October

Amos Gebhardt

Congratulations to Amos Gebhardt, a finalist in the 2018 Bowness prize, on view now at Monash Gallery of Art.

Artist statement: The series Evanescence contemplates the nature of impermanence. We are here as miraculously as we are not. The human form is captured in a state of transience as it merges with the materials of the earth; dirt, water and salt. I seek to draw attention to the way the human body reflects the same elements of the Earth’s surface. There is no separation. The imagery resists normative notions of humanness by offering a diverse portrait of being within the natural world.
Made in collaboration with forty performers, and creatives Melanie Lane, Katie Milright and Tim Mummery.
Thank you to the Traditional Custodians the Boorong people for permission to film on country.

Image: Water #3 2018 from the series Evanescence
chromogenic print
100 x 155 cm

September

Patricia Piccinini

The Patricia Hotel opens at the Vancouver Biennale

In what is expected to become one of North America’s most talked-about art events of the year, globally renowned Melbourne artist Patricia Piccinini’s Curious Imaginings immersive sculpture experience will exhibit this September as part of the 2018-2020 Vancouver Biennale.

For the first time in the Biennale’s fifteen years of creating transformative experiences through public art, and in keeping with the 2018 – 2020 theme of re-IMAGE-n, the exhibition will take over an interior space in the historic Patricia Hotel.

The hyperrealist “world of oddly captivating, somewhat grotesque, human-animal hybrid creatures” will be the artist’s first exhibition in a non-museum setting, transforming a wing of the 105-year-old Patricia Hotel.

Find out more at vancouverbiennale.com.

Image: via Patricia Piccinini on Instagram

September

Brook Andrew

On view from 18 September to 1 December 2018 at Ten Cubed is The Language of Skulls, showcasing works by Brook Andrew in the Ten Cubed collection.

Ten Cubed is a private art gallery, open to the public, where an evolving selection of contemporary artists represented by Australian and New Zealand galleries, are collected and exhibited in-depth over ten years.

Brook Andrew is a Melbourne-based interdisciplinary artist who examines dominant narratives, often relating to colonialism and modernist histories. He is the Artistic Director of the 2020 Biennale of Sydney.

Brook Andrew is represented by Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne; Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney; and Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris and Brussels.

Ten Cubed is open Tuesday – Saturday 10am to 4pm.

Image: Brook Andrew Systems II (cropped) 2016. Mixed media 240 x 165 cm.

September

Sydney Contemporary

Ben Quilty‘s new series The Bottom Feeders will be shown exclusively at Sydney Contemporary, 12–16 September 2018, Tolarno Galleries stand E15. Works include paintings, etchings and sculpture.

Quilty’s new series of paintings, The Bottom Feeders, shows a greedy society with a cargo cult mentality, whose cultural leaders dispense materialist trophies. A corrupt Santa stands in for the men who were initially revered as figures of implicit generosity and assumed benevolence. While the original St. Nicholas served the needy, Santa now is a symbol of self-gratification, conspicuous consumption and corporate greed, with Quilty adding uncontrolled lust for good measure. – Michael Desmond, 2018

September

Ben Quilty

Congratulations to Ben Quilty, whose work will be the subject of a major museum exhibition, touring to three capital cities in 2019-20.

Quilty was developed by the Art Gallery of South Australia and is curated by co-Acting Director Lisa Slade. The survey exhibition will be unveiled in Adelaide on 2 March 2019. It will then tour to the Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art and the Art Gallery of New South Wales until early 2020.

A fully illustrated book, published by Penguin Random House, will accompany the exhibition.

Read more in The Australian ($ paywall).

Quilty exhibition touring dates:
Art Gallery of South Australia | 2 March to 2 June 2019
Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art | 29 June to 13 October 2019
Art Gallery of New South Wales | 9 November 2019 to 2 February 2020

August

Nicholas Folland

Congratulations to Nicholas Folland who has been selected for The National 2019: New Australian Art.

Folland will present a new solo show, Dawn Chorus, at Tolarno Galleries from 6 October – 3 November

Pictured: Nicholas Folland Untitled (Jump-up) 2012. Domestic crystal & glassware, nylon coated stainless steel wire. 500 x 230 x 460 cm. Installation at Art Gallery of South Australia. Photo: Saul Steed.

August

Danie Mellor

Opening on Saturday 25 August is Danie Mellor’s landmark new series The Landspace: [all the debils are here].

 

Click here to view images.

Pictured: A mythic vision 2018. Diasec mounted chromogenic print on metallic photographic paper. 126 cm diameter. Edition of 3 + 2AP

August

ACO and Bill Henson

In 2019, the Australia Chamber Orchestra will revisit their original 2005 collaboration with artist Bill Henson, Luminous. A ground-breaking, cross-genre musical and visual feast, the updated performance will feature indie Israeli-Australian singer-songwriter Lior.

Henson’s haunting, dramatic photography remains the visual focus. His night-time urban landscapes and moody explorations of sensuality – twilight zones between day and night, male and female, youth and adulthood, urban and rural settings – form the background to a meditative soundscape.

This revival features new imagery and music spanning Britten and Janáček to R.E.M., and the centrepiece is Pēteris Vasks’ pensive violin concerto, Distant Light. Nostalgic, melancholic, at times manic and beautifully evocative, Luminous is an arresting, multi-sensory journey.

Luminous season runs 10 – 23 August 2019. ACO subscription packages are available now.

Read more at the Sydney Morning Herald.

Image: Bill Henson Untitled #137, 2000/2001, KMC SH41 N28, Archival inkjet pigment print, 127 × 180 cm

 

August

Judy Watson

Congratulations to Judy Watson who will create a six-metre new work, bara, as part of the City of Sydney’s seven-part ‘Eora Journey’ public art program.

bara will comprise two towering, crescent-shaped pieces modelled on shapes of the bone fish hooks manufactured for thousands of years by Gadigal women. Made of stone, the sculpture will have a pearlescent finish so as to resemble the hooks that can still be found around the harbour. Work is expected to be completed by mid-2020.

Read more
Sydney Morning Herald
Time Out Sydney

Image: courtesy Judy Watson and UAP Media

August

Elizabeth Willing

From 2 – 5 August 2018, visit Tolarno Galleries’ stand D7 Vault Hall at Melbourne Art Fair for Strawberry Thief, the solo installation from Elizabeth Willing.

Celebrate the festive and ceremonial fruit cake with the Dark series of collages. See wallpaper from a different perspective with the Strawberry Thief (after William Morris) design on the walls, and look up close at the hand carved sculptures Umber (no. 1) and Umber (no. 2).  Taste a soothing cocktail made from a vodka and valerian tincture with Anxiolytic, comprising a bottled and branded spirit and set of Pacify glasses as part of a cocktail performance in collaboration with Melbourne mixologist, Cennon Hanson.

Read more
Gourmet Traveller
The Age
Time Out Melbourne
Art Guide

Listen to an interview
ABC RN The Drawing Room

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.