1995
1995
Alternative Realities: Australian Artists Working with Technology
Alternative Realities was the longest running Bright Sparks exhibition. Focusing on artists working with new media was in these early days, the mid 1990s, considered groundbreaking. Mark Napier of the Australian Consulate General in Shanghai reporting ‘the exhibition left a particularly deep impression as there has not previously been anything like this in here before.’ The words of curator Rachel Kent found resonance throughout the region. She wrote ‘these artists explore in different ways the possibilities, as well as the limitations, of technology in their work. The impact of technology upon the body, the urban landscape and the shaping of history is considered, while a critical look is cast at the darker side of technological progress.’
Presented for the Asialink program: Bright Sparks
Curator: Rachel Kent
Artists: Peter Callas, Moira Corby, Ross Harley, Rosemary Laing, Patricia Piccinini
Partner: The University of Melbourne Museum of Art, Melbourne
Tour: Hong Kong, Melbourne, Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Taipei, Tamsui, Kaohsiung, Bangalore,
Body and Soul: Prints by Vera Zulumovski & Phillip Doggett-Williams
Presented for the Asialink program: Bright Sparks
Body and Soul was part of a program of smaller exhibitions, entitled Bright Sparks, designed to travel to a diverse range of venues outside of the larger museum network, in this case to venues in southern Thailand and to new countries for Asialink: Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Curator Roger Butler invited two printmakers to be involved, exploring social themes of diversity and belonging.
Curator: Roger Butler
Artists:Phillip Doggett-Williams, Vera Zulumovski
Partner: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Tour: Dhaka, Bangkok, Khon Kaen, Chiang Mai, Pattani, Songkhla, Satul, Colombo, Kathmandu (1995-1997)
Symbol and Narrative: Contemporary Australian Textiles
Presented for the Asialink program: Bright Sparks
Symbol and Narrative, which included the work of four textile artists commenting on the modern world from Perth and Melbourne, was a third iteration of the Bright Sparks program, and focused on the smaller centres of South Asia as well as the main cities of Bombay and New Delhi. The interest in textiles is apparent from the report of artist Pamela Gaunt in India: ‘I gave three talks in Delhi and three in Jaipur. The venues were great. The exhibition was very well received; people were very excited…. I was on radio in Delhi and TV in Jaipur and the exhibition had a lot of newspaper coverage.’
Curator:Margaret Ainscow
Artists: Moira Doropoulos, Pamela Gaunt, Holly Story, Rose Marie Szulc
Tour: Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Kathmandu, New Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Bombay (1995)
Vibration: Works by Three Contemporary Australian Women Artists Presented for the Asialink program: Bright Sparks
Presented for the Asialink program: Bright Sparks
Vibration was the first exhibition created in partnership between Asialink and the Art Gallery of Western Australia, and a fourth in the Bright Sparks series. It’s inclusion of the work of three women artists dovetailed well into its Beijing showing at the conclusion of the 4th United Nations World Conference on Women.
Curators: Seva Frangos, Margaret Moore
Artists: Louise Forthun, Michele Sharpe, Kim Westcott
Partner: The Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
Tour: Beijing, Hanoi, Seoul, Melbourne (1995-1996)
Changing Places: Cross-Cultural Art From Australia
Presented for the Asialink program: Bright Sparks
Curator: Judy Kean
Artists: Annie Franklin, Meng Hoeschle, Robert Kleinboonschate, David Mpetyane, John Smith
Partner: Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin
Tour: Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Kuching (1995)
A second response to the Bright Sparks program was an exhibition of artists from the Northern Territory. Curator Judy Kean states: ‘The five artists included in Changing Places offer diverse perspectives on living and working across or between cultures... Each of them has opened him or herself to the influences of unfamiliar physical and cultural environments, and each has done so for a period of time within one distinctive area of Australia.’
The exhibition traveled to smaller centres in Malaysia, with Penelope Aitken of Asialink reporting from Kuching where the exhibition shared a venue with other projects: ‘The Changing Places opening by the mayor was great. The whole combination of art by school kids, past Atelier residents from the Philippines and Bali, current Atelier members as well as us, guaranteed a big audience and lots of fun.’
Shifting Ground: The Performances, Prints and Self-Portraits of Mike Parr
The exhibition of large-scale prints of self-portraits by Mike Parr was held at the Australia Centre, then part of the Australian Embassy, and the performance ‘Daybreak’ held over 24 hours at the Cultural Centre of the Philippines. The Philippines has a visual art history of dramatic performance, so Parr, dressed in bridal finery, lying on a bed surrounded by dead chickens and much blood, received a very passionate response from an audience of 400 and the press, with one reviewer commenting ‘It’s a bizarre blend of the exotic, the absurd, the psychotic even’ (Patrick D. Flores, The Philippines Daily Inquirer, 28 January 1995).
Curator: David Bromfield
Artist: Mike Parr
Partner: TheUniversity of Western Australia, Perth
Tour: Manila (l995)