2003

Metaklang : The Poltergeist of Sound

RMIT Gallery

15 - 18 October 2003

Metaklang: The Poltergeist of Sound is a live performance and sounds installation project for RMIT Gallery. Through three distinct sonic responses to sound field recordings collected from three specific sites, this project explores the relationship between sound and architecture, notions of site specificity and explores the many strategies employed by sound artists and musicians in dealing with acoustic audio, site specific sound and music.

Participating groups: Snawklor, Contrail, Minit. Snawklor have recorded the sounds of a gaming arcade in Melbourne. Berlin based Minit have recorded the eerie sounds within the Bauhaus buildings. Sydney based Contrail have recorded material from 20 metres below the surface in disused military tunnels on the coast of Sydney. Each group have composed sonic responses to the sounds they capture.

Curator: Mark Brown

Bauhaus Photography

RMIT Gallery

1 October - 1 November 2003

When it comes to art, architecture and design, the 20^th century happened at the Bauhaus in Germany between the wars. The Bauhaus was very concerned with multi media and had a major impact on photography. Photography provided a tool for turning reality into abstraction in an entirely credible way, between art and craft. Led by Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, the Bauhaus set the trends and explored directions that photography was to continue to move into for the next 50 years.

This exhibition includes a selection of 124 original photos by over forty photographers, ranging from amateur to highly professional works, from snapshots to carefully devised advertising images.

Artists: Georg Muche, Ringl + Pit, Herbert Bayer, Kurt Kranz, Kattina Both, Herbert Schürmann, Worobeitschik, (Moshe Raviv), Florence Henri, Max Enderlin, Paul Citroen, Erich Consemüller,  T. Lux Feininger, Fritz Schleifer,  Werner D. Feist, László Moholy-Nagy, Walter Peterhans, Irene Hoffmann, Xanti Schawinsky, Walter Peterhans, Albert Hennig, Eugen Batz, Max Enderlin, Gertrud Arndt, Georg Muche, Irene Blüh, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, Edmund Collein (Heinz Loew?), Richard Oelze, Marianne Brandt, Umbo, Josef Albers, Andreas Feininger, Hajo Rose, Lucia Moholy, Irene Bayer, Werner Graeff, Werner D. Feist, Hinnerk Scheper, Alfred Erhardt, Hilde Hubbuch, Alfred Ehrhardt, Eugen Batz, Hinnerk Scheper, Coop, Walter Funkat, Joost Schmidt.

Sculpture at RMIT during the Jomantas years (1961-1987)

RMIT Gallery

21 July - 13 September 2003

This group exhibition celebrates the life and work of one of Australia’s finest émigré European sculptors Vincas Jomantas, and the work of 16 esteemed artists associated with him during his 27 years at RMIT.

The exhibition provides an opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the contribution of Melbourne’s established generation of artists, many of whom have devoted their entire lives to art making and exercised enormous influence on the way we understand and value the arts. The exhibition presents a local history of sculpture and demonstrates the talent and imagination that thrives at RMIT.

Born in Lithuania, Vincas Jomantas came to Australia in 1949. He worked from a modest studio in Cheltenham, making elegant and powerful works from wood and metal. He began teaching at RMIT in 1961, becoming head of the Sculpture Department in 1966 where he remained until 1987. This exhibition demonstrates the inclusiveness of Jomantas’ teaching and thinking through the diversity of works produced by his students, colleagues and creative associates.

Many other artists who feature in the exhibition have created works that exist in the public domain. Bruce Armstrong is the artist behind the giant bird called the Bunjil that sits on Wurundjeri Way. Inge King made the large steel waves known as Forward Purge outside the Victorian Arts Centre.

This exhibition acknowledges the remarkable contribution of Vincas Jomantas in the context of the artworks by Bruce Armstrong, George Baldessin, Geoffrey Bartlett, Jock Clutterbuck, Peter Cripps, Augustine Dall’Ava, Donald Gore, Anton Hasell, Inge King, Gunther Kopietz, Penelope Lee, Kevin Mortensen, Lenton Parr and Anthony Pryor.

Curators: Suzanne Davies, Peter Wilson

Rhys Lee: Capitol Hill Rooting King

RMIT Gallery

12 May - 29 June 2003

Rhys Lee’s paintings explore the meeting of abstract and figuration on a large scale, using house paint applied directly to the gallery walls. His striking figures are drawn from art history , random social interactions and every day arbitrary encounters.

