy’s is a clear indication of her
COURTESY: CITY OF SYDNEY.
special star power. PHOTO: KATHERINE GRIFFITHS.
Carrie Miller

184
 5 0 T H I NG S | AGE N DA S E T T E R S

Emily Crockford working on a mural for Westpac Concord West, Sydney, 2018. PHOTO: MAMIE CHEN.

Performance documentation of Thom Roberts’ Couple Crowns, Studio A, Sydney, 2018. Mathew Calandra, Chicken Lady (Emily), 2018. Acrylic and ink on canvas, 45.5 x 45.5cm.
COURTESY: THE ARTISTS AND STUDIO A, SYDNEY.

185
 5 0 T H I N G S | TA S T E M A K E R S

Sophia Cai and Rosie, 2017.

186
 5 0 T H I N G S | TA S T E M A K E R S

TASTE
MAKERS
The young curators and directors deserving
of your attention in the year ahead.

PORTRAIT: PIA JOHNSON

187
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44
SOPHIA CAI

When she is not meeting with arts reading

circle Monograph, eating dumplings with
Melbourne Artists and Friends of Asian
Persuasion, undertaking board duties for
Runway Experimental Art, or working her
day job at the Australian Tapestry Workshop,
Sophia Cai has been building a reputation as
an intelligent, thoughtful and playful writer
and curator. When asked to summarise her
interests, Cai cites “Asian art history, inter-
sections between craft and contemporary
art, feminist methodologies and communi-
ty-based work”.
Cai approaches exhibition making with
generosity and openness. Although she has
a Masters in Art History, she is determined
to make exhibitions that do not presume
prior knowledge. Her projects range from
a joyous exhibition about our relationships
with dogs at Casula Powerhouse, Sydney, to
a powerful critique of stereotypes of Asian
women at Metro Arts, Brisbane. Another of
Cai’s passions is breaking down the art/craft
divide, which she sees as informed by “gender
[and] unrecognised work that was tradition-
ally female”.
We speak a week out from the opening
of Lucky?, co-curated with Claire Watson
at Bundoora Homestead Art Centre. Lucky?
examines Australia’s colonial and gold mining
histories, finding points of intersection and
overlap that question the Australian dream.
It will be Cai’s second curatorial project at
Bundoora, following Closing the Distance
(2017), which brought the likes of Lindy
Lee and Guan Wei together with emerg-
ing Chinese-Australian artists “to generate
cross-generational discourse”.
Cai’s curatorial independence is at once
liberating and precarious: it allows her to pick
and choose projects, working directly with
artists to shape exhibitions collaboratively. Association and a writing project that TOP:Installation view of No Woman Is An Island, Blindside
But it also means working long, often unpaid explores the intersection of knitting, writing Gallery, Melbourne, 2017. PHOTO: NICK JAMES ARCHER.
hours. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a forthcoming and art. Cai continues to embrace an eclectic ABOVE: Installation view of Floor Plan, c3 contemporary
art space, Melbourne, 2018. PHOTO: JANELLE LOW.
project For Love or Money, presented at Town range of interests, finding ways to draw them
PREVIOUS PAGE: Installation view of Some Words are
Hall Gallery in Hawthorn, will address artistic together into projects that are collaborative, Just between us, Firstdraft, Sydney, 2016. PHOTO: ZAN
labour and economies. Also in the works is a inclusive and insightful. WIMBERLEY.

