Category: Sydney Events

Paul Jaskot | A Plan, A Testimony, and A Digital Map: Analyzing the Architecture of the Holocaust | University of Sydney

A Plan, A Testimony, and A Digital Map: Analyzing the Architecture of the Holocaust The Power Institute and the Sydney Digital Humanities Research Group are pleased to present a lecture by Paul Jaskot, Professor of Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Duke University. Taking an architectural plan and a specific survivor testimony as examples, Jaskot’s lecture will explore how recent methods in the Digital Humanities–particularly digital mapping–can be used to investigate plans and testimonies to raise new questions about the spatial and historical significance of the Holocaust. About the Lecture  The Holocaust was a profoundly spatial experience that involved not only the movement of millions of European Jews but also their confinement and murder in sites specifically built for the genocide. Paul Jaskot’s talk addresses how perpetrators thought of their building projects and, conversely, how victims experienced these oppressive spaces. Analyzing the architecture of the…

Keir Lectures on Art | The Limits of Globalisation in Art History – James Elkins | Sydney

The Power Institute with Sydney Ideas is pleased to present a lecture by James Elkins, Professor Art History, Theory and Criticism, and Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Elkins is the third speaker in our Keir Lectures on Art series. ABSTRACT | This lecture is not concerned with global art per se, but with the global writing of art history. Current initiatives supporting the international practice of art history, such as the Clark Art Institute’s Mellon Foundation-funded projects, are aimed at the exchange of information and the facilitation of travel and study. Such programs, Elkins argues, can promote a homogenised approach. In this lecture, Elkins challenges the assumption that there are traditions of art-historical scholarship different from those that are widely acknowledged, suggesting instead that scholarly practices exist, but not as art history…

Symposium | Gender in Southeast Asian Art Histories | University of Sydney

Studies focused on gender in Southeast Asian societies have emerged, in recent decades, in approximate concurrence with the development of regionally focused Southeast Asian art histories. The founding premise of this international symposium is that there has to date been insufficient intersection between these two fields. As the first symposium of its kind, Gender in Southeast Asian Art Histories aims to establish the parameters of current research, and to develop inter-disciplinary and transnational frameworks for future studies in the field. Bringing together a range of scholars working on the pre-modern, modern, and contemporary, we seek to consider new perspectives and methodological approaches brought to the fore in art history through studies that are attentive to gender, or how we might reassess art historical narratives through the lens of gender. The symposium will be launched by a keynote address from Professor…

Exhibition | dot, dot, dot […] | : SCA Galleries

Bronwyn Bancroft, Falling Through Time (Riverstone series), 2012. Courtesy of the artist.

The Papunya dot is a powerful symbol of social and cultural identity in Aboriginal art and culture. In a new exhibition at Sydney College of the Arts, a group of artists harness the power that the dot holds for Aboriginal people, as a starting point to explore their own beliefs and ideas that drive them as artists in Australian society. The exhibition titled dot, dot, dot […] is curated by the University of Sydney’s SCA Lecturer, Wingara Mura Fellow and Dharug artist Janelle Evans. It follows an exhibition in Paris in 2012 – Beyond the Papunya Dot curated by Geraldine Le Roux – that exposed the diverse and complex nature of contemporary Indigenous art through the work of nine artists including Janelle Evans. In contrast to the Paris show, dot, dot, dot […], which is a collaborative project of Janelle…

Lecture | Contemporary Art and the Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai and its Biennale – John Clark | University of Sydney

Image of Mu Boyan, Fatty Series, shown at the Eighth Shanghai Biennale in 2010

Modern and contemporary art is founded on a pre-history of art types and concepts of the modern which in the case of Shanghai go back to the 1850s. The Shanghai Biennale emerges in 2005 from this historical dynamic which is marked in the 2000s by several stages of building new, large art museums of contemporary art. The way the state, large collectors and corporations provided these museums and the extent to which their exhibitions were influenced by the Shanghai Biennale, by international art works and notions of curatorial practice, form the principal, intertwined subjects of this paper. The role of spectacular spaces in requiring spectacular art works, and the subsequent ‘Biennalization’ of private museum art practices is also examined, together with some suggestions made about the way Biennales might develop in future. Emeritus Professor John Clark John Clark, is Professor…

Discussion | What has Religion to do with Art?: A panel on Art and the Order of Existence | Power Institute, Sydney

