2015 exhibition highlights - Heide Museum of Modern Art
Transcription
2015 exhibition highlights - Heide Museum of Modern Art
MEDIA RELEASE December 22, 2014 HEIDE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART – 2015 EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS In 2015, Heide reflects on its past and looks to a bright future. An exhibition commemorating works collected in the last 15 years, “21st Century Heide” will run across all three galleries with archival works shown in Heide I (the original farmhouse of John and Sunday Reed), abstract art shown in the modernist Heide II, and contemporary pieces displayed in the main gallery, Heide III. Later in the year, we celebrate the great love story of John and Sunday, culminating in the publishing of a double biography entitled “Modern Love”, and an exhibition showcasing the profound influence of the Reeds in Australian modern art. Looking forward, Heide welcomes Kirsty Grant as the new director and CEO in mid-January, steering the gallery into its next exciting phase. ALL GALLERIES 21ST CENTURY HEIDE: THE COLLECTION SINCE 2000 HEIDE I: 14 March – 14 June 2015 HEIDE II: 28 March – 28 June 2015 HEIDE III: 28 March – 14 June 2015 Since 2000, Heide has acquired more than 1500 new artworks for its collection, many by gift or bequest. These works span the spectrum from rare collages by Sidney Nolan produced in the 1930s to monumental installations by contemporary artists Callum Morton and Kathy Temin made in the last few years. The recent acquisitions have energised the Museum’s collection in an unprecedented way and have opened exciting possibilities for creating cross-generational dialogue and interdisciplinary connections between works on display. The multisite exhibition 21st Century Heide has been conceived as a gesture of appreciation to our generous benefactors and showcases a broad selection of artworks accessioned by the Museum since the turn of the century. Callum Morton |Ghost Train, Bulleen 2011 | digital print | 94 x 131.8 cm | edition 1/12 | Heide Museum of Modern Art |Gift of Philip Ross and Sophia Pavlovski-Ross through the Heide Foundation 2011 HEIDE III: CENTRAL GALLERIES MELINDA HARPER 27 June – 25 October 2015 Surveying Melbourne artist Melinda Harper’s remarkable oeuvre of abstract art over three decades, this exhibition will include painting, printmaking, embroidery, drawing, and collage, bringing these aspects of her art together for the first time. Harper’s paintings were initially small in scale—as much due to economical as aesthetic considerations—but they have since increased in size and complexity. The paintings displayed in this survey will range from her small and pared-back Constructivist works from the late 1980s, to her mid-1990s series inspired by the decorative and compositional elements of MEDIA RELEASE Indian miniature painting, to the large canvases of recent years which provide stunning new geometric and colour variations on her characteristic abstract themes. Alongside these, silkscreened fabrics and over sixty embroideries spanning nine years of work will make a colourful and spectacular display. ALEKS DANKO: MY FELLOW AUS-TRA-ALIENS 7 November 2015 – 21 February 2016 MY FELLOW AUS-TRA-ALIENS presents artworks spanning more than four decades of the long career of influential Victorian-based artist Aleks Danko, from his early exhibitions in Adelaide in the late 1960s through to his recent large-scale installations. Although the artist has worked in a range of disciplines, for the most part his practice remains firmly within the world of objects. Objects that take language—its sound, speech, rhymes, puns and repetition—and attempt to make it into something more concrete. Akin to poetry, these are works that are short and sharp, designed to be read aloud, vocalised and performed. In addition to many works sourced from public collections, this major survey features significant works remade or reconfigured by the artist specifically for the exhibition. Aleks Danko |incident – Ambivalence 1991–92 |wood, galvanised steel and synthetic polymer paint and varnish |Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney |Purchased with the assistance of stART, MCA Young Patrons, 1993 |© the artist HEIDE III: ALBERT & BARBARA TUCKER GALLERY ALBERT TUCKER: THE TRUTH IN MASQUERADE 21 February – 16 August 2015 As a young artist in the 1940s, Albert Tucker’s interest in popular culture drew him to Melbourne’s colourful entertainment venues. The Tivoli Theatre, Wirth’s Circus, and Luna Park were among the vibrant variety halls and showgrounds that he frequented and photographed for artistic interpretation in his paintings. Using theatrical imagery and effects inspired by the spectacle of live performance, Tucker commenced a series of works that point to the dramas and paradoxes of modern life through notions of masquerade. This exhibition presents many of Tucker’s best-known paintings on this theme, together with photographs and related archival material that convey a sense of the fast-paced cabaret underlining his carnivalesque vision of society. Albert