The Albury Wodonga Superfiction 1993
Collaboration Peter Hill and J.J. Voss (Photographer)
P R E S S O F F I C E
NEW GALLERY SPACE ANNOUNCED
The Museum is pleased to announce the opening of a new gallery space specialising in
exhibitions and events put on at short notice in response to burgeoning young talent
or to immediate political and cultural events. With a think-tank of advisers and freelance
curators to draw upon the new space, to be called THE CHANGING ROOM, will be able to react
within hours to current events, bringing the deadline tensions of the newsroom and the
pressures of the press office, to the presentation of art and ideas.
Said Museum director Dr Sunday Anderson, "While continuing to mount exhibitions which
may take years of preparation in other parts of the Museum, this new space, which at
141 ft x 66ft (4cm x 18m) takes up only one twentieth of our total exhibition space,
will set out to challenge the supremacy of the so-called blockbuster show. Without wishing
to be too critical of fellaw directors I think it is widely felt that vast exhibitions
such as the recent Bilderstreit in Cologne and Magiciens de la Terre in Parls suffer
from over-planning and too long a gestation period. They lack the tension that is born
of immediacy. THE CHANGING ROOM aims to challenge accepted ways of curating as was done
in very different ways by Chambres d'Amis and "Skulpturen Republik."
EXHIBITIONS
The program commences with TO GET RICH IS GLORIOUS.
TO GET RICH IS GLORIOUS
This exhibition centers on PROPAGANDA, both intentional and unintentional,
and takes its title from a statement made by Deng Xiaoping in the early eighties -
TO GET RICH IS GLORIOUS. By contrast his June 9th speech which melded economic
liberalism with political orthodoxy, and made five da,vs after the Tiananmen
Square massacre (although not televised in China until the end of that month),
spoke of PLAIN LIVING and set out a seventy year program to promote the new philosophy.
This exhibition takes as its central theme PROPAGANDA in 20th century China through wall
posters and woodcuts upto the present day and the manipulation of the truth throughradio
and television as happened most recently in the aftermath of the democracy demonstrations.
The counterbalancing efftct of satellite broadcasts into the country, and direct
transmissions from Hong Kong, is also explored.
Other aspects of propaganda are examined, from the influtnce of the church and the
spread of Christianity through to the present day fanatacism of certain Islamic sects
and the propagation of their faith. First world equivalents are also examined through
the media and advertising in particular.
Ten young New York artists were invited to respond to the theme of the exhibition by
Thomas Chalmers, assistant curator Department of Painting in collaboration with Cologne
critic Ingrid Franke. Their works include video, performance, painting, mixed media and
sculpture.
Invited artists: Jenny Thomas, Guy Dassin, Jill Jackson, Nancy Adrienne Anthony,
Dianne McGinnis, Victor Corliss, Jim Carolan, Gregory Wilding, Evans and Wolf, and Marco
Haarlem.
PRESS PHOTOGRAPHS AVAILABLE
NEW COMPLEXITIES NEW DANCE STEPS
In recent years the idea of 'the artist' as a lone figure exploring a single obsession
has been questioned by a number of very different artists working together in groups of
two, three and sometimes as many as ten. Those we might immediately think of include:
Gilbert and George, Art and Language, The Starn Twins, Group Material, Fischli Weiss,
Irwin Group from Yugoslavia, Information Fiction Public, BP, General Idea, Jane and
Louise Wilson Bader and Tanterl, Joan Fontcuberta and Pere Formiguera.
Realising that an important trend for the nineties is being set world-wide, the Museum
commissioned Eric van Vliet editor of Antwerp's New Stuff magazine to curate an exhibition
of artists working in groups of two or more with the proviso that none of them should yet
have been interviewed or had feature articles about them written in the major five
international art magazines. (reviews were permissable).
Eric van Vliet then contacted ten curators in a number of countries, many of whom had
experience in the art press and the media, and asked each to suggest a number of possible
groups. A series of studio visits was completed and the eventual short list drawn up.
Most of the curators and artists came to New York to install the show and will take
part in a series of lectures and seminars during opening week. Asked by CBS what it
was like working with ten curators and over forty artists the short-fused Mr Vliet
exploded,"It was like trying to get a troop of horses to piss at the same time,
that's what it was like," and mumbled something about crawling inside a bottle of gin.
It sounds like a good show. Don't miss it!
BACKGROUNDER
ALOHA
Three Australias from Brisbane take tourism as their theme making witty pastiches
of picture postcard scenes, but on huge scale and drawing conntctions, but no
conclusions, about the way art and art hislory is marketed today as a tourist
commodity. Their work includes a large selection of art world souvenirs such as
Gauguin ties, Warhol T-Shirts, Lichtensttin key fobs, and taped gallery guide cassettes.
CEREAL KILLERS
Green Art and Third Worid poverty have brought this Canadian group into conflict
with governments and multi-nationals on three continents. Several death threats
aimed at the group were received by the Museum when it was announced they would be
making an installation in the Edward de Vere concourse gallery.
SEX AND DEATH
All the big issues here. Explored in exquiste detail in the work of these
three women from Lyons, France. Leave your mother at home! Group are: Constance
Mercredi, Annette Pin, and Claudette Tartarin.