curatorial project for the Australian Ceramics Rebecca Gallo

188
 5 0 T H I N G S | TA S T E M A K E R S

45 Ursula Christel and

Jacob Rāniera in front
JACOB RĀNIERA of Roman Mitch’s Girls!
Hit Your Hallelujah,
Mokopōpaki, Auckland,
2018. PHOTO: SAIT
AKKIRMAN.
Jacob Rāniera is an associate director and
front person of Mokopōpaki, a small dealer
gallery on Karangahape Road in Auckland.
Named after his Māori grandfather,
Mokopōpaki is unusual in that the walls and
ceiling in the more formal back gallery are
brown and deliberately kept so – while those
in the front introductory space are grey and
blue.
Rāniera comes from a background in
architecture and art, as well as work in
commercial galleries. A confident talker,
through kōrero (a conversation, discussion or
meeting) he emphasises the first person-plu-
ral pronoun, a signal that, rather than indi-
cating a royal Eurocentric prerogative, he is
a representative and spokesperson of many
others and their communities with whom
he has constant dialogue. At the time of
writing, since March 2017 when it opened,
Mokopōpaki has presented 14 shows. The
venue itself is alcohol free. Tea and cake
provide an alternative.
Rāniera’s interest in promoting a Māori
sensibility is expressed through the exhibition
space rather than artist identity. He also flies
the flag for conceptual art (literally: a gallery
flag hangs in the street above the entrance
when the venue is open), and curiously, folk
art and found objects. Ongoing conversations
he has with friends like established artists,
Billy Apple and p. mule, and emerging artists
such as Yllwbro, Ursula Christel, A.A.M. Bos,
Carole Prentice, PĀNiA!, John Hodgson and
Roman Mitch, feed into the gallery overview
and art practice, while a distinct political
agenda provides the narrow – but welcoming
– space with a culturally loaded colour code.
Rāniera’s te reo (Māori language) presen-
tations –  of himself and other artists, often
collectives, often with pseudonyms, often
unknown, showing a range of ages, that
include friends and whanau (extended family
or community) –  fill the walls. Emotional
bonds, loyalties and trust play a key role. His
critique of the traditional white cube gallery
at Mokopōpaki, in the specific context of
Aotearoa, is refreshingly audacious.
John Hurrell

189
5 0 T H I N G S | TA S T E M A K E R S

190
 5 0 T H I N G S | TA S T E M A K E R S

His critique of the traditional white cube gallery at Mokopōpaki,

in the specific context of Aotearoa, is refreshingly audacious.

LEFT:Installation view of Ursula Christel’s Mother Love: He Oha nā ABOVE: Installation view of Te Pou Wiini Atu: First Past the Post, Mokopōpaki,
Te Whaea, Mokopōpaki, Auckland, 2018. PHOTO: AREKAHĀNARA. Auckland, 2017. PHOTO: AREKAHĀNARA. COURTESY: MOKOPŌPAKI, AUCKLAND.

191
 5 0 T H I N G S | TA S T E M A K E R S

46
LIZ NOWELL

Since the experimental and contemporary art

gallery ACE Open began nearly two years ago,
CEO and curator Liz Nowell has driven an
impressive program of diverse and ambitious
exhibitions and projects that have pushed the
boundaries of contemporary art.
“For us it’s really about propelling the
careers of South Australian artists and also
exhibiting, commissioning and supporting
work by national and international artists,”
says Nowell of the gallery’s approach. “We
try to find a balance and offer unparalleled
opportunities for South Australian artists.”
Notable exhibitions to date include Waqt
al-tagheer: Time of change, the first exhibition
by eleven, a collective of Muslim Australian
contemporary art practitioners. “It was a
really significant show, I believe history will
show that. It was the first time there was such
a strong display of solidarity with Australian
Muslim artists,” says Nowell.
Another highlight is Gerry Wedd’s SONGS
FOR A ROOM, which embodies what ACE
Open is all about. Nowell says: “Pushing
Wedd outside his comfort zone and being
able to realise something really ambitious was
a rewarding experience for me personally as
a curator.”
Nowell will continue to drive a dynamic
program in 2019 and beyond. The first exhi-
bition for the year is Sally Smart’s The Violet
Ballet, a large-scale immersive installation
where Smart is reimagining Chout (Tale of the
Buffoon) – the macabre and visually complex
show by the Ballet Russes – through video,
performance, dance and her textile fabric ambitious works by South Australian artists. TOP: Liz Nowell. PHOTO: JESSICA CLARK.
assemblages. “Part of our vision is to propel the careers ABOVE: Installation view of Waqt al-tagheer Time of
change, ACE Open, Adelaide, 2018.
Hossein Valamanesh will be the next ACE of South Australian artists and position them PHOTO: SAM ROBERTS.
South Australian Artist Commission and also in a national dialogue,” concludes Nowell. “It’s RIGHT: Gerry Wedd, SONGS FOR A ROOM, 2018, detail.
on the cards is the 2020 South Australian about giving them the opportunity to think Glazed ceramic, dimensions variable.
PHOTO: SAM ROBERTS.
Artists Survey, the largest exhibition held to big and have their work presented within an
COURTESY: THE ARTISTS AND ACE OPEN, ADELAIDE.
date, which will involve working with a curator institutional context.”
to commission large-scale, long-lead-time, Jane Llewellyn

