UQ ART MUSEUM 2009 EXHIBITION PROGRAM Triumph in the tropics: selling Queensland, celebrating the state’s THE UNIVERSITY OF 150th birthday, takes an irreverent look at images used to promote QUEENSLAND ART MUSEUM Queensland. Misty Moderns: Australian Tonalists 1915–1950 is the fi rst major exhibition to tell the story of Australian Tonalism. And The 2009 program continues The University of Queensland following the success of its 2008 predecessor exhibition, the year will Art Museum’s commitment to presenting dynamic and diverse conclude with NEW09: selected acquisitions. exhibitions. Highlights for the year include exhibitions surveying the work The University of Queensland Art Museum was established of two of Australia’s most exciting young artists, the painter in 1976 to house the artworks collected by The University of Ben Quilty in BEN QUILTY LIVE!, and the watercolours of Ricky Queensland since the 1940s. Swallow in Ricky Swallow: watercolours. In 2004, architect Hamilton Wilson of Wilson Architects transformed The major exhibition Margaret Olley: Life’s journey presents the Mayne Hall – a building originally designed by Robin Gibson in work of one of the country’s favourite artists. While best known for 1973 as the University’s graduation hall – into a well-appointed art museum, aided by a major donation from The Atlantic Philanthropies. her painted interiors and still lifes, Life’s journey focuses on Olley’s sketches of the various places to which she travelled and the The UQ Art Museum researches, exhibits and publishes the work cities in which she lived, from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. of signifi cant Australian and, in particular, Queensland artists. As well as exhibitions drawing on the University’s collections, The The University of Queensland was one of the fi rst in Australia to University of Queensland national artists’ self-portrait prize returns acquire works of art and to use bequest funds for this purpose. in 2009, expanded to encompass artists working across a variety With over 3000 works, The University of Queensland Art Collection is Queensland’s second-largest public art collection. of media. The Collection comprises works by Australian artists from the Rosemary Laing presents Brisbane-born Laing’s well-known colonial era to the present, and the Nat Yuen Collection of weather series in its entirety, accompanied by several related Chinese antiquities. In addition, The University Art Museum is photographs, including works from the University’s collection. developing the National Collection of Artists’ Self Portraits, the An exciting screen-based program, The more you ignore me, the only collection of its kind in Australia. closer I get, runs from March to November. BROOK ANDREW RICHARD BELL THE ISLAND PROVOCATEUR 30 JANUARY – 26 APRIL 2009 30 JANUARY – 26 APRIL 2009 Brook Andrew’s The island series is based on images from A selection of recent and early works by Brisbane-based artist William Blandowski’s (1822–1878) album of photographs Richard Bell. Often provocative and delivered with a sharp wit, of engravings, titled Australien in 142 Photographischen Bell’s work engages head on with issues concerning Indigenous Abbildungen. Prussian naturalist Blandowski collaborated with people and the appropriation strategies of post-modern artists the Yarree Yarree (Nyeri Nyeri) people in collecting and identifying such as Imants Tillers. specimens, as well as inspiring drawings of various Indigenous practices. Andrew’s reproductions, set on coloured foil, show the romanticisation of so-called ‘primitive’ peoples and their cultural expressions. Seen through 21st-century eyes, they are fantastical and utopian imaginings of Indigenous life that can critically refl ect on Australia’s colonial past. Brook Andrew The island II 2008. Mixed media on Belgian linen, edition 2/3. Richard Bell, No squatter’s rights here 2008. Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, Collection of The University of Queensland, purchased 2008. Courtesy of the artist diptych. Collection of The University of Queensland, purchased 2008. Courtesy of and Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne. the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane. NEXT GENERATION AUSTRALIAN ARTISTS ABROAD LOCKHART RIVER ‘OLD GIRLS’ WORKS FROM THE STUARTHOLME-BEHAN COLLECTION OF AUSTRALIAN ART 30 JANUARY – 26 APRIL 2009 30 JANUARY – 26 APRIL 2009 Known affectionately in their Aboriginal community as the ‘Old Girls’, these women elders of Lockhart River were instrumental in Australian artists abroad comprises works from the Stuartholme- developing the internationally recognised Lockhart River Art Gang Behan Collection of Australian Art and other works from the youth art movement. Today, the women elders themselves have University’s collection, showing the 19th- and 20th-century tradition taken up producing art and creating new ways of depicting life in of Australian artists travelling overseas. Their chosen locations their far north Queensland coastal community. The woven puunya were popularly London and Paris, but some also set foot in greater (baskets) and the bark ulku are