Category: News

Art and art history related news. Please send news item and media releases to Katrina Grant webmaster@melbourneartnetwork.com.au The decision of what news to publish lies with the editors and their decision is final.

News and Exhibition | Sidney Nolan’s man behind Ned Kelly mask revealed | Heide MoMA

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Recent research by Paula Dredge and Kendrah Morgan with assistance from the Australian Synchrotron has revelead a face behind the mask of one of Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly paintings. From April 22 to May 14 Heide will host a virtual reality display that will allow visitors to explore this ‘face behind the mask.’ From Heide Working in collaboration with the scientific research centre Australian Synchrotron, and utilising its state of the art technology, art conservators have imaged pigments buried underneath layers of paint to reveal a face behind the mask of Sidney Nolan’s painting Ned Kelly, “Nobody knows anything about my case but myself” 1945. When examining the painting in 2012, Paula Dredge, Paintings Conservator at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, and Kendrah Morgan, Curator at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne noticed brush strokes underneath the…

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News |  Major painting by renowned artist eX de Medici donated to Australian War Memorial

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One of the most significant artwork donations in the Memorial’s history, Cure for pain, by renowned Australian artist eX de Medici, is now on display at the Australian War Memorial. Donated by Erika Krebs-Woodward through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, Cure for pain is a detailed, multi-layered work that reflects the themes of mortality and equality in death throughout a century of Australian military history. At more than four metres long the painting is also the largest work produced by de Medici, who was appointed official war artist to the Solomon Islands in 2009 and is one of Australia’s most celebrated contemporary artists. Director of the Australian War Memorial Dr Brendan Nelson said the donation added to the Memorial’s world-class art collection, and that the work is an important tool in our evolving understanding of the Australian experience of war.…

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News | NGV announces inaugural NGV triennial to open December 2017

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The NGV has announced the line-up for its inaugural triennial of contemporary art. From the NGV: Featuring the work of 60 artists and designers from 30 countries, the NGV Triennial surveys the world’s best art and design, across cultures, scales, geographies and perspectives. The inaugural NGV Triennial will open in December 2017. It will be a free exhibition and celebration of contemporary art and design practice that traverses all four levels of NGV International, as well as offering a rich array of programs. The NGV Triennial explores cutting edge technologies, architecture, animation, performance, film, painting, drawing, fashion design, tapestry and sculpture. Visitors will have an opportunity to look at the world and its past, present and future through the eyes of some of the most creative minds working today. See the full list of artists here: http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/triennial/ The triennial will also…

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News | Judith Neilson creates Chair in Contemporary Art at UNSW

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News from UNSW that founder of the White Rabbit Gallery has donated money to create The Judith Neilson Chair in Contemporary Art, which will focus on contemporary Chinese art and culture. Philanthropist and White Rabbit Gallery founder Judith Neilson AM has made her second major donation to UNSW with the announcement of The Judith Neilson Chair in Contemporary Art. The Professorial Chair will work between UNSW Art & Design and Sydney’s internationally recognised White Rabbit Gallery to lead rigorous scholarly research. White Rabbit Gallery is home to one of the world’s most significant collections of Chinese contemporary art and UNSW Art & Design is ranked in the top 30 art and design schools in the QS World University Rankings. With privileged access to the White Rabbit collection, The Judith Neilson Chair in Contemporary Art will develop new knowledge and a…

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News | Dr Natasha Cica appointed as new Director and CEO of Heide MoMA

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Photo of Dr Natasha Cica

The Board of Directors at Heide Museum of Modern Art (Heide) have announced that will Dr Natasha Cica will take the helm at Heide as the new Director and CEO of the museum, following the departure of Kristy Grant last year. Dr Cica does not come directly from an art curatorial background and the press release describes her as a ‘thought leader’ (always a rather meaningless term in my opinion). Her educational background is more legal and policy focused than arts or curatorial (she is an adjunct professor in the ANU College of Law), but she certainly has a strong background in the cultural sector in Australia and internationally. Is this part of a shift away from appointments art gallery directors exclusively from the ranks of senior curators? For instance the recent-ish appointments at the Monash Gallery of Art of Kallie Blauhorn in…

