Mangkaja artists take out WA Indigenous Art Awards
It's a double win for the Mangkaja art centre at the
Western Australian Indigenous Art Awards this year. The main $50,000
prize was awarded to Wakartu Cory Surprise and the $10,000 WA Artist Award went to Sonia Kurrara, both of whom paint with the Fitzroy Crossing art centre.
WA Culture and the Arts Minister John Day announced the
awards last week, describing Cory Surprise's depictions of country as
''breathtaking and inspiring'' and noting Sonia Kurarra's work showed
''great connection to place''.
Day also used the opportunity to confirm the awards would run again in
2011, not 2012. While the awards have been run every year since their
inception in 2008, the financial downturn of recent years had sparked
questions whether the event should be biennial.
The award exhibition will be on view at the Art Gallery of Western
Australia until 3 January 2011. The winner of the People's Choice Award
will be announced on 13 December 2010.
Darwin prepares for the NATSIAAs
More finalists have been named in the lead up to the
announcement of the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art
Awards this month.
Among the 96 finalists are Tiger Palpatja who paints with Tjungu Palya, Ian Abdulla from South Australia, fibre artist Janine McAullay Bott and Melbourne-based photographer Bindi Cole.
Danie Mellor, the winner of the main prize in 2009, has also been shortlisted.
This year is the first time the NATSIAAs will include a new media award,
worth $3,000. Among those submitting new media works this year is Nawurapu Wunungmurra, who has been shortlisted for his work Mokuy.
The work is a series of suspended mokuy (spirits) with an accompanying
projected image. It has previously been exhibited at Raft Artspace and
the Moscow Biennale, where it was well received according to
Buku-Larrnggay Mulka art centre coordinator Andrew Blake.
''The mokuy carvings appeared to move from one location to another in
the vast exhibition space under the cover of night, much to the delight
of the curators and all involved,'' he says.
The winners of the $40,000 main prize and four other awards will be
announced in Darwin on 13 August 2010. The awards can also be followed
on Twitter, visit http://twitter.com/natsiaa.
Ken Unsworth's stages pop-opera in Sydney
Ken Unsworth, the man responsible for teaching much of the art
world how to dance, will soon lift the curtains on his next major
musical performance.
The House of Blue Leaves: An Evening of Irreverent Entertainment
is a pop-opera collaboration between Unsworth and four senior dancers
who have translated elements of the artist's sculptures and
installations into movement.
The performers will also include acrobats and singers and the score features music by Richard Strauss and Sydney composer Jonathan Cooper.
Unsworth's performance will be staged at the Art Gallery of New South
Wales for four nights from 21 to 24 August 2010. To book tickets,
contact (02) 9225 1878.
Wedd and Newittt win Hobart Art Prize
South Australian Gerry Wedd has won the ceramics award in the Hobart Art Prize for his work Silent Spring,
a series of sculpted dead birds. ''I walk a lot,'' he explains. ''I
notice a lot more than I would from the passenger seat of the car ...
Lately I have noticed the alarming and portentous amount of small dead
birds: canaries-in-the-coalmine perhaps?''
The digital media prize was awarded to James Newitt for an eight minute video titled Dreams. Merilyn Fairskye and Stephen Benwell both received judges' commendations.
Jon Campbell unveils Stacks On at Melbourne Art Fair
It's a big week for Jon Campbell, who will this week be unveiling his commissioned project for the 2010 Melbourne Art Fair. Titled Stacks On,
the work comprises various stacks of light boxes with 12 screenprinted
and handstitched banners hung above. Coinciding with the launch, the
publishing arm of Uplands Gallery will also be releasing a monograph on
Campbell's practice, spanning everything from the first painting he ever
felt was his own, to performing with his band in an underground
nightclub in Tokyo. The new book will be available from the Uplands
Gallery stand at Melbourne Art Fair.
Sydney photographer wins youth self-portrait prize
Sydney-based photographer Bridget Mac has won the $10,000 National Youth Self Portrait Prize. Titled masculine/feminine,
the work presents two versions of the artist, one masculine and one
feminine. The shortlisted entires will be exhibited at Canberra's
National Portrait Gallery until 12 September 2010.
Qantas Foundation names art award winners
Newell Harry, Roy Ananda and Simon Pericich
are among the eight winners in the Qantas Foundation Art Award. The
winners, one from each state and territory, share in cash and airfares
to the value of $112,000. This year's judging panel included the Museum
of Contemporary Art's Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, the Art Gallery of New South Wales's Edmund Capon and art collector Patrick Corrigan.
Also named winners were Jemima Wyman (QLD), Lucy Bleach (TAS), Anna Madeleine (ACT), David Thomson (WA) and Anna Reynolds (NT).
The award earned a shorter name this year, formerly being known as the
Qantas Foundation Encouragement of Australian Contemporary Art Award.
Major Chris Booth commission now in construction
A major $4.5 million public artwork by Chris Booth
is currently being constructed in Sydney's Royal Botanic Garden. A
private commission, the work has been funded by Sydney finance executive
and art lover, the late Ronald Johnson, who committed the bulk of his
estate for the project.
The work is also anticipated to provide habitat for a threatened species of micro-bat.
Glass art wins Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize
Nikki Main has won the $50,000 main prize in the Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize for her glass sculptural piece, Flood Stones. Josie Kunoth Petyarre from Western Australia won the painting prize, while Tasmanian Kaye Green won the works on paper category.
In brief:
- Sculptor Kate Rohde is currently preparing for a collaborative exhibition with Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales
from fashion label Romance Was Born. The three have taken their
inspiration from animal imagery, including dinosaurs, deer and antelopes
that are entwined with a psychedelic craft aesthetic. Rohde also
collaborated with the designers for their Australian Fashion Show
earlier this year. The project will be exhibited from 25 August at Karen
Woodbury Gallery in Melbourne.
- Trenton Garratt, Amber Claire Pearson, Rachel Shearer and Taarati Taiaroa are among the 13 artists selected for Micro Sites,
a series of small, temporary public art projects on show in various
locations around the Auckland's learning quarter district.
- Photographer Simryn Gill has been
selected to produce the Centre for Contemporary Photography's Limited
Edition Print for 2010. The edition serves as the CCP's annual
fundraising drive. Gill has put forward a work from the series A small town at the turn of the century #5 1999-2000/2010.
- Marc de Jong, Arlene TextaQueen and Regan Tamanui
(HA-HA) have contributed to The Peace Posters, a 32-page broadsheet
featuring posters for peace. Published by Melbourne's Breakdown Press,
the book features 30 political posters and poems.
- Janne Kearney has been named a finalist in the $30,000 Blackswan Prize for Portraiture.
- Adam Lester's large-scale painting I love you this much has been acquired by Artbank.
- Ingo Kleinert is the subject of a new monograph, Two Decades, published by the artist and SFA Press.
- A Michael Zavros work depicting a falling horse has been selected as cover art for the new Anberlin album, Dark is the way, Light is the Place.
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