crafted by traditional techniques Europe, North Africa, Asia and America. The works span 1888 to handed down over many generations, while contemporary 1968, from E Phillips Fox through to Margaret Olley. Augmenting the paintings using synthetic polymer take inspiration from the natural exhibition is a videowork by contemporary artist Anastasia Klose’s, elements of the Lockhart River landscape and other details of Je suis une artiste Aussie! (2006), in which the she makes humorous their lives. reference to herself as an artist abroad in Paris. Susie Pascoe Garroway, on top 2008. Synthetic polymer paint on canvas. Collection Arthur Streeton Westminster Abbey at dusk c.1913. Oil on canvas. The Stuartholme- of The University of Queensland, purchased 2009. Courtesy of the artist and Andrew Behan Collection of Australian Art, The University of Queensland. Baker Art Dealer, Brisbane. the artist’s private collection, Margaret Olley: Life’s journey takes a MARGARET OLLEY fresh look at the artist’s little-known watercolour practice. Studies LIFE’S JOURNEY from outdoor sketching sessions reveal Olley’s passion for the world around her, beyond the more familiar still life and interiors 6 FEBRUARY – 19 APRIL 2009 subjects. They document her journeys to Europe, New Guinea and South-East Asia, as well as her Australian experiences. A UQ ART MUSEUM TOURING EXHIBITION Curated by Nick Mitzevich and Michele Helmrich Margaret Olley: Life’s journey provides a unique insight into the world around Margaret Olley from the late 1940s to the early TOUR DATES: 1970s through her watercolours and pen and ink studies, and National Trust S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, 8 May – 28 June 2009 monotypes. The exhibition traces the places throughout the world Newcastle Region Art Gallery, 15 August – 28 October 2009 to which the artist has travelled and the cities in which she has lived. Including previously unexhibited works on paper and photographs drawn from national, state, private collections, and Margaret Olley Brisbane River 1956 (detail). Watercolour on paper. Private collection. Courtesy of the artist and Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane. Feeling bereft? Alone? Angry? Ebullient? Have you ever THE MORE YOU IGNORE ME, thought, ‘Sometimes it would just be enough to feel something, THE CLOSER I GET anything’? Do you need to talk? Or maybe you are a good listener? Contemporary artists, like the rest of us, wrestle with these demons, channelling their disaffection into their art making. 2 MARCH – 30 NOVEMBER 2009 This program of screen-based works takes the form of nine separate exhibitions over nine months, and is guaranteed to prick your emotions. Like pieces of dialogue in a larger play featuring a range of actors, the nine exhibitions will explore the work of artists mining the depths of the human condition. From navel-gazing monologues to voyeuristic eavesdropping, to unrequited declarations of love, the artists featured in The more you ignore me, the closer I get demand your attention while they ponder love, life, and loss. Get comfortable because you will want to linger... Curated by Alison Kubler Dorota Mytych Mutatis mutandis 2005 (detail). Tea leaves on paper/video (DVD), 1:20 min. Courtesy of the artist. images, companies and political movements also attempted to TRIUMPH IN THE TROPICS: market products and ideologies in the name of Queensland. SELLING QUEENSLAND Curated by Professor Peter Spearritt, The Centre for the Government of Queensland, The University of Queensland and 24 APRIL – 12 JULY 2009 Dr Marion Stell, Queensland Historical Atlas, The University of Queensland. This exhibition takes an irreverent look at the images used to Presented in partnership with the State Library of Queensland sell Queensland over the past 100 years. Triumph in the tropics: selling Queensland explores popular and promotional images of Queensland from the late 19th century to the early 21st century: how Queensland displayed itself to potential migrants, tourists and investors. While government bodies produced many of the Queensland… land of opportunity with unlimited scope for industry and investment! 1960. Cover of a promotional booklet produced by the Queensland Government to attract potential investors. It asked: ‘Why if Queensland is such an El Dorado has it remained so long unexploited?’. Courtesy Peter Spearritt Collection. Ben Quilty paints like there is no tomorrow. In less than a decade BEN QUILTY LIVE! he has become one of the country’s favourite artists. Quilty uses 8 MAY – 19 JULY 2009 abstract slabs of paint to conjure his beloved LJ Torana, his ‘wasted’ mates, his son Joe and, more recently, himself. His subjects are A UQ ART MUSEUM TOURING EXHIBITION modern day memento mori, pithy reminders of our mortality and a call to live life in the fast lane. Like most people, Ben Quilty defi es caricature... A petrol-head who buys his art supplies at Bunnings, yet carries tiny notebooks This exhibition is the fi rst comprehensive survey of Ben Quilty’s full of the most exquisite pen-and-ink sketches of Venice done in painting and includes loans from public and private collections.