VAULT EXTRA 7th MAY 2021
SALLY SMART: PIECE BY PIECE
Sally Smart’s solo exhibition Choreographies (The Artist’s Ballet) is showing at Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert until 23 May 2021. Coinciding with her presentation titled The Artist’s Ballet, which is currently on display at the MCA with The National: New Australian Art, these new works elaborate on prior series including The Choreography of Cutting (2014–17) and The Violet Ballet (2018–19).
Smart is recognised across Australia and internationally for her expanded practice, which traverses painting, sculpture, large-scale cut-out assemblage installations and, increasingly, performance and video. Through a variety of mediums, Smart’s work engages with identity politics and explores the relationships between the body, thought and culture ¬– trans-national ideas that have shaped cultural history. Rebecca Gallo’s article Sally Smart: Piece by Piece offers insight into the processes and themes driving the artist’s practice.
Image credit:Sally Smart, Assemblage Embroidery #5 (Sonia), 2016, synthetic thread and collage elements, 109.2 x 101.6 cm. Courtesy the artist and Postmasters Gallery, New York
EARTH ROTS UNDERFOOT AT COMA
COMA is currently showing Earth Rots Underfoot, a group exhibition that takes Albrecht Durer’s engraving titled ‘Knight, the Devil and Death’ as a conceptual catalyst. Together, the works address grand narratives present in medieval art and their recurrence in contemporary visual practices. Earth Rots Underfoot includes artists Guy Grabowsky, Jamie North, Kai Wasikowski and Justin Williams. The exhibition continues until May 15, 2021
Image credit:Kai Wasikowski, In-tension (black to green), 2021, fishing rods, nylon line, 212 x 250 x 60 cm. The artist and COMA, Sydney
IMMERSE YOURSELF AT THE SUBSTATION
Ripples from the Unseen at The Substation, Newport, is a video and installation by artist Sofi Basseghi that provides an immersive insight into the 1979 Iranian revolution depicted through the eyes of children. Created over a six-year period, Ripples from the Unseen captures the experiences of women living in Iran through Basseghi's own diasporic lens that interweaves imagined narratives and dreams.
The Melbourne-based artist has received accolades across film and photography disciplines, and has been exhibited at internationally acclaimed venues and galleries including West Space, Monash Gallery of Art, Australian Centre for Moving Image, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art and the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome.
There will be a curator Walk-through of Ripples from the Unseen on May 14, 2021 and the exhibition continues until 5 June, 2021.
Image credit:Sofi Basseghi, ‘Elysium’, 2021, video Still. Courtesy the artist
SALMAN TOOR EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS
VAULT’s Issue 34 cover artist, Salman Toor’s Three Boys has sold at auction for more than seven times the projected estimate.
Contemporary Art Evening Sale was a special-event auction at Sotheby’s Hong Kong. The auction saw Toor’s Three Boys break market expectations, selling alongside works by celebrated artists, including Gerhard Richter and Roy Lichtenstein. The auction was a record-breaking evening, realising US$122.5 million – the largest ever turnover at an auction house in Asia.
Toor’s work is increasingly gaining acclaim not only for its perceptible market value but also for the artist’s hand and insightful imagery. Toor’s handling of classical techniques and quotidian imagery, originally honed by masters such as Rembrandt and Manet, are applied to contemporary subject matter. With a recent solo exhibition at The Whitney Museum of American Art, it is unquestionable that Toor is an artist on the rise.
You can purchase Vault Issue 34,
featuring Salman Toor here
Image credit:Salman Toor, Three Boys (detail), 2017, oil on panel. Courtesy the artist and Anat Ebgi
FRESH OPPORTUNITIES AHEAD: NEW COPYRIGHT AGENCY PARTNERSHIPS ANNOUNCED
The Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund has announced Copyright Agency Partnerships (CAP) – a new initiative in partnership with Australian art institutions to support commissions worth $80,000 for mid-career and established visual artists.
For the first time, Copyright Agency has entered into a three-year agreement with key art institutions. The partnership will support a visual artist, or collective, via a competitive application process, to develop and present a major new artistic commission. In the first year of the partnership, Copyright Agency and 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art will support the development and exhibition of a work by an Australian artist of Asian heritage.
While artists will apply through the Copyright Agency, they are encouraged to discuss their application with the partner organisation before applying. For the first year of partnership with the Copyright Agency, 4A will support an artist to create and exhibit at 4A’s gallery in Haymarket, Sydney in 2022.
Applications are open until June 25, 2021
Image credit:Installation exterior view Kien Situ, Holding Patterns, 2020 at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Kai Wasikowski
APPLCICATIONS NOW OPEN: SUNSHINE COAST ART PRIZE
Now in its 16th year, The Sunshine Coast Art Prize is a dynamic visual arts award reflecting outstanding contemporary arts practice in Australia. Attracting entries from emerging and established artists across the nation, the award is the flagship event for the Sunshine Coast’s Regional Gallery in Caloundra
A panel of expert judges select the winners of the Major prize, Highly Commended and artist residency awards. The major prize winning work is acquired into the Sunshine Coast Art Collection, continuing to advance the scope and quality of the significant regional collection.
The 2021 call for entries now open until May 10, 2021.
gallery.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au
Image credit:Raquel Ormella, Worker's Blues #1, 2016, work uniforms, hi-vis fabric, cotton. Winner, Sunshine Coast Art Prize 2017. Sunshine Coast Art Collection. Courtesy of the artist and Sam Cranstoun
STILL LIFE THROUGH AN AUSTRALIAN LENS
Published by Thames & Hudson in April 2021, Still Life brings together the work of more than forty still-life artists, capturing the enduring genre in a uniquely Australian light. Edited by Amber Creswell Bell, the book engages diverse contemporary Australian artists to document a repertoire of styles, subjects, visions and philosophies. Images of flowers and food, considered fundamental subjects of the genre, are also seen alongside objects such as books and beer cans, birds and balloons – more unconventional subjects offering intriguing hooks about the particularities of time and place. The Overall scope of the book conveys the beauty, fragility and temporality intrinsic to the everyday, set within a distinctly Australian context.
Image credit: Still Life, 2021, Edited by Amber Creswell Bell, Thames & Hudson Australia Pty Ltd, 272 pages, Hardback