4 March - 8 May 2016

Education KitAustralian Centre for Contemporary Art

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ACCA’s annual NEW series was established in 2003 to create opportunities for contemporary Australian artists to present newly commissioned work in an ambitious curatorial context, and to encourage new art practices, tendencies and ideas in a public context.

The premise of NEW is to commission new works and to enable professional development opportunities for artists by providing them with curatorial expertise and financial assistance to help realise their plans in the demanding spaces of ACCA. The exhibition title does not insist that the artists themselves are ‘new’, although there is a general tendency for the participants to be considered as ‘emerging’.

There is no theme for NEW. It is not expected that the artists need to have common purpose or ideas linking their projects. Whilst a characteristic of the NEW series is the involvement of guest curators whose role it is to propose new tendencies and areas of focus around current art ideas and developments, the emphasis is on individual projects which are variously engaging and captivating, and for these projects to have scope enough that the ideas of the artist can come to the front of any and all discussions.

NEW Series

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Jacobus CaponeCatherine or KateJulian DayGabriella HirstMason KimberTanya LeeLiam O’BrienAnna Varendorff with Haima Marriott

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NEW16 2016. Installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2016. Photograph: Andrew Curtis

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Catherine or Kate

Liam O’Brien

Mason Kimber

Jacobus Capone

Julian Day

Gabriella Hirst

Tanya Lee

Anna Varendorff with Haima Marriott

NEW16 Floorplan

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Annika Kristensen is Curator at ACCA. Prior to ACCA Kristensen was the Exhibition and Project Coordinator for the 19th Biennale of Sydney (2014) and the inaugural Nick Waterlow OAM Curatorial Fellow for the 18th Biennale of Sydney (2012). Kristensen has also held positions at Frieze Art Fair, Artangel, and Film and Video Umbrella, London; and The West Australian Newspaper, Perth. Kristensen was a participant in the 2013 Gertrude Contemporary and Art & Australia Emerging Writers Program and the recipient of an Asialink Arts Residency in 2014.

Guest Curator

NEW16 brings together eight newly commissioned projects from ten emerging artists around Australia. Despite there being no over-arching theme – aside from an emphasis on new art by new artists – the projects in this exhibition display a common interest in navigation and negotiation: exploring thresholds in the relationships between the artists’ and their work; each other; the visiting public; surrounding architecture; and the broader environment.

Several NEW16 artists bring an informed interest in another discipline to their art practice. Julian Day previously trained as a composer; Catherine or Kate formalised their interest in humour with improvisation, comedy writing and movement classes in Chicago; and Anna Varendorff’s interest in proximity extends from her sculptural practice to her work as a jeweller.

Using visual language as a form of storytelling, the artists in NEW16 borrow from these interests as well as genres including comedy, horror, romance and mystery to create a unique series of works that are at once playful and poetic, futile and profound. The result is a very human exhibition – prompting us to reflect upon our own relationships, both with one another and our surrounds.

Curatorial rationale

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Catherine or Kate is a collaborative double act comprising Catherine Sagin and Kate Woodcroft. The duo defines their artworks in terms of winning and losing, and play out the division of labour in an artistic practice that employs video, performance, photography and sculpture.

Their collaboration is named ‘Catherine or Kate’, or CorK for short, however they persistently disagree with each other, with hints of uncertainty (Hopper, 2016). Their close partnership has carried itself for eight years, creating art that is honest in its expression of negotiation, disagreement and consensus. CorK challenge notions of artistic collaboration and highlight the inherent tensions and competitive nature of working together. This relationship becomes the fuel to their practice as they stage a fencing duel or survey service attendants about which of the artists they consider the most physically attractive.

CorK’s NEW16 work is called My door is always open, unless it’s closed, and involves sculpture, image and text (written and performed). Their work

examines their relationship with each other, as this relationship does not fit into the categories of friend, sister, lover or business partner. This relationship, like any other, has difficulties and imbalances, with moments of disconnection, competition and support.

My door is always open, unless it’s closed is set up like a studio space; a place you would go to draft artistic ideas – ideas that may never come to fruition. In this studio there is an old desk with a large wheel attached that can be ridden like a bicycle, adding a participatory element to the work. The bicycle desk is a portable platform for performance, but could also be an escape mechanism. CorK may want to escape from their relations with one another, or perhaps their conflicted desires both to fit in, and push away from, the institutional setting in which the work is shown (Kristensen, 2016). The walls of the studio are painted taupe, an ordinary ceiling fan rotates endlessly, and a frame is nailed to the wall but hanging on an angle, referencing the wonkiness of ACCA’s architecture.

My door is always open, unless it’s closed is built on recent performances in which the pair openly discussed doubts about the continuity of their collaborative relationship. These performances have all played with the shifting sense of comfort that comes from working with another and also with the delays that take place in the public presentation of personal, emotive material.