Thomas Crow, Hannah Williams, and Dr. Florian Knothe in conversation with Mark Ledbury The Power Institute with Sydney Ideas is pleased to invite you to a panel discussion on the role that religion plays in the making and understanding of art. This will be followed by the launch of Thomas Crow’s new book, No Idols: The Missing Theology of Art. Date: Wednesday 15th March 2017, 6-8pm Venue: Law School Foyer, Level 2 Law School Annex, Eastern Avenue,Camperdown Campus, The University of Sydney Cost: Free and open to all with registration requested here.   LECTURE ABSTRACT Much of what we call art today was created in religious contexts and for spaces of ritual or worship – and many artists of our own ‘secular’ age have been heavily inspired by religious ideas. For this panel the distinguished art historian Thomas Crow, author…

Talk | Stray: Adrift in the Anthropocene – Barbara Creed | Power Institute

The Power Institute is pleased to invite you to a book launch and a talk by Barbara Creed, Stray: Human–Animal Ethics in the Anthropocene. Barbara Creed’s timely polemic Stray explores the relationship between human and animal in the context of the stray. To celebrate the launch this new Power Polemics title, Creed will be presenting a lecture exploring the concept of the stray through the visual arts, film and literature, introducing the concept of the anthropogenic stray and exploring the contradictions it embodies. LECTURE ABSTRACT A stray, to stray, the act of straying The stray is the outsider, other, exile, refugee—the one who lives apart from the mainstream or isolated in foreign lands. The idea of straying offers an unusual but rich concept with which to think about the shared animal–human condition and the possible fate of the earth and…

Sydney Asian Art Series Talks | Marketing Pleasure for Profit – Julie Nelson Davis

9 March, 6.00pm –Sydney Asian Art Series Marketing Pleasure for Profit: The Mirror of Yoshiwara Beauties, Compared – Julie Nelson Davis The University of Sydney China Studies Centre, The Power Institute and VisAsia is proud to present the first of our Sydney Asian Art Series talks, with a lecture by Professor Julie Nelson Davis. In Marketing Pleasure for Profit, Professor Davis will explore the production of the now famous eighteenth-century Japanese book of ‘performing beauties’ prints, The Mirror of Yoshiwara Beauties, Compared. LECTURE ABSTRACT Today, The Mirror of Yoshiwara Beauties, Compared is regarded as one of most remarkable printed books of eighteenth-century Japan. Featuring sumptuous illustrations by two leading ukiyo-e artists, Kitao Shigemasa and Katsukawa Shunshō, the book exploited full-color multiple block printing to represent the glamorous ‘beauties’ of the licensed Yoshiwara pleasure district. In her presentation, Professor Davis will discuss…

Three lectures at the Power Institute | Frédéric Ogée, Tamar Garb and Sheridan Palmer

Three lectures at the Power Institute in Sydney over the next three weeks by interstate and international guest speakers.  Frédéric Ogée Hogarth’s Bodies Thursday 20 October, 6.00pm In his choice of subjects and in his painting technique, William Hogarth’s rendering of ‘life’ is remarkable for its tangible physicality. In this lecture, Professor Ogée argues that Hogarthian beauty and grace, far from being abstract concepts or resulting from the formal application of a set of rules, emerge as transient, ‘living’, physical phenomena, apprehended by the beholder through visual representations of the bodies’ natural and ‘peculiar’ movements. Frédéric Ogée is Professor of British Literature and Art History at Université Paris Diderot. Philosophy Room S249 The Quadrangle The University of Sydney, Camperdown Campus REGISTER Tamar Garb Painting/Photography/Politics: Marlene Dumas and the Figuration of Difference Wednesday 26 October, 6.00pm Professor Garb’s lecture focuses on Dutch/South African Marlene Dumas’ reworking of…

Lecture | Shoreline Landscapes and the Edges of Empire – Rachel DeLue | Power Institute Sydney

The Power Institute with Sydney Ideas is pleased to present a lecture by American art specialist Rachael DeLue, that considers the significance of the shoreline in the work of prominent nineteenth century Australian and American artists.  Defined as the line where a body of water meets the land, a shoreline is a space of contact, marking the point of convergence between different terrains, peoples, and ecosystems.  Shorelines also engender diverse forms of knowledge, including the outer limits of nation states, the geologic history of the earth, or the effect of climate change on global sea levels.  Depending on one’s point of view, a shoreline can be a beginning or an end, a view in or a view out, a frontier or a familiar place.  In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, landscape artists in Australia and the United States regularly depicted…

