2012 Redlands Westpac Art Prize

Overview

This is the Redlands Wetspac Art Prize's 16th year, and the first in which the works in competition will be shown at the National Art School. The Prize is open to Australian and New Zealand artists in two categories — emerging and established — with no other defined curatorial parameters. The curator this year, giving things a bit of a politicised spin, is artist and educator (and person who is having a pretty big 2012, what with having her portrait in the Archibald and her work in the new galleries of the MCA) Lindy Lee. In accordance with the prize structure, Lee has invited a selection of established artists to submit a work to the show. Where it gets a bit more unusual is that each established artist also gets to invite an emerging artist of his or her choice, who also goes into the prize.

The RWAP is an acquisitive prize, and there are also cash prizes: $20,000 to an established artist, this year the not-unfamiliar-from-having-won-other-things-but-really-very-good Ben Quilty with a painting of his father, and $10,000 to the emerging artist category, which was taken out by Kelly Doley with documentation of a project called The Learning Centre, in which she found out certain things about people. The two winners made very different works (both of which pay off the spending of time with them), and the disparity between them is representative of the variety that comes through in the exhibition as a whole.

Without restrictions on theme or medium, there's all kind of work in this show. It's of an accomplished standard, and forms a good cross-section of things that are happening in Australia's and New Zealand's contemporary art. The layout of the exhibition in the airy two-floor space is good too, with works relating well to one another without being artificially segmented into categories.

There are a couple of signage issues: while it's noted on the labels for works by emerging artists who the established artist nominating them was, this doesn't happen vice versa. And this can be frustrating for the viewer who wants to look at what the relations between nominator and nominee might be, in the course of their viewing. This is a little bit annoying. Any but the most art-world-involved of viewers would not know by name who is emerging and who is established. (And the criteria for this isn't made clear in the exhibition information.) The room sheet is a bit frustrating too, counter-intuitively listing artists in alphabetical order, rather than with reference to the placement of works.

Pedantic gripes aside though, this show manages to be "something for everyone" - or maybe "something by everyone"? - without compromising on quality or coherence. It also reassures about the relevance of contemporary art as commentary and as community, which makes it a prize that rewards the visitor too.

Video still from BBQ this Sunday (flight paths) by Joan Ross.