Catherine or Kate

Founded in BrisbaneLive and work in Brisbane

My door is always open, unless it’s closed 2016ceiling fan, time frame, wheelie good deskCourtesy the artists

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Catherine or Kate, My door is always open, unless it’s closed 2016. Installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2016. Courtesy the artists. Photograph: Andrew Curtis

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With particular interest in the construction of individuality and the ambiguities of personal freedom, Liam O’Brien utilises personal experience, intuition and theoretical texts to produce video and performance works that explore the human condition under advanced capitalism. O’Brien’s practice surrounds an ongoing investigation into networks of connectivity, interpersonal transactions and our constant engagement with technology, resulting in anaemic experiences (Barikin, 2016). As part of this investigation his work in NEW16 called At Arm’s Length explores the less meaningful and dissatisfying interactions that our engagement with technology causes. He suggests that our engagement with technology ‘reduces our experiences to merely sight, hearing, and touch via text, still image, moving image, and sound’ (O’Brien, 2016). O’Brien argues that we lose significant and embodied experiences of time and space, in turn, losing our solitude, concentration, imagination, self-reflexivity, and productivity.

At Arm’s Length is presented at ACCA as a single-channel video. The work can be considered in three different sections under the descriptions: people without phones, people with phones, and phones without people. O’Brien uses variety of characters in the video, often sitting around, scrolling through social media and messaging on their iPhone in isolation. The video utilises elements of screen-space, such as pop-up windows or scenes that appear to vertically scroll independently of the action. This layering and experimentation extends to the use of sound, distributed over speakers in ACCA’s foyer and bathrooms. O’Brien uses phone notifications as non-diegetic sound (sounds which are independent of his on-screen narratives) to coax the audience into checking their own mobile devices they are constantly tethered to.

O’Brien’s research into this subject stems from books and articles that he has recently read on our complex relationships with technology. Alongside this media, his research has included sci-fi films from the likes of Stanley Kubrick and Spike Jones, TV shows, and similar ideas in the music of Father John Misty, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Kurt Vile, and Parquet Courts. As leisure collapses into work, and our attention lapses between the virtual and the actual, O’Brien’s work poses the question ‘Where is the ‘social’ in social media?’ (Barikin, 2016).

Liam O’Brien

Born in Gold Coast CityLives and works in Brisbane

At Arm’s Length 2015–16high definition single-channel video installationEdition of 5Courtesy of the artist and Sullivan + Strumpf, Sydney

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Liam O’Brien, At Arm’s Length 2015-16. Installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2016. Courtesy the artist and Sullivan + Strumpf Sydney. Photograph: Andrew Curtis

Anna Varendorff has exhibited extensively, and often collaboratively, to produce works that offer interaction through play and experiment. Her practice is a combination of hand-fabricated object and orchestrated space, directed by the subjective experience of a body interacting with object.

Varendorff’s work here there are infinite arrangements for NEW16, created with support from Haima Marriott, consists of seven free-standing brass sculptures, of heights varying from waist to around two meters. The sculptures have bases, with recessed wheels, and can be moved or re-arranged freely by the audience throughout the gallery. The effect of this movement allows the physical space of the gallery to be re-arranged by the audience endlessly. The coloured gels and theatre lighting in

the gallery casts shadows from the sculptures onto the walls, transforming the large forms to flat linear markings in two dimension.

Varendorff’s objects ask for participation and manipulation, including other dimensions such as sound and light (Besten, 2016). Upon touch, the objects offer a resonant sound coming from speakers mounted in at the base of the structures, and a small vibration is felt. This sound responds to the different ways the audience physically engages with the object - percussive if touched briefly, more sustained if the touch is longer in duration. The sound offers a physiological experience to the audience, as they participate with the artist in the organisation and the experience of the work. The sound, and comprehension alongside touching the objects allows for play, experience and authorial potentials to the people who interact with the work.

here there are infinite arrangements references Varendorff’s background and work as a jeweler intentionally and symbolically (Besten, 2016). The gold coloured brass alludes to jewellery, her eye for detail leads to a carefully refined work, and her intention for people to interact with the work is similar to a person wearing a piece of jewellery. here there are infinite arrangements appeals to people of all ages, and those who are differently abled, as there are many perceptual and physiological layers by which the work can be experienced.

Anna Varendorff with Haima Mariott

Lives and works in Melbourne

here there are infinite arrangements 2016brass, wood composite, electronics108 x 212 cm 311 - 7902 Hz205 x 197 cm 130 - 5919 Hz188 x 182 cm 146 - 5274 Hz168 x 168 cm 155 - 2637 Hz162 x 132 cm 207 - 932 Hz264 x 122 cm 27 - 392 Hz233 x 102 cm 30 - 207 HzCourtesy of the artists

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Anna Varendorff with Haima Mariott, here there are infinite arrangements 2016. Installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2016. Courtesy the artist. Photograph: Andrew Curtis

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Tanya Lee is a Perth based artist working across sculpture, performance and drawing. Her practice draws on everyday tasks to create humorous and often futile narratives that subvert the rules, protocols and politics of suburbia.

Lee’s work for NEW16 examines the shared borders between neighbours as a space for political tensions. The video works, called Curtilage, are presented on three TV screens and offer glimpses of neighbours over fence lines and through windows. These encounters allow for a strange sort of intimacy to develop between people who, despite being close in proximity, are sometimes socially and emotionally more distant than the physicality of these spaces would imply.

