MCA PROGRAM · 2018. 4. 30. · The MCA’s touring program will continue to reach audiences nationally, with Primavera at 25: MCA Collection and Hilarie Mais travelling to five venues

John Mawurndjul, Nawarra-mulmul (Shooting star spirit), 1988, ochres and synthetic polymer on bark, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, purchased with funds donat-ed by Mr and Mrs Jim Bain, 1989, © John Mawurndjul, licensed by Viscopy 2017

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The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) unveils its 2018 program.

MCA Director Elizabeth Ann Macgregor OBE said: ‘2018 is shaping up to be one of the MCA’s most exciting and diverse years in terms of programming, with works by exceptional Australian and international contemporary artists at all stages of their careers, and in varied media.’

‘We look forward to engaging a wide range of audiences with art that transcends everyday reality, fires up our imagination and draws us in, but that also gives us the opportunity to be challenged, look at things differently and address difficult issues,’ Macgregor continued.

A highlight of the program is the first major survey of works by John Mawurndjul, one of Australia’s most important artists. Developed and co-presented by the MCA and the Art Gallery of South Australia, in association with Maningrida Arts & Culture, the exhibition will span the thirty years the artist has been making work (from 6 July).

The MCA will also present the first solo exhibition in Australia of Sun Xun, one of China’s most exciting young artists, best known for his stop-motion animations that are based on thousands of ink paintings, charcoal drawings and woodcuts. His work has extraordinary resonance internationally, interrogating as it does the absurd incongruities between authorised histories and personal recollections, and ideas around propaganda, post-truth and what we now call ‘fake news’ (from 9 July).

Continuing into the new year is Pipilotti Rist: Sip my Ocean, a Sydney-exclusive major survey of works by Swiss video artist Pipilotti Rist, presented as part of the Sydney International Art Series (until 18 February). Also continuing are Word: MCA Collection and Jon Campbell: MCA Collection, which both showcase works from the Museum’s Collection that engage with language and text, encompassing painting, printmaking, sculpture, installation and video (until 18 and 25 February respectively).

Other highlights include the 21st Biennale of Sydney, SUPERPOSITION: Art of Equilibrium & Engagement, presented across the Level 1 and Level 3 Galleries (from 16 March), Primavera 2018: Young Australian Artists, curated by Megan Robson (from 9 November), and Compass: MCA Collection, a Collection-based exhibition in which trajectories of Indigenous and non-Indigenous women practices are considered in dialogue with one another (from 9 November).

The MCA’s touring program will continue to reach audiences nationally, with Primavera at 25: MCA Collection and Hilarie Mais travelling to five venues across four states.

In 2018, the MCA’s socially engaged, Western Sydney-based C3West program will present a critically important project about the history of the Blacktown Native Institution – one of Australia’s most important historical sites – in partnership with Blacktown Arts.

Drawn from the MCA Collection, Today Tomorrow Yesterday focuses on contemporary practices by Australian and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, with work by more than 40 artists from the 1960s to the present. A new Artist Room by Emily Floyd will be presented, as well as new acquisitions by Nicole Foreshew, Kathy Temin and Jonny Niesche.

Conversation Starters, the new program of art and ideas introduced last year with great success, will return in August, exploring difficult ideas around storytelling, post-truth and propaganda in relation to the work of contemporary Chinese artist Sun Xun.

