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More NEW13 artist interviews, ACCA 2013
In this interview Ben explains how his works for NEW13 are interconnected by a common theme of language, in particular the ideas of Noam Chomsky’s universal grammar.
Scott Mitchell explains how he has brought the surrounding environment of ACCA’s building into the back spaces of the galleries for his work for NEW13.
Alex’s work is engaged in feminist politics. In this interview Alex Martinis Roe speaks about her work for NEW13, inspired by the Milan Women’s Book Collective, and unique relationships between women in history as examples of what they refer to as ‘Affidamento’ or entrustment.
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In this interview Linda Tegg discusses her work for NEW13. In Linda’s work, Tortoise, a group of performers come together under mirrored exoskeleton to form distinct organism. She is interested in how humans co-exist with others, animals and organisational structures, and how we condition things around us.
In this interview Jess MacNeil discusses her work for NEW13. Known for her work in video and painting, this is the first time Jess has worked with 16mm film.
In this interview Sanne Mestrom discusses her work for NEW13. Sanne is interested in ideas of appropriation, Art History and layers of reticulation. For NEW13 she has taken two iconic painters of the 20th century with widely divergent practices, Picasso and Giorgio Morandi, as the starting point for her work.
NEW13
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA)
16 March — 12 May 2013
NEW, ACCA’s annual commissions exhibition, offers rising Australian artists the chance to make a bold, brave new work for ACCA’s large exhibition spaces. The 2013 NEW artists , this year selected by ACCA’s Associate Curator Charlotte Day, are Benjamin Forster, Jess MacNeil, Alex Martinis Roe, Sanne Mestrom, Scott Mitchell, Joshua Petherick and Linda Tegg.
Curious what all these chalk lines you’ve been seeing around Melbourne are? Wondering where you’ll end up if you follow the colourful patterns?
*** HINT: All Roads Lead to ACCA
On Sunday 3 March, 100 bike riders participated in an artwork by leading Scottish contemporary artist Jacqueline Donachie. The coloured lines you see on the streets mark the paths of the riders and create a giant multi-coloured line drawing throughout the city.
The teams met bright and early in five different locations in Melbourne – Albert Park, Docklands, Southbank, Carlton and Fitzroy to fit the chalk dispensing contraptions – recycled PET bottles – to their bikes with trusty gaffer tape.
They had to ride slooow (comically slow in fact) to create the thick lines that you see. No wonder some of the lines are a bit wobbly.
A little kick of the bottle creates a nice splat!
Safety first. Our riders were highly visible. A big thanks to our friends at Hard Yakka for providing the vests.
Some pretty creative entries in the First In Best Vest competition judged back at ACCA by none other than the artist Jacqueline Donachie herself. Prizes included scottish novelty gifts and the sought-after ’Best Vest’ trophy.
Chalky bikes!
Thanks to Carmen’s and Kookaberry Farm for their contributions to the delicious breakfast buffet.
Drawing visible for a limited time only – until the next heavy rain.
Slow down and look out for it!
Mel O’Callaghan in conversation at The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art’s exhibition, DESIRE LINES. O’Callaghan talks about two works included in the exhibition – a video, and a performance.
(Best watched at 720p HD)
DESIRE LINES
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
15 December 2012 – 3 March 2013
Special thanks to:
Mel O’Callaghan
Clem
Lily, The Apiary
STUDIO channel
Video Production: Emma Sullivan
Dan Shipsides in conversation at The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art’s exhibition, DESIRE LINES. Shipsides talks about three works included in the exhibition – a video, seven framed line drawings, and his scaling of ACCA’s exterior to form a line drawing in rope.
(Best watched at 720p HD)
Via ferratas translates from Italian as ‘the iron way’. It was a military form of mountaineering developed during World War I. The techniques were often about establishing and maintaining frontiers by moving troops to strategic summits and into extreme positions through the use of metal wires and steeples. Amazingly, these also channel lightning strikes and audio waves from the summit skies to the valleys, like some strange form of atmospheric communication. As part of Desire Lines, Shipsides evokes this technique by climbing ACCA’s exterior and forming a line drawing in rope.
Bivacco is Italian for ‘to watch’ or ‘post lookout’. Invoking the term, this experimental video is based on the ascent of Mt Marmolada, the highest peak in the Dolomites. Mostly shot during the ascent and the days before and after, it gives an account of a close encounter with a lightning strike. BIVACCO follows a pattern of research, climbing and mountains forming the backbone of Shipsides’ and Beggs’ creative act and conversation — a gateway to and frame for wider life. It is typical of their approach, a focused task combining with an inquisitive open-mindedness to watch for and follow the lines of chance.
DESIRE LINES
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
15 December 2012 – 3 March 2013
Watch time lapse footage of Dan Shipsides installing his work Via Ferrata (ACCA) for the Australian Centre of Contemporary Art’s exhibition, Desire Lines.