Lee’s documentation of real life neighbours performing intimate gestures upon one another, articulate these tensions through extreme and absurd actions. Using elongated tools to stretch from private space across public boundaries and back into private space, the participants in Curtilage perform intimate gestures that are both comical

and uncomfortable. The everyday routines being performed between neighbours include brushing hair, eating breakfast, and cleaning teeth. Despite the awkward nature of these gestures, the recipients passively comply as they are cleaned, brushed and fed. Lee’s videos depict a mundane suburban landscape that she continuously addresses in her practice. By creating interactions across boundaries, Lee highlights the intimacy we may not realise we have with others, such as neighbours, and the distance that prevents this relationship from human contact (Shah, 2016). We share connections, boarders and leak details of our lives to our neighbours, but still remain distant from one another.

Tanya Lee

Born in PerthLives and works in Perth

Curtilage 2016multi-channel video Courtesy the artist

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Tanya Lee, Curtilage 2016. Installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2016. Courtesy the artist. Photograph: Andrew Curtis

Mason Kimber is a Sydney based artist using painting, fresco and wall-based installation to address the relationship between architectural memory and painterly abstraction. He believes that built spaces, whether they are real or imagined, have the potential to hold certain memories.

Kimber’s five new paintings in NEW16, called Window, Museum, Previous Gestures, Fresco 14 and Fresco 15 explore the threshold between the real space of architecture and the imagined space of art. The paintings are hung on a large wall mural, using the architectural space of the gallery at ACCA as a support or extension of the paintings, bringing into focus the border that can exist between both painting and constructed space.

Three of Kimber’s series of paintings are oil on canvas, with the remainder lime plaster, sand and pigments on plywood using traditional fresco techniques. Painting into the plaster before it dries, he only has about eight hours, making Fresco is one of the most difficult mediums to work with. The paintings draw the viewer to study the detail, with geometries extending beyond the frame and onto the gallery wall, embracing a quality of unfinished possibilities (Spurr, 2016). Kimber’s large wall mural directly responds and continues some of the geometric forms and angularity of ACCA’s external architecture.

Mason Kimber

Born in PerthLives and works in Sydney

Window 2016oil on canvas92 x 117 cm

Museum 2016oil on canvas 92 x 117 cm

Previous Gestures 2016oil on canvas92 x 117cm

Fresco 14 2016watercolour, flash, sand & lime plaster on marine plywood53 x 62 cm (framed)

Fresco 15 2016watercolour, flash, sand & lime plaster on marine plywood53 x 62cm (framed)

Courtesy the artist and Galerie pompom, Sydney

After completing a studio residency at the British School in Rome, Kimber was inspired by the dense layers of history, painting and architecture that are visible in the city, as well as the various styles of spatial illusion found in Pompeian fresco painting (Habitus, 2015). His paintings map some of his own histories, with classical busts from his residency, architectural elements from a childhood home, and cinematic memories from past works” (Spurr, 2016).

Kimber’s paintings are fragmentary, like ruins. The surfaces of these paintings hold the ruins of past ideas, as well as the suggestion of future ones. Opaque shapes collide with pastel oil paint, and the frescoes struggle between paint and the texture of sand and plaster. Through chemical reaction, the pigments are secured into the plaster forever.

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Mason Kimber, Window, Museum, Previous Gestures, Fresco 14, Fresco 15 2016. Installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2016. Courtesy the artist and Galerie pompom Sydney. Photograph: Andrew Curtis

Jacobus Capone is a Perth based artist working within durational performance, installation, painting and video. His work has an emotional and humanistic sensitivity, centering on the desire and constant effort to integrate all action into the wholeness of one lived experience.

Working with his father, Capone undertook an especially personal project for NEW16 that reflects upon the psychological absence in each other’s lives between the years of 1998-2006, caused by his father’s severe depression. He recounts childhood memories of his father fluently playing the piano accordion, and embraces the melancholic and nostalgic tones evoked by such an instrument. The result is Volta, a diptych of videos tenderly documents his father attempting to re-learn the song, Che sarà, and an instrument he hasn’t held or played since 1998, the year he was diagnosed.

Volta is an Italian term referring to the moment in which a dramatic turn is made in argument or emotion (Weston, 2016). Capone’s process of collaboratively making Volta with his father is an

act of rejoice and unburdening. Two large screens consume one of ACCA’s galleries, interlacing and synchronising footage from ‘six months of weekly, hour-long sessions during which Capone filmed his father’s struggle to re-learn the piano accordion’ (Weston, 2016). Capone uses the camera to closely frame his subject, capturing the movement of fingers struggling with arthritis and forgotten notes, as well as expressions of concentration, frustration, and pleasure in acute detail.

Capone describes Volta as a ritualistic process; a father and son coming together to share an experience and explore without words each other’s being and pasts (Stephens, 2016). From the opening melody – Che sera sera, whatever will be will be – Capone releases the negative grasp the past had on the present in an hour-long video that offers insight into experience and aftermath of severe, debilitating depression. Through time, Capone’s father relearns the accordion, and in turn, they repair their relationship with hope for new melodies and memories to master (Weston, 2016).