Click here for Dropbox with media images

2018 ExhibitionsTODAY TOMORROW YESTERDAY:MCA COLLECTION: Ongoing

PIPILOTTI RIST: SIP MY OCEAN 1 Nov 2017 – 18 Feb 2018

WORD: MCA COLLECTION 4 Dec 2017 – 18 Feb 2018

JON CAMPBELL: MCA COLLECTION 4 Dec 2017 – 25 Feb 2018

21ST BIENNALE OF SYDNEY 16 Mar – 11 Jun 2018

JOHN MAWURNDJUL: I AM THE OLD AND THE NEW 6 Jul – 23 Sep 2018

SUN XUN 9 Jul – 14 Oct 2018

SYDNEY INTERNATIONAL ART SERIES 2018/19 19 Oct 2018 – 3 Mar 2019

PRIMAVERA 2018: YOUNG AUSTRALIAN ARTISTS 9 Nov 2018 – 3 Feb 2019

COMPASS: MCA COLLECTION 9 Nov 2018 – 3 Feb 2019

MCA PROGRAM ��8MEDIA CONTACT: Myriam Conrie02 9245 2434 / 0429 572 [email protected] here for media images

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Today Tomorrow Yesterday:MCA CollectionOngoing Level 2 Collection Galleries, FREE ENTRY

Drawn from the Museum’s collection, Today Tomorrow Yesterday considers the impact of the past and the influence of history on art today. From contemporary interpretations of ancestral stories to the continuing effects of early to mid-twentieth century avant-garde art and theatre, each room presents a different perspective on the history of the present.

Curated by MCA Senior Curator Natasha Bullock, this presentation includes work by more than forty Australian artists from the 1960s to the present, including recent acquisitions by Nicole Foreshew (ngayirr (sacred), 2015-17), Kathy Temin (The Memorial Project: Black Wall, 2015) and Jonny Niesche (Mutual Vibration (address the body whole), 2017).

Initiated in 2017, the next Artist Room exhibition, which highlights the museum’s holdings of a single artist’s work, will present an exhibition of works by Emily Floyd, curated by MCA Assistant Curator Manya Sellers. Previous Artist Rooms featured works by Linda Marrinon and Lena Yarinkura.

Our regular changeovers on the collection floor enable us to showcase new acquisitions, bring out old favorites and above all, create new conversations, working closely with artists to discuss the relationships between their artworks and others, and more generally, experiment with ideas.

On display in 2018 are works acquired by the MCA Foundation and from the MCA/Tate international co-acquisition program supported by Qantas.

Curator: Natasha Bullock

Emily Floyd, The Garden (here small gestures make complex structures), 2012, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by the artist, 2013, image courtesy and © the artist

Pipilotti Rist: Sip my OceanSydney International Art Series 1 November 2017 – 18 February 2018 Level 3 Galleries, Ticketed

Pipilotti Rist: Sip my Ocean is the first major survey exhibition in Australia of the Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist (b. 1962, Grabs, Switzerland). It is presented exclusively to Sydney as part of the Sydney International Art Series, supported by the NSW Government through Destination NSW.

For the past thirty years, Rist’s work has been regarded as pioneering in the fields of experimental video art and multimedia installations. Incorporating video and sculpture, her recent environments envelop viewers in vivid projections which explore the relationship between nature, the body and technology.

Curated by MCA Senior Curator Natasha Bullock, this exhibition presents the spectrum of Rist’s work from her early single-channel videos of the 1980s, that celebrate female pleasure and hysteria, to her recent imaginary environments with comforting soundscapes.

Rist is one of the first generation of artists to grow up with televisions in their living rooms. She references this history, with early videos presented on monitors and later works projected cinema-scale across ceilings, floors and walls. From the beginning she has been an innovator, readily engaging with advances in technology and new ways of making art. Her work reflects the symbiotic relationship between technology and biology, presenting both as a fundamental part of human experience.

The work after which this exhibition is named, Sip My Ocean (1996), fuses the physical and psychological to create what the artist calls a ‘mental screen’. Combining the intimate with the universal, the title broadly acknowledges, as much of Rist’s art does, that humans are also animals within this cosmos.

Curator: Natasha Bullock

Pipilotti Rist, Administrating Eternity, 2011, installation view, Pipilotti Rist: Eyeball Massage, Hayward Gallery London, 2011, courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth and Luhring Augustine © the artist, photo: Linda Nylind

MEDIA CONTACT: Myriam Conrie02 9245 2434 / 0429 572 [email protected] here for media images

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Word: MCA Collection4 December 2017 – 18 February 2018 Level 1 South Galleries, FREE ENTRY

Word: MCA Collection showcases works from the Museum’s Collection that engage with language and text, encompassing painting, printmaking, sculpture, installation and video.

