Anna Schwartz Gallery has announced it will present a monumental new floor work by significant Australian artist Rose Nolan from 11 September – 16 October 2021.

Known for her distinctive reduced palette of red and white, and use of utilitarian materials, Nolan’s latest installation comprises a large carpet and mirrored panels that will occupy the Gallery for the duration of her month-long exhibition. The new solo exhibition, titled Parlour Games, continues Nolan’s exploration of the possibilities of painting, shifting her work from the wall to the floor to inhabit a new space.

Nolan’s practice is known for its investigation of the formal and linguistic qualities of words, directly using language to transform the architectural spaces they inhabit. A recent example is the towering public art work ‘Screen Works – ENOUGH-NOW/EVEN/MORE-SO’, for the Munro Site, Queen Victoria Market Renewal, City of Melbourne, with Six Degrees Architects. Proposed as verbal-visual puzzles, Nolan uses text as material object, derived from the everyday where words are chosen for their visual presence, formal qualities and linguistic content. By making language concrete in this way meaning is allowed to be approached differently. This same approach is applied to the new installation in Parlour Games.

Image: Rose Nolan, Big Words – to keep going breathing helps (circle work), 2017, synthetic polymer paint, hessian, velcro, steel, 425 x 598.6 x 515.5 cm, Photo: Felicity Jenkins, © Rose Nolan. Courtesy the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery.

A striking new commission by City of Sydney’s Art & About by multi-disciplinary artist Ian Strange, sees a derelict terrace house in Sydney’s Surry Hills appear skewered with dozens of customised LED rods. Titled INTERSECTIONS and on view for two weeks until Sunday 4 July, Strange’s artistic intervention of a derelict, heritage Victorian terrace can be viewed on foot or via the light rail on the corner of Marlborough and Devonshire Streets in Surry Hills.

The house is skewered with dozens of customised LED rods, the light beams seemingly piercing the roof and façade, penetrating the interiors with bright white light, as if volts from an unseen superpower are attempting to jolt the building back to life. For INTERSECTIONS, Strange uses light to draw our attention to the Victorian architecture of the Marlborough Street terrace, while emphasising its dilapidated condition and the potential loss of built heritage.

Image: Ian Strange, INTERSECTIONS

A major new cultural exchange between Australia and the United Kingdom (UK) has been announced today, celebrating the diverse and innovative artist communities and cultural sectors of each nation. A collaboration between the British Council and the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, under the patronage of Her Majesty the Queen, the UK/Australia Season is a unique artistic programme of more than 200 live and digital events, marking the largest ever cultural exchange between the two nations. Launching in both countries in September 2021, The Season will strengthen and build cultural connections and will include a diverse programme spanning theatre, film, visual arts, dance, design, architecture, music, literature, higher education and a public engagement programme.

Artists, thought leaders and academics from the UK and Australia will collaborate together to create work, centred on the theme Who Are We Now?. The Season will reflect on our history, explore our current relationship, and imagine our future together.

Image: Ed Myhill, National Dance Company Wales

UTS Gallery and Art Collection have commissioned a major new digital work by Barkindji artist Kent Morris to be presented on the 2021 Broadway Screen. Morris will present his new video work Barkindji Blue Sky – Ancestral Connections on the 12-metre digital screen, which will be unveiled to the public on Tuesday 3 August 2021 as part of Vivid Sydney 2021 and playing exclusively until Monday 16 August 2021. The work will then become part of the permanent rotation for the Broadway Screen.

The commission launch will be marked on Tuesday 3 August with an in-conversation between Barkindji artist Kent Morris, Clothilde Bullen, Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Collections and Exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and Nici Cumpston, Artistic Director Tarnanthi and Curator Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at Art Gallery of South Australia. The discussion will be moderated by respected ABC journalist Daniel Browning.

