VAULT EXTRA 3rd SEPTEMBER 2021
KIRSTEN COELHO: THERE ON THE OTHER SHORE
There on the other shore marks Kirsten Coelho’s debut exhibition with Sullivan+Strumpf. The exhibition presents a selection of the Adelaide-based ceramist’s porcelain vessels following in her renowned style that emanates rigorous minimalism, while navigating ideas emergent from mythology, philosophy and cultural memory.
Crafted with what has often been described as an ‘other-worldly perfection’, Coelho’s pieces echo the pleasures of daily life. For the artist, the present is linked to meditations on the history, purity and the order of daily rituals. Reflecting on these ideas, Coelho draws from the ageing surfaces of nineteenth and early twentieth-century domestic enamel wares. As such, each of Coelho’s handmade objects embodies journey and transformation in both a metaphoric and literal sense.
There on the other shore continues 2 October, 2021.
Image credit:Kirsten Coelho, Europa, porcelain, matt white, satin and cobalt glaze, 24.8 x 36 x 27 cm. Image courtesy the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf. Photo: Grant Hancock.
TEXTAQUEEN RECEIVES THE INAUGURAL CAP COMMISSION
TextaQueen has been announced as the recipient of the inaugural Copyright Agency Partnerships (CAP) $80,000 commission to create and present a major body of work with the 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art in Sydney.
4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art will support the creation of TextaQueen’s Bollywouldn’t project, which aims to celebrate the queer Asian diaspora. The name of the project in itself is proclaimed by the artist as “catchphrase decolonised” and an “imagining of utopia and reclamation of power.” To create Bollywouldn’t performances, TextaQueen will engage four trans and queer South Asians to interact with the works and projections in the exhibition.
TextaQueen’s Bollywouldn’t exhibition will be shown at the 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art in late 2022.
Image credit:Portrait of TextaQueen. Photo: Leah Jing Mcintosh. Courtesy 4A Centre for Contemporary Art
BLAK DOUGLAS WINS STILL: NATIONAL STILL LIFE AWARD
Dunghutti artist Blak Douglas has been announced as the winner of $30,000 Still: National Still Life Award 2021 for his artwork Silent Cop. Awarded by Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery, the winner was announced via a virtual ceremony on Saturday 21 August 2021.
Silent Cop is a memorial to black deaths in custody. Within the work, a symbol of police presence has been conflated with a tool of Aboriginal resistance – symbolically marking the juncture where these two acts have detrimentally come head-to-head throughout history and into the present day. Of the work the artist notes “I stepped outside of painting to create this piece because we are devoid of monuments, devoid of sculptures, of representations of first nation people across the continent, going on to highlight that “the artwork speaks about the abhorrent fact that we still have black deaths in custody and the indigenous incarceration rate.”
The award’s focus on the Still Life tradition has significantly continued to embrace an expansive definition of this classical practice often associated with painting. Works by the 59 finalists bring together mediums such as video, photography, installation and sculpture. The embrace of a range of materials and mediums offers important insight into the vast potential of the tradition and the cultural significance of objects – the layers of their resonance hinged upon how they are framed.
A 3D Virtual Tour of STILL 2021 has launched to enable to continued visitation. You can visit the exhibition online here.
For exhibition updates and to vote for the $5,000 People’s Choice Award, visit the gallery website.
Image credit:Blak Douglas, Silent Cop, 2020. Courtesy the artist and Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery
VIRTUAL TOUR OF CAMILLE HENROT: IS TODAY TOMORROW
The NGV has announced the launch of a virtual tour of Camille Henrot: Is Today Tomorrow. Working across diverse media including sculpture, drawing, video and installation to grapple with contemporary concerns and life’s big questions, Camille Henrot is one of the most compelling artists working today. The NGV International’s exhibition of her marks a major solo exhibition of the Paris-born, Berlin-based artist, bringing together key works from the past decade along with new works on paper that are on exhibition for the first time.
The exhibition continues at the NGV International until October 24, 2021. Click here to enter the viewing room.
You can read more about the expanded practice of Camille Henrot in VAULT Issue 34 (May – July). Subscribe here.
Image credit:Installation view of Camille Henrot: Is Today Tomorrow, 2021, NGV International, Melbourne. Photo: Tom Ross. Courtesy of NGV
LAURA GRISI: THE MEASURING OF TIME
Having undertaken innovative research into material, space and colour, Italian artist Laura Grisi continues to be recognised for her large-scale immersive and imagined environments that leave viewers in awe of their Sublime quality. The Measure of Time is a significant retrospective of the artist who passed away in 2017, bringing together her celebrated works from the 1960s through to the 1980s that recreate natural phenomena such as fog, wind, rain within the gallery context. Many of the works currently on display at the Muzeum Susch, Switzerland, have not been shown since they were first exhibited by the artist before the turn of the 1970s. The exhibition also includes important photos and documents, which are fundamental to the artist’s extensive research and travels that inspired her practice exploring the mechanisms of nature, perception and knowledge.
The exhibition continues until December 5, 2021
Image credit:Installation view Laura Grisi, The Measuring of Time, 2021, Muzeum Susch, Switzerland. Photo: Carlo Favero
BEN QUILTY AND PATRICIA PICCININI WITH ARNDT ART AGENCY IN LONDON
Artndt Art Agency is set to present two solo exhibitions by acclaimed Australian artists Ben Quilty and Patricia Piccinini.
Free Fall, showing September 8 – 19, 2021, at the Pavilion Gallery, Cromwell Place, London, brings together a curated selection of recent works by Ben Quilty ranging from medium to large scale paintings, sugar lift etchings and a major sculpture all produced during the pandemic within the lockdown environment. The exhibition builds upon the artist’s exploration of the complex social history of Australia and his critique of identity, patriotism and belonging. Following in the artist’s quintessential gestural style and thematic inclinations, Free Fall specifically examines the instance of Sydney’s Cronulla riots that took place in 2005 – the violence, racism and commentary of the historical moment forming a backdrop for assessing the sinister forces that galvanized it.
Patricia Piccinini’s enduring practice examines the connections between science, nature, art and the environment. Kindred, set to be on display in Gallery 10 of Cromwell Place, London between 13 – 19 September, 2021 is a moving and meditative opportunity to view Piccinini’s sculpture by the same name. The exhibition is an intimate opportunity to encounter a complex representation of the learned tensions between beauty and the grotesque; human and animal; science and nature; adult and child often explored by the artist. The sculpture, which resembles an orangutan-like mother gently holding her two babies, invites viewers to contemplate the stability and definitions we often assume towards world around us.
Image credit:Ben Quilty, The Negotiation, 2021, oil on linen, 202 x 180 cm. Courtesy the artist