192
5 0 T H I N G S | TA S T E M A K E R S

193
 5 0 T H I N G S | TA S T E M A K E R S

Myles Russell-Cook inside the

Colony: Frontier Wars exhibition
space, NGV, Melbourne, 2018.
PHOTO: EUGENE HYLAND.

194

47
MYLES RUSSELL-COOK
Curator of Indigenous Art at National Gallery
of Victoria (NGV), Aboriginal man Myles
Russell-Cook is not afraid to push the bound-
aries. There’s a movement happening at art
galleries and museums; a change in curatorial
practice to acknowledge the colonial legacy of
such places. Russell-Cook, formerly a lecturer
at Swinburne University, has demonstrated
during the NGV’s curation of the major exhi-
bition Colony: Frontier Wars that he belongs
firmly within that movement.
A striking experience in the exhibition
– encouraging the viewer to stop and think
about traditional curatorial and collecting
5 0 T H I N G S | TA S T E M A K E R S
practice – was at the heart of one of the larger
rooms. On a vast plinth was a pile of carved
objects; artefacts from the gallery’s Aboriginal
collection, the usual “Artist Unknown”
designations on the labels changed to “Once
Known”. These artists were known when
the art was collected, but the collecting indi-
viduals and institutions did not record this
information.
The curation of this display was a radical
act, but Russell-Cook insists it was not overtly
political. “I do not wish to take ownership
over the idea because the fact is many, many
Aboriginal people have been saying this exact
195
Installation view of Colony: Frontier Wars,
NGV, Melbourne, 2018. PHOTO: TOM ROSS.
COURTESY: NGV, MELBOURNE.
same thing for years,” he tells me. “This was
about showing respect to the Elders in my life
who have consistently educated me about the
damage staying silent can have”. Regardless of
the intent, “Once Known” makes a powerful
socio-political statement.
It can be expected that Russell-Cook will
continue to make challenging decisions in
his curatorial practice. With his input, the
NGV is working to strengthen its program so
that people can “come and see new things,
be challenged in new ways, and share in the
incredible collection”.
Claire G. Coleman
 5 0 T H I N G S | TA S T E M A K E R S

Isobel Parker Philip, 2018.

PHOTO: LIZ HAM.

Installation view of Hold still: the photographic performance, AGNSW, Sydney, 2018. PHOTO: MIM STIRLING .