Public Program | barrangal gyara (skin and bones) | Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney

Kaldor Public Art Projects has announced an expansive public program of free talks and events as part of the 32nd project barrangal dyara (skin and bones) created by Sydney-based Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi artist Jonathan Jones. The program is an integral part of the overall project that includes a vast sculptural installation of thousands of white shields presented over 20,000 square-metres of the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney from 17 September until 3 October 2016. The dynamic on-site public program – presented entirely free of charge to the public over 17 days – is designed to foster critical dialogues with a range of leading Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics, writers, artists, performers, musicians and commentators. barrangal dyara (skin and bones) represents the first Kaldor Public Art Project presented with an Australian Aboriginal artist and one of the largest and most significant to-date and is part of the…

Lectures | David Solkin and Mark Hallett on British Eighteenth-Century Art | University of Sydney

The Power Institute is pleased to present two lectures on British art of the eighteenth century, by Professors David Solkin and Mark Hallett. David Solkin – English or European? Portraiture and the Politics of National Identity in Early Georgian Britain Professor Solkin’s lecture examines a fundamental shift in British portraiture during the reign of George II, which saw painters and patrons turn away from the established native heritage of Van Dyck, Lely, and Sir Godfrey Kneller, in favour of embracing the latest trends in Continental art practice. Spearheading this development were several immigrant European portraitists, led by Jean-Baptiste Van Loo, who found himself overwhelmed with business after moving to London in the later 1730s; here his rivals included a small number of English and Scottish ‘face-painters’ (notably Allan Ramsay) who had gone abroad to acquire a patina of cosmopolitan polish, as…

Lecture | Claude Perrault’s Royal Observatory and the Intractable Challenge of Comets by Claire Goldstein | University of Sydney

The Power Institute is pleased to invite you to a public lecture by Claire Goldstein, Associate Professor in the Department of French & Italian at the University of California, Davis. Louis XIV is one of the most iconic figures in European history. Styled the Sun King, he is remembered for his extravagant building projects, particularly those centred on the Chateau of Versailles, a site which came to function as a symbol of his long reign. At Versailles, Louis XIV shone most brilliantly, and prominent thinkers have long taken a critical interest in the ways the early years of his rule installed distinctly modern forms of power through a regime of the spectacular. During the first two formative decades of Louis XIV’s reign, at the very moment the Sun King iconography and its attendant structures of control were being put in…

Let’s Talk Contemporary Art Organisations | NAVA Event at The Gunnery

Poster for lets talk contemporary art organisations event

This is your chance to join the Directors of Contemporary Art Organisations (CAO) from across Australia in a conversation that is focused on how we should value the small to medium sector. This sector makes a significant contribution to expanding artists careers, engaging audiences and developing new works. This is something that should not be overlooked. Let’s Talk will be facilitated by Blair French, Director, Curatorial & Digital, MCA Australia | Alexie Glass-Kantor, Executive Director, Artspace and Chair, CAO | Dr. Lizzie Muller, Director, UNSWAD Art & Design Master of Curating and Cultural Leadership Program | Brianna Munting, Deputy Director, NAVA Date: Monday, 8 August 2020 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (AEST) – Add to Calendar Venue: The Gunnery – Level 2, 43-51 Cowper Wharf Road, Woolloomooloo, NSW 2011 FREE – Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/lets-talk-contemporary-art-organisations-tickets-26769781136?aff=erelexpmlt

Conference | The Forever Now – Collections in the 21st Century | Museum of Contemporary Art

How has increased focus upon and work with collections led developments in contemporary curatorial methodology and practice? How are collections of contemporary art being developed in the present? How does the development of collections impact upon the work and careers of artists? Earlybird Registration includes 12 months MCA membership –  closes 7th August 2016. This conference is presented as part of the opening celebrations of the MCA’s newly transformed collection galleries, first launched in an expanded form in 2012. Bringing together artists, curators, academics and commentators from Australia and abroad, The Forever Now will examine how contemporary art collections shape our pasts and anticipate our futures. Collections traditionally constitute the basis of the museum. However, the period in which collections of contemporary art have been built is also when art museums have given increasing emphasis to constantly changing programs: to…