Tag: News

News | Report on gender representation in the contemporary visual arts reveals continued imbalances

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To coincide with International Women’s Day NAVA has released a report on gender representation in the contemporary visual arts has been released today. What it reveals - that there is a continuing imbalance of power with men holding more positions at senior levels and male artists significantly better represented by commercial galleries - is hardly surprising to anyone working in the arts. Nonetheless, reports that bring together hard data on these issues are important and hopefully it prompts further discussion we continue to see these imbalances being addressed. As Tamara Winikoff, Executive Director of the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) observes, ‘Despite the reputation of the arts as challenging outdated paradigms, it continues to fail on gender issues. Old habits die hard. We thought we’d won the battle in the 80s when the spotlight was shone on the systemic privileging of men in…

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Threats to funding of the National Library of Australia’s ‘Trove’

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Disturbing news came out last week that proposed cuts to the budget of the National Library of Australia may threaten the future of Trove. While there are no threats to service as a whole, one effect of the cuts may be tat Trove will stop “aggregating content in Trove from museums and universities unless it is fully funded to do so.” There is also the possibility that digitisation of collections will slow down. These cuts follow years of funding cuts to our cultural institutions by both sides of government. This is seriously bad news for humanities researchers (among others), who rely on Trove as an easily accessible and very user-friendly ‘collection of collections’. Trove is free and available to anyone, anywhere in the world, making it an important tool that drives research both inside and outside of academia. Moreover, Trove is recognised…

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New website Art UK

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The very successful Your Paintings website begun by the BBC and the Public Catalogue Foundation back in 2011 has been succeeded by a new website called ArtUK, now run by the Public Catalogue Foundation with support from the BBC. It is great to see such a useful website growing and expanding. Digital spaces that aggregate information from a  variety of collections are really important, gallery and museum databases are invaluable, but often as a researcher you aren’t sure what is held where, and your chances of knowing that there is, say, a small portrait by your artist held in a regional town hall might be pretty well zero. These aggregate websites are also especially important for image researchers as web search tools like Google still often fall short, a google search on a specific artist is often flooded with the same well-known image…

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News | The NotFair, Spring 1883 to continue in the absence of the Melbourne Art fair

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The Board of NotFair has confirmed that the 2016 NotFair will go ahead despite last week’s cancellation of the Melbourne Art Fair. The NotFair was begun in 2010 by artists Sam Leach and Tony Lloyd, with writer and curator Ashley Crawford. The event has always been independent of the main fair, giving artists and visitors a subversive alternative to the existing art fair model. It has always exhibited emerging, unrepresented and independent artists. This year it will go ahead without its establishment counterpart. Chairman of NotFair, The Hon. Paul Guest OAM QC is now expecting even more interest in the artist-focused event and said: “Of course we are disappointed to hear about the cancellation of Melbourne Art Fair, but for NotFair the show will definitely go on. We feel that the NotFair brand is now well enough known to stand alone as a major event and we intend to create…

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News | New appointments at Gertrude Contemporary as Director Emma Crimmings departs

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Photo of Emma Crimmings, Mark Freary and Christine Tipton

Gertrude Contemporary has announced that two new appointments have been made as current Director Emma Crimmings prepares to depart for a new role at Artbank. Mark Freary will take on the role of Senior Curator, while Christine Tipton will take on the role of Director – Business and Operations. The new appointees will oversee Gertrude Contemporary’s move to their new location. From Gertrude Contemporary: Director Emma Crimmings, who will be leaving to take up the role of Assistant Director at Artbank in Melbourne, has played a significant role in the progress of the institution’s history. Emma’s vast experience across artistic disciplines, alongside her fundraising abilities working with the Board of Management, have helped to re-invigorate the organisation’s structural and financial stability, building towards a creatively ambitious and sustainable future. During her time as Director, Emma delivered innovative partnerships such as Gertrude…

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News | NGA releases report on their Asian Art Provenance project

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Image of Goddess Durga statue

Last week the NGA published the results of their independent review of their Asian Art Provenance Project. The review followed the scandal over the 12th century Shiva statue that was revealed to be part of a cache of art looted from a temple and sold by now-disgraced New York art dealer Subhash Kapoor. The review has turned up a 22 objects with questionable provenance (including the already returned Shiva and the soon-to-be-returned Seated Buddha). The NGA director Gerard Vaughan said ‘I welcome Mrs Crennan’s independent assessment which clarifies the legal and ethical framework in which the NGA’s collecting should take place; this will prove invaluable for ongoing provenance-checking and comparative risk assessment. The review provides a clear set of guidelines which the NGA can incorporate into its acquisition procedures and due diligence policies, and which the Gallery can use in retrospectively assessing items already in the…

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Recent News from Art and Art History | Monday 22nd February 2016

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A fascinating blog from the V&A on the issues about conserving John Drewe’s fraudulent exhibition catalogues, which were forged and then planted in the National Art Library to create provenance’s for forged works of art. “How should we treat these fraudulent documents? Now they are in our collections and requested for exhibition are they artefacts in their own right? … As I looked at the catalogues with our lovely book conservators it dawned on us that if we were to be true to the history of the objects then we couldn’t actually do any work on them. The potentially damaging rusty staples, which we would ordinarily isolate or replace, should stay like that. John Drewe had worked hard to rust the staples, stain the pages and generally age and degrade the catalogues.” Read the full article here on the V&A website. The…

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CAA launches new caa.reviews site

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CAA reviews logo

CAA has revamped their excellent online reviews site. All reviews are now open access (not sure if this is new, but I recall some were only open to members when the site first launched). Reviews are now also published under a creative cmmons license, which means that the content can be shared. Link to the revamped caa.reviews website. From CAA: CAA and Routledge are pleased to announce the launch of a new website for caa.reviews, an online, open-access journal of book and exhibition reviews in the visual arts. The new site has a cleaner look, is easier to navigate, and has faster and smarter search tools. New filters based on geography, time period, and genre or specialization allow readers to narrow and focus search results, making it easier to find specific articles. An important addition for caa.reviews is a Creative…

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News | NGV acquires major French haute couture collection

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A selection of works from The Dominique Sirop Collection, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Purchased with funds donated by Mrs Krystyna Campbell-Pretty in memory of Mr Harold Campbell-Pretty, 2015.

