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.

Art History in NZ under threat

Concerning news from two art history departments in New Zealand about threats to jobs and resources. Threats to jobs at VUW and threates to the fine arts library at Auckland. Submissions are encouraged on both issues – the high profile, and effective, campaign to keep art history taught in schools in the UK shows the importance of lending our voices to support our discipline. SAVE Art History at Victoria University of Wellington As reported by AAANZ Art History at Victoria University of Wellington is under threat. A recent ‘Change Proposal’ means that the department is facing the imminent loss of a Senior Lecturer, along with its Administrator – with further staff cuts threatened in a year’s time. The programme at Victoria provides historical, social, cultural, political and aesthetic frameworks fincludes teaching specialisms focused on historical and contemporary New Zealand and…

News | Award for NGV Curator Dr Ted Gott

Great news that NGV curator Ted Goot got a gong from ICOM recently. Well deserved! ICOM Award winners A glittering event at the Museums Galleries Australia National Conference dinner at the Melbourne Museum last night included the presentation of the 2018 ICOM Australia Awards and the International Museum Day student essay prize. Dr Ted Gott received the Individual Award for his significant contribution to Australia’s cultural life nationally and internationally including highly acclaimed exhibitions, research, publications, mentoring of developing curators and ongoing commitment to the profession. From the testimonial: The Award acknowledges Ted’s significant contribution to Australia’s cultural life nationally and internationally including highly acclaimed exhibitions, research, publications, mentoring of developing curators and ongoing commitment to the profession. Ted would have to be considered Australia’s pre-eminent curator in international art. His experience, attention to detail, knowledge of art and history,…

News | Tapestry Design Prize for Architects 2018

Hosted by the Australian Tapestry Workshop (ATW) the Tapestry Design Prize for Architects (TDPA) is the only international tapestry award for architects. The TDPA invites architects from around the world to design a tapestry for a hypothetical site. Boullée’s mooted building that inspired the Pharos Wing, MONA, has been announced as the TDPA 2018 hypothetical site on Tuesday 20 March 2018.   MONA was designed by Fender Katsalidis Architects to house David Walsh’s extraordinary collection of old and new art.  ‘MONA is both visionary and breath-taking; David Walsh’s brief for the TDPA 2018 will challenge architects creatively and their understanding of the intersection between tapestry and space’, says Antonia Syme, Director, Australian Tapestry Workshop. Entries are now open and close Friday 15 June. Finalists will be announced in July with the winners announced Thursday 16 August 2018, with an exhibition…

News | New Buxton Contemporary Director and Inaugural Exhibition Announced

The new Buxton Contemporary at the University of Melbourne’s College of the Arts will open on the 9th March, with the opening celebrations designed to coincide with the beginning of the 2018 university academic year. The inaugural exhibition, The Shape of Things to Come has been curated by Melissa Keys. It will feature works by more than 20 artists from the Buxton collection, and explores the various roles and agencies of the artist through culture, society and politics—as visionaries, storytellers, dissenters and alchemists. Included will be major works by Ricky Swallow, Emily Floyd, Hany Armanious and Mikala Dwyer among many others. Future programming will use the Michael Buxton Collection as a springboard to captivate and educate audiences on trends in contemporary art and connect current Australian contemporary practice to international developments. The University of Melbourne has announced that Ryan Johnston…

News | NETS Victoria Board of Management announce Adam Harding as new Chair

News from NETS Victoria Board of Management announcing the appointment of Adam Harding to the position of Chair. Adam Harding has been the Director of Horsham Regional Art Gallery (HRAG) since 2009 and oversaw their recent redevelopment.  He has continued Horsham’s commitment to community engagement while reinterpreting the Gallery’s collection to focus on their three main areas of collecting; artworks and images of Horsham and the Wimmera, the Mack Jost Collection of Australian Art, and its nationally significant collection of Australian photography.  Harding has been focusing on investigating modes of exhibition development and presentation that places HRAG and the Wimmera as a site of production and collaboration. “Hosting a NETS Victoria touring exhibition has always been a highlight for me, even back in the day when I was a curatorial assistant in Warrnambool, having the NETS Victoria install team on…

