2006
2006
Destiny Deacon: Walk & Don’t Look Blak
Following the success of Supernatural Artificial, this major retrospective prepared for the MCA in Sydney was shown to great interest at the major photography/new media museum in Tokyo. This was the first survey by this leading Australian Indigenous artist to be shown in Japan. Spanning fifteen years of Deacon’s career, the exhibition highlighted photographic, video and installation works that established her in the Australian and international art worlds. The exhibition attracted nearly 10,000 visitors with 250 invited guests attending the opening reception.
Curator: Natalie King
Artist: Destiny Deacon
Partners: Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney / Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
Tour: Sydney,Tokyo (2006)
A Secret History of Blue and White
A Secret History of Blue and White highlighted the diversity and strength of Australian ceramics, positioning them within European and Asian design histories.
Artists: Stephen Benwell, Robin Best, Bronwyn Kemp, Vipoo Srivilasa, Gerry Wedd
Curator: Stephen Bowers
Tour: Hanoi, Bangkok, Singapore, Beijing, Foshan, Sydney, Wagga Wagga, Bathurst, Brisbane, Gosford, Tamworth, Adelaide (2006-2009)
Partner: JamFactory Contemporary Craft and Design, Adelaide
Curator Stephen Bowers identified the assumptions and ceramic histories associated with ‘blue and white’ from the willow patterns of from China coming to Europe as did the technique of porcelain. He also brought into focus the impact of technology and trade, revealing its effect on the development, interpretation and evolution of designs and patterns, alluding in the title both (ironically) to the very well known basis of ‘blue and white’ ceramics themselves and the (less ironic) less well-known socio-economic circumstances surrounding them. The North Asian basis of the blue and white concept meant that the Australian works were immediately intriguing to these audiences, curious to how such a local idea could be translated by such culturally different artists. As with Akira Isogawa, the freedom with how such traditions can be translated in Australia was provocative and of interest to these audiences, and the influence of the exhibition is being seen now in new works made in a number of the places where it toured.
Open letter
Curator Binghui Huangfu of the Asia-Australia Arts Centre, Sydney, has selected work by artists of (mostly) South East Asian descent - Dadang Christanto, Emil Goh, Selina Ou, Vienna Parreno; Krzysztof Osinski, George Poonkhin Khut & John Tonkin, Melissa Ramos, Koky Saly, Phaptawan Suwannakudt, My Le Thi - for an exhibition exploring the realities of leaving one home to live somewhere very different and how this affects their individual practice and the cultures of both their original place and their new place of abode. The generation of artists coming to the fore in the early years of the 21st century in Australia includes a number of people of South East Asian background, a notable change from a decade before. This creates both a new dynamic among them and changes the shape of contemporary Australian culture. The exhibition is an 'open letter' back to South East Asia and Australia.
CURATOR: Binghui Huangfu
ARTISTS: Dadang Christanto, Emil Goh, Selina Ou, Vienna Parreno with Krzysztof Osinski, George Poonkhin Khut with John Tonkin, Melissa Ramos, Koky Saly, Phaptawan Suwannakudt, My Le Thi
TOUR: The exhibition toured from 2005 to 2006, from Sydney to Bangkok, Manila and Kuala Lumpur.
Bangkok: 5 - 31 August 2005, National Gallery
Manila: 5 October - 5 November 2005, Metropolitan Museum
Kuala Lumpur: 14 February - 16 April 2006, National Art Gallery
From an Island South
The first Asialink exhibition curated from Tasmania, the artists in From an Island South explored the complexities underlying the island culture, especially through the interpretation of its unique landscape. Curator Jane Stewart explained that although each artist ‘…is passionate about the Tasmanian landscape, their works are more than representational depictions of a beautiful place.’
Artists: Julie Gough, Bea Maddock, David Keeling, Jonathan Kimberley (Collaborating with poet Jim Everett), David Stephenson, Richard Wastell and Philip Wolfhagen
Curator: Jane Stewart, Devonport Regional Gallery
Tour: Lahore, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Bangkok (2006-2008)
Devonport Regional Gallery director and curator Jane Stewart has selected works by prominent Tasmanian artists, Julie Gough, Bea Maddock, David Keeling, Jonathan Kimberley (collaborating with poet Jim Everett), David Stephenson, Richard Wastell and Philip Wolfhagen. Traditionally Australian art that investigates the landscape has depicted 'a sunburnt country' and wide-open spaces. These seven artists depicting the Tasmanian landscape however, are faced with a different reality, one of an island of environmental diversity and contradictions containing dense forests, dramatic coastlines and rugged mountains; a unique and inspiring environment.
This project is supported by Asialink at the University of Melbourne, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade through the Images of Australia Branch, and the Australia Council for the arts, the Australian Government's arts funding and advisory body, the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments and the Devonport City Council.
Akira Isogawa: Printemps–Été
Curator Katie Somerville of the National Gallery of Victoria has worked with Japanese-born Australian designer Akira Isogawa to create an exhibition of recent work that shows how Isogawa's work is inspired and developed as well as the finished objects. Displayed on cut-out oversized dolls, a key element of the design is the influence of origami, but reinvented anew.
Curator: Katie Somerville
Artist: Akira Isogawa
Partner: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Tour: Melbourne, Singapore, Manila, Bangkok, New Delhi, Mumbai (2005-2007)
The impact of this solo exhibition by a leading Australian artist, in this case Japanese-born but Australian (tertiary) educated fashion designer Akira Isogawa, was multiform: a beautiful and creative show that revealed the artist’s thinking, a show of a leading internationally recognised designer, and the revelation of how a creative person from one strong and influential culture like Japan can find greater freedom to explore both his heritage and his new surroundings, in those new surroundings. The exhibition focused on the creative process that Isogawa embarked upon over a five month period in the lead up to the presentation of his spring/summer collection in Paris in 2004. This elusive process, which is not usually accessible to the public, was revealed through a range of objects, working drawings, sounds, images and completed garments, something acknowledged by visitors at various venues. Said one commentator in Singapore: ‘It’s brilliant to see Akira Isogawa’s work and also his thought/work processes throughout the whole collection’. And a reviewer in Manila wrote ‘a cursory look at the exhibit is simply inexcusable, because Isogawa’s works require a thorough study… It is well worth the time of anyone seriously pursuing a career in design’ (C. Mendez Legaspi, Business Mirror, 20 January 2006).