Exciting news for fashion historians and researchers that the NGV has acquired the collection of former Givenchy couturier Dominique Sirop. Collector Dominique Sirop acquired the first piece, a 1945 Paquin black wool dress, when he was 14 years old with money borrowed from his grandmother. Paquin holds significance to him as his mother modelled there for 6 years from 1946 until 1952 before she married. He then collected the majority of the works in both the collection and archive from auction houses and specialist dealers in the US, France and London between 1989 and 2014, whilst assistant designer to Hubert Givenchy at the House of Givenchy and at his own couture house. Other pieces in The Dominique Sirop Collection include a feathered evening cape, embellished ball gowns and bias-cut silk sheaths by highly desirable and influential French couture designers, such as Elsa Schiaparelli,…

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News | Rebecca Coates appointed Director of SAM Shepparton

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Photo of Dr Rebecca Coates

The Greater Shepparton City Council has announced that Dr Rebecca Coates will take up the role of Director of Shepparton Art Museum (SAM). Dr Coates has been in the role of Acting Director since August 2015 and replaced Kirsten Paisley who left SAM to work for the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. From SAM Shepparton: Dr Coates is an established curator, writer and lecturer, with over 20 years professional art museum and gallery experience in both Australia and overseas. She is also a Lecturer at the University of Melbourne in Art History and Art Curatorship and has a PhD in Art History. Her work history includes roles as Associate Curator at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art; Curator, Visual Arts Program, Melbourne International Arts Festival; Touring Exhibitions Organiser, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford; Program Coordinator, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne…

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Recent News and Writing on Art History | 22nd January 2016

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A round-up of recent stories from the world of art, museums and art history. A story from Tim Walsh in Apollo that asks whether Australia’s ‘coup culture’ in politics is hurting the arts. “In the space of five years, Australia has seen five prime ministers attempt to take the reins of an increasingly erratic and jittery federal parliament. In tandem, Australia’s art world keenly felt each twist and turn; moments of optimism were eclipsed by fear and doubt with the election of the right wing conservative government led by Tony Abbott in September 2013.” A report on Enfilade that the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library has catalogued, re-catalogued, and made available online 60,000 objects in their collection. While the Yale Center for British Art has just released more than 22,000 additional high-resolution images through its online collection (available here). To date, the Center has made…

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News | Mellon Grant awarded to University of Virginia to establish a new centre for the study of Indigenous Art

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The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded US $815,000 to the University of Virginia to create a research centre for the study of the indigenous art of Australia and the Americas. The University is contributing approximately $886,000 to the Indigenous Arts initiative over the course of the Mellon grant, making the initial investment to launch the research and teaching program about $1.7 million. The funding is for four years and will be shared across the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA and the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection. It will support the creation of two curator positions for the University’s extensive collections of indigenous art and support a new residency program for visiting scholars, artists and curators. The Mellon-funded program also will support fellowships for UVA faculty pursuing creative and scholarly projects in the arts, as well as…

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Season’s Greetings and Happy New Year

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A final post to wish everyone the best for the Christmas Season and a Happy New Year. Thanks again for reading and for sending in your news, reviews, and other items of interest. This was the fifth year of the Melbourne Art Network and I can honestly say that it wouldn’t keep going without the support of everyone who reads it, so thank you. MAN will take a short break and be back in mid-January. Until then you might find me lurking around on Twitter and Facebook, or I might switch the internet off and try to make a dent in that teetering pile of not-yet-read art history books I have collected over the past year. A few recent stories and long reads if you are looking for something to peruse over the next week or so. Linda Nead in…

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News | Art & Australia given to VCA, will be relaunched in 2016

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The University of Melbourne has announced that owner, editor and publisher of Art & Australia, Eleonora Triguboff, has given the journal to the VCA. It will be relaunched in 2016 with Professor Su Baker to take the role of editor- in-chief and Dr Edward Colless as editor. From 2016 the journal will focus critically on contemporary art, especially in its theoretical, socio-cultural and geo-political contexts. Ms Triguboff will become an honorary Chair of Art & Australia. From the University of Melbourne: Professor Baker said she was excited to take the journal into the next phase of its life. “I would like to thank Eleonora Triguboff for this remarkable gift and to pay tribute to her passion and dedication to ensuring Art & Australia remained the premier art journal of record. Under Eleonora’s stewardship, Art & Australia has fostered a truly global outlook…

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News | Max Delaney appointed new Director at ACCA

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News that current Senior Curator in Contemporary Art Max Delaney has been appointed the new director at ACCA. He will take up the role in February From ACCA ACCA Chair John Denton announced today that leading Australian contemporary art curator Max Delany has been appointed Artistic Director of The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA). Max Delany is currently Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Victoria, where his most recent curatorial projects include Andy Warhol|Ai Weiwei, David Shrigley: Life and Life Drawingand a leadership role in the renowned Melbourne Now exhibition.  He is a former director of the Monash Museum of Art (MUMA), where he oversaw the development of new award-winning architecturally designed premises.  He has also been director of Gertrude Contemporary, and curator at Heide Museum of Modern Art. “We are thrilled to make this…

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