Curator: Hannah Mathews

Jude Walton: paralla x

RMIT Gallery

12 May - 28 June 2003

Jude Walton is a Melbourne-based artist and Senior Lecturer in Performance Studies at Victoria University.

paralla x developed as part of an artist-in-residency at the School of Architecture at RMIT.  The residency generated a new series of video and light works that explore aspects of perception. It includes light work, as well as projection and screen based moving images.

This exhibition is about travel, movement and about the body, as well as the exploration of various modes of perception and the influence these have on our approach to space.

Supported by: the New Media Fund of the Australia Council.

Design now.Austria

RMIT Gallery

12 May - 28 June 2003

The mobile design exhibition Design now.Austria presents Austrian design in the context of a broader approach to the purposes and applications of contemporary Austrian design.

The exhibition Design now.Austria highlights contemporary design trends in a comprehensive context, ranging from a (virtual) re-definition of design to traditional shaping, as exemplified by a – somewhat subjective – selection of contemporary cultural phenomena.

Design now.Austria focuses on the influence of the growing networking of cultural, industrial and social standards. It depicts design as a reflection of the changes in the media and technology.

For the most part Design now.Austria presents objects, thus complying with what is usually expected of an exhibition on design. Some of these objects, however, are prototypical, makeshift, subject to constant change and provisional. At the same time, the ‘invisible’ aspect is brought to the fore, closing the gap between the great design classics and objects of everyday life.

Design now.Austria presents icons, prototypes, new technologies, future ecological standards, home page design, new music, graphics, fashion and events.

Curator: Eichinger Oder Knechtl

A touring exhibition sponsored by the Austrian Arts Section of the Austrian Federal Chancellery.

When Philip Met Isabella – Philip Treacy’s Hats for Isabella Blow

RMIT Gallery

17 March - 26 April 2003

Eccentric style icon, Isabella Blow and master milliner Phillip Treacy celebrated fifteen years of collaboration with an exhibition of 30 extraordinary hats. The exhibition also included photographs by legendary fashion photographers of Blow wearing Treacy’s hats.

The Exhibition When Philip Met Isabella – Philip Treacy’s Hats for Isabella Blow was organised by the Design Museum, London and curated by Donna Loveday. The Exhibition Tour has been organised by the Design Museum, London.

When Philip Met Isabella – Philip Treacy’s Hats for Isabella Blow featured Blow’s personal collection of Treacy hats. Exhibits included the Ship, an astonishingly realistic replica of an 18^th century French ship with full rigging made from miniature buttons, the Castle, inspired by Blow’s ancestral home at Doddington, Cheshire and Ludwig of Bavaria’s magnificent palace. Gilbert and George was a fantastical concoction of pink and green lacquered ostrich feathers. Horns was a black satin replica of the horns of Blow’s flock of ancient Soays sheep. The show also included photographs by Steven Meisel, David LaChapelle, Juergen Teller and  Mario Testino of Isabella Blow wearing Treacy’s hats.

Born in Ireland, Philip Treacy studied fashion design in Dublin before winning a place at the Royal College of Art. As well as founding his own successful hat business, he made haute couture hats for such fashion houses as Chanel, Valentino, Gianni Versace and Alexander McQueen.

Isabella Blow was the Fashion Director at Tatler Magazine, the UK’s high society bible.  She was one of the world’s most influential creative directors who worked for magazines including American Vogue, Visionaire, The Face and Vogue Italia. She played an important part in nurturing the careers of many designers, including Alexander McQueen, as well as Philip Treacy.

When Philip Met Isabella – Philip Treacy’s Hats for Isabella Blow is full of glitz and glamour as well as colour and imagination. Treacy’s hats embrace fantasy with incredible energy and reveals why he is known as the master of modern hat making.

Curator: Donna Loveday (Design Museum, UK)

Real Space, Conceptual Space

RMIT Gallery

6 January - 1 March 2003

Real Space, Conceptual Space is a photographic exhibition that explores the concept of public space. It is part of an exhibition series called “Aspects of Contemporary German Photography.”

The photographic works of artists Suzanne Brügger, Thomas Demand and Heidi Specker present different stances in contemporary German photography. In their works the authenticity of a photograph is not under question, but is deemed to be the basis for producing art. The works reveal an unmistakable affinity with public space. This reference is evident in both the “drawn” abstract architectural pictures of Heidi Specker, the dissections of town views by Susanne Brügger and in the constructed space pictures of Thomas Demand.

Curators: Suzanne Brügger, Thomas Demand, and Heidi Specker