2001

Faculty of the Constructed Environment: Gestation by Garth Paine

RMIT Gallery

10 - 21 December 2001

Garth Paine is the Australian Council New Media Arts fellow, Faculty of the Constructed Environment at RMIT University. Utilising research undertaken at RMIT, the artist presents an installation with interactive sound and video content, generated in the real time and controlled by the movement of people within the exhibition.

Cyber Cultures: Sustained Release

RMIT Gallery

4 November - 1 December 2001

An exhibition in leading edge media form and accessible content, dealing with themes of identity and experience in the new millennium, from popular culture games and the internet, to genetic engineering, artificial life and explorations of post human identity.

The exhibition features Animation Playgrounds comprising Digital String Games 111, UN- icon, Petshop and Dream Kitchen with artists Maureen Lander, John Fairclough, the Lycette Bros. Martine Corompt, Leon Cmielewski and Josephine Starrs.

Curator: Kathy Cleland

NEW ARCHITECTURE IN BERLIN: SELECTED BUILDINGS SINCE 1990

RMIT Gallery

4 November - 1 December 2001

In the decade following Berlin’s re-unification, the cultural climate has been one of rejuvenation unsurpassed in any other decade of the city’s history. New Architecture in Berlin shows over 150 diverse architectural projects that have been undertaken in Berlin since 1990 – a kaleidoscope of contemporary design questioning any notion of a unified architectural style in Berlin.

Major, internationally renowned projects that have changed the face of Berlin, including the Jewish Museum, Potsdamer Platz and the Reichstag and involving architects such as Norman Foster, Daniel Libeskind, Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers and Axel Schultes, are shown alongside and in relation to lesser-known local projects. This provides a context for the larger works, which are often discussed exclusively, and reveals the influence of international design on a local scene.

The images, projected simultaneously onto 6 screens in rapid succession, condense the real architectural space of Berlin into a virtual panorama. The space at RMIT Gallery will simulate the experience of traversing through an unvisited contemporary city.

Curator: Bernhard Schneider

Stitched Up

RMIT Gallery

8 - 13 October 2001

Textile works from The Cunningham Dax Collection of Psychiatric Art are exhibited for the very first time.

This rare collection of textiles is the result of a remarkable post World War II experiment in rehabilitation by needlework. Wool stored in local townships in England during the War was collected and sorted by colour and thickness. It was then donated to a ward of 70 mentally ill women who could sew with it whatever they wished. The works on view provide an insight into the conditions of mental illness.

The selection comprises richly embroidered jackets, trousers, cushion covers, canvas work embroideries and knitted sculptures. The makers have not been constrained by the conventional dictates of pattern and prescribed stitching. The works are inventive and sophisticated and demonstrate an untamed use of colour. These works will inspire debate about links between creativity, rationality and illness.

Dr. Eric Cunningham Dax brought samples of the works to Australia in 1952 and these form part of the collection that was established in 1985. The Collection is part of the Mental Health Research Institute, Australia’s only independent psychiatric research organisation.

These extraordinary costumes, conceived not as art forms but as expressions of the human mind, offer an engaging human face to mental illness.

Curator: Jane Morley

Glacier

RMIT Gallery

13 September - 20 October 2001

Glacier is an exhibition that presents a range imaginative ways contemporary artists are exploring new possibilities for painting such as using technology to explode traditional boundaries.  The artist’s apply variable tools, including digital technology, photography and light to the traditional craft of painting.

Carmen Soraya creates a computer generated colour room and Kieran Kinney an extravagant photorealist five metre panoramic painting of a make-believe Gold Coast. Glacier artists celebrate the experiences of their lives in terms of the places they occupy and the ideas and issues they believe in.

Glacier presents the work of seventeen artists from around Australia: Chris Bond, Judith Duquemin, Craig Easton, Claire Firth – Smith, Juan Ford, Mark Galea, Helga Groves, Stephen Haley, David Harley, Kieran Kinney, Amanda Marburg, Mark Misic, Nuha Saad, Carmen Soraya, Darren Wardle, Irene Wellm and Wang Zhiyuan.