Australian War Memorial Launches ‘Art of Nation’

The Australian War Memorial has launched Art of nation: Australia’s official art and photography of the First World War, a digital interpretation of the earliest plans for the Memorial. Australian official war historian and Memorial founder Charles Bean sketched the design for this building in 1919 as he returned home to Australia following the First World War. During the war, artists and photographers were deployed to the front to witness and record the war first hand. Bean’s imagined building contains separate galleries housing the official war art and photography collections. The large paintings are exhibited in a dedicated art gallery for the first time. The photography gallery displays a recreation of the first major exhibition of Australian official war photography in London in May 1918. The paintings and photographs link to more information and maps that trace the journeys of…

News | Bundoora Homestead Art Centre Announces Finalists for $10k Art Award

DAREBIN ART PRIZE FINALISTS Connie Anthes, Rushdi Anwar, Belle Bassin, Zanny Begg, Jessie Bullivant, Jon Butt, Sheena Colquhoun, Georgina Cue, Jaye Early, Leslie Eastman, Anna Finlayson, Matthew Greaves, Bronwyn Hack, Will Heathcote, PJ Hickman, Timothy Hillier, Kez Hughes, Eliza Hutchison, Linda Judge, Ash Keating, Annika Koops, Claire Lambe, Bridie Lunney, Sam Martin, Hayley Millar-Baker, Adelle Mills, Archie Moore, Kent Morris, Sophie Neate, Joshua Petherick, Steven Rendall, Nicholas Selenitsch, Vivian Cooper Smith, Nicholas Smith, The Ryan Sisters, Ebony Truscott, David Wadelton, Kellie Wells, Deborah White, and Alice Wormald. Public Launch Friday 27 October from 6 – 8 pm From Bundoora Homestead: Bundoora Homestead Art Centre is proud to announce the finalists in its $10k acquisitive prize open to visual artists across Australia working in any medium. The Gallery Manager of Bundoora Homestead Art Centre Ella Hughes is thrilled with the results…

New Book | Turin and the British in the Age of the Grand Tour

Scheduled for November publication from Cambridge UP: Paola Bianchi and Karin Wolfe, eds.,  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 506 pages, ISBN: 978  110714  7706, $135. The Duchy of Savoy first claimed royal status in the seventeenth century, but only in 1713 was Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy (1666–1732), crowned King of Sicily. The events of the Peace of Utrecht (1713) sanctioned the decades-long project, the Duchy had pursued through the convoluted maze of political relationships between foreign powers. Of these, the British Kingdom was one of their most assiduous advocates, because of complimentary dynastic, political, cultural and commercial interests. A notable stream of British diplomats and visitors to the Sabaudian capital engaged in an extraordinary and reciprocal exchange with the Turinese during this fertile period. The flow of travellers, a number of whom were British emissaries and envoys posted…

News | Esther Anatolitis announced as new Executive Director of NAVA

Photo of Esther Anatolitis

News from NAVA that their new Executive Director is Esther Anatloitis. From NAVA James Emmett, Chair of the NAVA Board, today announces Esther Anatolitis as the organisation’s next Executive Director. “It is with enthusiasm and pride for NAVA that I welcome Esther as the new Executive Director. Esther’s experience, profile and intellect makes her ideal to lead NAVA through its next chapter. At a personal level, I am very excited to start working with Esther soon. I particularly want to thank our acting co-directors, Brianna Munting and Penelope Benton, for their ongoing excellent management of NAVA during this transitional period. They are tremendous assets to the organisation.” “I am delighted that Esther will be joining NAVA,” said Senator Mitch Fifield, Minister for Communications and the Arts, “and look forward to continuing the very good working relationship we developed during her…

New Publication and Launch | Rick Amor: An Online Catalogue Raisonné of the Prints by Irena Zdanowicz

