The 2018 NGV Architecture Commission by Melbourne architecture practice MUIR and landscape architecture studio OPENWORK has commenced installation in advance of its public unveiling this November at the NGV International. Entitled Doubleground, the winning proposal for the fourth annual competition is a collaboration between the two practices, inspired by key architectural elements of Sir Roy Grounds’s iconic NGV International building in the year of the building’s fiftieth anniversary.

Doubleground will transform the NGV’s Grollo Equiset Garden with a site-specific work of temporary architecture by literally raising sections of the landscape and creating chasm-like passageways for visitors to explore between the tilted embankments.  Architect Amy Muir’s design drew on memories of visiting the NGV as a young child to create a digital collage that uses architectural components from NGV International for the design blueprint.

Including a canyon-like corridor, which references the triangular patterns of the NGV’s façade and glass wall of the Great Hall, the installation will also feature a decking area that recalls Grounds’s timber design for the Gallery foyer and a bamboo garden inspired by the building’s original Bamboo Court courtyard.

Perpetual, as Trustee, and the S.H. Ervin Gallery has announced artist Kate Stevens as the winner of the inaugural Evelyn Chapman Art Award, one hundred and thirty years after Evelyn Chapman’s birth. Stevens’ winning work Gaza forms part of an ongoing series exploring how we process images of war from the domesticity of the home which the artist looks to develop using the scholarship. The award provides a $50,000 scholarship for an Australian painter, male or female under the age of 45, to ‘engender the encouragement, development and rewarding of artistic skill, through furthering the training and knowledge and skills of Australian painters.’

The Evelyn Chapman Art Award is a new award established in the memory of Evelyn Chapman (1888 – 1961), an Australian painter and the first female artist to depict the devastated battlefields, churches and towns of the western front after the First World War. A respected artist, Chapman exhibited at the Salon in France but was forced to retire as a painter following her marriage; however she continued to espouse art education and practice. Evelyn Chapman’s archive including artworks, photographs and correspondence between her and her daughter is held at the Art Gallery of NSW National Art Archive.

Image: Kate Stevens, Gaza. Courtesy of artist.

The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Carriageworks and Mona (Museum of Old and New Art) today announced Suspended Moment: The Katthy Cavaliere Fellowship, a major new artist fellowship in the name of Italian born Australian artist Katthy Cavaliere (1972-2012). The fellowship, made possible with funds from Cavaliere’s Estate in partnership with three arts institutions, is valued at $300,000 in total and will be granted to three female-identifying Australian artists working at the nexus of performance and installation.

Suspended Moment: The Katthy Cavaliere Fellowship will provide three grants of $100,000 awarded to three artists or collectives for the purpose of realising an ambitious new work. The three artists will be chosen by a selection panel, comprised of the presenting institutions’ leadership and curatorial teams. In 2020 Suspended Moment will be a cross-institutional presentation with each partnering institution presenting one of the three commissions and accompanied by a publication.

Expressions of interest open today and close on 17 December 2018, with fellowships awarded in 2019 to be followed by three individual exhibitions in 2020 to be presented at ACCA, Carriageworks and Mona. Selection criteria for the fellowship are for female-identifying artists working across visual media including performance and installation and an Australian citizen or resident. Any stage of practice is eligible from early career to established.

Image: Katthy Cavaliere, nest, 2010

The Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, presented by Woollahra Council, has announced New-York based, Sydney-born artist Tim Silver and his work Untitled (When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d 02) as the winner of the 18th annual acquisitive $20,000 Prize. Sydney-artist Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran was awarded the Special Commendation award valued at $2,000 and WA/Victorian-based artist Danielle Freakley receiving a special mention. The 2018 Mayors Award valued at $1,000 has been awarded to Lucinda Kirby.

The winners were chosen from a finalist group of 48 emerging and established artists by two guest judges: Australian arts administrator Michael Lynch AO CBE and Director of independent art advisory LoveArt, Amanda Love. All finalist works will be displayed as part of a free public exhibition from 20 October until 11 November 2018 at the Woollahra Council Chambers in Sydney.

Image: Tim Silver, Untitled (When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d 02). Courtesy of artist.

Perpetual, as Trustee, and the S.H. Ervin Gallery have announced seven artists as finalists for the inaugural Evelyn Chapman Art Award. This new award provides a $50,000 scholarship for an Australian painter, male or female under the age of 45, to ‘engender the encouragement, development and rewarding of artistic skill, through furthering the training and knowledge and skills of Australian painters.’ The 2018 Award winner will be announced on Thursday 25 October 2018 at the S.H. Ervin Gallery in Sydney to coincide with Evelyn Chapman’s birthday, one hundred and thirty years after her birth.

The 2018 Evelyn Chapman Art Award finalists are: Fabrizio Biviano (VIC), Bridget Dolan (NSW), Frances Feasy (NSW), Amanda Marburg (VIC), Kate Stevens (NSW), Lilli Stromland (NSW), Liz Stute (VIC).

Image: MIKE PARR, KINDNESS IS SO GANGSTER, 2018 (installation view). 22 glass sculptures and wall drawing. Photography: Jacqui Shelton.
Courtesy the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery.

A new solo exhibition by Mike Parr entitled KINDNESS IS SO GANGSTER opens at Anna Schwartz Gallery on Friday 5 October to 21 December 2018 as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival 2018.

Nineteen ‘heads’ have been scooped, kneaded and formed in clay hollowed out of dense blocks. The glass sculptures are blindly and randomly disposed, occupying the whole of the ground floor gallery space and accompanied by a wall drawing, also done blind. 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.