Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest Autumn Exhibition Suite 2018 Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest Introduction Welcome to the Gallery’s Autumn suite of exhibitions: 5 x 5 – The Artist and the Patron, tactile and Bill Henson: Paris Opera Series, selected works. Autumn Each year the Gallery seeks opportunities to exhibit and mentor Western Sydney artists and curators. This Autumn we present two shows by early career curators, Micheal Do and Exhibition Marian Simpson. Micheal Do is a recipient of the Copyright Agency’s curatorial residency for 2017, funded through Museums & Galleries NSW. Suite His exhibition 5 x 5 – The Artist and the Patron, looks to the relationship between collectors and artists, and the driving forces and impulses behind private art collection. Five Sydney based collectors were invited to nominate an artist from their own extensive collections, with whom they shared a particular affinity and had collected works over a period of time. The five pairings include art advisor and Artspace Board Member, Amanda Love, and British artist Tracey Emin; lawyer and NAVA Chair James Emmett and artist Julian Meagher; philanthropist, Lisa Paulsen and artist and critic Patrick Hartigan; physician and Director of Holdsworth House, Dick Quan and Indonesian artist Uji ‘Hahan’ Handoko Eko Saputro; and Anonymous – ‘the private collector’ and artist Nigel Milsom. tactile is the first solo curatorial outing for the Gallery’s 2018. Courtesy of the artist of Courtesy 2018. Exhibition Manger, Marian Simpson. It has been undertaken as a professional development opportunity, and to enhance Island Island the Gallery’s offer to both younger audiences, and those with sight impairment. In tactile (Lewers House), you will find the work of artists, Emily Parsons-Lord, Pip and Pop, Hiromi Tango and Hannah Toohey, all of whom are principally concerned with materiality, form and audience encounters with works of art. Their work tempts and sometimes denies the impulse and desire to feel the work between one’s fingers or under one’s Patrick Hartigan, Hartigan, Patrick 2 Autumn Exhibition Suite 2018 Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest 3 feet. In tactile, the usual rules of engagement with a work of art do not apply. You are invited to stand close, to touch, to feel, to sit, to sniff, to enjoy a sensuous encounter. With respect for the artist’s great generosity in making these works available for audiences to interact with, we invite you to touch and enjoy your interactions with all artworks – but please be gentle, guidance provided. In tactile (Lounge Room Gallery) you will find artist Troy Contents Emery’s multi-coloured, shaggy and pom pom creatures - animals under Perspex boxes which seemingly beg to be petted, to enjoy the sensation of silken cord running through ones fingers or the soft bobble of pom poms. Here we ask you Introduction p. 2 to look, but do not touch! 5 x 5 – the Artist and the Patron, essay by cur. In Ancher House we present a selection of works from Bill Henson’s photographic series Paris Opera. These works were Micheal Do p.6 donated to the Gallery by Michael and Jill Hawker in 2016 5 x 5 – the Artist and the Patron - Artist and through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts program. Collector Pairings p.24 Please also enjoy the touch portals on the Main Gallery’s verandah exterior. Poke your hand through the holes to 5 x 5 – the Artist and the Patron – experience different material surfaces and sensations. This Collector interviews p.50 work was created with Art Club workshop participants, lead by educator, Christine Ghali – a weekly workshop of young 5 x 5 – the Artist and the Patron – artists living with disability. They ask you to extend your reach List of Works p.100 and learn to experience the world as they do. , 2008 (detail) Courtesy of the artist of Courtesy , 2008 (detail) Due to site air-conditioning upgrades, the Gallery’s Autumn tactile p. 106 exhibition suite has a staggered opening. 5 x 5 – The Artist and the Patron, and Bill Henson: Paris Opera Series, selected tactile – Artist Biographies and Statements p. 109 works will open from Saturday 24 March, while tactile will open Sunday 8 April. and hers His tactile – List of Works p. 132 Bill Henson – Paris opera Series, Dr Lee-Anne Hall selected works p. 134 Director Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest Bill Henson – Paris opera Series, selected works – March 2018 List of works p. 141 Education p. 142 Public Programs p . 