Rick Amor: An Online Catalogue Raisonné of the Prints by Irena Zdanowicz was launched on 15 July in Canberra at the National Gallery of Australia during the symposium ‘The Art of Attribution: The Catalogue Raisonné in the 21st Century’, organized jointly by the NGA and the Australian Institute of Art History at the University of Melbourne. This publication is the first online catalogue raisonné of prints to be published in Australia and is a work in progress. Its first phase documents Rick Amor’s intaglio prints and their 900-plus states; the relief prints and lithographs will be added in due course. The catalogue is a work of independent scholarship, supported by Black Moon Pty Ltd, and by Niagara Galleries, Melbourne. Rick Amor: An Online Catalogue Raisonné of the Prints is now available to be consulted, free of charge, at: http://catalogue.rickamor.com.au The…

News | Closure of Castlemaine Art Gallery

Sad and shocking news that the Castlemaine Art Museum is to close while the museum undertakes ‘a full review of operations and develop a blueprint for the future‘. The plan is to reopen in two years, in time for the 2019 Castlemaine Festival, but there seems to be some doubt as to whether this will happen. In the meantime six staff are out-of-work and the residents of Castlemaine (and beyond) have lost an important venue of cultural activity. The gallery is a member of Victoria’s Regional Art Gallery network, but it is not a government organisation and nor is it operated by the local council (though it does receive both local and state government funding). There are suggestions that without some level of government intervention and funding the museum may not have a future. Let’s hope a solution can be found,…

Two senior figures of the Australian gallery world receive top honours

Judith Ryan with Warna Jukurrpa (snake dreaming) by PeterJapanangka Blacksmith. Photo via theage.com.au

Two senior figures of the Australian gallery world received top honours in the recent 2017 Queen’s Birthday announcements. Judith Ryan, Senior Curator of Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Victoria was made a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to the visual arts, particularly to the museums and galleries sector, as a curator of Indigenous exhibitions, and as an author. Dr Anna Gray, former head of Australian art at the National Gallery of Australia was made a Member of the Order of Australia for significant services to the visual arts, as a curator, scholar and historian, to Australian artists and to the promotion of cultural heritage.

News | Mardi Nowak New Director of NETS Victoria

NETS Victoria has announced the appointment of Mardi Nowak as Director. From NETS Ms Nowak who trained as an artist has worked as a curator and gallery manager for more than 16 years in the public gallery and local government sector most recently at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn. Over the past decade she has developed over 100 exhibitions and programs, working closely with gallery staff, artists and organisations on collection building, artist-in-residence programs and overseeing public art commissions. Sarah Bond, Chair of NETS Victoria: “The Board was won over by Mardi’s significant professional achievement, commitment to the sector and vision. She brings a wealth of management and curatorial experience to the role. We’re looking forward to working with Mardi to deliver our current slate of ambitious and stimulating exhibitions and shape the program going forward.” Mardi Nowak: “I’m really…

News | Zara Stanhope appointed as new Head of Asian and Pacific Art at QAGOMA

The Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) Director Chris Saines has announced that renowned curator Zara Stanhope (most recently Principal Curator and Head of Programmes, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki) as the Gallery’s Curatorial Manager of Asian and Pacific Art. From QAGOMA ‘We are delighted to welcome Zara, who has over 20 years’ experience in curatorial and collection management in lead roles in art institutions in Australia and New Zealand,’ Mr Saines said. ‘Along with an expansive curatorial practice focusing on Australian, New Zealand and Pacific art, she will bring to the Gallery a great depth of strategic thinking, management experience and strong local and international networks. ‘As head of the Gallery’s dynamic Asian and Pacific art team, Zara will have responsibility for QAGOMA’s flagship exhibition series, The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, and its world…

News | Wiradjuri artist, Amala Groom joins the board of NAVA

Wiradjuri artist, Amala Groom, has been elected unopposed as the first Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Visual Arts Representative Director on the board of the NAVA. From NAVA Amala Groom is a New South Wales based conceptual artist whose practice is informed by, and reflects, Aboriginal methodologies, epistemologies and ways of being. Her work, as a form of passionate activism, delivers insightful commentary on contemporary society, politics and race relations. Groom said today, “It is both an honour and a privilege to have been nominated to hold the first dedicated Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Director’s position on the NAVA Board. I bring to the role both my personal expertise as a practitioner and my background in Aboriginal political and legal advocacy. My voice is one of the many thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander visual artists, curators, writers,…