Category: General

Floor Talk with Vincent Alessi and winner of the Basil Sellers Art Prize 2014

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Saturday Floor Talk | Basil Sellers Art Prize 2014 | Join Curator Vincent Alessi in conversation with the Basil Sellers Art Prize winner for 2014. Sixteen finalists have been selected for the fourth Basil Sellers Art Prize and are; Tony Albert, Narelle Autio, Zoe Croggon, Gabrielle de Vietri, Ivan Durrant, Shaun Gladwell, Richard Lewer, William Mackinnon, Rob McHaffie, Noel McKenna, Rob McLeish, Fiona McMonagle, Raquel Ormella, Khaled Sabsabi, Jenny Watson, and Gerry Wedd. The winner will be announced on 25 July 2014. Venue: Ian Potter Museum of Art, Swanston ST, Univeristy of Melbourne Parkville Date: Saturday 26 Jul 2014, 1.00- 2.00pm Free event | RSVP via this website.

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InSEA 2014 – Appeal for Homestay hosts for delegates

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The 34th World Congress of the International Society for Education through Art (InSEA2014) is being held in Melbourne in July. The theme is Diversity Through Art: Change / Continuity / Context. There are approximately 500 delegates registered from over 40 countries, many who have struggled just to find funds to get here. The conference convenors are appealing for help from the Melbourne Arts Community to help provide friendly homestay accommodation. There are about 25 international guests who need a Homestay – a bed, directions about how to use public transport and possibly a simple breakfast. They will be out all day at the conference and most evenings we have social activities planned. Go to http://insea2014.com/homestay.html and register your interest as soon as possible, and we will match hosts and guests. This is an opportunity for creating connections with international art professionals attending the Congress as well…

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Fundraising campaign | New Journal on Art Conservation

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A team of around ten art conservation students and graduates from Melbourne University are working together to create a magazine about art conservation. Their intention is to connect artists, their use of materials, techniques and thoughts about conservation with the conservation and museum industry. The magazine is called ‘The Condition Report’ and they welcome submissions from artists who may want their art and practice to be featured. They are also running a Pozible campaign to fund the magazine and you can support them by pre-purchasing the first issue. The Condition Report will be printed in full colour on quality paper, featuring insightful and entertaining articles. It will include interviews with artists, conservators and students, product reviews, project reports, trading corner, puzzles and lots of fun conservation stuff. Contact: Facebook – The Condition Report Website -http://www.theconditionreport.com.au

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Music of the Stuart court in exile

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  Despite their long exile in France and Italy, the Stuarts – ousted from Britian in 1688 – remained leading patrons of the arts, particularly music. Both James II and his son James III made music an important part of court ceremonial: James II and his entourage played a major role in introducing a taste for Italian music to the French court, while James III and his musically talented sons were among the leading patrons of opera in Rome. To coincide with Kings over the Water, an exhibition of Jacobite glassware at the National Gallery of Victoria, Matthew Martin (the NGV’s Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts) joins Mark Shepheard on 3MBS Fine Music Melbourne to discuss the music of the Stuart court in exile, featuring works by Innocenzo Fede, François Couperin, Vivaldi, Handel, Leonardo Leo and others. The Early Music…

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Lecture | MUMA Boiler Room Series: Biljiana Ciric

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From a history of exhibitions towards a future of exhibition making Biljana Ciric MUMA Boiler Room Series Convened by Tara McDowell, Associate Professor and Director of Curatorial Practice at Monash University Shanghai-based independent curator Biljana Ciric presents her research initiative ‘From a history of exhibitions towards a future of exhibition making’ – a series of seminars that revisit the importance of the exhibition as a key factor in relating art to its wider social context. The seminars, taking place in New Zealand, Singapore and China over 2013-2014, focus specifically on the history of exhibitions in China, South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Ciric will discuss this line of enquiry in relation to her recent curatorial projects that have aimed to examine how curatorial practice and the field of exhibition history may complement each other, unfolding complex issues of self-reflection, local…

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Exhibition Review | ‘Animate/Inanimate’ at TarraWarra Museum of Art. Reviewed by Denise M. Taylor

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‘Animate/Inanimate’ by Denise M. Taylor ‘Animate/Inanimate’ at the TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healesville, Victoria, Until 6 October 2020 Twelve skulls, wrapped with pink silken thread, are suspended from the ceiling in the first room of the contemporary art exhibition, ‘Animate/Inanimate’, currently on show at the TarraWarra Museum of Art (TWMA) near Healesville. One skull has a spade in its mouth, another has partly morphed into a trumpet (Fig. 1), and an iron is slammed into the ‘face’ of another—these inanimate skulls have been brought to life by everyday hand-held objects, colour, and luminosity. This work by Chinese artist, Lin Tianmiao (born 1961), called Reaction (2013), is a response to the negative impact of politics and rapid social change on lives and the environment in China. More broadly, Reaction evokes many themes relating to human experience across the globe: the toil of daily work that…

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Help Wanted on Regional Galleries Research

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Can you help Dr Don Edgar with his research on Victoria’s regional art galleries? See his note below. I am currently trying to complete a book about the development of Victoria’s unique network of regional art galleries – titled ‘Art for the Country’ – and would appreciate any information others may have on their early years and growth up to the present. The book starts with the first new regional gallery at Mildura, the establishment of the Victorian Public Galleries Group in 1957, then asks what the ‘old’ provincial city galleries (Ballarat, Bendigo, Ballarat, Warrnambool, Geelong and later Castlemaine) were doing before they came on board. It documents the struggle to get better funding for all regional galleries, the (somewhat wavering) support of the NGV, early travelling exhibitions, training of more professional directors, and the often acrimonious conflict of values…

