The Medium is the Message
Chris Bond | Eolo Paul Bottaro | Juan Ford | Sam Leach | Amanda Marburg | Victoria Reichelt
LUMA | La Trobe University Museum of Art
Curated by Michael Brennan
Exhibition Dates: 30 April – 27 June 2020
Image credit: Amanda Marburg, 17, 2013, oil on linen, 80cm x 100cm, image courtesy of the artist and Sutton Gallery
About the Exhibition
The death of painting has been declared – again and again – for the better part of two centuries. Photography did it. There was no longer a need to labour with pigment and brushes when a more faithful representation could be achieved with the press of a button. Of course, they were wrong. The demise of painting was a mistruth – a furphy. But as with any aspersion, spread the word often enough and the smear will leave a stain – maybe even in the minds of the most ardent of devotees.
One of the prevailing and more celebrated paradigms in contemporary figurative painting is the emulation of the photograph. Fidelity to appearance has re-emerged as a favoured means of capturing a subject in much contemporary painting. But that’s not the full extent of it either. Amongst those working in this space there is a subset of artists whose subject matter is the stuff of the work itself. The object depicted is the medium.
The Medium is the Message brings together the work of six important contemporary artists who, through their individual painting practices, reflect on the state and relevance of painting today through depictions of the medium itself and other aspects of the canon. The artists represented in this exhibition include Amanda Marburg, Chris Bond, Eolo Paul Bottaro, Juan Ford, Sam Leach and Victoria Reichelt.
LUMA | La Trobe University Museum of Art, La Trobe University, Ground floor, Glenn College, Bundoora Campus
Website: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/luma/exhibitions/
Opening Hours: Mon – Fri, 10am – 5pm.
Free admission.