2004-05 Report

EXHIBITIONS AND AUDIENCES

Focusing on works produced from 1988 to early 2005, ‘The Art of Fiona Hall’ was

the first survey exhibition of this leading artist’s work to be staged by an Australian

gallery in more than a decade. Organised by the Queensland Art Gallery, the

exhibition revealed the breadth of the artist’s work — photographs and Polaroids,

intricately carved sardine tins, vibrantly beaded sculptures, precise botanical

illustrations on bank notes — and her curiosity for contemporary life and the world

around her. Featuring the previously unseen major works

Understorey

1999–2004

and

Tender

2003–05, the exhibition was officially opened by Ron Radford,

Director of the National Gallery of Australia. Public programming accompanying

the exhibition included an artist talk, exhibition floortalks and lectures, as well as a

forum on object-making in contemporary art. A beautiful monograph, by the

curator, Julie Ewington (Head of Australian Art), was published by Piper Press to

coincide with the exhibition.

Organised by the Art Gallery of South Australia, ‘Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri’

showcased three decades of the artist’s revolutionary career. Featuring the series

of five large canvases produced in the late 1970s, in which the artist mapped his

‘corroboree country’, the exhibition revealed Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri as a

pioneer of the Western Desert dot-painting movement and a charismatic

ambassador for his culture. Public programs included a lecture presentation by

the exhibition’s curator, Dr Vivien Johnson. The exhibition was promoted to

general audiences via a television commercial produced by the Art Gallery of

South Australia and aired for the Gallery by media sponsor Network Ten.

From the National Gallery of Australia came ‘No Ordinary Place: The Art of David

Malangi’, an exhibition featuring the life’s work of this leading figure in the

development of the distinctive central Arnhem Land bark painting movement.

Malangi’s characteristic use of wide white lines and dense matt blacks,

rärrk

(cross-hatching) and bold graphic depictions of iconic ancestral beings made him

a true innovator in the medium. This exhibition brought together around 50 works

from private and public collections to reveal powerful stories of land and culture. A

Grotocéans (The treasure of the Grotoceans)

1980; and Lee

Bul’s cyborg body parts made from porcelain, all of which

encouraged children to imagine future worlds. The exhibition

featured interactive ‘play’ areas, including a Battery Cattery

where children could play with, and care for, robotic cats;

and Create-a-Creature where young visitors could use their

imaginations to create weird and wonderful animals. Sparky,

the cyborg-dog mascot, created by the Gallery’s curatorial,

education, communications and design staff, featured in the

accompanying children’s activity book and Summer Festival

program.

A highlight of the exhibition was ‘The Nature Machine’

Summer Festival, a nine-day program of performances,

workshops, artist talks and fun activities for children. Artists’

workshops — with exhibiting and local artists Beata

Batorowicz, eX de Medici, Douglas Watkin, Lisa Roet, Kim

Demuth and Guan Wei — were particularly well attended, as

was ‘The Nature Machine’ Quiz Show, which ran twice a

day due to popular demand. Performances by Tubby the

Robot, the Surfing Scientist and Conan the Bubbleman also

featured during the festival, while Canine-cam, where family

dogs had tiny video cameras strapped to their backs to

record dog’s-eye views of the world, rounded out the festival

program. Sparky, the exhibition mascot, featured in the

comprehensive marketing campaign undertaken for the

exhibition and festival, encompassing an animated television

commercial, and press and outdoor advertising.

Another major initiative for young audiences during the year

was ‘Blak Insights’ for kids, which accompanied the

exhibition ‘Blak Insights: Contemporary Indigenous Art from

the Queensland Art Gallery Collection’. Children and families

explored the exhibition with the help of exhibition mascot

Kuril — the hip, urban water rat, who featured on children’s

labels, audio activities and in the free activity book. Kuril’s

hideouts were special places in the exhibition where children

could discover more about Indigenous culture. Workshops

were offered to children of all ages during the September–October school

holidays. Local Indigenous artists Mayrah Yarraga Dreise, Archie Moore, Janice

Peacock, Jenny Fraser, Alvina Lund and Bianca Beetson taught children how to

create clay sculptures, landscape collages, spirals for the seasons, sea animal

prints, sand pictures and ‘superhero’ characters based on native Australian

animals.

Youth-focused programming featured in the first quarter of 2005.