Jacobus Capone

Born in PerthLives and works in Perth

Volta 2015two-channel video installation, 58 minutesCourtesy the artist

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Jacobus Capone, Volta 2016. Installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2016. Courtesy the artist. Photograph: Andrew Curtis

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Gabriella Hirst is a cross-disciplinary artist, whose works responds to fragility of memory and personal narrative, exploring myth-making and archival impulses. Her practice is grounded in drawing and painting, but she frequently adopts sculptural and video media to create immersive and audience-reactive artworks.

Hirst’s work Force Majeure for NEW16 has been inspired in part by Russian romantic painter Ivan Aivazovsky who, in the 1880s, painted over 6000 paintings, mostly of stormy seas, and largely from memory. Her installation of video and painting in NEW16 documents her attempts to paint a storm whilst in the middle of that storm. Hirst travelled to locations with dramatic landscapes, including the island of Rugen, a location also captured by German romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich. She rented a cabin in Rugen in the middle of winter and waited for the miserable weather to arrive.

In the videos Hirst perseveres as the overpowering wind threatens to push over the easel, while the watercolour paint is washed off the canvas as fast as new paint in reapplied. The action is repeated in various locations in different storms. The ‘failed’ storm paintings, mostly blank and torn, are exhibited alongside the films, each with the title of the storm, time and location in which it was painted.

Hirst also negotiates a tension between hope and hopelessness while physically battling the storms in the videos. With her failed romantic attempts of painting a storm, she explores the impractical and absurd nature of being an artist. Hirst studied the weather and chased storms across Europe; often arriving at the destination to discover the storm had passed. Force Majeure is the result of Hirst’s ‘battle with failure and hand-me-down romantic ideas of being an artist’ (Stephens, 2016). Gathering inspiration from the biographies of historical figures, especially from the 18th and 19th century, Hirst’s work plays with narrative, saying ‘the more identities taken on, perhaps the more we learn about ourselves’ (Orav, 2016). Her work has shifted to becoming more ephemeral, transient and intangible, acknowledging the role of art in extending rather than reflecting reality.

Gabriella Hirst

Born in SydneyLives and works in Berlin

Force Majeure 2015–16watercolour paintings and digital video installationSound: Tom HoganEditing: Robert HamblingCourtesy the artist

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Gabriella Hirst, Force Majeure 2015-16. Installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2016. Courtesy the artist. Photograph: Andrew Curtis

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Julian Day is an artist, composer, writer and broadcaster creating simple yet evocative works encompassing installation, video, sound, text and performance. Much of his work is site-specific and collaborative; using dispersed homogeneous sound to explore the acoustic, architectural and relational properties of such varied spaces as railway sheds, marketplaces, laneways, parks and galleries. Day’s recent sculptural works have involved sound through destabilising traditional musical instruments or using neutral materials such as paper and speakers. His works explore ‘the relationship between the viewer and their immediate architecture, between agency and constraint, stability and turbulence’ (Day, 2015). Day has also investigated forms of community building using sound through performative and collaborative works.

Day’s work for NEW16 is called White Noise. It features six giant rolls of white paper that gently flow and unfold down from the six-metre high walls

of ACCA. Day uses blank paper to symbolise the starting point for artistic creativity – whether that is visual, sonic or textual. Fascinated with the tension between sound and space, Day has concealed speakers that project subsonic sounds towards the paper behind the draped sheets (Stephens, 2016). Periodically, the paper begins to move, at first subtly trembling, then rising in intensity to a crescendo of agitated shaking, before shuddering to a stop (Jaspers, 2016). Like a giant unfilled drum, the sound causes the paper to rumble and vibrate, echoing, extending and literally shaking the foundations of the gallery architecture.

Day’s work uses the gallery as an instrument, amplifying ACCA’s non-geometric character as a container for ideas full of potential (Jaspers, 2016). Day is interested in how sound adds another dimension to a gallery space, and can affect the audience in an unseen way (Stephens, 2016). Using the white space in the gallery as a starting point, White Noise talks back to the audience through sound and space. Through flipping the idea that art is about positive objects, White Noise investigates the untapped negative space in the room and the intensity of the air.

Julian Day

Born in Melbourne Lives and works in Sydney

White Noise 2015–16paper, speakers, amplifiersvariable dimensionsCourtesy the artist

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Julian Day, White Noise 2016. Installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2016. Courtesy the artist. Photograph: Andrew Curtis

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VCE ART

Unit 1: Area of Study 1 Art and meaning

After visiting NEW16 select two artists and their artworks. Research their personal interests and experiences; analyse, interpret and compare their artworks through the application of the Formal and the Personal Frameworks.

Unit 1: Area of Study 2 Art making and personal meaning

Volta by Jacobus Capone is an especially personal project that reflects upon his father’s severe depression, the breakdown and rebuilding of their relationship. Discuss the physical aspects and the presentation of Volta containing symbolic meaning and use of metaphor.

Liam O’Brien’s interests, experiences and ideas surrounding technology are reflected through At Arm’s Length. He investigates the way in which our relationships, identities and interpersonal subjectivity are increasingly influenced by our interaction with digital and screen technologies. Discuss this idea and how it is reflected in his work.