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Appointment | Australian Centre for Photography appoints Cherie McNair as Director

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The Australian Centre for Photography has announced Cherie McNair as their new director. From ACP: The Australian Centre for Photography (ACP) today announced the appointment of respected arts professional Cherie McNair as permanent Director. Ms McNair commences in early February 2017, taking over from Catherine Baldwin who has acted as Interim Director since July 2015. Cherie McNair joins ACP from the Queensland Museum Network where she holds the role of Head of Exhibitions and Creative Services, with previous roles including Head of Exhibitions and Design, National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh and Project Manager, Exhibitions, Tate and Victoria and Albert Museum, London and early career at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Commenting on her appointment Cherie McNair said: ‘I am humbled and excited to be joining ACP at this pivotal stage in the organisation’s development. I look forward to working with…

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Request for Information | Heide seeks missing Blackman painting

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Heide Museum of Modern Art is requesting any information or assistance on the whereabouts of Charles Blackman’s Sleeping Schoolgirl 1954 (pictured), for inclusion in an upcoming exhibition that reunites the artist’s celebrated Schoolgirl series for the first time since its creation in the early 1950s. Sleeping Schoolgirl 1954 was sold in the 1960s by Julian Sterling, Melbourne to a British collector, and it subsequently came up at auction at Christies, London on 12 December 2007, listed as ‘the property of a lady’. It was sold at that point and is thought to have returned to Australia, but efforts to find the current owner have been unsuccessful. Charles Blackman’s compelling Schoolgirls series, produced between 1952 and 1955, marked a turning point in the artist’s career, revealing him as a significant painter of modern life in the post-war era. Through his evocative…

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News | New Executive Director at Craft Victoria

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The Chair of Craft Victoria has announce the appointment of Richard Ferguson as the new Executive Director at Craft Victoria.  Richard will be commencing his role in mid-February 2017. From Craft Victoria Richard has been involved in the cultural, heritage and education sectors for more than 30 years in both Australia and England. He is also a craft and arts practitioner. His initial tertiary training was at the National Art School in ceramics.  Later training in visual arts and photography enabled him to undertake original research and Antarctic field work, on five expeditions, on the use of photography on polar expeditions initially based at the Mawson Institute for Antarctic Research at the University of Adelaide. This and both other creative and curatorial projects ultimately gave rise to direct engagement with and entry into management of collections, cultural institutions and philanthropic…

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NGV calls for public help to find art from 1968 exhibition ‘The Field’

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The Field Original Poster

The National Gallery of Victoria is planning to re-stage the 1968 exhibition The Field in 2018 as The Field Revisited and is calling for help finding the final 14 missing works of art. See the NGV Find The Field website for details of the missing works: http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/findthefield/ From the NGV The Field is regarded as a landmark exhibition in Australian art history – a radical showcase of 74 abstract and conceptual, colour field, geometric and hard edge artworks. Influenced by the American origins of abstract art, the exhibition opened to much controversy at the NGV in 1968 with its silver foil-covered walls and geometric light fittings, boldly launching the careers of a generation of young Australian artists including Sydney Ball, Peter Booth, Janet Dawson and Robert Jacks. Following a year-long search by the NGV, across Australian and international galleries, collections and auction houses…

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News | New gallery for the State Library of Victoria

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A new gallery space will be constructed at the State Library of Victoria, which will include the re-opening of the Russell Street entrance. Full details below or read more here. A partnership between the Victorian State Government and the John and Myriam Wylie Foundation is delivering a funding boost of $13 million to State Library Victoria and is set to reinvigorate an historic Melbourne precinct. The John and Myriam Wylie Foundation has donated $8 million to reopen the Russell Street entrance and to thoroughly transform the eastern end of the Library with the creation of a new world-class exhibition gallery and state-of-the-art collaborative spaces, along with a vibrant café and retail area on Russell Street. This donation is one of the largest in the State Library’s history and will be a major driver in achieving the aim of increasing the…

