Travels With JB

Travels With JB

Travel news and reviews

If you’re a fan of surrealism then the National Gallery of Victoria is the place for you. If you’re like me and know little about it, then you’re in for an education!

James Gleeson Australian 1915 – 2008 We inhabit the corrosive littoral of habit 1940 oil on canvas 40.7 x 51.3 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Anonymous gift, 1941 © Courtesy of the artist’s estate
James Gleeson Australian 1915 – 2008. We inhabit the corrosive littoral of habit 1940 oil on canvas 40.7 x 51.3 cm. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Anonymous gift, 1941 © Courtesy of the artist’s estate.


The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Federation Square is currently staging Lurid Beauty: Australian Surrealism and its Echoes.
The exhibition showcases more than 230 works traversing painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, fashion, film and photography.
As a result of attending the launch of this exhibition I learnt surrealism shook up the Australian art world when it first reached our shores in the 1930s. Inspired by the psychological theories of Sigmund Freud, surrealism artists sought to challenge artistic conventions, often exploring experimental and playful approaches designed to liberate the unconscious mind.

Anne Wallace born Australia 1970 Talking cure 2010 oil on canvas 83.0 x 99.0 cm Collection of Brisbane Girls Grammar School, Brisbane © Courtesy of the artist and Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney
Anne Wallace born Australia 1970. Talking cure 2010 oil on canvas 83.0 x 99.0 cm. Collection of Brisbane Girls Grammar School, Brisbane © Courtesy of the artist and Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney

The exhibition features many iconic examples of Australian Surrealism by Albert Tucker, James Cant and Barry Humphries together with key Australian contemporary artists including Peter Ellis, Tim Schultz, Julie Rrap and Pat Brassington.

Rosslynd Piggott born Australia 1958 High bed 1998 painted wood, metal, cotton, polyethylene terephthalate, satin, mirrored synthetic polymer resin, synthetic polymer paint on existing walls 370.0 x 200.0 x 230.0 cm (variable) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased, 2000 (NGA 2000.231.A - I) © Courtesy of the artist and Sutton Gallery
Rosslynd Piggott born Australia 1958. High bed 1998 painted wood, metal, cotton, polyethylene terephthalate, satin, mirrored synthetic polymer resin, synthetic polymer paint on existing walls 370.0 x 200.0 x 230.0 cm (variable). National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased, 2000 (NGA 2000.231.A – I) © Courtesy of the artist and Sutton Gallery.

Highlight works include Barry Humphries absurd ‘Siamese’ shoes, Rosslynd Piggot’s breathtaking four metre-tall installation of a dream-like bed and a procession of dismembered mannequins by Judith Wright in the foyer.

Lurid Beauty: Australian Surrealism and its Echoes at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia Photo: John Gollings
Lurid Beauty: Australian Surrealism and its Echoes at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia. Photo: John Gollings

In a room devoted to collage and juxtaposition, works by Australia’s earliest collagists Sidney Nolan and Carl Plate feature alongside contemporary works by Zoë Croggon, Christopher Day and David Noonan. In another gallery the paintings of James Gleeson are hung adjacent to recent paintings by artists Tim Schultz and Peter Daverington.
The concept of dreams is explored through the historical work of Clifford Bayliss and in Rosslynd Piggott’s  High bed.

Pat Brassington born Australia 1942 Voicing 2001 from the Gentle series 2001 digital colour print 56.2 x 76.1 cm (image) 93.4 x 127.4 cm (sheet) ed. 1/4 National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased with funds arranged by Loti Smorgon for Contemporary Australian Photograph y, 2001 © Pat Brassington, courtesy Stills Gallery, Sydney, Arc One Gallery, Melbourne and Bett Gallery, Hobart
Pat Brassington born Australia 1942. Voicing 2001 from the Gentle series 2001 digital colour print 56.2 x 76.1 cm (image) 93.4 x 127.4 cm (sheet) ed. 1/4. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased with funds arranged by Loti Smorgon for Contemporary Australian Photograph y, 2001 © Pat Brassington, courtesy Stills Gallery, Sydney, Arc One Gallery, Melbourne and Bett Gallery, Hobart

Pat Brassington’s images of disembodied female torsos and open-mouthed pink lips reclaim ideas of the female body while Anne Wallace’s eerie Hitchcock-like painting, Talking Cure, challenges Freudian ideas by depicting a woman in therapy talking to an empty chair – removing the ‘typical’ Freud-like doctor and his diagnosis.
The exhibition also highlights the influence of surrealism on popular culture in the mediums of performance, film and fashion through works including Leigh Bowery’s flamboyant films – featuring a chainsaw-wielding nude and Bowery as a perverted teapot – which explore the surrealist concept of irrationality.

Lurid Beauty. Image by Sean Fennessy
One of the galleries. Image by Sean Fennessy

Fashion collective Centre for Style tests the limits of wearable fashion with a tongue-in-cheek installation that questions the functionality of clothes. An array of avant-garde apparel, including dresses with impractical, warped silhouettes, is displayed on tormented wire mannequins
Tickets cost $15 adults, $12 concession, $7 children and families $41.
Lurid Beauty: Australian Surrealism and its Echoes is on display at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Federation Square until 31 January 2016.
Jenny Burns attended the launch of Lurid Beauty on October 8 as a guest of NGV Australia.

Other major NGV exhibitions include Andy Warhol/Ali Weiwei.

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8 years ago

[…] Other major NGV exhibitions current include Lurid Beauty: Australian Surrealism and its Echoes. […]

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