Melbourne Now at the NGV Australia

From 24 March to 20 August 2023, the second edition of the ground-breaking exhibition “Melbourne Now” is presented at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia.

Source: NGV Australia · Image: Melbourne Now2023 artists and designers at the announcement event on 18 October. Melbourne Now 2023 open on 24 March 2023 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia. Photo: Eugene Hyland

Bold in scope and scale, the exhibition highlights the extraordinary work of more than 200 Victorian-based artists, designers, studios and firms whose practices are shaping the cultural landscape of Melbourne and Victoria. With more than 200 ambitious and thought-provoking projects on display, including more than 60 world-premiere works commissioned especially by the NGV for this major presentation, the exhibition highlights the vibrant creativity of local emerging, mid-career and senior practitioners and collectives – including many who are presenting at the NGV for the very first time.

The large-scale exhibition traverses all levels of The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, including contemporary interventions across the Australian Art and First Nations permanent collection displays, and highlights a diverse range of contemporary disciplines across fashion, jewellery, painting, sculpture, architecture, ceramics, video, virtual reality, performance, photography, printmaking, product design and publishing. Exhibiting artists including Christian Thompson, Esther Stewart, Atong Atem, Mia Boe, Kait James, Pitcha Makin Fellas, Layla Vardo, Nicholas Mangan, Fiona Abicare, Meagan Streader, Sean Hogan, Amos Gebhardt, and Lisa Reid.

Never-before-seen commissions include a room-sized ‘temple’ constructed from thousands of computer fans by emerging artist Rel Pham, which draws on the artist’s Vietnamese heritage and interest in gaming culture. Blurring the boundaries between the digital and physical realms, this neon-lit installation combines the visual language of technology, classical Asian architecture and religious iconography.

Lou Hubbard’s “Walkers with Dinosaurs”, 2021–23, sees a mass of inflatable walking frames tumbling out into the foyer of the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia’s third floor. Presented alongside two stacks of colourful, dinosaur-shaped children’s chairs, with humour, the sculptural installation poignantly evokes the inevitabilities of our shared mortality.

Made in collaboration with Kyoto-based lantern studio Kojima Shōten, Larrakia / Wardaman / Karajarri artist Jenna Lee will illuminate the gallery with a series of hand-painted paper lanterns in the shape of Gulumerridjin dilly bags, a traditional woven bag designed and used by First Nations women. “Balarr” (To Become Light) explores the relationship between light and dark and draws on the artist’s research into ancestral objects including the similarities between her own paper craft practice and the Kyoto style paper lanterns.

Welcoming visitors to NGV Australia, Lee Darroch’s 10-metre-long installation “Duta Ganha Woka” (Save Mother Earth) comprises driftwood collected on Country. Representing men and women from the 38 Indigenous language groups of Victoria, the driftwood pieces are connected by jute string which illustrates the deep connection between First Nations peoples in this region.

Also on display is Troy Emery’s largest sculptural and most ambitious work to date, standing over three metres high. In the artist’s signature soft sculptural style, the exuberant textile depicts a feline-like animal.

High Museum of Art presents ‘Evelyn Hofer: Eyes on the City’

From March 24 to August 13, 2023, the High Museum of Art presents the first major museum exhibition in the United States in over 50 years dedicated to Evelyn Hofer.

Source: High Museum of Art · Image © Evelyn Hofer

Organized in collaboration with The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, “Evelyn Hofer: Eyes on the City” is the first major museum exhibition in the United States in over 50 years dedicated to Hofer, a highly innovative photographer whose pioneering work spanned five decades but remained underrecognized in her lifetime. The exhibition focuses on her series of widely distributed photobooks devoted to European and American cities, published throughout the 1960s, and will feature more than 100 vintage prints in both black and white and color from those publications. The works are drawn exclusively from the artist’s estate and from the collections of the High and the Nelson-Atkins. After its presentation at the High, the exhibition will travel to the Nelson-Atkins, where it will be on view Sept. 16, 2023-Feb. 11, 2024.

“The High has one of the nation’s leading photography programs, which features an extraordinary collection of 20th-century documentary photography and significant holdings of Hofer’s work,” said Rand Suffolk, the High’s Nancy and Holcombe T. Green, Jr., director. “We are delighted for the opportunity to present these photographs together for the first time in our galleries and to highlight Hofer’s important artistic contributions, including as an early adopter of color photography.”

Born in Germany in 1922, Hofer left with her family for Switzerland in 1933 in response to the rise of fascism, settling first in Geneva, where as a teen she studied photography with Hans Finsler, a pioneer of the “new objectivity” movement. After time in Madrid, the family moved to Mexico, where Hofer worked briefly as a professional photographer. In 1946, she arrived in New York, where she worked with art director Alexey Brodovitch to produce photo essays for Harper’s Bazaar. She quickly expanded her practice and became an acclaimed editorial photographer.

Though celebrated for her editorial work, Hofer never received wide acclaim, due in part to her unique style and methods. New York Times art critic Hilton Kramer notably referred to her as “the most famous unknown photographer in America.”

“At a time when spontaneous black and white pictures were the hallmarks of avant-garde photography, Hofer favored cumbersome large-format cameras and embraced color materials,” said Greg Harris, the High’s Donald and Marilyn Keough Family curator of photography and co-curator of the exhibition. “Subtle and rigorous, her photographs possess a captivating stillness, exactitude and sobriety that ran counter to the dominant aesthetics of the day and the frenetic energy of her fellow street photographers of the post-World War II era, such as Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander. As a result, she never achieved recognition commensurate with the quality and originality of her work.”