48
ISOBEL PARKER PHILIP

Isobel Parker Philip doesn’t see her art writing

and curatorial practice as separate things. For
her, both ways of thinking are about using
metaphor and allegory to make associations
and open up the reading of art in new and
surprising ways. In an exhibition context, that
might mean placing objects so that visitors can
unfurl connections for themselves. In her cata-
logue essays, it could mean weaving personal
stories and theory into something much more
lyrical than the standard discussion of the art Installation view of Pat Brassington: the body electric, AGNSW, Sydney, 2018. PHOTO: FELICITY JENKINS.
COURTESY: AGNSW, SYDNEY.
object. Which is to say, she doesn’t seem very
interested in traditional art world conventions.
When asked about her interests, Parker Philip “Photography is such a slippery medium. For the past year, Parker Philip has also
rattles off a long list including photography, On the one hand it’s a means of document- been working as co-curator of The National,
film, architecture and dance. ing, recording and mark-making. But it’s an exhibition presenting contemporary
She joined the Art Gallery of New South also inherently connected to the absence of Australian artists working in any medium. The
Wales (AGNSW) in 2014, shortly after grad- an object,” she says. “A lot of my curatorial role has involved travel, and studio visits and,
uating, and is now the curator of photography. interests have been a sustained investigation perhaps unsurprisingly, she has relished the
Her early exhibition projects showed her into what the photographic medium is, what wide research. The exhibition opens across
boundary-defying approach; placing photo- it can do, and how we relate to it.” With the Sydney in late March 2019, and further major
graphs alongside surface imprints and cast ubiquity of photography in contemporary life, exhibitions and longform writing projects are
objects in Imprint, and exploring the limits of she argues these questions have become more planned for 2020.
photographic representation in New Matter. important than ever. Jane O’Sullivan

196
artmonthsydney.com.au
#artmonthsydney
 50 THINGS | ZEITGEIST

ZEITGEIST
These people are defining us and determining
how we live with art now.

The entrance to the Museum of Old and New Art

(MONA), Hobart. PHOTO: RÉMI CHAUVIN.

199

49
THE RISE OF THE ÜBER
COLLECTOR IN AUSTRALIA
There is a tiny island off the mainland of Japan,
in the Seto Inland Sea, that draws thousands
of travellers to its remote shores every year.
Neither its sleepy fishing community nor
its stunning vistas prompt this pilgrimage –
rather the international crowds make the long
journey to see an entirely different spectacle:
art. Under any other circumstances it is doubt-
ful that I would know the name of the island of
Naoshima, yet the presence of other names –
Yayoi Kusama, James Turrell, Claude Monet
50 THINGS | ZEITGEIST
and Walter de Maria, among others – has
made it more than just a dot on a map. Cycling
around the island, one is constantly struck by
the transformative power of art, and its ability
to animate even the most secluded of commu-
nities. Indeed, it reminds me of another island,
a little bit closer to home, also south of a
mainland and also a place of art: Tasmania’s
Museum of Old and New Art (MONA).
David Walsh’s MONA is a thought-experi-
ment that has found its place in reality. Like
Naoshima, it represents not only the power of
art, but also the determination of its founders.
While Australia has always had a list of well-
known patrons, who consistently buttress the
art world, über collectors such as Walsh appear
to strain the very seams of this category.
200
Installation view of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Pulse
Room and Erwin Wurm‘s Fat Car, MONA, Hobart.
PHOTO: JESSE HUNNIFORD.
In order to build MONA, Walsh reportedly
originally spent a not-so-small fortune of $75
million. Yet this princely sum is dwarfed by the
billions of dollars that have been filtered into the
local economy since the museum’s foundations
were laid down. This phenomenon has come to
be known within the common parlance as “the
MONA effect”. A 2017 report by economist Saul
Eslake described the upswing in tourism to
Tasmania which saw “[the] total visitor numbers
rising by more than 48 per cent over the five
years to 2016–17 to more than 1¼ million”.
The report suggests what one is already able
to intuit: namely, that tourism in Hobart has,
at least in part, been spurred on by MONA. But
Walsh is concerned with more than just filling
local coffers with international money. In his

