Tour de Force - ELLE March 2019

Three of the year’s most thought-provoking exhibitions, as explained by the women behind them.

Janet Laurence: After Nature
IN A NUTSHELL
For 30 years, Laurence has been exploring relationships between art, science, memory, loss and our connection to the natural world. This mid-career survey at the MCA features installations of living plants, coral and taxidermy birds.

THE SCOPE
“I was interested in how the fragility of our land was being represented in art, so when I got a job as a flying artist (where I was flown to remote communities to teach), I saw its beauty from an aerial view. It inspired me to focus on specific areas that were threatened: The Great Barrier Reef and the Tarkine forest, as well as Chiapas in Mexico and the Amazon.”

THE KEY PIECE
“I represented Australia in the Paris climate talks with a work called ‘Deep Breathing’, which was like a hospital for the Barrier Reef. I use the idea of intensive care, but with the potential for healing as well.”

THE TAKEAWAY
“We’re reaching an emergency point. There is no more wild. And we’re destroying the oceans. We need to realise the important vital connections to our nature.”
Janet Laurence: After Nature at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, March 1 – June 10

Quilty
IN A NUTSHELL
Curator Lisa Slade says Quilty has created a body of work – his first major exhibition in a decade – to show us not so much the sight of conflict, but the psychological impact of war.

THE SCOPE
“Ben Quilty is a return to a very old concept of the artist-as-witness, from his work as an official war artist in Afghanistan, to his connection with [executed Bali Nine prisoner] Myuran Sukumaran, and a trip to Lebanon and Syria where he witnessed the plight of refugees.”

THE KEY PIECE
“‘Fairy Bower Rorschach’ is a beautiful landscape, but the site itself is where a massacre occurred. Ben brings the underbelly of our nationhood to the table, but not in a way that it is confronting; he seduces us in with all of this paint, and then gives us a reflective moment.”

THE TAKEAWAY
“Ben inspires us to take an active role as citizens. We all have a role to play. But I think one thing we sometimes forget is to just celebrate the art. The show [touches on] social agency, but it’s also a celebration of paint.”
Quilty at the Art Gallery of South Australia: March 2 – June 2; Queensland Gallery of Modern Art: June 29 – October 13; Art Gallery of New South Wales:November 9 – February 2, 2020

The National
IN A NUTSHELL
Four curators across three of Sydney’s major cultural institutions join forces for a deep-dive into contemporary Australian art. AGNSW curator of photographs, Isobel Parker Philip, says each exhibition is different, yet they’re all in communication.

THE SCOPE
“We’ve put together a list of artists that isn’t necessarily the list you’d usually find in an institutional show: there are more women than men, and there’s a really strong indigenous presence. We’re getting a snapshot of the ideas concerning artists, such as the instability and impermanence of the current moment.”

THE KEY PIECE
“Rushdi Anwar’s work is about his experience as a refugee. He’s burnt wooden chairs to a crisp and then piled them into a teetering funeral pyre. It’s about what happens when the most basic object is taken away from you.”

THE TAKEAWAY
“A lot of people are scared of contemporary art, but it’s not scary. It can offer poignant moments of reflection about critical issues.”
The National at the Art Gallery of New South Wales: March 29 – July 21; Carriageworks: March 29 – June 23; Museum of Contemporary Art Australia: March 29 – June 23

This story originally appeared in the March 2019 issue of ELLE magazine.
Main image: The Australian Ugliness by Eugenia Lim, The National at the MCA.