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Be sure to read

PART 3 of Our Exclusive Interview with Tom Glynn

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Tom Glynn is a rare breed: an artist who can move effortlessly between artforms, materials, scales and registers, equally adept at making miniature paintings and  monumental sculptures. And yet all of his work is unmistakably English in mood.  His images are populated by the country’s Neolithic monuments and pastoral landscapes, and informed by the many artists who inhabited those places before him.  Glynn is driven by the same Romantic spirit that motivated Palmer and Turner, Nash  and Piper, Wallis, Lanyon and Hockney, but his art is never anything but his own. It  is, after all, underpinned by an urge that has coursed through his veins since he first stepped foot in a sandpit. 

Dr. James Fox | British Art Historian & Broadcaster

What is your overall outlook on how the art market is changing? 

I am aware that over the last decade or so, more and more galleries are becoming increasingly dependent upon significant developments in digital art. There has been an increasing amount of virtual exhibitions, AI, computer generated images, virtual reality through an interface with technical tools and processes. In addition, there is a growing interest and reliance upon NFT’s. Having said that, I am reassured that while our digital age develops and we all become more dependent upon this way of life, there are still many galleries in the UK and worldwide that continue to show the physical work of artists irrespective of the form or media used.  

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Brief History of Digital Art

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I am also most aware of how the work frequently selected by some of the worlds most well known and prestigious galleries and museums has become increasingly diverse, which is to be expected, but personally I very much hope this will not become the exception in respect of the continuation of traditional Fine Art, Painting, Sculpture, Printmaking, Photography and Mixed-Media work being exhibited in real – physical  galleries and spaces; not just ones that exist in the ether or even potentially in a gallery hologram, if I may describe it this way.  It has to be said though that great art can be appreciated, felt and create  emotion irrespective of whether it is accessed physically or digitally.

Do NFTs interest you as an artist? 

I delight in utilizing traditional artistic materials and mediums such as canvas, paint, wood, clay, plaster of Paris and so many other sourced materials found around us in both the natural and built environments. As  a result of this, I don’t make digital art and my focus isn’t to turn my work into NFTs. However, if a dealer or gallery wanted my work to be more generally available through NFT’s I wouldn’t of course object. Ultimately it’s my desire to have my paintings, sculptures, and assemblages seen in real space and time, rather than repurposed through a digital medium. A painting and sculpture exist as real and tangible things, rather than digital representations, even though they can also have their own artistic value.  

What advice would you give to new artists that wish to make art their career? 

Work continuously, be dedicated and hard-working with passion and never give up as the art world is notoriously competitive. Develop and practice techniques and develop competency and confidence in using materials and mediums. Constantly explore visual ideas intelligently,  reviewing and reorganizing. Develop a deep knowledge of the visual  language and develop an immersive understanding and knowledge of the basic elements that in part form an essential visual language. Be independent and original and know when you are working that you reveal  the truth and honesty in the artwork produced. Furthermore, be able to make a critical analysis of your own work and the work of others.  

There are so many artists today creating amazing art in a vast array of mediums and styles, do you ever feel the pressure of competition? 

There is always a sense of a vast array of mediums and styles in art,  especially modern and contemporary art. There’s hardly a material or medium that’s not been used and I am reminded of Chris Ofili, who incorporated elephant dung into one of his large paintings on canvas. I have never felt the pressure of competition in respect of mediums and styles or felt obliged to use a particular style or medium. I have gradually evolved my own combination of materials and approaches over many  decades, always dependent upon the theme and subject I am depicting.  

For example, more recently I have often applied layers of wood ash onto PVA laid down onto a large canvas, before applying thinned washes of acrylic paint, followed by other applied textures and layers of paint. My paintings are often built up in this way. I have also recently acquired some diamond dust that will be incorporated within one of my current large abstract landscape paintings. 

In your opinion, what is the primary skill set one must possess to be a good artist? 

While I am convinced it helps to have an extensive knowledge of art, art history, artists and art practice, it is also essential to develop a significant ability and understanding of the Visual Language and seek ways to express one’s own visual ideas in a meaningful and truthful manner, providing insight and meaning within the work executed. Technique and developing strategies to apply and manipulate media (such as paint and  mixed-media) I would suggest is essential – even in a rapidly developing  digital art world – as I believe we shouldn’t forget our traditions or early beginnings. Drawing has always been a key starting point, but this doesn’t have to be an academic or photorealist entity or style, rather – as in Paul Klee’s Pedagogical Sketch Book – “taking a line for a walk”.  

 What types of art do you like to surround yourself with? 

I certainly surround myself with a large collection of my own work and I can reveal that my house is full of my paintings, sculptures and assemblages. I also have some work by a celebrated modern ceramic artist, Sandy Brown, a conte crayon drawing by David Nash, paintings by the St. Ives artist Neil Canning, some paintings from my tutors at art school, including  Robin Ball, Harold Cheeseman, Michael Fairclough and Brian Ingham, a large double portrait sculpture depicting August and Camille. (ref: Rodin)  in herculite plaster by Emma Pover amongst many others. Essentially, my extensive collection comprises work by modern and contemporary artists, including some figurative sculptures by the British Portrait Sculptor, Suzie Zamit, who also produced a magnificent full size  bronze portrait head of my late mother.  

Who are your favourite artists and what works of art influenced you the most – and why? 

I have always been fascinated, intrigued and in awe of the work of  Picasso, Matisse, Arp and Brancusi and I have previously described how I have grown up with them as though my friends. In addition, there are many other modern and contemporary artists that have also influenced me, such as Anthony Caro, Joseph Cornell,  Jackson Pollock, David Hockney, Paul Nash, Peter Lanyon and Leon Kossoff. I have previously mentioned Louise Nevelson, who I have always admired; a truly amazing woman and a fabulously sublime artist whose work is visually exciting, inventive and inspiring. 

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TomGlynnFineArt.com

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