Six Awesome Things to See and Do at Art Month Sydney 2016
Art pub quizzes, art bus tours, art talks. Don't pace yourself.
Six Awesome Things to See and Do at Art Month Sydney 2016
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Art pub quizzes, art bus tours, art talks. Don't pace yourself.
Art Month 2016 is here — and, boy, does March look better already. It will be the first festival under new artistic director Barry Keldoulis, and while favourites like Collectors’ Space and Art at Night will return, some new ideas will be thrown into the mix as well. Art Month 2016 will kick off on Tuesday, March 1. This year’s program (check out the highlights here) will take over multiple new venues — from Beau Neilson opening the doors on a party at Eveleigh Creative Precinct to the shenanigans infiltrating an impressive warehouse space in Camperdown. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Here are six top notch you can see and do at Art Month this year — and don't pace yourself.
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There’s only one place better to show off your smarts than a pub trivia night — and that’s a pub trivia night devoted to art. On that front, Art Month 2016 has you covered with The Bearded Tit and the 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art holding the ultimate art quiz. So if you know more about Van Gogh’s bedroom than its current Airbnb host, can recite Tracey Emin’s top ten quotations and name Ai Weiwei’s five best works — you’d best head along.
Reckon eight heads are better than one? You’re probably right. Register as a team with up to seven other people. Or go it alone and register as a solo contestant — you’ll either be added to a group or given a spot to stand at the bar.
The $35 ticket includes the quiz and a complimentary drink. And you can feel good about spending your cash, because it’s all going to 4A.
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Artists’ studios are secret, somewhat enchanted places, where anything can happen — and for most artists, sharing their space with others is only an occasional event. So, it’s pretty exciting that sculptor and large scale artist Caroline Rothwell is opening the doors to hers during Art Month 2016.
For just one hour, you’ll be able to step into the space where she creates her extraordinary pieces and chat about her work. Represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney and Tolarno Galleries in Melbourne, Rothwell is respected and adored in both Australia and overseas. She has exhibited all over the planet — from the India Art Fair in New Delhi to the Spitalfields Centre in London to Future Perfect in Singapore. The event is free, but you’ll need to register beforehand.
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For this year’s Art Month Sydney, Collectors’ Space has teamed with BresicWhitney to explore a new format. For the first time, four private collections will be exhibited within one unoccupied house in the inner west.
The first collection belongs to Sally Dan-Cuthbert, who has spent the past 28 years in art land, having worked at The Blaxland Gallery and Christie’s auctioneers, as well as running an independent fine art consultancy. Her accumulated works include those by Janet Laurence, Susan Norrie, Bronwyn Oliver and John Firth-Smith. The second is that of Courtney Gibson, Screen NSW CEO, and owner of pieces by Joan Ross, John A. Douglas, Rosaleen Norton, Rosie Deacon and Jane Tipuamantumiri, among others. The third is being kindly lent by Danny Goldberg and the fourth is that of Jasper Knight, artist and operator of both Sydney’s Chalk Horse gallery and Singapore’s Future Perfect.
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Too lazy to walk? Want to get to a faraway part of town? Add a bus tour to your Art Month itinerary. Whether you live in Sydney’s north, south, east or west, you can rest assured that artists on the other side of the city have something to show you that you’ve never seen before.
2016’s bus tours will be travelling all over the place. And each will be led by an expert. Heading to Penrith is Gary Carsley, while Consuelo Cavaniglia will be helping you to Go East, with a trip through Paddington and Woollahra. Meanwhile, in Parramatta, Jon Kirkman, director of the International Culture Exchange, will be showing you private collections, studios and favourite eateries, and in Campbelltown, you’ll meet with artist Rosie Deacon. Finally, Barry Keldoulis will be bravely taking on the Go North tour, covering exhibitions and ending with a live performance.
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The 20th Biennale of Sydney is set to start on March 18, smack-bang in the middle of Art Month. So, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing — even if you’re an art hater — you’re going to find it mighty tough to avoid Sydney’s creative side.
One of the glorious results of this timing is that, as part of the Biennale, Carriageworks will be transformed into The Embassy of Disappearance. It’s part of the citywide exhibition dubbed The Future Is Already Here — It’s Not Evenly Distributed. Carriageworks’s instalment will feature works from 22 Australian and international artists including Mike Parr, Chen Chieh-jen, Lee Mingwei and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, exploring languages, histories and landscapes that are vanishing.
Want to experience all of this through the eyes of an expert or two? Join the Carriageworks guided tour, happening on Saturday, March 19. At 8.45am, Carriageworks Farmers Markets creative director Mike McEnearney will walk you through the food stalls and produce vendors, before visual arts curator Nina Miall arrives at 9.30am, to take you through the Biennale.
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Art Month doesn’t just involve looking at art, doing art and dressing yourself in art, it also involves talking about it. Because, let’s face it, as much as art can be good plain fun, it can also be confusing, angering and perplexing. That’s whether you’re a consumer of art who doesn’t always agree with the critics’ picks, an artist who wants to talk about your latest work or a Sydney resident who wonders where the city’s relentless creativity comes from — and what more we can do to foster our artists.
So, get yourself along to one of Art Month’s many, many chats. At Who Gets To Call It Art Anyway?, you’ll watch a film about Henry Geldzahler, curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Barry Keldoulis speak. At Ceramics Killed the Video Star, you’ll learn all about how and why ceramics are the hottest thing since Prince’s first music video. And at Starting a Collection 101, you’ll find out what it takes to begin an art collection from scratch. Other talks include Saabia Gallery, What the Kids Think, ACP Beachin, Brock Elbank and Collective Histories: Nostalgia in Contemporary Art.