O’Brien was inspired by movies, TV shows and lyrics with similar ideas to him. Using song or film as a starting point, create a series of small artworks that reflect your response to an idea that interests you; use a variety of techniques, materials and processes. Document your experimentations with annotations in your folio.

Unit 2: Area of Study 1 Art and culture

Mason Kimber began exploring fresco techniques after completing a residency in Rome. The culture of ancient Rome has a long history, and Kimber likens his paintings to ancient ruins. Using the Cultural and Formal Frameworks, analyse the aesthetic qualities, materials and techniques used in Kimber’s fresco paintings and discuss their associations with cultures and histories. Investigate examples of artists working collaboratively, like Catherine or Kate. Using the Cultural Framework, compare the social, political and cultural contexts in which these artists have worked in. How has Catherine or Kate’s relationship shaped their artistic intentions? How does the physical placement of their work affect their interpretation?

Curriculum links

Unit 3: Area of Study 1 Interpreting art

Draw on aspects of the Analytical Frameworks to compare the works of Gabriella Hirst and a romantic painter that has inspired her work, such as Caspar David Friedrich or Ivan Aivazovsky. How have their representations of dramatic landscapes, and Romantic notions of ‘the sublime’, been communicated through style and visual elements? How has the work been linked to people and places of important to Hirst? How have historical events shaped her ideas? What materials and media have been applied in the presentation of the work?

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VCE STUDIO ARTS

Unit 1: Area of Study 3Interpretation of art ideas and use of materials and techniques

Compare and contrast two of the artworks in NEW16 that have negotiated a threshold or tension of some kind. Consider artistic influences, interpretation of subject matter, media and techniques.

Tanya Lee has investigated suburbia and relationships between neighbours in her work Curtilage. Research other artists from different times that have also explored aspects of the suburbs, such as Howard Arkley, John Brack and Robert Rooney. How have these artists present their ideas? Discuss their approach to this theme.

Unit 2: Area of Study 1Design exploration

Liam O’Brien has explored the idea of time using technology for At Arm’s Length. There are cues that pull the audience out of the narrative, like the cropping, and the layered montage of screens upon screens, in an attempt to distance the audience from being immersed in the vignettes. Explore the idea of time in your own work using digital media and manipulation.

Unit 3: Area of Study 3Professional art practices and styles

Liam O’Brien has used footage from social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook and Tinder in his work for NEW16. Discuss as a class the ethical considerations that may arise when using these sites and information.

Tanya Lee, Curtilage 2016

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Unit 4: Area of Study 3Art industry contexts

CASE STUDY: NEW16 with Annika Kristensen, Guest Curator.

Curatorial considerations

Annika separates her curatorial considerations for NEW16 into conceptual and logistical. When discussing her conceptual considerations, she identifies sensitivities when working with commissioned projects:

NEW16 is an exhibition of new commissions, so there are always anxieties and vulnerabilities that go alongside that. Each of the artists had to conceive a new idea in a certain time frame, which poses conceptual and logistical problems. Some of those problems include trying to resolve an idea by a deadline, getting materials sourced by a deadline, being reasonably flexible with working to deadlines with ideas. Some of the artists have actively tried to embrace the idea of failure, and that failure might be not having a good idea, and not being able to resolve an idea once you have started it. When you get so far through starting an idea, you hit a point in an idea of no return and have to embrace it as you can’t turn back and start again. A couple of the works actively engage the pressure of having to conceive an idea. Catherine or Kate’s work, for instance, is set up like a studio space, like a kind of place you would go to draft an artistic idea, but that idea may not come. Julian Day’s white paper refers to the classic blank page, like the starting point for an idea. Gabriella’s osculation between hope and hopelessness can be extrapolated to be read as a struggle of an artist who is situating their self within an art historical cannon, but also acknowledging the futility of pursuing that line of work.

Annika also highlights some of the NEW16 commissions that were logistically challenging:

Julian’s work has been challenging. Julian had done a work like this before, but not to this scale. It meant a lot of testing, and his work is quite complicated

Curator Annika Kristensen in front of Mason Kimber’s mural during install for NEW16.

NEW16 install.

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projection this big on this wall, but I’m worried about peoples shadows interrupting the throw of the projector”, he does all of these calculations for me. Our builder then works off those plans, so the AV consultant will make up measurements for me, and will tell me what size to build the screens, and then the builder follows their direction. For Julian’s work we have been seeking advice from people who run an AV sound setup business usually doing stadium or music events, who have been working on the physics of sound for that project.

Alongside consulting, Annika also needs to consider lighting and the conservation of artworks in the exhibition for the entire season:

Anna Varendorff was really interested in the play of shadow and light and how they interact with the brass of her sculptures, and how the shadows cast on the wall and change your reading of the work. We have hired theatre lights for that particular work, as the effect Anna wanted wasn’t something we could produce using the general washes

in terms of the physics of sound. While he is a composer and sound artist, we’ve had to seek external advice about how the sound is going to react in the space at ACCA, and make sure it is going to affect the material in the way Julian wants it to. His work has involved many people in the making and there has been a lot of consulting with this work to a tight deadline. The materials such as paper, amps and speakers needed to be ordered from Sydney.