Co-curated by MCA’s Senior Curator Natasha Bullock, Curator Anna Davis and Chief Curator Rachel Kent, the presentation reaffirms the Museum’s commitment to exhibiting the work of Australian artists and offers a fresh perspective on the Collection through collaboration.

A large suite of political posters introduces the South galleries, featuring prints from artists and poster collectives around Australia that address land ownership and Indigenous rights, gender and equality, and uranium mining and anti-nuclear protest. Largely created during the 1970s and 80s, they set the scene for debates that continue today; and they represent one of the most direct ways in which ordinary peoples’ voices can be heard across the political spectrum.

Also featured in the South galleries are paintings by Robert MacPherson and Richard Bell, an installation by Raquel Ormella, and Joan Ross’s animated video The claiming of things (2012), which explores European colonisation of the Australian landscape. Drawing upon colonial painting, collage and urban graffiti, Ross’s video plays with a range of visual languages. The act of colonisation is expressed through graffiti ‘tagging’ onto a rock face by a European woman in nineteenth century costume, and a bright yellow picket fence that cuts through the land.

Co-curators: Natasha Bullock, Anna Davis and Rachel Kent

Joan Ross, The claiming of things, 2012, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by the artist, 2015

Jon Campbell: MCA Collection4 December 2017 – 25 February 2018Level 1 North Galleries, FREE ENTRY

Jon Campbell: Jon Campbell also showcases works from the Museum’s Collection.

Words and word play are central to Jon Campbell’s towering installation Stacks On (2010). Comprising stacked, illuminated Perspex boxes and suspended fabric banners, Campbell’s colourful work employs Australian vernacular – common sayings and aphorisms – in its realisation.

Informal ‘pub talk’, slogans and slang appear on the light boxes and banners, recalling Australian suburbia, adolescence, sports culture and the independent music scene. Some phrases refer to the artist’s own youth and experiences, including a surfing road trip with mates; others are more general, suggesting roadside signs, pub menus and bits of conversation, overheard.

Alongside the presentation of this installation, the MCA has commissioned Campbell to create a major wall painting on the four walls of the Level 1 North Gallery. The MCA’s – and the artist’s – largest ever wall painting, Absolutely Disgusting will stretch frieze-like around the entire gallery, measuring 2.5 × 65 metres.

Co-curators: Natasha Bullock, Anna Davis and Rachel Kent

Jon Campbell, Stacks On, 2010, installation view, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, gift of the Melbourne Art Foundation and part purchase supported by the Coe and Mordant families, 2010, image courtesy the artist and Museum of Contemporary Art © the artist


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21st Biennale of SydneySUPERPOSITION: Art of Equilibrium & Engagement16 March – 11 June 2018 Level 1 and Level 3 Galleries, FREE ENTRY

The 21st Biennale of Sydney, SUPERPOSITION: Art of Equilibrium and Engagement, will draw on the concept of ‘superposition’ in quantum mechanics as a metaphor to link the notions of equilibrium and engagement, and provide us with insights into the world today.

Artistic Director Mami Kataoka noted that: ‘we are surrounded by conflicting ideas across all levels of humanity: different cultures; readings of nature and the universe; political ideologies and systems of government; interpretations of human history, including the history of art and definitions of contemporary art.’

Ms Kataoka added: ‘Drawn from around the globe, the participating artists have been chosen to offer a panoramic view of how opposing understandings and interpretations can come together in a state of equilibrium. My hope is that their artworks will serve as a catalyst for thinking about these principles and concerns, and encourage each of us to consider our own position in society as a starting point.’

