Notes on Painting 18 Mural-Scaled Wall Painting
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Painting. More Painting Painting. More Painting Abdul Abdullah Travis MacDonald Nicola Smith Australian Centre for Contemporary Art Colleen Ahern Robert Macpherson Sam Songailo 30 July – 28 August; Teresa Baker Gian Manik John Spiteri 2 – 25 September 2016 Vivienne Binns Samson Martin Madonna Staunton Karen Black Helen Maudsley Esther Stewart Daniel Boyd Nigel Milsom Tyza Stewart Ry David Bradley Tully Moore Kristina Tsoulis-Reay Stephen Bram Jan Nelson Trevor Vickers Angela Brennan Elizabeth Newman Jenny Watson Kirsty Budge Nora Ngalangka Taylor Bradd Westmoreland Janet Burchill Jonathan Nichols Peter Westwood Mitch Cairns Jonny Niesche Ken Whisson Jon Campbell John Nixon Bugai Whyoulter Nadine Christensen & Unknown Artist Karl Wiebke Timothy Cook Rose Nolan Nora Wompi Juan Davila Daniel Noonan Marjorie Yates David Egan Nora Nungabar Nyapanyapa Yunupingu Hamishi Farah Alair Pambegan Diena Georgetti Oscar Perry Matthys Gerber Stieg Persson Nyarapayi Giles Tom Polo Irene Hanenbergh Elizabeth Pulie Melinda Harper Adam Pyett Louise Hearman Ben Quilty Raafat Ishak Lisa Radford Helen Johnson Lisa Reid David Jolly Reko Rennie Josey Kidd-Crowe Robert Rooney Fiona Lowry Gareth Sansom Moya McKenna Gemma Smith Tim McMonagle Kate Smith Foreword considers the material, perceptual acknowledge with appreciation the Contents and conceptual operations of many public and private lenders to Painting. More Painting explores contemporary painting as both a the exhibition, and the assistance the pictorial logic and medium self-referential, critical practice, and provided by artists’ gallerists HANNAH MATHEWS condition of contemporary painting as a means to explore the wider and representatives. We also to examine the ways in which artists conceptual implications of the work acknowledge our Media Partner Painting. More Painting 6 continue to reinvent painting within of art in the world today. JCDecaux, paint supplier Dulux, and strict limitations, and in response to our ongoing corporate and event new perceptual conditions brought The curatorial structure of Painting. partners, and philanthropic donors, QUENTIN SPRAGUE about by the advent of digital and More Painting was initially conceived who are acknowledged elsewhere in Six False Starts For An Essay On Painting. More virtual realms. by ACCA Curator Annika Kristensen the publication. and Associate Curator Hannah Painting 12 The exhibition is presented over two Mathews, and it has been a great We are grateful, above all, to the chapters, with each chapter structured pleasure to work with them on the participating artists – many of whom around a series of solo presentations development of this project. I would have created new work especially JUSTIN PATON alongside an expansive panoramic like to especially acknowledge for the exhibition – for the critical group exhibition set within a dynamic Annika and Hannah for their skilful insight and enduring inspiration of Necessity and glut: notes on painting 18 mural-scaled wall painting. The orchestration and management of their work. solo presentations offer a focused what is an ambitious and complex consideration of the practices of curatorial and logistic undertaking. Painting. More Painting is the JAN BRYANT fourteen Australian artists – seven first major institutional exhibition The Painterly 24 in each chapter – demonstrating We are grateful for the lucid analysis dedicated to contemporary a range of distinctive positions. and critical insights of catalogue Australian painting in over a decade. Two panoramic group exhibitions – essayists Jan Bryant, Justin Paton We hope that it stimulates further Mural Commission: Sam Songailo 32 encompassing some thirty artists in and Quentin Sprague, and for the engagement, debate, exhibitions each chapter, arranged alphabetically contributions of ACCA staff members and public appreciation of the role – present the work of early, mid who have written catalogue entries. that painting plays within the wider Solo Studies 33 and senior-career artists conceived Special thanks are also due to discourse of contemporary art. within the canon of painting and Stephanie Berlangieri, Curatorial the medium-specificity of painterly Intern, who has contributed to Max Delany Panorama: A–M 86 discourse. These are displayed upon a all aspects of the research and Artistic Director & CEO newly commissioned architecturally- development of the exhibition and scaled wall painting by Sam Songailo publication, along with ACCA’s Panorama: N–Z 116 which serves as a dynamic network staff and installation team for their within which a range of diverse and professionalism and commitment to at times incommensurate painterly the realisation of this project. positions are presented. An