Hao Guo Exhibit – Melbourne

Hao Guo is an artist from Beijing, China. He completed an Applied Design course at RMIT before going on to complete a Bachelor of Fine Art (painting) with first class Honours at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2006. Hao is now undertaking his research Masters in Fine Art at the VCA.

Hao has worked on many collaborative projects including: Increase Your Uncertainty with A Constructed World (Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 2007), got no puppamumma with James Deutsher (Singapore, 2006), Hao Guo, a magazine edited by Olivia Barrett (2006), and the group show Objects
in Space (a KickStart project presented as part of the 2008 Next Wave Festival). Hao created a project with James Deutsher during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and whilst in Beijing held a simultaneous project with Thea Rechner in Melbourne at Seventh Gallery. In 2009 Hao will return to China.

30 January – 14 February
Free Artist Floor Talk: 12 February, 12.30 – 1.30pm
Galleries 1 + 2 + 3

West Space, 1st Floor, 15-19 Anthony Street, Melbourne
Wednesday to Friday 12-6pm, Saturday 12-5pm

For further information, contact (03) 9328 8712, or info@westspace.org.au
www.westspace.org.au

Will the accused please stand up! Art History and Crime

FRANKFURT – The history of art and detective stories have something in common. In particular the fact that it can sometimes take centuries to find the «guilty one»… Take the master of Flémalle, a great Flemish artist from the beginning of the XVth century, who espoused the revolution of oil painting and naturalistic precision. A genius. Yet, five hundred years after his death we still do not know whether he really existed. Some like to believe it was Robert Campin, who had his workshop in Arras. The curators of the exhibition in Frankfurt refute this theory. They believe Flémalle is a hybrid creature hiding alternatively behind Campin, for the more archaic compositions, or his brilliant disciples – Jacques Daret and the young Roger van der Weyden – for the more audacious works. The heterogeneous style of the Master of Flémalle is enhanced through some twenty works, of which some (such as the Mérode triptych from the Metropolitan Museum in New York) are much closer to what van der Weyden would do later. A series of autographic wo rks by the latter allow us to be convinced of this.

The Master of Flémalle and Roger van der Weyden at the Städel Museum, until 22 February 2009. The exhibition will be presented at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin as of 20 March 2009, without the Mérode triptych nor the Annunciation from Brussels.

http://www.staedelmuseum.de/sm/index.php?StoryID=1&websiteLang=en

A passage to India – Exhibition

VALENCIA (Spain) – Over 500 works by some one hundred artists, and spanning two centuries: the retrospective the IVAM dedicates to Indian modern and contemporary art aims at being a reference. Of course it presents the most discussed creators of our day, such as Subodh Gupta, but it also flashes back on a wide past. The aim is to measure colonial heritage, the influence the European and American movements of the sixties, fascinated by Indian spirituality, had locally or the effects of censorship during the state of emergency (1975-77). We will admire side by side, anonymous chromos from Bengale, nude selfportraits of Amrita Sher-Gil (1913-41), a woman whose career was too short, photographs by Raghubir Singh, watercolors by Rabindranath Tagore or paintings by Francis Newton Souza (1924-2002). The Western eye is that of Cartier-Bresson or of the Land Art practiced by Richard Long in the Himalaya.

India moderna at the IVAM until 15 February 2009
Know more … http://www.indiamoderna.es/

Swimming Animistic

Sarah-Mace Dennis is an artist and writer whose work utilises traditional and emerging technologies. Swimming Animistic is a new three channel video work that encourages a rethinking and re-experiencing of Portside Wharf, Brisbane. Sarah wandered through Portside over a period of days, documenting built and natural landscapes and activities of people going about their every day lives. But more than relaying gentle stories about Portside, the work explores the notion of film as a form and surface that can be manipulated via electronic and traditional (painting, printmaking) art making processes. In this way most of the frames used in much of the ‘Swimming animistic’ footage have been exported from initial drafts of video footage as TIFF files (with as many as 10000 frames for five minutes of footage). Some of these frames have been digitally manipulated while many of the files have been printed on photographic paper and drawn and painted on before being scanned back into the computer and reassembled as a film. The result is a kind of moving painting that encourages viewers to re-interpret the Wharf landscape that surrounds them.