Preparation and presentation of artworks

ACCA has a small crew of core people that install the exhibitions each season. Their expertise includes carpentry, audiovisual media, and handling of fragile materials and artworks. Alongside the core crew, the Exhibitions Manager regularly calls upon people of other expertise depending on the requirements for each exhibition. When managing the NEW16 install, Annika discusses working with the crew:

The members of ACCA’s crew are incredible versatile, but there are those I ask to do certain things. Beau, for example, has a very strong background as an art handler and is amazing at things that involve careful detail, which is why I have him painting Mason Kimber’s mural, as it is quite meticulous in terms of marking up the space. I will also have Beau handling Julian’s paper, as it is a sensitive and fragile task. Simone, Denae and Tom are strong at AV, and Simone is a rigger, so she has been able to rig Catherine or Kate’s fan, which is something the rest of the crew couldn’t do. Pat has a carpentry background, so he has been amazing in building speaker boxes for Julian’s work. Simone and Tom also have strong lighting experience, so they are great when it comes to that. I try to share the crew around depending on the job that needs to be done.

Installing an exhibition of new commissions and contemporary artworks can be complex. Annika discusses the specific installation requirements for NEW16:

I work quite closely with a colleague I worked with at the Biennale of Sydney who is an AV technician. If I say for instance, “I want to do a

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and spotlights that we have at ACCA. As well as using theatre lights that are stronger and more direct for that work, we are also using coloured gels that will play off the work and create a certain mood. The paper in Julian’s work is fragile and marks very easily, and because sound is constantly hitting it, the paper is in movement the entire time. Due to this, there will be an invigilator in the space all the time, and is something that all staff are to be aware of. We have spare paper and equipment in case something happens to the work. The rest of the exhibition is quite hearty and self-sufficient. Catherine or Kate’s work has a participatory element, and they would like to be able to interact with the work, so that is something to keep an eye on. Overall the exhibition is quite robust.

Characteristics of ACCA’s exhibition spaces ACCA is a contemporary art space based on the European model of the Kunsthalle, meaning a non-collecting institution whose gallery spaces and program changes with each exhibition season. None of the walls in ACCA’s galleries are square, which has been part of the conversation between Annika and the artists in NEW16:

Some of the artists have actively embraced ACCA’s spaces. The angles in Mason Kimber’s mural are directly referencing the architecture of ACCA. He wanted to use the back wall as an extension of his paintings, so as well as a physical support for his paintings it also becomes an extension of them. He has worked with the way perspective changes in that room depending on where you stand, so the angle on the right hand side is directly referencing some of the angles on the outside of the building. Julian Day’s work has involved an ongoing conversation about whether we blend into the architecture or work against the architecture. He wanted his work to appear as though the walls were unfurling, and the white paper is a reference to the neutrality of a white cube archetypal gallery space. But, of course while ACCA has some of that institutional ‘white cubeness’, it is not literally square in any shape or form. Due to this skewedness, Catherine or Kate have made a frame that is on an angle which is referencing the wonkiness of ACCA’s architecture as well, so the spaces are definitely something we

have considered. Anna’s frames look like a framing device in the way that a gallery itself is a framing device, as well as the architecture and doorways within it, so there are lots of intentional nods to the exhibition space.

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Promotion and marketing of NEW16

NEW is an annual exhibition that employs a Guest Curator to work with the artists to produce newly commissioned projects. There is always anticipation and excitement surrounding the NEW series in the art and broader communities, and for this reason, the curator and featured artists remain embargoed until approximately six weeks before the exhibition opens. The promotion and marketing around NEW16 is crucial to engage new and existing audiences, and to spark discussions surrounding the artists and curator. ACCA’s Publicist and Online Communications Manager play an important role in ensuring NEW16 is marketed and promoted successfully. The Curator and Designer select a hero image for the exhibition, and agree on the overall design for print and online media. In the month leading up to the opening of NEW16, the Online Communications Manager releases snippets of information and images across ACCA’s E-bulletin contact lists and social media platforms. The first release of information online includes the hero image for the exhibition. The Online Communications Manager works with others in the creative team to decide on a social media strategy. For NEW16, they released various images in the month leading up to the exhibition, and during the week of install, shared images of the artists, Curator and crew installing the works. The Publicist organises articles and interviews for newspapers, such as The Age. Alongside print and online publicity, the Publicist arranges interviews with some of the artists and the Curator for radio stations, such as Triple R, and other mainstream and specialist print and electronic media.

acca_melbourne Instagram posts during the week leading to NEW16 opening night

Newspaper article written by Andrew Stephens for NEW16

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SECONDARY 7-10

VISUAL ARTS

Explore and Express Ideas

Anna Varendorff has a background in jewellery making. Analyse her use of materials in NEW16, and their relationship to her jewellery practice. Find some examples of her jewellery and discuss their style and their connection to her sculptural art practice.

