Sydney’s Galleries and Exhibitions

G
allery of New South Wales

Exhibitions: 19th century in Australia

                        Europeans art during the 19th  and 20th century 

                        Dorothy Street Galleries of Australian Art

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia

Exhibitions: Jon Campbell

                        MCA Collection

Sydney is a great place to visit and to explore. It has various of exhibitions and galleries which  are all impressive and differ from each other. 

For instance the art gallery of New South Wales which overwhelmed me by its big and beautiful building.

It offers a lot of interesting exhibitions and collections.

An example is the collection about the 19th century of Australian art that includes the painting “Creek scene, Tilba Tilba” (1875) by the artist James Howe ( J H ) Carse. He is known for his detailed landscape artworks which show the artist's understanding of the Australian bush and expresses a kind of melancholy romanticism.

Another painting that got my attention in this exhibition is the artwork “Milford Sound, New Zealand 1877-79” created by Eugene von Guérard.

This painting involves romantic interpretations of the environment based on German art. The reason for that is that Guérard spend some time of his life in Germany before he moved to Australia. I also like that he was born in Vienna and died in London because those experiences are shown in his beautiful paintings.

Looking at another exhibition showed in the gallery I was really interested in the Europeans art during the 19th and 20th Century. Especially Italian artists raised my attention.

Antonio Canaletto impressed me with the painting “The Piazza San Marco, Venice” (1742-46). He distorted the perspective radically to show all buildings from the chosen angle but the cause for me choosing this special picture to talk about is its sense of detail that impressed me a lot.

Pablo Picasso has always been an artist that I am looking up to. His artwork “Femme allongée sur un Canapé (Dora Maar) 1939” shows his own handwriting. Regarding to that I admire his style of drawing and the recognizability of all his paintings.

The exhibition of Dorothy Street Galleries of Australian Art includes a line of images that are made out of ultra-chrome pigment inks printed on archival cotton rag called “Mapping X-Ray fluorescence” (2017) by the artist Janet Laurence. This artwork was created to be a conservation analysis to derive Rembrandt’s reading from the painting “Portrait of Dr. Ephraim Bueno” (1599-1665) with the method of using X-ray fluorescence (XRF).

I caught myself looking at those interesting images for such a long time. They look mysterious and include a lot of details which means it needs some time until those are all discovered and interpreted.

The gallery of New South Wales also provides the exhibition Glorious - earthly pleasure and heavenly realism which bases on Asian art.

This exhibition celebrates the moments of joy anywhere at anytime. For example in changing seasons, the weather and nature.

The moment I entered the room I was overwhelmed by the painting “Blossom gatherers II” (2009-11) by Raqib Shaw which is made of oil, acrylic, glitter, enamel and rhinestones on birch wood. This piece expresses pure harmony, freedom and life at the same time. The usage of warm and natural colours cause happiness and pleasure.

The other rooms in this exhibition show more artwork that convey the feeling of pleasure and joy in all different ways. That and the style of Asian Art impressed me indeed. For example “Landscape” (1938) by Wu Hufan which is created with ink and colours on paper.

Referring to the Photography Endowment Fund exhibition I was very interested in the photography series “the body electric” by Pat Brassington because of him capturing bodies that are distorted with for example stretches on elbows or the neck instead of showing the typical beautiful and untouched body. Furthermore I liked the layout of his photos and how they were arranged on that wall. I realized  again that the layout is an important part of showing artworks, especially when it comes to a series of more than one image.

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia

My second stop was the Museum of Contemporary Art of Australia which shows the MCA Collection of Jon Campbell who has always been interested in local things around him such as the language and rock ‘n’ Roll which he tries to combine with the “overlooked and undervalued” Jon Campbell.

The exhibition I was looking at is called “Stacks On” (2010) including common sayings in Australia, illuminated light boxes and suspended fabric banners. Additionally, his work is based on a striking colour palette. 

I enjoyed his sense of humor in his art and that it’s based on things that around Australian people in their everyday lives. Because I got to experience the kind of Australian lifestyle before I found his work even more interesting. I also like the fact that it has something modern and contemporary in it so it gives a fancy impression and attracts not only people that are usually going to galleries but also the younger and “hipster” generation.

The last exhibition that I have visit is called “Word” and is also a part of the MCA Collection which shows contemporary Australian art that includes texts and language.

Most of the work are posters with political issues and critics that involves gender and equality, indigenous rights, nuclear protest as well as uranium mining. Those posters caught my attention because they show peoples opinions and draw attention to important things that are happening in this world. It also shows variations of how to include typefaces into images and how to combine them in different ways.