contemporary art collection

The Art Gallery of New South Wales has one of the finest collections of contemporary art in Australia. The collection is truly international and includes Australian, Asian and Western art in all media. It is focused on a series of key developments since the 1960s in order to tell a particular story of the art of our time. The collection has strengths in abstract painting, conceptual and performance art, and appropriation, 'popism' and other post-modern practices. Further key strands include art that reconsiders landscape and place, and objects and installations that foreground memory and the associations evoked by particular materials. Recent acquisitions have included video installations influenced by media culture, new directions in painting, and sculpture either assembled from modest found materials or highly finished and hyper-realistic.

The full contemporary collection can be explored at www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection.




http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/current/contemporary/exhibitions

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Wanderlust
Artist Books on Travel by Alex Arcus and Liz Jeneid

7 September - 25 November 2006 (Mon - Fri only)
Research Library



This exhibition of artists' books examines the process of notation by two artists of their travels in Australia and overseas. There is a questioning of the forms such books may take and the many approaches to expressing content using both text and image.

The books range from collections of drawings or prints of a journey or place, to the ephemera of travel, or to images which the artist associates with a particular place. Both artists use a variety of materials and print techniques, ranging from intaglio and embossing by hand to computer printing, often on paper specifically made by hand for a particular book. A variety of bookbinding techniques will be used and considerable thought given to the display of the books with several presented in slip cases or sculptural boxes.

This exhibition follows on from the Undercover exhibition of artists’ books, by students and staff of the South Australian School of Art, University of South Australia and the School of Creative Arts, University of Wollongong, 2004.

Alexander Arcus is an artist working in paint, textiles and paper. For many years he was Head of the Textiles Studios at the South Australian School of Art, University of South Australia, where he introduced the teaching of papermaking and artists’ books. He has studied papermaking and printed textiles in Japan and undertaken consultancy work with a paper mill in the Philippines. He has consistently exhibited his work in Australia and overseas with ten solo and more than thirty group exhibitions.

Liz Jeneid is a practising artist with a deep interest in the medium of artist books, which she has been making since 1989. The books are sometimes part of a larger body of work, as well as a visual process of recording impressions and responses to place. Having taught visual arts for over twenty years, she is now an Honorary Fellow in the Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Wollongong. Liz is a great traveller and has spent time in the polar regions, Europe, Asia and the USA, and is always invigorated by the freshness of vision that comes with visiting an unknown place.
http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/current/wanderlust