Mason Kimber’s paintings are highly textual. Select, test and experiment mixing different materials with paint to explore texture. Mix impasto or glue, as well as organic matter such as sawdust and dirt. Create a texture sheet from these experiments in your folio.

Visual Arts Practices

When completing his fresco paintings, Mason Kimber only had a few hours to complete work before the plaster set. Complete a series of paintings or drawings to a theme with a short time limit (2-5 minutes). Afterwards try creating the same theme with a longer time limit. Compare, discuss and evaluate the differences in your work to the class.

Anna Varendorff has manipulated and experimented with combinations of various materials and technologies to create different sensory effects. Use a digital camera or iPhone to capture images of the

shadows that the sculptures create on the gallery walls. Experiment with line, shape and manipulation through Photoshop by laying your photographs and adjusting opacities.

Present and Perform

Discuss the many viewpoints Liam O’Brien presents to the audience in At Arm’s Length, and the visual conventions utilised in his work, such as composition and sound. How does the way the work has been displayed enhance meaning? How does it affect the audience?

Explore the sounds of a various classroom objects, like Julian Day has with paper for White Noise. Discuss how music elements, such as sound, crescendo and silence would make visitors feel in ACCA’s gallery. Research Day’s other works that incorporate audience, sound and performance.

Respond and Interpret

What is sound? Julian Day has explored sound as energy in his work White Noise. What are the physical and psychological aspects to sound, and how has Day investigated these in his artwork?Research some of Catherine or Kate’s works prior to NEW16. How have they incorporated genre, such

as comedy, to explore their intrinsic and extrinsic worlds? Discuss one of their works in detail.

What do paintings tell us about the past? Compare Mason Kimber’s fresco and oil on canvas paintings in NEW16. How has his use of materials enhanced the meaning and viewer’s understanding of his intention?

Catherine or Kate’s work is supposed to be activated by the audience sitting down and riding the desk. Research other artists from a variety of different times and cultures who also invite the audience to participate in their work.

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PRIMARY F-6

VISUAL ARTS

Explore and Express Ideas

Fresco painting can be traced back to 2000 BC and has a long history in Greek and Roman art. Research and map the history of frescoes through different times and places. Highlight some famous frescoes from different times, where they are located, and investigate the conservation methods used to preserve these works.

Mason Kimber believes that buildings store memories and explores abstract environments in his paintings. What does abstract mean? Discuss as a group and research other historical and contemporary artists who have explored abstraction.

Visual Arts Practices

In Tanya Lee’s work the characters perform acts, like brushing hair, on their neighbours using elongated tools. The characters have little control over these tools. Limit your control over art making, and create a series of observational drawings of classroom objects using your opposite hand or by closing your eyes.

Through her art practice, Lee explores the places she grew up through performance and video. Document the natural and man made characteristics

of the area you live through drawings and photographs. Use these to develop an artwork.

Present and Perform

Discuss how Anna Varendorff’s work has been presented at ACCA, and analyse how it appears in two and three dimensions. Discuss how this changes or enhances her work, and her use of visual elements such as line and colour.

Respond and interpret

Discuss your favourite work in NEW16, and describe why you like the work using visual conventions. Discuss the ideas and materials and techniques used to create the artwork.

Mason Kimber, Fresco 14 2016

Mason Kimber, Fresco 15 2016

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References

Andrew Stephens, The Sydney Morning Herald, February 2016:

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/father-and-son-once-divided-

by-depression-come-together-in-video-artwork-at-acca-20160219-

gmxmwt.html

Habitus Living, March 2015:

http://www.habitusliving.com/community/artist-qa-mason-kimber

NEW16 Catalogue, ACCA, 2015:

Amelia Barikin, Liesbeth Den Besten, Chelsea Hopper, Anneke

Jaspers, Annika Kristensen, Kristin Orav, Sami Shah, Samantha Spurr

and Gemma Weston

References

Andrew Stephens, The Sydney Morning Herald, February 2016:

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/father-and-son-once-divided-

by-depression-come-together-in-video-artwork-at-acca-20160219-

gmxmwt.html

Habitus Living, March 2015:

http://www.habitusliving.com/community/artist-qa-mason-kimber

NEW16 Catalogue, ACCA, 2015:

