2015 exhibition highlights - Heide Museum of Modern Art

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December 22, 2014
HEIDE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART – 2015 EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS
In 2015, Heide reflects on its past and looks to a bright future. An exhibition commemorating works
collected in the last 15 years, “21st Century Heide” will run across all three galleries with archival
works shown in Heide I (the original farmhouse of John and Sunday Reed), abstract art shown in the
modernist Heide II, and contemporary pieces displayed in the main gallery, Heide III. Later in the
year, we celebrate the great love story of John and Sunday, culminating in the publishing of a double
biography entitled “Modern Love”, and an exhibition showcasing the profound influence of the
Reeds in Australian modern art. Looking forward, Heide welcomes Kirsty Grant as the new director
and CEO in mid-January, steering the gallery into its next exciting phase.
ALL GALLERIES
21ST CENTURY HEIDE: THE COLLECTION SINCE 2000
HEIDE I: 14 March – 14 June 2015
HEIDE II: 28 March – 28 June 2015
HEIDE III: 28 March – 14 June 2015
Since 2000, Heide has acquired more than 1500 new
artworks for its collection, many by gift or bequest.
These works span the spectrum from rare collages
by Sidney Nolan produced in the 1930s to
monumental installations by contemporary artists
Callum Morton and Kathy Temin made in the last
few years. The recent acquisitions have energised
the Museum’s collection in an unprecedented way
and have opened exciting possibilities for creating
cross-generational dialogue and interdisciplinary
connections between works on display. The multisite exhibition 21st Century Heide has been conceived as a gesture of appreciation to our generous
benefactors and showcases a broad selection of artworks accessioned by the Museum since the turn
of the century.
Callum Morton |Ghost Train, Bulleen 2011 | digital print | 94 x 131.8 cm | edition 1/12 | Heide Museum of Modern Art |Gift
of Philip Ross and Sophia Pavlovski-Ross through the Heide Foundation 2011
HEIDE III: CENTRAL GALLERIES
MELINDA HARPER
27 June – 25 October 2015
Surveying Melbourne artist Melinda Harper’s remarkable oeuvre of abstract art over three decades,
this exhibition will include painting, printmaking, embroidery, drawing, and collage, bringing these
aspects of her art together for the first time. Harper’s paintings were initially small in scale—as much
due to economical as aesthetic considerations—but they have since increased in size and complexity.
The paintings displayed in this survey will range from her small and pared-back Constructivist works
from the late 1980s, to her mid-1990s series inspired by the decorative and compositional elements of
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Indian miniature painting, to the large canvases of recent years which provide stunning new geometric
and colour variations on her characteristic abstract themes. Alongside these, silkscreened fabrics and
over sixty embroideries spanning nine years of work will make a colourful and spectacular display.
ALEKS DANKO: MY FELLOW AUS-TRA-ALIENS
7 November 2015 – 21 February 2016
MY FELLOW AUS-TRA-ALIENS presents artworks spanning
more than four decades of the long career of influential
Victorian-based artist Aleks Danko, from his early
exhibitions in Adelaide in the late 1960s through to his
recent large-scale installations. Although the artist has
worked in a range of disciplines, for the most part his
practice remains firmly within the world of objects.
Objects that take language—its sound, speech, rhymes,
puns and repetition—and attempt to make it into
something more concrete. Akin to poetry, these are
works that are short and sharp, designed to be read aloud, vocalised and performed. In addition to
many works sourced from public collections, this major survey features significant works remade or
reconfigured by the artist specifically for the exhibition.
Aleks Danko |incident – Ambivalence 1991–92 |wood, galvanised steel and synthetic polymer paint and varnish |Museum of
Contemporary Art, Sydney |Purchased with the assistance of stART, MCA Young Patrons, 1993 |© the artist
HEIDE III: ALBERT & BARBARA TUCKER GALLERY
ALBERT TUCKER: THE TRUTH IN MASQUERADE
21 February – 16 August 2015
As a young artist in the 1940s, Albert Tucker’s interest in popular culture
drew him to Melbourne’s colourful entertainment venues. The Tivoli
Theatre, Wirth’s Circus, and Luna Park were among the vibrant variety
halls and showgrounds that he frequented and photographed for artistic
interpretation in his paintings. Using theatrical imagery and effects
inspired by the spectacle of live performance, Tucker commenced a
series of works that point to the dramas and paradoxes of modern life
through notions of masquerade. This exhibition presents many of
Tucker’s best-known paintings on this theme, together with
photographs and related archival material that convey a sense of the
fast-paced cabaret underlining his carnivalesque vision of society.