Until 6 January
Dendy Cinema foyer, Portside Wharf, Brisbane
For more information, email angeline@artworkers.org
http://www.artworkers.org

ADEC ArtAbility 2008

ADEC ArtAbility 2008 @ Atrium at Fed Square, 26 Nov to 2 Dec. A unique & vibrant art exhibition showcasing over 60 ethnic artists of all ages who have a disability. There are 120 exceptional paintings, drawings & sketches exploring the theme of the “Journey” – the sights, sensations & memories that make every journey personal.

Bomalli (Koori) Artist Elaine Russell – Mission Life-Living Exhibition

Elaine Russell Mission Life-Living in the ’50s exhibition

25 November – 20 December 2008

Elaine Russell’s early life was spent on the mission at Murrin Bridge, near Lake Cargelligo, on the Lachlan River NSW. Alcaston Gallery is privileged to exhibit the insightful and engaging paintings by the renowned story teller, painter and author.

To preview this exhibition visit the Alcaston Gallery website.

Zaneta Vangeli Archive 1 – Adelaide

Archive 1 is a selection of prints and video art from Zaneta Vangeli’s prolific practice of twenty-odd years. A multimedia artist, Vangeli realises her ideas with paintings, objects, photography, video and film.

“The artist is profoundly concerned with the cultural and political context of her own country: Macedonia. Her critical thinking challenges polarised cultural, social and politically engaged art. That is, in parallel to addressing urgent cultural and political questions in the most thoughtful and reflective way, Vangeli boldly tackles even the most metaphysical of issues—such as truth, the battle between good and evil, comprehension of God’s nature and actions, etc.”

14 November – 13 December
11-5 Tuesday-Friday, 2-5 Saturday
EAF at The Lion Arts Centre, North Terrace (West End), Adelaide

http://eaf.asn.au/2008/vangeli.html

Nicholas Beckett’s 2009 Calendar – now available.

The indomitable Nicholas Beckett flogs his 2009 calendar.

You can view it here.

A History of Violence in Australia

‘A history of violence’ rummages through the underbelly of Australia’s colonial history with video, paintings, soft sculptures and object based works. Anti-colonialism and cultural violence is the central premise for the exhibition by Wayde Owen and Alan Jones.  The exhibition also narrates implied repercussions of ongoing Socio-economic hardship within the context of Australia’s colonial history, and the social violence of beach and gang culture. Owen and Jones, both recipients of the prestigious Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship, articulate distinctive perspectives on the place of violence in manufacturing and maintaining Australian culture.

Begins
Friday, December 12, 2008
Gold Coast City Art Gallery
135 Bundall Road, Surfers Paradise
Gold Coast, Australia

website:http://www.gcac.com.au/
email:gallery@gcac.com.au

VCA Arts Project: Melbourne

VCA Projects is part of an ongoing commitment by the VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery to showcase new works by established Melbourne-based practitioners, providing an opportunity for contemporary artists to create a new body of work on a large scale specifically designed for the gallery space. VCA Projects supports artists working with site-specific concerns to pursue developmental research into contemporary modes of practice within a variety of media from sculpture, installation and spatial practice to photography, video, painting and drawing. VCA Projects for 2008 will feature two discrete solo projects by Greg Creek and Spiros Panigirakis.

Opening night Thursday 9 October
10 October – 8 November, Tuesday to Saturday 12 – 5 pm
VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery, 40 Dodds Street, SOUTHBANK VIC 3006
Contact 03 9685 9400 or go to http://www.vca.unimelb.edu.au/galllocation