A revitalising smoking ceremony marked the turning of the first sod of construction to realise Bundanon Trust’s Masterplan to safely house and display its collection and expand its education and tourism offerings. The Hon Paul Fletcher MP, Commonwealth Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and The Arts, the Hon Don Harwin MLC, the NSW Minister for the Public Service and Employee Relations, Aboriginal Affairs, and the Arts, together with Bundanon’s Chair Jennifer Bott AO and CEO Deborah Ely AM celebrated the event at Bundanon’s Riversdale Boyd Education Centre.

At the heart of the Trust’s Masterplan, jointly funded by the Commonwealth and NSW Governments is the building of an environmentally prepared gallery-of-the-future and safe storage facility, designed to display and house the Bundanon Trust’s $43 million art collection.

Taking its title from the old English word for geometry ‘eorõcræft’, Earthcraft 2020 is an exhibition of new work by Melbourne artist Mikala Dwyer. In Earthcraft 2020 the numerous objects and diversions elicit bodily responses to form and space. Incorporating readymades and industrial materials with the handmade and organic, each individual piece functions in the gallery as part of a larger narrative. Dwyer trusts in intuition and the personal ability to build associations and affinities. Through a synthesis of geometric forms, materials and symbols, Earthcraft 2020 remains deliberately elusive, suggesting a story rooted in both reality and fiction.

Earthcraft 2020 will be presented at Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne from 8 February to 14 March 2020.

Australia’s largest showcase of urban and street art, Can’t Do Tomorrow, has revealed further programming for its inaugural festival this February (20-29). For 10 days, over 100 street artists, musicians and collectives will transcend on Melbourne’s iconic multi-level warehouse, The Facility, transforming it from top to bottom in an epic celebration of the best in urban art and contemporary culture. Transcending the traditional art fair model, visitors will also be able to purchase original artworks directly from artists, as well as limited edition prints available from a custom-built print store.

Chinese-Australian political artist and cartoonist Badiucao will present the world premiere of his never-before-seen exhibition Made in Hong Kong, Banned in China – previously titled Gongle – following its cancellation in Hong Kong in 2018. Badiucao is one of the most popular and prominent political artists in China, creating work that confronts a variety of social and political issues, which has been used by organisations such as Amnesty International and Freedom House. He originally kept his identity a secret at the start of his career, acquiring the nickname “China’s Banksy”.

Heide Museum of Modern Art presents Memory Horizon, an exhibition of new work by Australian artist Carolyn Eskdale, from 15 February to 14 June 2020. Featuring a series of room-scale site-specific sculptures, the exhibition responds to the unique modernist architecture of Heide Modern and animates the former residence as its own cast object.

Carolyn Eskdale’s installations in domestic and public spaces trace the way we physically and psychically inhabit the world, creating a dialogue between the body’s sense and the mind’s view. For Memory Horizon she worked in Heide Modern in solitude for several months making ephemeral structures from cardboard in each of the rooms and developing a sculptural language of motifs and forms specific to the building’s character and history. The exhibition presents photographs of these temporary in-situ works in conversation with new sculptures and insertions that activate or obscure access to the spaces within the building, altering visitors’ experiences of them. In layering past procedures and present conditions, Eskdale explores the interstices between private and public life and the overlap between the studio and the gallery.

The Fivex Art Prize, Australia’s first award dedicated to digital billboard art, has announced the 2020 judging panel along with an extension to the call for entries to 11pm on 16 February 2020 (AEDT).

Conceived and funded by the Fivex Foundation, the Fivex Art Prize: Billboard Art Reimagined, is a significant new art award that promotes new forms of bold, memorable street art for today’s digital age. The Prize is open to Australian applicants from a range of creative disciplines, including photographers, graphic designers, street and tattoo artists, illustrators and architects.

The winner of the Grand Prize will take home $30,000 and have their work displayed on two large-scale LED QMS Media billboards – a horizontal corner ‘wrap’ and a vertical ‘podium’ – prominently located at the corner of Flinders and Elizabeth Streets in Melbourne’s CBD, opposite Flinders Street Station. The work will be screened among regular programmed advertising and also in designated showcase slots as a form of public art intervention from 30 March – 3 May 2020. In addition to the Grand Prize, up to five finalists will receive $1000 each and also have their work exhibited on the billboards.

Judging the award for its inaugural year are distinguished figures from the fields of art, media and advertising:

●      Jane Devery, Curator, Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Victoria

●      Liss Fenwick, Public Art Project Lead, Melbourne City Council

●      Gary Deirmendjian, Artist

●      Barclay Nettlefold, Group CEO, QMS Media

●      Alessio Cavallaro, Creative Producer, Fivex Art Prize, and media art curator

For further information about the prize and how to enter: https://www.fivexartprize.com.au/enter

City of Sydney and Sydney Living Museums has announced plans to present a major new public art installation by Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi artist Jonathan Jones, spread across 2,500 square metres around Hyde Park Barracks courtyard, early next year.

Presented from 21 February until 15 March 2020 as part of the City of Sydney’s year-round Art & About program, Jones’ thought-provoking and site-specific artwork untitled (maraong manaóuwi) uses two remarkably similar symbols – the maraong manaóuwi (the Gadigal term for ‘emu footprint’) and the English broad arrow insignia (representing British colonialism) – to illustrate the vastly different stories and experiences of the same historical period.

The major installation will comprise more than 2,000 maraong manaóuwi/broad arrow designs created out of red and white gravel sourced from Wiradjuri Country and laid across the entirety of Hyde Park Barracks’ courtyard.

Image: James Horan

Carriageworks have unveiled major new artworks commissioned from leading Australian contemporary artists. In 2020 the Redfern multi-arts precinct will house immersive and participatory large-scale art installations by Rebecca Baumann, Daniel Boyd, Kate Mitchell, open from 8 January, and by Reko Rennie, whose illuminated text work REMEMBER ME will launch in late January. These installations will be presented free to the public, opening as part of the Sydney Festival and continuing throughout the year.

Carriageworks Head Curator Visual Arts Beatrice Gralton said, ‘Carriageworks is a site imbued with history, yet each of these projects are firmly anchored in the present day. They reflect the capacity for artists to navigate a cultural compass that embraces paradox and shapes beauty in a troubled world. While each installation varies across subject and form, all use light and explore time. The artists employ light in different states across Carriageworks– natural, projected, photographic and LED. While both the concept and experience of time is used to examine solar movement, deep space, census data and perceptions of history.’

KEY DATES AND DETAILS:

REBECCA BAUMANN: RADIANT FLUX / 8 January – 14 June 2020

DANIEL BOYD: VIDEO WORKS / 8 January – 1 March 2020

KATE MITCHELL: ALL AURAS TOUCH / 8 January – 1 March 2020

REKO RENNIE: REMEMBER ME / January 2020 – January 2021