According to the theory of ‘Wuxing’, in ancient Chinese natural philosophy, everything in this world is comprised of five main elements: wood, fire, earth, metal and water. Each element gives rise to the next – either through a process of symbiosis where one element encourages the formation of the others in a circulatory system, or; a situation of mutual conflict and antagonism, in which each element resists and suppresses the others. In reality, diverse elements come together in a state of repeated collision, collapse, and rebirth.

The 21st Biennale of Sydney will be presented over twelve weeks at multiple locations throughout Sydney. At the MCA, the exhibition will be presented across Level 1 and Level 3 Galleries; and the hang will include a number of Australian artists from the MCA Collection.

Maria Taniguchi, Installation view, Maria Taniguchi, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, 2017, courtesy the artist and Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, photograph: Kenji Takahashi

John Mawurndjul: I am the old and the new6 July – 23 September 2018 Level 3 Galleries, FREE ENTRY

Developed and co-presented by the MCA and the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), in association with Maningrida Arts & Culture, this exhibition presents the work of one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists - master bark painter John Mawurndjul.

Bringing forth a tradition shared by generations of Kuninjku artists, Mawurndjul is celebrated for his mastery of rarrk (cross-hatching) and his depiction of djang (sacred sites). Bark paintings and sculptures made over a thirty five year period, from private and public collections, and chosen by the artist, will introduce audiences to the concepts that shape Kuninjku culture and the significant ancestral locations in Central Arnhem Land.

Born in 1952, Mawurndjul is a Kuninjku elder and artist. He lives and works in Milmilngkan and Maningrida in Central Arnhem Land. Since his first exhibition in 1982, he has become one of Australia’s most widely recognised artists. In 1989 he was included in the landmark exhibition Magiciens de la Terre at the Centre Pompidou and Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris, and his works have been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Sydney, New York, Paris and Japan.

Following the presentation of this exhibition at the MCA, it will be presented at AGSA from 26 October 2018 until 28 January 2019 as part of TARNANTHI Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art.

Co-curators: Clothilde Bullen (Curator, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Collections & Exhibitions, MCA), Natasha Bullock (Senior Curator, MCA), Nici Cumpston (Artistic Director, TARNANTHI Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, AGSA) and Lisa Slade, Assistant Director, Artistic Programs, AGSA with the support of Keith Munro (Curator, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Programs, MCA) as Lead Cultural Advisor.

John Mawurndjul (left to right): Nawarramulmul (Shooting star spirit), 1988, Museum of Con-temporary Art, purchased with funds donated by Mr and Mrs Jim Bain, 1989; Ngalyod, 2012, Museum of Contemporary Art, purchased with funds provided by the MCA Foundation, 2015; Nialyod (Female rainbow serpent), 1988, Museum of Contemporary Art, purchased with funds donated by Mr and Mrs Jim Bain, 1989. All images © John Mawurndjul, licensed by Viscopy 2017


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Sun Xun9 July – 14 October 2018 Level 1 Galleries, FREE ENTRY

Sun Xun (b. 1980, Fuxin, China) is one of China’s most exciting young artists, best known for his stop-motion animations that are based on thousands of ink paintings, charcoal drawings and woodcuts.

Containing very little dialogue, these hand-made films use combinations of image, sound and text to raise questions about what we perceive as truth and explore the slippery dynamics of memory, history, culture and politics.

Sun Xun’s works often highlight the absurd incongruities between authorised histories and personal recollections, and are particularly concerned with how history can be manipulated, interrogating the differences between official narratives presented by public agencies, politicians and the media — and more marginalised accounts that stem from ordinary people’s experiences.

This is Sun Xun’s first solo exhibition in Australia. The exhibition includes a number of the artist’s most important animated works and encompasses both the MCA’s Level 1 North & South Galleries. MCA Curator Anna Davis has invited the artist to create a major new work for the exhibition, which will involve him and a small team working ‘in residence’ over one week to complete a large-scale installation in view of the public.

