Mirror Mirror Then & Now

Overview

Comprising two shows across three spaces, Mirror Mirror Then & Now looks at mirror as material in art from both historical-international and contemporary-Australian perspectives. Curated by Ann Stephen, the exhibitions are a joint project with Brisbane's Institute of Modern Art, and Sydney Uni's University Art Gallery, and in association with Adelaide's Samstag Museum of Art. All of which means the project has backing enough to bring out some big guns.

Drawing from some major Australian collections, Mirror Mirror Then boasts works by art stars from key movements of the 1960s and early 1970s (pop, minimal and conceptual art), including Robert Smithson, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Hamilton and Yoko Ono. Out of their historical context some of the works may seem old hat, both conceptually and in terms of the techniques employed, but, of course, in their 'moment' they were anything but. Hamilton's lenticular photograph Palindrone (1974), Rauschenberg's transfer collage Diptych: Re-entry (1974), the two Smithson works and Shusaku Arakawa's Critical Mistake (1971) and Test Mirror (1975), are certainly worth taking in. The way the show is hung in the Sydney University Art Gallery (an unassuming space tucked away in a corner of the Great Hall), gives it a curious museumy feel.

Mirror Mirror Now presents contemporary Australian responses to the modernist mirror movement. It will feature works by Robyn Backen, Christian Capurro, Peter Cripps, Alex Gawronski, Callum Morton, Eugenia Raskopoulos, Jacky Redgate, Robert Pulie and Mikala Dwyer. The amazing Penelope Seidler will open it on March 25 at Sydney University's Tin Sheds and Verge Galleries.

A series of talks accompanies the exhibitions, see the Sydney University website for details.