Embodied Knowledge: Queensland Contemporary Art

Overview

Art galleries don't just fill their walls and halls with big blockbuster exhibitions. They're also a pivotal place for surveying the latest and greatest in the field in general, as Embodied Knowledge: Queensland Contemporary Art recognises. Indeed, this lengthy showcase at Queensland Art Gallery is all about heroing Queensland artists and collectives — 19 of them, in fact, with a particular focus on women, people of colour and LGBTIQA+ creatives.

Displaying from Friday, August 12, 2022–Sunday, January 22, 2023, the sizeable — and free — exhibition has compiled an array of works from an impressive list of names. When you're not peering at pieces by Robert Andrew, Megan Cope, Caitlin Franzmann and Heather Marie (Wunjarra) Koowootha, you'll be checking out art from Meuram Murray Island Dance Group, Ethel Murray, Jenny Watson, Warraba Weatherall and Justene Williams, among others.

Erika Scott / Australia QLD b.1987 / The Reservoir Of Cruel Miracles (installation view in 'Embodied Knowledge: Queensland Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, 2022) 2022 / Mixed media / 400 x 362 x 362cm / Commissioned for 'Embodied Knowledge' by QAGOMA / Courtesy: Erika Scott / Photograph: Chloë Callistemon © QAGOMA / © Erika Scott.

Taking over QAG's Henry and Amanda Bartlett Galleries, and the Watermall, Embodied Knowledge's standout works include The Vertigoats, Williams' brightly coloured installation centred around elongated mannequins; Erika Scott's The Reservoir of Cruel Miracles, a lofty sculpture made out of 40 second-hand fish tanks and found objects; and Inert State, with Archie Moore drawing attention to Indigenous deaths in custody via a major piece in the Watermall.

The exhibition's pieces are themed around identity, heritage and history, so expect to ponder those notions — and celebrate homegrown talents and their new work — while you're soaking in Andrew's large-scale installation and durational mural Tracing inscriptions; Cope's The tide waits for no one, which features cast-glass dugong bones; and The struggle of spokes people, aka portraits of First Nations leaders and social justice advocates by Koowootha.

Installation view of works by Vanghoua Anthony Vue in 'Embodied Knowledge: Queensland Contemporary Art', Queensland Art Gallery, 2022. 
(front left) The Bobby (from the 'Hard-hat Devi(l)-(n)ation' series) 2022 / Mixed media / 135 x 200 x 65cm. (front right) The Manny (from the 'Hard-hat Devi(l)-(n)ation' series) 2022 / Mixed media / 145 x 120 x 85cm, (back) nkag siab poob siab (from the 'Tape-affiti' series) 2022 / Polythene tape, polyester tape and vinyl tape / Dimensions variable. Commissioned for 'Embodied Knowledge' by QAGOMA. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body / Courtesy: Vanghoua Anthony Vue / Photograph: Chloë Callistemon © QAGOMA / © Vanghoua Anthony Vue.

Top images: Archie Moore / Kamilaroi/Bigambul peoples / Australia QLD b.1970 / Inert State (installation view in 'Embodied Knowledge: Queensland Contemporary Art', Queensland Art Gallery, 2022) 2022 / Found hardcover books, steel, high-density polyethylene, polyurethane foam, microporous polyolefin silica-based paper / Dimensions variable / Commissioned for 'Embodied Knowledge' by QAGOMA / Courtesy: Archie Moore and The Commercial, Sydney / Photograph: Chloë Callistemon, © QAGOMA / © Archie Moore.