Curator: Anna Davis

Sun Xun, Heterodoxy III, 2017, image courtesy the artist and Edouard Malingue Gallery, Hong-Kong, © the artist

Sydney International Art Series 2018/19 19 October 2018 – 3 March 2019 Level 3 Galleries, Ticketed

Every summer, the Sydney International Art Series brings the world’s most outstanding exhibitions exclusively to Sydney, Australia.

The MCA has presented the work of major international artists including Anish Kapoor, Yoko Ono, Grayson Perry, Tatsuo Miyajima and, opening on November 1, 2017, Pipilotti Rist.

The Sydney International Art Series, a collaboration with the Art Gallery of New South Wales, is a signature event on the NSW Events Calendar supported by Strategic Sponsor Destination NSW.

The exhibition will be announced later this year.

Curator: Rachel Kent


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Primavera 2018: Young Australian Artists 9 November 2018 – 3 February 2019 Level 1 South Gallery, FREE ENTRY

Primavera is the MCA’s annual exhibition of young Australian artists aged 35 years and under. Since 1992, the Primavera series has showcased the works of artists in the early stages of their career, many of whom – such as Shaun Gladwell, Mikala Dwyer, Rebecca Baumann, Jonathan Jones and Jess Johnson – have gone on to exhibit nationally and internationally. In 2018, Primavera celebrates its 27th edition and is curated by Megan Robson.

Megan Robson is Assistant Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Her recent curatorial projects include Installation Contemporary, Sydney Contemporary (with Rachel Kent) (2017); Primavera at 25: MCA Collection (2016–17; touring nationally in 2017–18); Martu Art from the Far Western Desert (with Anna Davis) (2014) and New Acquisitions in Context (with Anna Davis) (2013).

Megan has also worked across a range of notable MCA exhibitions including solo projects with Aleks Danko, Runa Islam, Anish Kapoor, Christian Marclay, Tatsuo Miyajima and Annette Messager; as well as large-scale presentations such as New Romance: art and the posthuman and Marking Time. Previously she worked for a number of art organisations in Australia and the UK, including the Barbican Centre, London and the Biennale of Sydney.

Primavera was initiated in 1992 by Dr Edward Jackson AM, Mrs Cynthia Jackson AM and their family in memory of their daughter and sister Belinda, a talented jeweller who died at the age of 29.

Curator: Megan Robson

Megan Robson, MCA Assistant Curator and curator of Primavera 2018: Young Australian Artists, in front of Teelah George, Sky Piece, 2016–17, in Primavera 2017: Young Australian Artists, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, photograph: Jacquie Manning


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Compass: MCA Collection9 November 2018 – 3 February 2019 Level 1 North Gallery, FREE ENTRY

The trajectories of Indigenous and non-Indigenous women practices are considered in dialogue with one another in this collection-based exhibition. Aboriginal artists illustrate their distinctive relationships to their cultures and Countries and provide commentary on the multiple, interlocking oppressions of what it means to be a black woman in Australia. Non-Aboriginal artists narrate concepts around the presentation of women in contemporary western society; utilising the figure and forms of the self to reflect universal themes of ‘being’ and ‘doing’ female.

Like compass points, these artists point to the ways in which they experience, both in their internal and external lives, their womanhood. Communal identities – such as those reflected in Indigenous traditional and contemporary culture where the self is subjugated in preference for group preservation and maintenance, and individual identities that sit at various points on the spectrum of feminine experience are highlighted.

Works in distinct and diverse mediums reveal the way in which this group of artists hold and reinterpret histories, as well as locate a complexity of ideas about the performative aspects of female-ness.

Curator: Clothilde Bullen

Frances Djulibing, Yukuwa (Feather string yam vine), 2013, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, purchased 2013, image courtesy and © the artist


MCA Touring Program 2018

The MCA’s Touring Program has been inspiring audiences regionally, nationally and internationally for more than a decade by providing unique exhibitions and projects supported by a range of education resources and programs that significantly contribute to the critical debate about contemporary art and ideas.