Amelia Barikin, Liesbeth Den Besten, Chelsea Hopper, Anneke

Jaspers, Annika Kristensen, Kristin Orav, Sami Shah, Samantha Spurr

and Gemma Weston

Further Reading

Catherine or Kate

http://catherineorkate.com/

https://vimeo.com/catherineorkate

http://unprojects.org.au/magazine/issues/issue-6-2/what-s-in-a-name-

catherine-or-kate-or-catherine-sagin-or-fiona-mail/

http://eprints.qut.edu.au/54664/1/Kate_Woodcroft_Thesis.pdf

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/melbourne-

festival-review-art-as-a-verb-20141021-118x5u.html

http://www.ima.org.au/event/jeremy-hynes-award-catherine-or-kate/

Liam O’Brien

http://www.liamobrien.com.au/

http://blog.qagoma.qld.gov.au/goma-q-liam-obrien/

http://www.artcollector.net.au/LiamOBrienSurrogates

http://cultgc.com/2015/10/19/brisbane-artist-series-liam-obrien/

http://safari.org.au/2014/liam-obrien-qld/

http://sydneycontemporary.com.au/liam-obrien-whistling-in-the-

dark-2013/

http://www.artmuseum.qut.edu.au/schools/artwork.jsp

http://www.dlux.org.au/cms/dTour/liam-o-brien.html

https://www.allens.com.au/art/journal/pdfs/issue1.pdf

http://lucidamagazine.com/?p=679

http://www.artandfoundation.com/projects/contemporary-art-award/

liam-obrien

Tanya Lee

http://www.fac.org.au/events/294/tanya-lee-personal-space

http://rtrfm.com.au/story/tanya-lees-parody-of-disclosure/

http://johncurtingallery.curtin.edu.au/exhibitions/archive/2010.cfm

http://www.tanyalee-art.com/publications-texts/

https://www.situate.org.au/person/tanya-lee/

Anna Varendorff

http://annavarendorff.com/

http://thedesignfiles.net/2014/11/anna-varendorff/

http://a-ch.com.au/exhibition/anna-varendorff-sort-of-free-objects/

http://www.c3artspace.com.au/anna-varendorff/

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http://busprojects.org.au/2015/01/05/anna-varendorff-benjamin-

portas/

http://www.elletea.co/artist-profiles/anna-varendorff/

http://www.piecesofeight.com.au/blogs/journal/56195843-anna-

varendorff-comparative-gestures

http://tcbartinc.org.au/bouba/

http://craftcubed.org.au/2015/events/anna-varendorff-and-meredith-

turnbull-at-craft-window-space/

http://thethousands.com.au/brisbane/calendar/anna-varendorff-sort-

of-free-objects

Mason Kimber

http://masonkimber.com/

http://www.galeriepompom.com/galerie-pompom--mason-kimber.

html

http://www.habitusliving.com/community/artist-qa-mason-kimber

http://www.emerge-art.com.au/exhibitions/brand/mason_kimber

http://news.curtin.edu.au/cite/alumni-profiles/talented-painter-mason-

kimber/

http://artguide.com.au/articles-page/show/mason-kimber

https://www.facebook.com/MasonKimberArt/

http://www.buro247.com.au/culture-lifestyle/arts/when-in-rome-

mason-kimber-s-fresco-perspective.html

https://britishschoolatrome.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/june-

mostrameet-the-artists-mason-kimber/

http://theartlife.com.au/2015/oltre-la-vista/

Jacobus Capone

http://www.jacobuscapone.com/

https://au.news.yahoo.com/entertainment/a/6560764/endurance-

artist-nails-it/

https://vimeo.com/user10016731

http://www.fluxfactory.org/fluxers/jacobus-capone/

http://sensibleperth.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/dark-learning-by-

jacobus-capone-at.html

http://www.colosoul.com.au/vashti/art/artist-in-spotlight-jacobus-

capone/

http://unprojects.org.au/magazine/issues/issue-5-1/jacobus-

capone-nine-prayers-for-palomar/

http://mcontemp.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Engage_

Catalog.pdf

http://foodchainperth.com/lightlockers/jacobus-capone/

Gabrielia Hirst

http://www.gabriellahirst.com/Gabriella-Hirst

https://vimeo.com/78291359

http://www.zku-berlin.org/residencies/88/

Julian Day

http://www.julianday.com/

http://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/artist/day-julian

http://www.ayo.com.au/content/julian-day/gjxxu6

https://exhaustmusic.wordpress.com/collaborating-composers/

julian-day/

https://vimeo.com/42121205

http://runway.org.au/category/contributor/julian-day/

http://www.realtimearts.net/feature/In_Profile/11756

http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/interview-with-julian-day-

shortlisted-artist-the-aesthetica-art-prize-2015/

http://www.pqau.com.au/2015/scm-super-critical-mass/

http://safari.org.au/2012/studio-visit-julian-day/

http://ocradst.org/soundartcurating/julian-day/

https://shortaustralianstories.com.au/psycho-geography-and-

opium-fuelled-architects-julian-day-launches-panthers-and-the-

museum-of-fire/

http://www.dominikmerschgallery.com/artist/julian-day-dmg-

award-2014/

32Education

Australian Centre for Contemporary Art111 Sturt Street Southbank VIC 3006 AustraliaTel +61 3 9697 9999Fax +61 3 9686 8830www.accaonline.org.au #accamelbourne

Visiting ACCA ACCA’s FREE education programs are available for Primary, Secondary and Tertiary groups between 10am - 4pm from Monday to Friday.

Maximum 25 students per group for THINK and MAKE programs.

Bookings are required for both guided and self-guided School and Tertiary groups.

10am - 5pm Tuesday – Friday12pm – 5pm Weekends & Public Holidays (except Good Friday & Christmas Day)Monday by appointment

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSEducation resource written and compiled by Eliza Devlin, Schools Education Manager, ACCA, March 2015.

TERMS OF USEThis Education Resource has been produced by the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art to provide information and classroom support material for school visits to the exhibition NEW16. The reproduction and communication of this resource is permitted for educational purposes only.

33Education