exhibition of this scope would Reflecting the resurgent activity not be possible without inspired and critical agency of painting over sponsorship and philanthropic the past decade, Painting. More support. We are especially Painting provides an overview of appreciative of the significant contemporary Australian painting support provided by Creative in a context in which diverse Partnerships Australia through the conceptual, polemic and stylistic Plus 1 Program, and we are equally connections and debates can grateful to the Gordon Darling be drawn between individual Foundation for their generous approaches across generations. It support of this publication. We 4 | 5 HANNAH MATHEWS the proliferation of painting currently or materialist, yet its fixed (final) form being made in this early part of the never represents an instance in the Painting. More Painting twenty-first century. Its intent is way of a snapshot. Painting involves to promote more detailed critical a temporal and material complexity exhibitions of painting and dialogue that never quite privileges the single Painting. More Painting is an around the discourse. moment in time. exhibition that acknowledges the continuing insistence of Painting. More Painting addresses Painting is autonomous. It does not contemporary Australian painting. painting’s demand for attention. need anything beyond its material Focusing on living artists, it takes into It responds to the return of early qualities. Painting does not need account early, mid and senior-career career artists to painting studios, the an immediate audience to justify practices from across the country. endurance of local painting practices, its operations, choices or positions. the current rise of publishing and It does not need a specific external The exhibition takes place a decade discourse about painting, and the environment. Painting comes from after the last large-scale institutional broader international focus given to the artist’s control of their own survey of Australian painters.1 While the medium in recent years. discipline and the discursive context artists have continually exhibited of painting itself. In turn it can enter paintings in commercial galleries In exploring the pictorial logic and into various sites and relations and independent art spaces, material condition of contemporary while retaining control. In a world of public institutions have tended to painting, questions around the contemporary art where ‘anything concentrate more on exhibitions that definition of painting naturally arose. and everything goes’, painting has focus on various thematics, histories Why painting? Why now? learned more and more to use its own and participatory experiences. In the material specificity to ensure a kind of instance of recent medium-specific Painting as an art form is deeply integrity and questioning that can’t be shows, video art and installation historical, innately self-reflexive and, simply unpacked from the outside. have become the new orthodoxy. somehow, in its material specificity, singular. Painting can pick up A painting is first and foremost a Painting. More Painting addresses qualities of other disciplines such painting. We understand this idea the gap between the unceasing as sculpture, photography and film, from Modernism. It is a condition of activity of painters and their and yet it exists first and foremost as thinking applied in a material way. It relative absence in institutional itself. This singular ability contributes may be this and only this but at the programming, however, it is not a to painting’s autonomy, endurance same time it also speaks to ideas, survey exhibition as such. It does not and, possibly, its strength – although discourses and concerns in the seek to be definitive. even now this is a contested world as we expect all artworks to interpretation. What is clear is that do. Contemporary painting’s self- Instead this two-part exhibition, painting continues to produce critical scrutiny of its own material presented over two months, brings new paintings, new methods and and contextual conditions occurs together the work of seventy- systems, and in doing so reflects simultaneously to its embodiment nine artists whose practices the world around it in a way that of the experience and sight of the demonstrate the scope of recent distinguishes it from other mediums. world in which it operates. In this painting in Australia; not simply way it is an urgent condition, not from a range of geographic and Painting takes time. Time for thinking, only in conversation with itself but generational contexts but through time in the studio, time working in conversation with its time. Each of distinctive positions, approaches, and reworking, time spent with the the artists in Painting. More Painting methodologies and lineages. The medium.