Albert Tucker |Tivoli Clown 1945 |oil on composition board |61 x 45.5 cm | Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne |Gift
of Barbara Tucker 2005 |© Barbara Tucker
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CREATIVE LINES: THE ART OF JOY HESTER, ALBERT TUCKER AND SWEENEY REED
22 August 2015 – 6 March 2016
This exhibition provides a rare opportunity to view together the work of three artists central to the
Heide story. Married in 1941, Joy Hester and Albert Tucker had their only child, Sweeney in 1945. After
his parents separated Sweeney was adopted by John and Sunday Reed in 1950, who encouraged him
to explore his creative inheritance. Although each developed a distinctive and idiosyncratic practice, it
is possible to find resonances across their work that suggests the familial relationship. The exhibition
includes key drawings, paintings, prints and poetry from the Heide Collection as well as photographs
by Tucker that document their personal lives.
HEIDE III: KERRY GARDNER & ANDREW MYER PROJECT GALLERY
ROSEMARY LAING: WEATHERING
21 February – 31 May 2015
Works from two photographic series by Sydney based artist
Rosemary Laing are presented in this exhibition, part of
Climarte, a Melbourne-wide Festival seeking to ‘harness the
creative power of the Arts to inform, engage and inspire
action on climate change’. Laing’s powerful images elucidate
this theme in ways that are layered and sometimes
surprising. Linking the two series is the motif of paper. In
weather 2006, a figure is blown around midst shreds of torn
environmental texts, a whirl of bluster, false starts and broken promises. In The Paper (2013), sheets
of daily newspaper cover a forest floor like a pale carpet or shroud. The quiet, elegiac mood of the
scene paradoxically calls us to action.
Rosemary Laing | weather # 6 2006 | C Type photograph | 110 x 175 cm (image size) | edition no. 6/8 | private collection,
Melbourne
HEIDE II
ALEX SELENITSCH: LIFE/TEXT
24 October 2015 – 17 April 2016
Though primarily known as a concrete poet, Alex Selenitsch works across
a broad spectrum of disciplines from architecture to artist books, collage
and sculpture. His practice in each of these areas is underpinned by a
creative exploration of the notion of theme and variation, often using
found materials and the pre-existing systems of language and
mathematics. Selenitsch has a long connection to Heide initiated through
his friendship with Sweeney Reed, the adopted son of John and Sunday
Reed. In 1969 Sweeney’s Strines Gallery was the venue for Selenitsch’s
debut exhibition of concrete poetry, the first show of its kind in Australia.
Several of these early concrete poems feature in LIFE/TEXT together with other examples from the
Heide Collection and select public and private collections, surveying five decades of Selenitsch’s
career.
Alex Selenitsch |monoton eeeeeee 1969 |plastic letters on enamel on composition board |71.5 x 59 x 4 cm |Heide Museum
of Modern Art, Melbourne |Gift of Alex Selenitsch and Merron Selenitsch 2011 |© Alex Selenitsch
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HEIDE I
HALCYON DAYS: HEIDE IN THE 1940S
20 July – 13 September 2015
The 1940s represent a pinnacle of artistic achievement and cultural change in the history of Heide.
Throughout the decade John and Sunday Reed’s home formed a focal point for some of Australia’s
avant-garde artists and writers, as the group spearheaded the modernist movement in Melbourne and
challenged the status quo. It was a time of unprecedented experimentation and ambitious
achievement telescoped into a few short years that witnessed the creation of many of the much-loved
icons of the Heide collection. This exhibition celebrates some of these collection highlights, including
Ned Kelly paintings by Sidney Nolan, Joy Hester’s compelling psychological portraits, Albert Tucker’s
unsettling war-time night images, and much more.
MODERN LOVE: THE LIVES OF JOHN AND SUNDAY REED
19 September 2015 - 8 May 2016
Heide founders John and Sunday Reed were champions of modernism in all its
forms and catalysing figures for successive generations of Australian artists and
writers. Their libertarian attitudes, self-sufficient lifestyle and support of the
avant-garde paved the way for the shaping of a new cultural landscape.
Accompanied by a new double biography of the same title, the exhibition
Modern Love explores the extraordinary achievements of the Reeds’
unconventional and complex lives through artworks they collected over six
decades, family heirlooms, recently discovered photographs, and personal
memorabilia.
Albert Tucker |John and Sunday Reed with Sweeney 1947 |gelatin silver photograph | 40.5 x 30.7 cm |Heide Museum of
Modern Art | Gift of Barbara Tucker 2001
--ENDS-Media Enquiries:
Sue Curwood, Marketing & Communications Manager | sue.curwood@heide.com.au (03) 8850 5943
Claire Miovich, Marketing & Communications Coordinator | claire.miovich@heide.com.au (03) 8850 5924
Heide Museum of Modern Art
7 Templestowe Road
Bulleen, VIC 3105
heide.com.au
Opening Hours
Tuesday-Sunday 10am-5pm. Closed Mondays.
Closed December 24-26
Museum Admission
Adult $16, Senior $14, Concession $12
Gardens & Sculpture Park: FREE