Installation view of James Turrell’s Unseen Seen, 2017, MONA, Hobart. PHOTO: JESSE HUNNIFORD.
book The Making of MONA, Adrian Franklin
recalls broaching the subject of the museum’s
impact with Walsh, who responded that “he’d
close MONA if it were playing only to the usual
crowd”. According to Franklin, what mattered
to the museum’s eccentric founder most was
connecting the institution “with people from
places like Glenorchy, where he grew up.”
While Walsh is, by all accounts, singular
in his vision for MONA, he is not alone in his
broader efforts. Other philanthropists, such as
the  Zimbabwe-born art collector and billion-
aire Judith Neilson, have made their own
indelible marks on the cultural landscape, in
other parts of the country. Since the opening of
her White Rabbit Gallery, Neilson has become
a permanent fixture of Sydney’s inner-city
50 THINGS | ZEITGEIST
COURTESY: THE ARTISTS AND MONA, HOBART.
suburb of Chippendale. And, by all accounts,
her cultural footprint will not be limited to the
gallery of contemporary Chinese art.
It was recently reported that Neilson has
spent somewhere in the vicinity of $100 million
on real estate in the area – even outstripping
Walsh’s initial investment in MONA – in an
effort to stoke the cultural efflorescence that
has taken hold of Chippendale. Of course, this
has not been in one fell swoop but has devel-
oped over time, as Neilson’s vision has incre-
mentally found a home in the old warehouses
that are scattered throughout the suburb.
Nonetheless, the scale of such numbers
almost makes one forget the very thing
that these philanthropists are attempting to
promote: the art. On the one hand, it feels
201
perverse to describe art in terms of its ability
to stimulate economic growth. But, on the
other, these are the concerns that increasingly
surround the production and display of art
today. Given this reality, one is tempted to ask
how you find these über collectors who have
such a profound effect on our cultural ecosys-
tems? And how you attract them to your island?
No answer immediately springs to mind.
In fact, one gets the sense that these philan-
thropists are more akin to a force majeure –
some cyclone that sweeps through a region
rearranging both its cultural and economic
topographies – than a predictable phenome-
non. But where most hurricanes wreak havoc
and take from us, these storms give back.
Tai Mitsuji

50
GENDER DIVERSITY:
SPENCE MESSIH AND EO GILL
In recent times, there has been increased
international discussion of gender diversity
in the media and visual arts, with a growing
presence of artists working in this area
represented in Biennales and institutional
shows. Spence Messih and EO Gill are two
Sydney-based artists working in this realm.
They are part of a dynamic generation of
multi-disciplinary artists at the forefront of
50 THINGS | ZEITGEIST
Spence Messih, PRELUDE, 2018. Steel, 220 x 950 x 700cm.
contemporary Australian practice, creat-
ing work that at its core examines gender
informed by trans, non-binary or non-con-
forming identity.
Messih works across sculpture, installation,
photography and text. Their practice speaks
broadly to sites of pressure, power struc-
tures, materiality and language, and more
specifically about these things in relation to
their trans experience. The recipient of the
2017 Freedman Foundation Scholarship,
they have exhibited widely in spaces ranging
from artist-run galleries to large-scale insti-
tutions. Their work was recently included
in the 2018 Primavera at Sydney’s Museum
of Contemporary Art, an annual exhibition
that has showcased the best Australian artists
aged under 35 for more than two decades.
Gill is also an artist on the rise. They were
202
COURTESY: ARTIST. PHOTO: CHRISTO CROCKER.
the recipient of the 2018 NSW Emerging
Visual Artist Fellowship – an equally signif-
icant accolade with a storied history. Their
focus is on the production of moving-im-
age work and installation that interrogates
gender, class-politics, queer subjecthood and
ways of seeing.
Like most artists working with identity in
contemporary practice, Messih and Gill both
grapple with the balance of how much their
work is informed by their identity, or indeed,
how focused on identity their work is. There
exists an inherent responsibility between
representing group identity, but also individ-
ual artistic expression. Their work is imbued
with the personal but can be read in the larger
context of the struggle for gender autonomy
and self-determination. Messih addresses this
complexity in stating that “while my identity
 50 THINGS | ZEITGEIST

