In 2019 Kaldor Public Art Projects will celebrate 50 years of groundbreaking projects. The anniversary will recall and reimagine some of the most ambitious public art works to have been presented in Australia, through a major exhibition and a dynamic series of programs and events.

Half a Century in the Public Eye, an exhibition created by acclaimed British artist Michael Landy, will be presented as a collaboration between Kaldor Public Art Projects and the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), from 6 September 2019 until 16 February 2020.

The exhibition at the AGNSW will survey the rich history of Kaldor Public Art Projects through original artworks, archival materials and re-presentations of past projects. From Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Wrapped Coast (1969), to Jeff Koons’ flower Puppy (1995), Marina Abramović’s In Residence (2015) and Jonathan Jones’ barrangal dyara (skin and bones) (2016), the exhibition revisits each of the past Kaldor Public Art Projects and brings them together for the first time.

Kaldor Public Art Projects presented its first project in 1969 with Christo and Jeanne- Claude’s iconic Wrapped Coast – One Million Square Feet, Little Bay, Sydney, and has since presented 32 public art projects, which have transformed the cultural landscape of Australia.

Image: Kaldor Public Art Project 1: Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Wrapped Coast – One Million Square Feet, Little Bay, Sydney, 28 October–14 December 1969. Photo: Harry Shunk

Leading Sydney-based interior design practice Arent&Pyke, led by Principals Juliette Arent and Sarah-Jane Pyke, has been selected by the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) for the shortlist of the prestigious Rigg Design Prize 2018, the highest accolade for contemporary design in Australia.

The triennial prize, established in 1994, is awarded to an Australian design practice displaying outstanding creative achievements in contemporary design.

Arent&Pyke is one ten of the nation’s leading interior designers invited to present a single room installation within NGV Australia for consideration for the $30,000 Prize. Participants must design and craft a 40m2 single room installation that showcases their design aesthetic and responds to this year’s theme of ‘Domestic Living’.

New York-based architect and designer Shashi Caan, President of the International Federation of Interior Architects/Designers, will travel to Melbourne to judge the winner of the Prize to be publicly announced on 12 October 2018.

The shortlisted design practices will have their single room installations – which should be capable of transcending design’s functional qualities – showcased at NGV Australia as part of a public exhibition running from 12 October until 24 February 2019.

Image – Mike Parr, KINDNESS IS SO GANGSTER, 2018 (detail)

Anna Schwartz Gallery is delighted to present a solo exhibition by Mike Parr entitled KINDNESS IS SO GANGSTER to be held from 5 October to 21 December 2018 as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival 2018.

This most recent development of Mike Parr’s historic ‘Self Portrait Project’ now investigates glass as a sculptural medium. These works are the result of a tremendous, continuous performance of ‘blind negative modelling’, in which the artist’s physical sight is replaced by other senses. The notion of blindness is accentuated as the key, totalising dimension of the work, requiring the foregrounding of performance, the residue of which will also be part of the exhibition.

Nineteen ‘heads’ have been scooped, kneaded and formed in clay hollowed out of dense blocks. The glass sculptures will be blindly and randomly disposed, occupying the whole of the ground floor gallery space and will be accompanied by a wall drawing, also done blind, in which the artist will attempt to draw in repetition the simplest of ovoid shapes as a net across a portion of the main wall. The drawing is in red pastel with the dust and broken bits left in situ. These two performative installations will be videoed and included within the show as screens placed against two walls.

The other senses – including memory as a kind of meta-sense – are substituted for that of seeing. In abstaining from seeing the positives produced during this demanding process Parr cannot return to his ‘educated’ response as a visual artist. The ‘blind dimension’ of this work carries a powerful, far-reaching metaphorical resonance in relation to Parr’s Self Portrait Project, representing the moment when the work is cast into the nameless void of collectivity and history.

Image – The Golden Calf, Alex Seton, 2018. Photo by Jacqui Manning

The fourth edition of Australasia’s largest and most established art fair, Sydney Contemporary, Sydney Contemporary, 2018 secured AUD$21million in sales over five days at Carriageworks; an increase of $5million from 2017.

Approximately AUD$10million of the total 2018 sales will go to artists, demonstrating a powerful moment in the calendar year for artists to help ensure continuation of their practices, and a healthy boost for galleries to continue to support their artists. Sydney Contemporary broke its own record of AUD$16 million of sales at the fair in 2017; the Fair represents the largest short-term concentration of art sales in Australia annually.

In 2018, Sydney Contemporary became an annual event and featured more than 80 galleries, presenting 300 leading and emerging local and international artists who installed museum quality artworks across the entire Carriageworks building, spanning seven large-scale exhibition spaces. Further sales are expected to be finalised in the coming days and weeks.

Sydney Fringe Festival has announced details for its official closing party, The Last Supper, a multi-sensory outdoor dining experience that will transform Kensington Street, for one night only, into a feast for the senses. Held on Sunday 30 September from 5pm, the event will fill Chippendale’s Kensington Street precinct with live music, artworks, fire performances, snake charmers, rain dancers and tango whilst guests sample food from Kensington Street’s twelve restaurants or partake in an immersive three course multi-sensory dining experience.

At the centre of The Last Supper is an exclusive dining experience with restaurants Olio, Eastside, Mekong, Bistro Gavroche and Koi Dessert Bar presenting an intimate three course dinner package paired with wild entertainment. Featuring only two sittings per restaurant, these exclusive tickets will provide guests with an unrivalled view of the night’s festivities including roaming performers and participation. Tickets start at $60 and are strictly limited to 13 disciples per table, with two settings at 5.30pm and 7:30pm respectively.

Program highlights include being serenaded by award winning musical theatre performer Queenie van de Zandt and a performance from acclaimed modern flamenco ensemble Bandaluzia. Shaun McGarth returns to Fringe for a second year and will present a series of bespoke wigs commissioned especially for the event and worn by roaming models in a walking exhibition. Lighting Designer Benjamin Brockman will light up the historic terraces of Spice Alley and set the stage for an evening of live music, DJ and rising star Joan Banoit, Burlesque performances from Porcelain Alice and Diesel Darling, opera, performance art and more.

This November, Carriageworks unveils its most ambitious project to date, a major exhibition by acclaimed American artist Nick Cave, presented free to the public from 23 November 2018 until 3 March 2019.  NICK CAVE: UNTIL represents Carriageworks’ most substantial presentation of work by a solo artist and Nick Cave’s largest exhibition to date.

NICK CAVE: UNTIL, is the result of a partnership between Carriageworks, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, with the three organisations co-commissioning and co-presenting the project following four year’s development with the artist. In Australia the exhibition will be seen exclusively at Carriageworks.

A play on the phrase ‘innocent until proven guilty’, or in this case ‘guilty until proven innocent’, UNTIL began with a question Cave asked himself; ‘Is there racism in heaven?’  Rather than providing a direct answer, Cave offers us an experience, an immersive exhibition that addresses issues of race relations, gender politics and gun violence in America, and the resonance of these matters in communities around the world.