Via ferrata (or via ferratas) translates from Italian as ‘the iron way’. It was a military form of mountaineering developed during World War I. The techniques were often about establishing and maintaining frontiers by moving troops to strategic summits and into extreme positions through the use of metal wires and steeples. Amazingly, these also channel lightning strikes and audio waves from the summit skies to the valleys, like some strange form of atmospheric communication. As part of Desire Lines, Shipsides evokes this technique by climbing ACCA’s exterior and forming a line drawing in rope.
DESIRE LINES
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
15 December 2012 – 3 March 2013
It’s day three for climber and artist Dan Shipsides who is installing a rope drawing on ACCA’s rusty exterior over the course of this week for upcoming exhibition Desire Lines.
Visiting from Belfast, where it’s currently -2 degrees, the heat is a bit of a shock for poor Dan! He’s experiencing egg frying temperatures out there when the sun hits the face of the metal. But the work is looking amazing and we’re loving watching it unfold each morning.
For Dan climbing is a philosophical pursuit or an art in itself.
The rope is fed through hooks attached to the rusty metal building with small magnetic clips at every point where the drawing changes direction.
We were very confident in the strength of the magnets after they passed the “Irish wind-resistance-test”. This involved Dan creating rope drawing over his van and driving at 100km an hour through a Belfast storm! Yep, ok, they should hold.
Dan’s the man!
Come check out the work.
Let us show you the ropes.
Desire Lines opening Friday 14 December 6pm – 8pm
http://www.accaonline.org.au/Future
Photograph: John Gollings
David Rosetzky’s acclaimed video portrait of Academy Award-winning actress Cate Blanchett was commissioned by The National Portrait Gallery in Canberra in 2008.
It is showing 11 October – 25 November 2012 as part of OURSELVES, a major international survey exhibition at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.
Filmed within the set design workshop of the Sydney Theatre Company, the actress slowly moves in to focus in a choreographed sequence, beginning with deft hand gestures and concluding with a lighthearted dance routine. Meanwhile, in a voice-over she muses about her performance roles, public personas and self-identity. Rosetzky initially interviewed the actress and created an edited script that she read and recorded, however the artist does not attempt to reveal the true identity of the actress. Instead, consistent with the more anonymous subjects in his other works, he suggests that identity is fluid and constructed, always dependent on others.
“I knew I didn’t want to present the portrait as a definitive representation of Cate Blanchett – but rather an exploration of shifting identities and inter-changeability. The location of the Sydney Theatre Company workshop where they make all of their sets — added to this idea as it represents a site of construction and potential.”
DAVID ROSETZKY
Portrait of Cate Blanchett, 2008
high definition digital video, 9:56 min choreography by Lucy Guerin, sound design and composition by J David Franzke
National Portrait Gallery, Canberra Commissioned with funds provided
Pat Brassington Speaks about her practice, Beauty, her use of source material and colour, and her show Á Rebours at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.
Pat Brassington
Á Rebours
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
11 August – 23 September 2012
A major survey by one of Australia’s most important and influential photo-based artists. This is the first extensive gathering of Brassington’s 30 years of practice and explores her ongoing aesthetic language derived from surrealism and cinema reinterpreted through photography.
Berlinde De Bruyckere in conversation at her exhibition ‘We are all Flesh’ at The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. Berlinde explains her use of the ACCA spaces as you move through the galleries and encounter her new works ‘We are all Flesh’. She reveals the influences behind each work and her methodologies, working with wax, horsehide, and other materials.
We are all Flesh
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
2 June – 29 July 2012
Berlinde De Bruyckere uses wax, wood, wool, horse skin and hair to make haunting sculptures of humans, animals and trees in metamorphosis.
We are all Flesh will include the rarely seen and iconic work 019 and two new commissions created specially for this exhibition.
Based in her home town of Ghent, Berlinde De Bruyckere’s studio is an old neo-Gothic Catholic school house. From here she creates her incredible sculptures – torsos morph into branches, trees are captured and displayed inside old museum cabinets and cast horses are crucified upside down in works that have been described as brutal, challenging, inspiring and both frightening and comforting.
Heavily influenced by the old masters, De Bruyckere’s early years at boarding school were spent hiding in the library, pouring over books on the history of catholic art. She went on to study at the Saint-Lucas Visual Arts School in Ghent, and was known in the early stages of her career for using old woolen blankets in her works, sometimes simply stacked on tables of beds, a response to news footage she had seen of blanket-swathed refugees in Rwanda.
Her breakthrough work In Flanders Fields, five life-size splay-legged horses captured in the throes of death, was commissioned by the In Flanders Fields Museum, in the town of Ypres, the site of the legendary World War 1 battle. She was then invited to participate in the 2003 Venice Biennale, and the subsequent work, an equine form curled up on a table titled Black Horse, firmly established her on the international scene.
She has since had solo exhibitions at Hauser & Wirth in Zurich and New York and in prestigious museums across Europe.
The Pillow, 2010
We are all Flesh, 2010-2012
019, 2007
Inside Me III, 2012
Romeau “my deer” I, IV, V & III, 2012
Courtesy the artist, various private collections, Hauser & Wurth and Galleria Continua