(and all that entails) is inseparable from my

practice, I’m interested in remaining complex “While my identity (and all that entails) is inseparable
and complicated – to remain more than
singular”. from my practice, I’m interested in remaining complex and
“My identity is intrinsic to my practice,” complicated – to remain more than singular.”
Gill adds. “My practice directly interro- SPENCE MESSIH
gates gender identity and class politics and
my experiences of surgery and chemical
intervention with relation to the body”. Gill
describes their work as being influenced by
a diverse range of practitioners, ranging from
filmmakers Toshio Matsumoto and Kenneth
Anger to Andy Warhol, with a focus on the
nexus of documentary and avant-garde prac-
tices. They create filmic works by conceiv-
ing loose plots and working with friends
and family, depicting dreamlike figures and
characters who are in excess of a biopolitical
system that cannot hold them.
In the past few years, Messih, Gill and
other artists working with these rich,
complex and diverse themes have started to
garner significant institutional attention for
their work. What is interesting about the
rise in this visibility is the problematic poli-
tics of an industry framing it as a moment of
“newness” – as if this area of identity had not
ever been embodied. And this poses an inher-
ent danger: if this momentum doesn’t lead to
institutional change and acceptance of these
divergent viewpoints, then these voices will
once again be silenced.
Both Gill and Messih are quick to point out
that this recent attention has been more a
shift in focus as opposed to a new phenom-
enon. The central concerns of their practices Production still of EO Gill’s Physical. HD video, stereo sound, 20min.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST.
and identities were always there, it’s just that
larger society and the art world were not
paying attention. They both acknowledge the positioning the institution as emblematic What is exciting about the output of
long history of artists before them and the of a society that still marginalises people of Messih, Gill and their contemporaries is the
need to not wholesale welcome institutional diverse genders regardless of their new-found sense of urgency in their work; a mixture
attention as a prompt for blind acceptance. visibility. of beauty forged in the deeply personal and
“We have always had to create spaces “The motivations behind institutions the drive of the political. An antidote to
for our existence,” states Messih. “Trans, showing trans, non-binary and gender diverse trends in Australian contemporary art that
non-binary and gender diverse people are people need to be cautiously interrogated,” try to mimic European and North American
not new realities, we have always existed and Messih warns. “Is it to fulfil diversity quotas, aesthetics without any of the substance,
made work.” Gill agrees: “There has been an or to rightfully and genuinely platform trans these artists are making work about some-
increase in institutions choosing to give plat- and gender diverse people? Are trans people thing. About something significant. About
forms and opportunities to gender-diverse feeling more empowered to exist in these societal change and identity. They have
people over the past few years. But that isn’t spaces? Are institutions safer? Are more chosen to do so on their terms, as the exist-
to say that gender diverse people haven’t trans peoples’ practices being supported and ing rules inherently cannot facilitate this
always been there, living and making work.” nurtured over time that they are rightfully change. They are a vanguard that hopefully
Both artists are also cautious at this showing in these contexts? These are only a will break down barriers permanently. They
new-found exposure for artists working in handful of factors that could be potentially at remain complex and simplistic simultane-
this way. Inherent in their practice and the play to account for this rise – all I know is ously. Suspicious and defiant, fuelled by the
way they interact with institutions is an that in participating in these spaces, one has possibility of change.
overarching element of institutional critique; to remain suspicious and defiant.” Sebastian Goldspink

203
 1Oth ANNIVERSARY

AUSTRALIA’S PREMIER INDIGENOUS ART FAIR

12 – 14 July 2O19
Opening night 11 July
ciaf.com.au
Join us to celebrate CIAF’s 1Oth
Anniversary and experience the
vibrant cultures and artistic wealth
of Queensland Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Peoples through an
impressive three day program of art,
dance, music, talks and workshops.
2O19 CIAF Events
• Art Fair • Art Market
• Opening Night (Ticketed)
• Fashion Performance (Ticketed)
• Cultural Heights Choir Performance
(Ticketed)
• Art Symposium
• Daily Music and Cultural Dance
Performances
• Art Workshops and Demonstrations
• Artists Talks • Satellite Exhibitions
• Children’s Activities and Workshops

Photographs: Kerry Trapnell Photography,

Lovegreen Photography, Blueclick Photography, Matt Mallett.