144 Cover Image: Patrick Hartigan, Hartigan, Patrick Image: Cover Acknowledgements p. 145 4 Autumn Exhibition Suite 2018 Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest 5 Collecting the Collectors The desire to acquire, possess and collect cuts across socio-economic status, cultural upbringing or age. In the contemporary era, hunter-gatherer behaviour takes new forms, whether it be as accessible as postage stamps, as esoteric as Tibetan Kapala skulls or as expensive as jumbo-jets. Collecting may be for individual pleasure or take the form of patronage, combining aesthetic appreciation Micheal Do with a desire to support art and creative practice for wider social benefit. Curator For the exhibition 5 x 5 - the Artist and the Patron, five Sydney based collectors were invited to nominate an artist from their own extensive collections, with whom they shared a particular affinity and had collected works over a period of time. The five pairings include art advisor and Artspace Board Member, Amanda Love and British artist Tracey Emin; lawyer and NAVA Chair, James Emmett and artist Julian Meagher; philanthropist, Lisa Paulsen and artist and critic Patrick Hartigan; physician and Director of Holdsworth House, Dick Quan and Indonesian artist Uji ‘Hahan’ Handoko Eko Saputro; and Anonymous – ‘the private collector’ and artist Nigel Milsom. By studying the development of these pairings, a discrete world of private art collecting, involving idiosyncratic bonds, practices and relationships, is revealed. The practice of private art collection spans differences in 6 Autumn Exhibition Suite 2018 Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest 7 reasoning, capacity and foundational to quality of and their parallel collector/ Over the past two decades, behaviour. There are those life. Historically, there exist patron relationships. These the global art market has whose principle impulse is a number of more known five Sydney-based private exploded with the rise of aesthetics or deriving joy artist-collector relationships collectors, who in their commercial über-galleries from a work, those who that have offered patronage own way are changing and such as Gagosian Gallery, allow quantity to prevail and support to visual artists, making the complexion of Hauser & Wirth, Perrotin over quality, and those who serving as the fulcrum Sydney’s art world, have and David Zwirner alongside view art as a commercial for artistic brilliance. The been asked to nominate commercial art fairs investment, including self- patronage of sixteenth works by a single artist including the leading firm managed superannuation century Italian statesman drawn from their personal Art Basel and its iterations funds. Some private Lorenzo de’ Medici enabled collections, along with a in Switzerland, Hong Kong collectors have opened Raphael and Leonardo to recently acquired artwork and the U.S.A; Frieze, New up their contemporary art devote themselves to their as part of this project. York and The Armory, New collections to the public in art. New York costume These recently acquired York. Arts economist, Dr. the form of private museums jewellers Victor and Sally works seek to extend the Clare McAndrew valued the such as the Museum of Ganz helped usher Jasper patronage and respect global art market in 2015 at Old and New Art (MONA), Johns from emerging artist inherent in these pairings, US$63.8 billion1. Coinciding Tasmania, and White Rabbit to pop art legend. Melbourne while drawing upon the ideas, with the exponential Gallery, Sydney. Collectors’ patrons John and Sunday processes and influences commercialisation of art are motivations can vary Reed invited a young Sidney that have continued to budding collectors seeking considerably: philanthropy, Nolan inside their world, guide each artist and relationships with prestigious creating a consummate collector’s practice. By 1 This study was done in institutions and social creative union. These works studying the development in partnership with Art Basel capital. And yet, a collection - Leonardo’s Sistine Chapel, of these pairings, 5X5 maps and UBS. However, this figure is more than just a list of John’s American Flags and the careful ties of this can be contested as there is worldly objects; it not only Nolan’s Ned Kelly series - discrete world of private minimal sales information for private sales, which make says who I am, but proclaims continue to be revered today, art collecting, revealing a up approximately 50% of the to the world, where are we across different generations, cocktail of idiosyncratic market. According to Dr. Clare going? geographies and histories. bonds, practices and Andrews’ report, defining what relationships. constitutes a gallery below a Within this collecting 5 x 5: the Artist and Patron certain level is a difficult paradigm is the act recognises the cultural task and is a factor that will change this figure. McAndrew, of patronage — the significance of these types Clare. The Art Market 2017. philanthropic support of relationships by exploring The Private Parts https://www.artbasel.com/about/ and promotion of art as the trajectories of five artists initiatives/the-art-market. Date Accessed: 1 Feburary 2018. 8 Autumn Exhibition Suite 2018 Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest 9 the professional counsel and museums for nothing.” read through sensationalist gifts from the artist as a advice of art consultants. news headlines highlighting gesture of gratitude for Love’s For Amanda Love, the works The enterprise of Sydney obscenity and the work as a hospitality, feature Emin’s of British artist Tracey Emin based art consultant debauched mockery of art.