AMOS GEBHARDT: OF CARE AND KIN

Amos’ Gebhardt’s video works and photographs offer an enduring meditation on the relationship between nature, culture and the body. Spooky Action (At a Distance), currently on show at The SUBSTATION for PHOTO 2021, brings a selection of works by the artist to offer a poetic encounter with themes of identity, queerness, resistance and entanglement through the cinematic quality of the works and their curation within the space. In light of this current exhibition, delve deeper in the process and principles of the artist with ‘Amos Gebhardt: Of Care Amos Gebhardt’ by Neha Kale.

Click here for the full article published in VAULT Issue 33, February – April 2021

Image credit: Amos Gebhardt, Evanescence (Salt #3), 2018, archival inkjet pigment print, 70 x 110 cm. Courtesy the artist and Tolarno Galleries

HAYLEY MILLAR-BAKER: A STORYTELLER

Storytelling is a cornerstone of the photography-based practice of Hayley Millar Baker. Based in Naarm (Melbourne), the First Nations Wooloo woorroong Gunditjmara artist has over the course of her career developed significant bodies of work that actively engage memory, research and familial-knowledge sharing, culminating in complex works that speak to that to specific human experiences and histories through symbolism, collage and striking form. The artist currently has a solo exhibition titled I WILL SURVIVE that includes the photographic series showing at Vivien Anderson Gallery and an installation in the forecourt of the State Library Victoria as part of PHOTO 2021. VAULT writer, Nanette Orly explores the artist’s work in Hayley Millar-Baker: A Storyteller.

Click here for the full article published in VAULT Issue 30, May – July 2020. Click here to subscribe.

Image credit:Hayley Millar-Baker, Untitled (The best means, of caring for, and dealing with them in the future), 2018 from A Series of Unwarranted Events, inkjet on cotton rag, 80 x 100 cm, edition of 5 + 2APs. Image courtesy the artist and Vivien Anderson Gallery

Q&A: LOOKING BACK AND LOOKING FORWARD ON PHOTO 2021 WITH ELIAS REDSTONE RIGHT NOW

VAULT sat down with PHOTO 2021 artistic director Elias Redstone to discuss how the Festival has unfolded over the course of its development and realisation. Facing an upheaval of the program due to COVID-19 restrictions, the Festival adjusted its original plan for PHOTO 2020, and proved to capably embrace its founding model that engages public space, collaboration, and dynamic accessibility to programs, events and exhibitions. Now with its final weekend in sight as programming wraps up on Sunday 7 March, 2021, we look back on what has been and take time to look forward to the next moves for the Festival and its director.

Click here to read the full interview.

Image credit: Portrait of Elias Redstone by Hoda Afshar

A GRAND UNVEILING AT THE MCA

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Sydney has recently unveiled a significant mural painted by Vincent Namatjira on the museum’s Circular Quay Foyer Wall. Commissioned by the MCA, Namatjira painted the work titled P.P.F (Past Present Future) onto the 15m long wall over two weeks and marks the artist’s largest work to date. Rendered in the artist’s iconic style, the work depicts seven Aboriginal male figures who have been influential to his life alongside a self-portrait. Portraits include former AFL football player and 2014 Australian of the Year, Adam Goodes; land-rights campaigner, Eddie Koiki Mabo; famous bantamweight boxer, Lionel Rose; his great-grandfather as renowned artist, Albert Namatjira; the artist’s late father-in-law and musician, Kunmanara (Jimmy) Pompey; and an Aboriginal stockman who represents male elders from his community – all of whom are positioned on the landscape of the artist’s home community of Indulkana in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) lands.

The mural brings important and immediate awareness to the multiplicity of histories now inherent to the site. This history includes its significance in Australian colonial history as the site of first contact between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and British peoples, while also being recognised as Tallawoladah, given to the area by the Cadigal people – the original custodians of the land. Layers of influence are also expressed through the work’s navigation of biographical and also wider cultural references, Namatjira comments, “I’m trying to bring my neck of the woods to the city, to the big smoke, for everyone to see. I painted this for the Indigenous people of Australia... I’m proud to be Aboriginal, and to have these Aboriginal male figures in the world makes me happy for our people.”

This article was originally published in VAULT Magazine Issue 33 (Feb – April 2021).
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Image credit: Portrait of Vincent Namatjira with P.P.F (Past Present Future), 2021. Commissioned by Museum of Contemporary Art, Circular Quay Foyer Wall Commission. Courtesy the artist, THIS IS NO FANTASY, Iwantja Arts and MCA. Photo Daniel Boud

SPEAKING TO CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE LANGUAGE OF ART

Northsite Contemporary Art’s exhibition Shifting Surrounds posits an immersive approach to grappling with climate change research through art. The exhibition by artist Yandell Walton conjures environments with an ephemeral quality by harnessing emerging technology and creating six new site-specific installations that specifically examine the continual process of change and adaptation to speculate what is natural against human impact.

The works in Shifting Surrounds  build upon the Walton’s longstanding interrogation of notions impermanence and fragility within the context of nature and life, and this exhibition grapples with these ideas through transporting the viewer out of the ‘real’ world and into a possible future or alternate present. With nods to science fiction, literature and philosophy, as well targeting research into technologies and climate change, the exhibition brings together these varying realms of knowledge and expressing knowledge to subsequently inspire discussion around climate change.

Yandell Walton, Shifting Surrounds continues at Northsite Contemporary Arts until April 10, 2021.
northsite.org.au

This article was originally published in VAULT Magazine Issue 33 (Feb – April 2021). Click here to subscribe.

Image credit: Yandell Walton, Uprise, 4 channel projection installation with sound. Sound design Michele Vescio with William Elm. Animation Tobias Edwards. Photo: Matthew Stanton

RONI HORN AT HAUSER & WIRTH

Coming off the back of a major two-part drawing survey at the Menil Collection in Houston, Roni Horn’s solo exhibition at Hauser & Wirth, New York titled Recent Work is candid in its offering – presenting the artist’s latest realised explorations within the medium of drawing. With a practice that extends across an array of differing mediums that offer channels to probe at accepted notion of identity and meaning, the focus on drawing exemplifies the artist’s embrace of the medium as ‘a kind of breathing activity on a daily level.’

Works from Horn’s series Wits’ End Mash and Yet will be shown alongside recent works, as well the series LOG (March 22, 2019 – May 17, 2020), (2019 – 2020) which is a new large-scale installation comprised of more than 400 individual works on paper. LOG (March 22, 2019 – May 17, 2020), (2019 – 2020) is result of a daily art-making ritual the artist adopted for fourteen months, and moreover speaks to the thoughtful and meditative approach often embraced within the artist’s expanded practice.

Roni Horn, Recent Works, 2021 continues until April 10, 2021.
hauserwirth.com

Roni Horn features in VAULT Issue 33 (Feb – April). To read more about the artist subscribe here

Image credit: Roni Horn, Yet 9, 2017/2020, powdered pigment, graphite, charcoal, coloured pencil and varnish on paper, 286.1 x 246.4 cm © Roni Horn. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth, New York. Photo: Ron Amstutz