Curators: Suzanne Davies and Darren Wardle

Norman Day Architectural Works

RMIT Gallery

9 - 25 August 2001

An exhibition celebrating 30 years of architecture by Norman Day, highlighting the production ideas and experimentation over his career. Comprising photographs, plans, sketches, paintings and text.

Little Treasures

RMIT Gallery

27 July - 25 August 2001

The history of artists collaborating spans centuries. In these book collaborations, the artists have challenged and stimulated each other to work outside their usual parameters. This exhibition of little book treasures is the result of a series of through-the-post exchanges, a first experience for some of the artists in the unpredictable realm of artistic collaboration.

Stephen Spurrier in collaboration with: Ruth Johnstone, Wilma Tabacco, John Teschendorff, Alex Selenitsch, Catherine Parker, Lesley Duxbury, Ron McBurnie John R. Neeson, Catherine  Parker, John Teschendorff, Normana Wight ,George Matoulas Theo Koning, Jan Davis, Sophia Errey.

What’s Love Got to Do With It?

RMIT Gallery

27 July - 31 August 2001

An exhibition of contemporary Aboriginal art exploring issues of identity, representation, sexuality, urban experience and dispossession. Artists Fiona Foley, Jenny Fraser, Julie Gough, Brenda Croft, and Jonathon Bottrell Jones reflect the environment and society in which they reside with strength, dignity and a shared sense of spirituality.

Curator: Christian Bubmarra Thompson

Foundation of Gold

RMIT Gallery

27 July - 25 August 2001

Gold forms solid blocks in the foundations of Victoria. 150 years ago, our goldfields teemed with people of every nationality. This exhibition celebrates the discovery of gold with artists of many cultures working together. Painters, glass and textile artists, gold and silver smiths have been invited to Australia to work collaboratively with Melbourne artists. This exhibition precedes an international tour.

The ‘twinned’ artists are Makiko Mitsunari (Osaka) and Blanche Tilden; Kin Ki-Ra (Seoul) and Pamela Stadus; Brenda Fajardo (Manila) and Caroline Williams; Eugene Chua Gin-Minn (Singapore) and Simon Cottrell; and Monika Correa (Mumbai) and Georgia Chapman.

Curators: Alison Carroll, Suzanne Davies, Beatrice Schlabowsky, Jeff Taylor and Rachel You

Presented by the City of Melbourne in partnership with Asialink and RMIT Gallery.

Land/Landscape

RMIT Gallery

19 June - 14 July 2001

Imagining the land through landscapes plays a key role in how we view and understand our place in the world, inviting us to think about where we belong. This exhibition explores issues of identity, place, ecology and culture through photographic representations of Australian landscapes.

Curator: Suzanne Davies

Artists: Chris Barry, Ruby Davies, Phillip George, and Bette Mifsud have created four discrete bodies of work titled: out of place, Along the Darling, Tranzlution, and The Living Room.

Federation

RMIT Gallery

8 May - 2 June 2001

Seven leading Australian artists concentrate on ways in which Australia is imaged.

The artists portray their idea of Australia in critical and sometimes playfully irreverent terms. Using such elements as maps, animal emblems, satirical narratives, life cycles and speculative models, these projects commemorate and question what constitutes Australia, now and into the future.

These works span views of both indigenous culture and visions of Australia perceived by recent immigrant artists. They contemplate the ideologies that define our sense of nationhood through white settlement and Federated government. Iconoclastic, visionary and eclectic, this survey by contemporary Australian visual artists reveals some of the myths and truths that underpin life in the ‘Lucky Country’.

Curator: Juliana Engberg

Artists: Fiona McDonald, Greg Creek, Ian Abdullah, Patricia Piccinini, Lui Xiao Xian,  Tony Trembath, Margaret Morgan, Vivienne Reed.

Each artist has been invited to frame their project in relation to areas of interest which connect to their own concerns and also engage with issues of importance to our community as we mark the centenary of Federation in Australia.  These interests span the concept of indigenous culture to the views of Australia as perceived by recent immigrant artists.