The annual ‘Education Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Art’, organised by

Education Queensland, again showcased the diverse talent of young artists from

schools throughout Queensland. A selection of 47 works, selected from

submissions by 15 000 senior art students, was displayed, and was accompanied

by a video documentary featuring the artists discussing their work. As in previous

years, the ‘Education Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Art’ proved especially

popular with visiting school groups.

In 2005, the Gallery’s annual Prime project was an exhibition by young

Queensland artists. Showcasing the new work of eight contemporary artists aged

35 and under, ‘Prime 2005: New Art from Queensland’ highlighted the strength

and diversity of current art practice in Queensland. The exhibition included a major

sculpture by Daniel Templeman; paintings by Peter Alwast, Natalya Hughes and

Jemima Wyman; photographs by Chris Handran; a new video work by Grant

Stevens; a series of sculptural works by Alasdair Macintyre; and an installation and

new works on paper by Sandra Selig. A specially designed website was produced

for the exhibition and featured videos of artist interviews. Several artists presented

artist talks in conjunction with the exhibition.

Starter Space, an initiative for young Queensland artists, continued at the Gallery

with the work of five artists under 25 exhibited during the year. Wilkins Hill, a

collaborative team comprising Wendy Wilkins and Wesley Hill, presented a playful

text-based work which was followed by Joshua Feros’s

Phrase

, a site-specific

installation comprised of coloured discs mimicking the raised dots of the Braille

language system. Sebastian Moody’s text-based work was the next presentation

for Starter Space, before Natalie Masters’s work comprising black, stained, cut-up

and resewn doilies referencing her Maori ancestry went on show in late June.

The Queensland Art Gallery’s 2004–05 exhibition calendar saw audiences treated to

the enchanting work of Fiona Hall; the innovation of Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and

David Malangi Daymirringu; the hyper-reality of Ron Mueck’s monumental

Pregnant

woman

; and the serious fun of serious art in the children’s exhibition ‘The Nature

Machine: Contemporary Art, Nature and Technology’.

GENERAL EXHIBITIONS

EXHIBITIONS AND PROGRAMS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

series of lectures and floortalks was presented in association

with ‘No Ordinary Place’.

‘Ron Mueck: The Making of

Pregnant woman

2002’, also

toured by the National Gallery of Australia, was an intimate

study of the Melbourne-born, London-based artist Ron

Mueck’s extraordinarily ambitious work. A contemporary

portrayal of motherhood,

Pregnant woman

is a monument

(at 2.5 metres high) to universal themes of fertility, birth and

life, and is both lifelike and hyper-real. Preparatory sketches,

maquettes, and a video documentary of the artist at work

helped complete the picture of the artist’s painstakingly

detailed processes.

Through the work of John Baldessari, Andrea Fraser,

Aernout Mik, Nam June Paik, Song Dong and Erwin Wurm,

‘I am Making Art’ explored performance art in the Gallery’s

Collection from the 1960s to the present. With equal

measures of absurdity and humour, the exhibition examined

idiosyncratic languages of the body and human movement,

captured through photography, text and video. An exhibition

preview for tertiary students and a program of children’s

workshops were held in association with the exhibition.

Since 1998, more than one million people have visited

children’s exhibitions and programs at the Queensland Art

Gallery and, once again in 2004–05, children and their

families experienced the latest in exhibition programming

designed specially for young audiences. ‘The Nature

Machine: Contemporary Art, Nature and Technology’

explored ideas about nature, technology and visions of the

future, and displayed works by 29 Australian and

international contemporary artists. Works included the recent

acquisition and video installation

From here to there

2003 by

Jana Sterbak, featuring footage filmed entirely by her dog

Stanley; Co Hoedeman’s 16mm animated short films

exploring environmental themes, including

Le trésor des

EXHIBITIONS AND PROGRAMS FOR CHILDREN

From left to right:

‘Blak Insights’ exhibiting artist Djambawa Marawili

presents an artist talk during NAIDOC Week in

July 2004.

Julie Ewington, Head of Australian Art, speaks to

students at the tertiary preview of the exhibition

‘The Art of Fiona Hall’.

Young architects at work on

The cubic structural

evolution project

2004, by Olafur Eliasson,

installed at the Gallery for ‘The Nature Machine’

Summer Festival.

Tubby the Robot and his remote-controlled baby,

Little Tub, entertaining visitors at ‘The Nature

Machine’ Summer Festival.

Joshua Feros installing his work in Starter Space,

an initiative for young Queensland artists.