Primavera at 25: MCA Collection

Artspace Mackay (Mackay, QLD): 16 February – 13 May 2018

Glasshouse Port Macquarie (Port Macquarie, NSW): 15 June – 19 August 2018

Western Plains Cultural Centre (Dubbo, NSW): 31 August – 9 December 2018

Curator: Megan Robson

Hilarie Mais

TarraWarra Museum of Art (Tarrawarra, VIC): 24 February – 29 April 2018

Drill Hall Gallery, ANU (Canberra, ACT): 8 June – 29 July 2018

Co-curators: Blair French and Manya Sellers

Touring Manager: Shinae Stowe

Conversation Starters: Post-Truth 18-19 August 2018 Throughout the MCA, FREE ENTRY (some events ticketed)

Get comfortable with the uncomfortable.

Responding directly to themes and ideas in MCA exhibitions, Conversation Starters places contemporary art at the heart of each conversation.

In the first weekend of June last year, the MCA started an important conversation. We asked our visitors: What does the world need? Who do you trust to tell you the truth? What questions are you afraid to ask?

Responses came flooding in in the form of hundreds of handwritten notes on our walls, on social media and within the many events led by artists and provocateurs. Inspired by the work of French Algerian artist Kader Attia, this new program of art, ideas and conversation was proof of our audiences’ courage and desire to listen, share and discuss the issues of today.

Conversation Starters will return in August 2018, exploring difficult ideas around storytelling, post-truth and propaganda in relation to the work of contemporary Chinese artist Sun Xun.

Public Engagement Manager: Yaël Filipovic

Nell, Unlimited Radiance, 2001, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, gift of Dr Edward Jackson AM and Mrs Cynthia Jackson AM, 2006, image courtesy and © the artist

Conversation Starters program at Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, 2017, photograph: Jacquie Manning


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C3West - Blacktown Native Institution Project (2017-18)

This collaboration between Blacktown Arts on behalf of Blacktown City Council and C3West, a program of the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), will respond to the historical and contemporary importance of the Blacktown Native Institution (BNI), with public outcomes during 2018.

It builds on the previous collaboration, Blacktown Native Institution Project (2014-15) and BAC’s 2013 exhibition The Native Institute.

Artists Tony Albert, Sharyn Egan and Moogahlin Performing Arts have been engaged to develop concepts and outcomes embracing the BNI site as a living community memorial of local, national and international importance for the Stolen Generations, based on Indigenous knowledges, including science and technology. The project will be deeply engaged with the Darug and Blacktown Aboriginal communities, and the work the artists produce will be collaborative and interdisciplinary.

The artists and community members will participate in a week-long development week in October 2017. Artists will then develop their concepts, which may include but are not limited to: a marker for the site, plantings on site, presentations of the stories of the institution’s residents and their descendants. A major public Corroboree event featuring some of the project artists’ works as well as performances by other artists will be presented onsite by June 2018.

The existing project website (www.bniproject.com) will be further developed in consultation with community. The project will also feature learning programs for schools in the Blacktown area, led by MCA Artist Educator, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Programs, Emily McDaniel.

The collaborative project team is made up of staff from both Blacktown Arts and MCA, and is jointly led by Jenny Bisset (Director, Blacktown Arts) and Anne Loxley (Senior Curator, C3West, MCA).

Leanne Tobin, It Starts Here Now, 2015, performance documentation, Blacktown Native Institution Artist Camp #2, 2015, Oakhurst, NSW, co-commissioned by C3West on behalf of Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Blacktown Arts Centre on behalf of Blacktown City Council, and UrbanGrowth NSW, image courtesy and © the artist


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Documents

MCA PROGRAM · 2018. 4. 30. · The MCA’s touring program will continue to reach audiences nationally, with Primavera at 25: MCA Collection and Hilarie Mais travelling to five venues