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New Book | Saige Walton – Cinema’s Baroque Flesh Film, Phenomenology and the Art of Entanglement

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New book by Saige Walton Cinema’s Baroque Flesh Film, Phenomenology and the Art of Entanglement published by Amsterdam University Press. To coincide with the Australian launch of the book, AUP are offering a 20% discount that is valid until 31st December – download the flyer here (pdf) What is the relationship between cinema and the baroque? How might it be figured and felt? Foregrounding the baroque as a vital undercurrent of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, Cinema’s Baroque Flesh opens up new avenues of embodied film theory that can make room for formal and experiential structure, signification, intelligence and sight, as well as the aesthetics of sensation. Walton argues for the baroque as its own aesthetic category of film and its own unique cinema of the senses. Combining media archaeological work with art history, Merleau Ponty’s phenomenological philosophy and film-phenomenology, the book provides close…

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Online Resource | The Artist’s Handbook from Taylor & Francis

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Taylor & Francis/Routledge have put together a range of popular and important articles on art history and art theory published in the various journals that they publish. This collection has been called ‘The Artist’s Handbook’ (why not the  The Art Historian’s Handbook?) and is divided into four sections on Genres, Eras, Icons (actually ‘Artists’ really) and How-to (Materials and Techniques probably a better name). These categories (and the descriptions of them) are all rather basic*, but the positive aspect of this initiative is that all articles included in the collections have apparently been made open access to read online or to download. From a quick scan the collection seems to include several hundred articles from important journals, making this a useful collection for anyone who doesn’t have ready access to online journal databases. You can browse the collection here.   *…

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Online Resource | University of Melbourne Cultural Collections

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The University of Melbourne has launched a new website dedicated to providing information about the objects in the university’s various collections, and information/suggestions on how these might be used in teaching across a variety of disciplines. The website is (unsurprisingly) primarily aimed at people teaching and studying at the University of Melbourne, but all information is readily available to anyone and the high-quality reproductions, potted histories of the objects, and links to further reading are likely to be of interest to a broader audience. You can browse the objects included here http://library.unimelb.edu.au/teachingobjects#home From the website: Teaching with unique collections provides resources, an online showcase, and a virtual setting for teaching and learning in many disciplines. It features objects, books, manuscripts, works of art and other items from the university’s Prints, Rare Books and Rare Music collections, Grainger Museum,  University of Melbourne Archives and Ian Potter Museum…

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Launch | Art + Australia relaunch by Bill Henson at ACCA

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The new Art + Australia will be launched tomorrow (28th October) by Bill Henson at 5:30pm at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. From the University of Melbourne: Australia’s premier art journal Art + Australia will be launched in a new print format by celebrated Australian artist Bill Henson on 28 October. It will be the first edition under editor-in-chief and Director of the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) Professor Su Baker. In an extraordinary gift, Art + Australia was presented to the VCA and the University of Melbourne in December 2015 by its former editor and publisher, Eleonora Triguboff, to ensure the publication continued to inspire and educate. Professor Baker said she was delighted that Henson would be re-launching the biannual journal. “Bill Henson is one of Australia’s leading artists. He represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1995, and…

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Five architectural teams shortlisted for SAM redevelopment in Shepparton

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Plans for the redevelopment of the Shepparton Art Museum have reached the next stage with five architectural teams selected to develop concept designs for SAM. The architects are Denton Corker Marshall Pty Ltd, John Wardle Architects, Kerstin Thompson Architects, Lyons, and MvS Architects. From SAM: The architecture competition for a new SAM attracted 88 applications through Greater Shepparton City Council’s tendering process. The tender was the first stage of a two-stage competition endorsed by the Australian Institute of Architects to select an architectural design for the new museum. A seven member jury assessed the applications and shortlisted to five. The seven member jury is a skills based board, with professionals drawn from the arts, architecture/design, academia, Indigenous architecture and related industries. The judging was based on Design Approach (50%), Capability (30%) and Experience (20%). The Design Approach judged the quality…

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