Tucker |Tivoli Clown 1945 |oil on composition board |61 x 45.5 cm | Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne |Gift of Barbara Tucker 2005 |© Barbara Tucker MEDIA RELEASE CREATIVE LINES: THE ART OF JOY HESTER, ALBERT TUCKER AND SWEENEY REED 22 August 2015 – 6 March 2016 This exhibition provides a rare opportunity to view together the work of three artists central to the Heide story. Married in 1941, Joy Hester and Albert Tucker had their only child, Sweeney in 1945. After his parents separated Sweeney was adopted by John and Sunday Reed in 1950, who encouraged him to explore his creative inheritance. Although each developed a distinctive and idiosyncratic practice, it is possible to find resonances across their work that suggests the familial relationship. The exhibition includes key drawings, paintings, prints and poetry from the Heide Collection as well as photographs by Tucker that document their personal lives. HEIDE III: KERRY GARDNER & ANDREW MYER PROJECT GALLERY ROSEMARY LAING: WEATHERING 21 February – 31 May 2015 Works from two photographic series by Sydney based artist Rosemary Laing are presented in this exhibition, part of Climarte, a Melbourne-wide Festival seeking to ‘harness the creative power of the Arts to inform, engage and inspire action on climate change’. Laing’s powerful images elucidate this theme in ways that are layered and sometimes surprising. Linking the two series is the motif of paper. In weather 2006, a figure is blown around midst shreds of torn environmental texts, a whirl of bluster, false starts and broken promises. In The Paper (2013), sheets of daily newspaper cover a forest floor like a pale carpet or shroud. The quiet, elegiac mood of the scene paradoxically calls us to action. Rosemary Laing | weather # 6 2006 | C Type photograph | 110 x 175 cm (image size) | edition no. 6/8 | private collection, Melbourne HEIDE II ALEX SELENITSCH: LIFE/TEXT 24 October 2015 – 17 April 2016 Though primarily known as a concrete poet, Alex Selenitsch works across a broad spectrum of disciplines from architecture to artist books, collage and sculpture. His practice in each of these areas is underpinned by a creative exploration of the notion of theme and variation, often using found materials and the pre-existing systems of language and mathematics. Selenitsch has a long connection to Heide initiated through his friendship with Sweeney Reed, the adopted son of John and Sunday Reed. In 1969 Sweeney’s Strines Gallery was the venue for Selenitsch’s debut exhibition of concrete poetry, the first show of its kind in Australia. Several of these early concrete poems feature in LIFE/TEXT together with other examples from the Heide Collection and select public and private collections, surveying five decades of Selenitsch’s career. Alex Selenitsch |monoton eeeeeee 1969 |plastic letters on enamel on composition board |71.5 x 59 x 4 cm |Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne |Gift of Alex Selenitsch and Merron Selenitsch 2011 |© Alex Selenitsch MEDIA RELEASE HEIDE I HALCYON DAYS: HEIDE IN THE 1940S 20 July – 13 September 2015 The 1940s represent a pinnacle of artistic achievement and cultural change in the history of Heide. Throughout the decade John and Sunday Reed’s home formed a focal point for some of Australia’s avant-garde artists and writers, as the group spearheaded the modernist movement in Melbourne and challenged the status quo. It was a time of unprecedented experimentation and ambitious achievement telescoped into a few short years that witnessed the creation of many of the much-loved icons of the Heide collection. This exhibition celebrates some of these collection highlights, including Ned Kelly paintings by Sidney Nolan, Joy Hester’s compelling psychological portraits, Albert Tucker’s unsettling war-time night images, and much more. MODERN LOVE: THE LIVES OF JOHN AND SUNDAY REED 19 September 2015 - 8 May 2016 Heide founders John and Sunday Reed were champions of modernism in all its forms and catalysing figures for successive generations of Australian artists and writers. Their libertarian attitudes, self-sufficient lifestyle and support of the avant-garde paved the way for the shaping of a new cultural landscape. Accompanied by a new double biography of the same title, the exhibition Modern Love explores the extraordinary achievements of the Reeds’ unconventional and complex lives through artworks they collected over six decades, family heirlooms, recently discovered photographs, and personal memorabilia. Albert Tucker |John and Sunday Reed with Sweeney 1947 |gelatin silver photograph | 40.5 x 30.7 cm |Heide Museum of Modern Art | Gift of Barbara Tucker 2001 --ENDS-Media Enquiries: Sue Curwood, Marketing & Communications Manager | [email protected] (03) 8850 5943 Claire Miovich, Marketing & Communications Coordinator | [email protected] (03) 8850 5924 Heide Museum of Modern Art 7 Templestowe Road Bulleen, VIC 3105 heide.com.au Opening Hours Tuesday-Sunday 10am-5pm. Closed Mondays. Closed December 24-26 Museum Admission Adult $16, Senior $14, Concession $12 Gardens & Sculpture Park: FREE