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Seminar | Made in Italy Futurism: the magnificent beauty of the mechanised velocity

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Made in Italy Futurism: the magnificent beauty of the mechanised velocity Antonino L. Nielfi NB Date corrected 29th May NOT 28th. This seminar draws from the theoretical framework of the exhibition “SPEED: The Magnificent Beauty of the Mechanised Velocity” (currently in preparation for the end of 2014/ the beginning of 2015), curated by Antonino Nielfi for the Italian Embassy of Australia (Canberra, ACT). As a whole, this project aims to illustrate the origins and the technological advancement of Italian industrial design from its early years in the 1900s to the end of the Second World War, as it has been masterly witnessed by the artistic research of Italian Futurism, whose insights and findings have evolved overtime into what is known today as the Made in Italy. The seminar will focus on the evolution of the industrial product throughout the first (1909-1918) and the second (1918-1938) phase…

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Seminar | Roman Graffiti and the Evidence For the Depiction of Crucifixion in Late Antiquity, Felicity Harley-McGowan

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The infamous ‘Alexamenos’ graffito, depicting a young man saluting a donkey-headed figure tied to a cross, is often treated as the earliest representation of a crucified figure in antiquity. Excavated on the Palatine hill in Rome, it is usually dated to the early third century CE. This paper will discuss a second piece of evidence that may pre-date the Palatine image by roughly a century: a graffito excavated in Puteoli, Italy, which depicts a human figure tied to a cross.

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Exhibition | ‘Community and Context’ at Monash Art Design and Architecture Gallery

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The significance of printmaking in the context of contemporary art and design will be explored at an exhibition in Melbourne this month. From February 6th the Monash Art Design & Architecture (MADA) Gallery will present Community & Context, an exhibition featuring the work of twenty four Australian artists. eX de Medici and Rosalind Atkins’s collaborative work Our Corporate Who Art in Heaven, combines etching and engraving, botanical illustration and gas masks to subversive effect. Printmaking as sculpture is also explored in Ruth Johnstone’s work Mining Robert Sticht’s Dürer Archive, which employs engraving, photocopy and kinetic sculpture to explore the vocabulary of Dürer’s vast print catalogue. The exhibition includes other print methods in the work Delicate Cutting by artist Sally Smart, a film of the artist cutting what could be stencils from paper. The new film also suggests the darker connotations…

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News and Writing about Art and Art History | June 4th

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News and Writing about Art and Art History | June 4th Links compiled by Katrina Grant News Sotheby’s in New York is selling a fragment of a painting suggested to be a lost Guido Reni (Bacchus and Ariadne on the Island of Naxos) that was commissioned by Queen Henrietta Maria but never sent to England because of the civil war and subsequently cut up for being ‘too salacious’. The Tate has received a donation of paintings and sculptures from philanthropists Mercedes and Ian Stoutzker, it includes works by David Hockney, Jacob Epstein,  and Lucian Freud, amongst others. Cuts to TAFE funding by the Victorian government could mean that Ballarat arts school has to close. Art has been taught in Ballarat since 1870. Re-imagining our museumsfor the digital age. Steven Zucker and Beth Harris on why the Google Art Project is important. Should…

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JOB: Lecturer in Art (Critical and Theoretical Studies)

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Lecturer in Art (Critical and Theoretical Studies) School of Art – Faculty of the VCA and MCM Salary: Level A $57,351 – $77,825 p.a. or Level B $81,925 – $97,283 p.a. plus 17% superannuation. Level of appointment is subject to qualifications and experience. The position of Lecturer in Critical and Theoretical Studies will entail participation in the undergraduate and postgraduate teaching program and contribution to the institution’s research and culture through honours and postgraduate supervision, mentoring and through the appointee’s own research initiatives and publications. Close date: 5 February 2021 For Position Description, Selection Criteria and application details see the Melbourne University website.

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Volunteer at Heide Museum of Modern Art

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Volunteer at Heide Museum of Modern Art Heide Museum of Modern Art is seeking motivated and passionate people to join its team of Visitor Services and Education volunteers. Heide volunteers enjoy a number of benefits including FREE entry to all exhibitions and discounts at the Heide Store. There is also a Volunteer Book Club and Lecture Series that encourage the sharing and exchanging of ideas. Volunteers are asked for a commitment of one half day shift per fortnight and they are welcomed into the Heide family. Our Visitor Services will be holding an information night for anyone who is interested in volunteering on Friday 20th January 6pm-7.30pm. For more information visit the Heide website or contact Heide directly.  

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Rare Books Summer School at the State Library Victoria

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Rare Books Summer School State Library of Victoria Immerse yourself in the world of rare books during an intensive five-day course at the 7th Australian and New Zealand Rare Books Summer School. Four courses will be presented: ‘Artists’ books, zines and other collaborative ventures’ Professor Sasha Grishin (6–10 February) ‘Botanical riches: the art of the book’ Richard Aitken (13–17 February) ‘Ephemera: a collector’s key to the history of books’ Wallace Kirsop (13–17 February) ‘The poetics of printing on the iron hand-press’ Caren Florance (13–17 February, Monash University, Caulfield) Please note that places are strictly limited, and applications are due by 9 December 2011. View the detailed brochure and application form (pdf) http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/rare-books-summer-school-2012.pdf Dates:  Monday 6 February 2021 – Friday 10 February 2021 Monday 13 February 2021 – Friday 17 February 2021 Cost: $750.00 Bookings: 03 8664 7322 or rbss@slv.vic.gov.au Website: http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/event/rare-books-summer-school  

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