New Histories

New Histories

13 April – 29 July 2018

Bendigo Art Gallery

In New Histories contemporary artists reimagine ten historic works from the 19th and early 20th century Australian and European collection of Bendigo Art Gallery. Informed by technological, social, environmental, political and historical events that have occurred since the original work’s creation, artists in the exhibition revisit interpretations of Australian and European histories through the lens of contemporary culture.

Working across mediums of performance, sound, film, painting and textiles, historic and contemporary artworks will be reframed in a series of installations throughout the contemporary and heritage courts of the Gallery. New Histories challenges the nature of art as historic record and the role of the artist and the museum as documenter, and commentator of the world.

Established in 1887, the Bendigo Art Gallery was founded by the predominately white German and British wealthy colonials. With a particular euro-centric investment, these men had a vision of 'art for the people'.The legacy of this early colonial agenda remains the core of the Bendigo Art Gallery's 18th and 19th century collection of cultural objects that reflect the interested and homelands of the new colonists and favours a 'Terra Nullius' narrative. (wall text)

Artists
Denis Chapman
Seecum Cheung, Maike Hemmers, Pilar Mata Dupont, Isabelle Sully, and Flora Woudstra
Gabrielle de Vietri
FAMILY FIRST! (Devon Ackermann & Paul Yore)
Juan Ford
Andrew Goodman
Bridie Lunney
Phuong Ngo
Jacques Soddell
Christian Thompson

CuratorJessica Bridgfoot

Thomas Sheard, The Arab Blacksmith, c1900

Juan Ford, Inappropriator, 2018

Carl Hoff, The Golden Wedding, 1883

FAMILY FIRST! (Deveon Ackermann & Paul Yore), The Birth of a Nation, 2018

Denis Chapman, I forgot to remember (The most organised violence in the world), 2018

Albert Chevallier Tayler, Gentlemen, 'the Queen', 1894

Emma Minnie Boyd, Afternoon Tea, 1888

Andrew Goodman, Untitled (afternoon tea 2188), 2018

Agnes Goodsir, Girl with Cigarette, c1925
Seem Cheung, Maike Hmmers, Pilar Mata Dupont, Isabelle Sully, Flora Woudstra,
Attending to Agnes, 2018, video projection

Zoē Bastin & Vittoria Di Stefano

Two exhibitions that play with the possibilities of materials, one in relationship to the body and one with materials ability to undergo an alchemic change or be effected by great forces. 

Zoë Bastin

Unknowing

Seventh Gallery

10th May – 24th May 2018

Written by Zoë

Unknowing is part of an ongoing performance project, exploring how choreography that uses sculptural materials creates a sense of estrangement from one’s own body. Choreography is informed by a confrontation with material, an abstracted fleshy mass the same weight as the performers own body.  The exhibition of sculptures, choreographic processes and artefacts will draw from the unfamiliarity of an estranged body, creating a sense of humility and inadequacy in the process of unknowing what a body is.
Bastin works in-between sculpture and dance creating choreography, objects, videos, photos and performances. Exploring the materiality of bodies and objects, her practice re-imagines her body and its connection to spatial, material and social contexts. Sculpture approximates the body through material while dance re-creates experiences using the body itself. 

Vittoria Di Stefano

Deep Time Receiver 

Bus Projects

9 May - 2 June 2018

Materials in a state of transition.
Materials that are personal, lipstick, soap presented in their transformed state.
An installation where magnet attract and arrange iron filings into poetic, organic organisms.  Crystals seep and expand, beginning to cover and consume all surfaces.

 Written by Vittoria

Vittoria Di Stefano’s research centres on material investigation as a method for examining notions of liminality - or transformative in-betweenness - in sculptural practice. She employs temporal, marginal and contingent processes to investigate a range of materials as a means to explore the alchemical and transformational properties of the sculptural object. busprojects.org.au/program/deep-time-receiver

Alicia van Rhijn & Madeleine Thornton-Smith

Composing Collage

Alicia van Rhijn & Madeleine Thornton-Smith

Seventh Gallery

10 May - 24 May 2018

Rhijn & Thorton-Smith have created a playful space within the front gallery at Seventh. Within this seemingly casual spay of blocks and components, is a deep formalist dialogue. Both artists have worked as if co-joined, balancing texture, colour, shape, mass and scale. 

Individual vignettes are delightful as intricate attention to surface detail is discovered. A closer look reveals material use - or does it. Thornton-Smith plays with and often reversed the tactile qualities one expects from clay, plaster or paper, whilst van Rhijn conjures graphic compositions found in architect and interior design.

Kirsten Perry

Strawberry & Banana 

Window series at www.pépite.com.au
195 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy

17 April - 6 May 2018

Kirsten Perry always delights. This show is particularly delicious with a goopy strawberry glaze that is decoratively dribbly, functions as a joining technique and makes for a catchy title.

Each piece is curious, witty and imaginative in both form and texture. Objects are abstractly familiar and nag at the brain for a linking reality: mushroom, toast holder, garlic bulb, Big Charlie chewy.

Perry's titles add to the game:

Sicky Bottom, Pimples, Teenager, I'll Wait Here. 

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