This project is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland’s Backing Indigenous Arts initiative, which aims to build a stronger, more sustainable and ethical Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander arts industry in the State.

Cairns Indigenous Art Fair Limited is assisted by the Australian Government Supported through the Australian Government’s Daisy Hamlot, Gudar Acrylic on canvas
through the Australia Council, It’s arts funding and advisory body. Indigenous Visual Arts Industry Support Programme.
 6 – 24 February
Rowena Boyd
Waves of Honey and
Other People’s Houses
27 February – 17 March Dorothy GABORI Stone Fishtraps 91.5 x 122cmAcrylic on Canvas
Kira Godoroja-Prieckaerts,
Isabelle Mackay-Sim and
Elise Stanley
Embodied experiences
20 March – 7 April
Michelle Day
What Remains
Phone: 0418224953
Email: miart@morningtonisland.com.au
1 Rosevear Place Dickson ACT Facebook: www.facebook.com/morningtonisland/
www.anca.net.au
Image: Michelle Day Disturbed Air – installation (detail) salt, Perspex, paper, stainless steel, paint and LED
lights, dimensions variable.
 ART COLLECTOR

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 REVIEWS

ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Our writers review the shows that caught their attention in the last quarter… in 35 words or less.

Daniel Boyd: Rainbow Serpent

20 October – 10 November 2018
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney

For many artists, the

pursuit of perfection is
learnt in the brain and
Group exhibition: honed by the hands; but
Supernatural Daniel Boyd’s Rainbow
7 September 2018 – Serpent makes clear that
3 February 2019 magic happens only when
White Rabbit Gallery, it comes from the heart.
Sydney
MICHEAL DO

Supernatural Installation view of Daniel Boyd’s Rainbow

Serpent, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, 2018.
collapses the COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND ROSLYN OXLEY9

past, present, GALLERY, SYDNEY.

and future into a

singularity, which
both mesmerizes
and horrifies.
TAI MITSUJI
Li Shan, Deviation, 2017. Cast
silicone, plastic, synthetic fibres,
paint, 10 pieces, dimensions
variable. COURTESY: THE ARTIST
AND WHITE RABBIT GALLERY,
SYDNEY. PHOTO: ELIN BANDMANN.
Jess Bradford: An Image of a Tiger
17 October – 11 November 2018
Galerie pompom, Sydney
Jess Bradford, Haw Par Villa #7 (Rhino), 2018.
Pastel and liquid pencil on primed aluminium sheet
on top of bisque fired porcelain, 9 x 17 x 10cm.
COURTESY: THE ARTIST AND GALERIE POMPOM,
SYDNEY. PHOTO: DOCQMENT.
A wavy-edged table curved like a river –
punctuated by jagged ceramic mountains and
palm-size scenes from a Singaporean theme
park – draws out the complex interconnections
of memory, place and cultural identity.
REBECCA GALLO

208
 A.A
The Unbearable Weight Of Things That are Lost
31 January – 23 February 2019
Dumber, 2017, concrete, plaster, paint, wax, found objects, 164 x 38 x 25 cm

7 JAMES STREET, WINDSOR www.marsgallery.com.au

NYAPANYAPA
YUNUPINGU

Nyapanyapa Yunupingu, Untitled (detail), natural earth pigments on bark, 223 x 95 cm

24 JANUARY - 9 FEBRUARY 2019

Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery
www.roslynoxley9.com.au
8 Soudan Lane, Paddington NSW 2021