MEDICAL TEAMS FROM TANZANAYA
Two Hong Kong artists, Ida Kubota and Heide Ho, who studied in London and New
York before settling in Los Angeles. Their obsession is with repeoition - the
rhyming couplet in poetry and the repeat pattern in fabric design. Ida produces
the poetry which Heide juxtaposes onto her repeating patterns which are then
exhibited framed in galleries rather than silk-screened into lengths. They do not
rule out, however, their work appearing on cloth and retailing in department stores.
Selectors working with Eric van Vliei: James McLafferty (London),
Robin Gotham (Los Angeles), Velmir Pitz tVienna), Bob Eagles (Brisbane),
Rosa Hayman (Paris), Ed Steele (Canada), Alessandro Galindo (Rotterdam),
Woody da Silva (Rio), Jutta Klorinades (Berlin), Thomas Wesselwold (New York).
PRESS PHOTOGRAPHS AVAILABLE
NEW COMPLEXITIES, NEW DANGE STEPS
MADE IN PALESTINE
A group of four East Village artists who have turned the artworld in on itself.
Often using large cibachrom~eprints they document the artworld at work, from biennales
to art fairs, to artists and directors caught off guard in city streets and galleries.
CONJECTURES AND REFUTATIONS
Paul Kuhn and Paul Popper are the adopted names of two artist philosophers from Vienna.
Heavily influenced by neo-conceptualism "We think, therefore our art exists."
ART AGAINST ASTROLOGY
A trio from London, England, this group attempts to deconstruct myth, superstition
and religion - aware that over 50 per cent of the population in first world countries
still live in a state that can only be described as 'magical'.
NOUVELLE KUNST FACTION
From Belgium NKF explore the art world as a fictional construct, taking out fake
advertistments in the art press and generally trying to 'beat the parasiles at
their own game.' Their members include Gustav Zobel, Xavier Santos, Jean Phillipe
Sanson, Simone Varlik, and Mika Klorinades.
ELVI AND JACK
A double-act in the best variety hall tradition this couple from Hell's Kitchen are
performance artists who generally work only in non-art venues. Elvi is a memory
woman who claims to have memorised every issue of ARTFORUM and to be able to bring
forth any review or article requested by the audience. Come along and test her in
Lecture Theater#6. Jack wiLl be there too. He is the artworld's first stand-up
comedian whose alterr-ego is the ghost of a dead art historian - "Hey kids, just
look at the blackboard and I'll go through it again for you,"
ARTIC RIP TIDE
Six graduate students from Scotland, Europe, who moved t.o Amsterdam and produce work
with a similar feel to MADE IN PALESTINE. Also taking the art world as their subject
matter they examine the way people look at artworks in galleries or on public sites.
Much of their work is presented through cibachrome photography, light-box's, and
sound recordings.
FILM PILGRIMS
SQUARE TEARS
In less than two years FILM PILGRIMS have upturned conventional views of what
constitutes cinema and literally how it is approached.
The films they produce can only be seen in one venue in the world thus
bringing to film the conditions that have long surrounded the unique art
object.
Some critics have seen this as a regressive and elitist move on the
part of FILM PILGRIMS but what they have done is brought the idea of a
pilgrimage to the viewing of film. ~hree films are already complete and installed
in cinemas in Anchorage, Alaska; New Dehli, India; and Aukland,
New Zealand. Their fourth film will, we are pleased to announce,
be permanently installed in the Museum and is going to take as
its theme the history of Tienanmen Square, Peking, from the earliest
dynasty up to and beyond the recent massacres. This contrasts sharply
to some of their other productions such as THE AFTER SEX CIGARETTE
(Anchorage) which was a neo-romantic fantasy that turns into a
penetrating expose of gender issues. Said founder Pilgrim Jeff Tansey:
"If you want to see the Mona Lisa you have to travel to Paris,
you've got to walk those streets, confront that language and change
that currency - there is no other way to see that artwork. Then you
have to jostle your way through crowds of Australian, Japanese and
American tourists. We want to restore good health to the art pilgrimage
and we choose to do it through film. As for costings - we play to packed
houses four times a day, sometimes more often. We charge fifty bucks a
ticket and we are well into profit on all our projects to date. All the
profits are channelled into future projects, including the purchasing
of old cinemas."
PHOTOGRAPHY RALF KAPPER
A retro-exhibition of the work of photographer RALF KAPPER who died in 14980.
This exhibition includes his harrowing series from Cambodia and later Bangladesh.
It goes up to his last works of children photographed in the Florida Marine Park
where he scraped a living as a commercial photographer and where he was eventually
to take his own life.
More details to be announced.
ARCHITECTURE - OCEAN NECKLACE LIVING UNDERWATER
An exhibition with scale models by the NEPTUNE architectural partnership who
specialise in building underwater housing and floating constructions that can be
permanently moored or towed to a variety of sites. These latter include floating
airports and concert stadiums. The exhibition title OCEAN NECKLACE com~s from the
partnership's main sphere of influence which is in the Pacific Rim, the jewels of
the necklace being Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Brisbane, Sydney, Aukland,
Honalulu, and Los Angeles.
More details to be announce
ELECTRONIC IMAGING
To be announced.
FROM PICTALS TO FRACTALS
OVER THE RAINBOW (CHILDREN'S GALLERY)
A visually stunning exploration of the interface between ART AND SCIENCE,
centered around recent developments in particle physics. For children of all
ages - even the very big ones!
PURCHASE SUPPER
The Museum is to hold its anniversary PURCHASE SUPPER during the run of
NEW COMPLEXITIES, NEW DANCE STEPS. Friends of the Museum will receive details
during the Fall. Ticket Price: $500. Art attire.