Image credit: Kent Morris, Barkindji Blue Sky – Ancestral Connections, 2021

Coinciding with the artist’s 85th year, HOTA, Home of the Arts presents Lyrical Landscapes: The Art of William Robinson, the second major exhibition at HOTA Gallery from 31 July to 3 October 2021. Celebrating one of Australia’s foremost living artists and greatest landscape painters, this exhibition will see Robinson’s entire Creation Series, produced over 16 years, presented together for the first time.

Robinson’s Creation Series is widely considered his master works, the series highlights the artist’s spiritual connection to the natural world and through their symphonic composition, his love of classical music. Curated by former Governor-General and close friend of the artist Dame Quentin Bryce AD CVO, Lyrical Landscapes: The Art of William Robinson will feature these monumental multi-panelled other epic landscapes, including HOTA’s own The Rainforest.

Image: William Robinson, The rainforest 1990 (detail), oil on canvas, 188.0 x 492.5 cm, Collection, HOTA Gallery. Acquired through funds from Gold Coast’s business and art-loving community 1991 © Image courtesy the artist and Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane.

The Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, presented by Woollahra Council since 2001, has announced 54 emerging and established artists as finalists for the 20th annual Prize and exhibition. The finalist works, by artists from Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and Italy, will be presented for the first time in the Woollahra Council’s new purpose-built gallery – the Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf – as its inaugural exhibition, opening to the public on Thursday 19 August 2021.

The 54 finalist artist sculptures – each measuring up to 80cm in any dimension – were selected from a record 844 entries by a judging panel comprised of Director Curatorial and Digital, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia Dr Lara Strongman, Art Historian, Curator and Industrial Archaeologist Joanna Capon OAM and celebrated artist and fashion designer Jenny Kee AO.

The exhibition will be presented, free to the public, in the new Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf, located on the former Double Bay Library site at 548 New South Head Road. The Gallery’s vision is to be the cultural heart of Woollahra and support creative talent to flourish. A collaborative space for all to connect with and be enriched by the arts, the Gallery will focus on contemporary art through a yearly exhibition calendar of a range of diverse shows by different artists.

For the full list of finalists see HERE.

Image: Jess Taylor, Nothing EverythingThe heart of all things!

DESIGN Canberra’s annual photography competition has announced its theme for 2021, encouraging professional and amateur photographers to take photos which take a closer look at Canberra’s iconic design and architecture from the 1970s.

The 2021 photo competition invites individuals to submit digital photographs that celebrate the visionary and experimental design that emerged from the nation’s capital in the 1970s. The theme of ‘Design in the 70s’ may capture iconic architecture by Taglietti, Seidler, Boyd, Andrews and Pegrum; Canberra’s co-living medium density experiments;  public art by Bert Flugelman and Margel Hinder; or the refinement of the Y plan in Canberra’s town planning.

The top 100 photos will be printed and exhibited in a signature DESIGN Canberra exhibition at Canberra Contemporary Art Space from 8-28 November 2021.

Bell Shakespeare will revive their popular 2020 production of Hamlet for their third season of 2021. The production, which received rave reviews before closing only one-and-a-half weeks after opening due to the COVID-19 lockdown in Sydney, will see the return of Harriet Gordon-Anderson as Hamlet, opening at the Sydney Opera House (7 August – 4 September), before travelling for the first time to Arts Centre Melbourne (9 – 19 September) and Canberra Theatre Centre (24 September – 2 October).

Directed by Bell Shakespeare Artistic Director Peter Evans, Shakespeare’s seminal revenge tragedy is reimagined for contemporary audiences, transporting them to a wintery Denmark in the 1960s. Inside the glamorous court, a family is torn apart by murder and betrayal. Outside, a country is threatened by Norway. And at the centre of this struggle is a young man’s grief for a murdered father.

Image: Bell Shakespeare’s Hamlet, 2020. Photo: Brett Boardman

The Powerhouse Museum has has announced a transformed investment of $480-$500m by NSW Government into one of Australia’s most revered and loved museums, Powerhouse Ultimo. The renewal will see Powerhouse Ultimo focus on design and fashion, presenting exhibitions that feature the museum’s significant collections, international exclusive exhibitions and programs that support the design and fashion industries. The expansion will deliver renewed and expanded exhibition and public space, connecting the Powerhouse Museum to the City by re-orienting the Museum to the Goods Line and connecting to adjacent precincts.

