Making it new: Focus on
contemporary Australian art
Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, 07 April 2009 – 12 July 2009
Curator: Glenn Barkley
Neil Taylor, Installation view, Making it New: Focus on contemporary Australian art, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, 2009. Image courtesy the artist and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia © the artist
About the exhibition:
This exhibition was the fourth instalment of a series of major exhibitions showcasing the work of Australian artists from around the country, focusing on established artists who have a sustained exhibiting career of ten years or more.
Making it New: Focus on Contemporary Australian Art brought together artists whose work is anchored in some sense of tradition, possessing a link back to art history through either a particular regional or national history, or through a medium. There was also an engagement with the political and social world, either gentle or abrasive, both in the works and through the artist’s position within his or her own social community as teacher, supporter or advocate.
Many of the artists were involved in areas of social justice and cultural access, working with communities beyond their immediate artistic peers and support networks. Another key element within the artists work was an ongoing studio practice and the sense of the studio as an alchemical place, where artists reveal mystic truths, and of artistic ‘labour’. A number of the artists work within craft-based traditions, engaging with media in such a way that the processes of the past are inescapable.
Artists included: Alison Alder, Micky Allan, Jon Campbell, Lou Hubbard, Matthew Hunt, Robert Jenyns, Linda Marrinon, Archie Moore, Tom Moore, Marrnyula Mununggurr, Raquel Ormella, Alwin Reamillo, Khaled Sabsabi, Neil Taylor, Kenneth Thaiday Snr., Ruth Waller, Toni Warburton, Ken Whisson