Powerhouse Chief Executive Lisa Havilah said: “The renewal of our institution will deliver two world-class museums – with a design and fashion focus at Powerhouse Ultimo and our flagship museum focused on science and technology museum, Powerhouse Parramatta.“This visionary investment will see the expansion of our exhibition spaces as well as renewal of our historic exhibition spaces. We will create a vibrant public square beside the Goods Line, and creative industries workspaces that will become home for Australian designers.”

The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra will perform with young German Baroque violinist Jonas Zschenderlein for their next concert series Bach’s Universe, taking place at Melbourne Recital Centre (15 – 18 July) and Sydney’s City Recital Hall (21 – 30 July). In this concert celebrating JS Bach, audiences will have the chance to see one of the few international musicians touring in Australia in 2021 as Zschenderlein performs his first live concert season in over a year.

Following the live concerts, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra will also present a digital première of the concert on 28 August on its new digital concert platform Brandenburg One.

Image: Jonas Zschenderlein. Photo by Kazutoshi Hirano.

Carriageworks has announced a major new solo exhibition of work by Clothing Store resident artist Dean Cross to be presented from 5 November 2021 – 30 January 2022. Icarus, my Son is a semi-autobiographical exhibition, presented by Carriageworks in partnership with Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, that takes inspiration from the ancient Greek tragedy of Icarus and Daedalus and examines themes universal to the experience of those in rural and remote communities who seek to expand their horizons. Featuring new video, sculptural and installation works by Cross, Icarus, my Son investigates ideas of home, ambition, cataclysm and loss.

Image: Zan Wimberly

Carriageworks has announced the world premiere of a new dance work by resident company Marrugeku that will be presented from 4 – 7 August 2021. Jurrungu Ngan-ga – meaning Straight Talk in Yawuru- reflects on the disproportion of Indigenous Australians in custody and first-hand descriptions of life inside Australia’s immigration detention centres.

The multimedia theatre production is inspired by perspectives on incarceration shared by Yawuru leader and Senator for Western Australia Patrick Dodson, one of six commissioners and the only non-lawyer who sat on the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. It draws on themes from the acclaimed autobiographical novel No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison (2018) by Kurdish-Iranian journalist and filmmaker Behrouz Boochani. The novel, translated by Iranian Australian philosopher and activist Omid Tofighian from thousands of WhatsApp messages written by Boochani on a smuggled phone, is an account of Boochani’s perilous journey to Christmas Island and his subsequent incarceration in an Australian government immigration detention facility on Manus Island.

Image: Bhenji Ra, Emmanuel James Brown, Miranda Wheen, Zachary Lopez, Chandler Connell, Feras Shaheen, Issa el Assaad, Luke Currie-Richardson & Ses Bero in Jurrungu Ngan-ga, Marrugeku. 2021 Photo by Abby Murray.

Anna Schwartz Gallery will present an exhibition featuring new works by celebrated Australian artist and musician Marco Fusinato from 7 August – 16 October 2021.

Marco Fusinato, who has been selected to represent Australia at next year’s 59th Venice Biennale, will unveil his latest series of works for the exhibition titled Experimental Hell. The exhibition will feature large-scale silk screen works on raw aluminium, a newly recorded album, and a noise performance, to bring the three primary areas of Fusinato’s practice into a single project.

Image: Marco Fusinato, Aetheric Plexus (Broken X), 2013
36,000 watts white light, 105db white noise. 40 cm × 500cm box truss, Par can 56 lights, couplers, Lanbox LCM,DMX controller,  dimmer racks, DMX mp3 player, line array PA, sensor, extension leads, shot bags.
Dimensions variable. Collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
© Marco Fusinato.
Courtesy the artist and Anna SchwartzGallery.