Inaugural TarraWarra International 2013: Animate/Inanimate
29 June–6 October 2013
TarraWarra Museum of Art
311 Healesville-Yarra Glen Road,
Healesville, Victoria, Australia
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 11am–5pm
T +61 (0)3 5957 3100
Artists: Allora & Calzadilla, Amar Kanwar, Janet Laurence, Lin Tianmiao, Louise Weaver
Curator: Victoria Lynn
Six contemporary artists explore connections between the animate and inanimate worlds in Animate/Inanimate, marking the launch of the inaugural TarraWarra International 2013, which will expand the TarraWarra Museum of Art (TWMA) exhibition program to situate Australian art within a global context.
Artists from around the world are creating haunting and beautiful works that consider the profound interconnections between diverse life forms (natural, animal and human). The exhibition will include installations, sound works, sculptural elements and video works by leading contemporary artists from Australia, the USA, India and China who explore the impact of global economic and climatic change on our natural environments and ask, “Can we find a ‘spirit’ in the inanimate?”
Animate/Inanimate considers the natural and animal worlds and will feature a new evocation of Sydney artist Janet Laurence’s translucently veiled, sculptural installation Fugitive, drawing on the native Australian animal taxidermy collection of the Museums Victoria and poignant videos incorporating recorded footage of endangered wildlife from the nearby internationally renowned Healesville Sanctuary; Chinese artist Lin Tianmiao’sAll the Same, a 22-metre-long sculpture of synthetic human skeleton bones wrapped in multi-coloured silken threads and the new installation of pink skulls, Reaction; Indian artist Amar Kanwar’s film The Scene of Crime, charting through a lingering, poetic camera the resistance of local communities in Orissa, India, to the industrial interventions taking place; U.S artists Allora & Calzadilla’s video work Raptor’s Rapture evoking a collapsing of time as a living Griffon Vulture listens to the sounds of a 35,000-year-old flute made from the bone of an ancient relative; and Australian artist Louise Weaver’s Bird Hide and other works, in which the intricate hand-made surfaces of her sculptural elements combine with bird song recordings.
Exhibition artists:
Allora & Calzadilla (USA): Jennifer Allora, born in 1974, U.S.A., and Guillermo Calzadilla, born in 1971, Cuba; both based in Puerto Rico. In 2012 they presented their work Stop, Repair, Prepare: Variations on ‘Ode to Joy’ for a Prepared Piano for the 26th Kaldor Public Art Project at the State Library, Melbourne. In 2011, they represented the United States at the Biennale di Venezia, and their solo exhibitions include MoMA, New York (2010).
Amar Kanwar (India): Born in 1964 in New Delhi, India, where he still lives. Solo exhibitions have included the Fotomuseum Winterthur Germany (2012), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2008), and Whitechapel Gallery, London (2007). He participated in the Bienal de São Paulo (2011) and documenta 11, 12 and 13 (2002, 2007, 2012).
Janet Laurence (Australia): Born Sydney, Australia, lives and works in Sydney.Solo exhibitions include The Ferment, The Fine Art Society Contemporary, London, 2013; After Eden, Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney (2012), and Greenhouse, BildKultur Gallery, Stuttgart, Germany (2007). Group exhibitions include In the Balance: Art for a Changing World, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2010); and 17th Biennale of Sydney, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney (2010).
Lin Tianmiao (China): Born in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province in 1961, one of the first female artists from China to achieve international recognition. Studied in the Fine Art Department, Capital Normal University, Beijing, moved to New York in the 1980s then returned to live in Beijing in 1995. Recent solo exhibitions include Bound Unbound, Asia Society Museum, New York (2012); The Same, Beijing Centre for the Arts, Beijing (2012). Recent group exhibitions include JUNGLE: A Close-up Focus on Chinese Contemporary Art Trends, Platform China, Beijing, (2010) and The State of Things – Brussels/Beijing, Center for Fine Art, Brussels, (2009).
Louise Weaver (Australia) : Born Mansfield, Victoria, 1966, lives and works in Melbourne. Included in numerous group exhibitions including within 2012 Volume One: MCA Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Contemporary Australia: Women, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; Sculpture is Everything, Contemporary works from the Collection, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; and Play, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
Animate/Inanimate is curated by Victoria Lynn, who has an established reputation as an independent visual arts curator of significant Australian and international exhibitions and is the director of TWMA, located one hour from Melbourne.
Public programs: TWMA will present a unique public program of joint tours with Healesville Sanctuary and a forum. twma.com.au
For further information please contact Eliza Ordinans, TWMA Media: eliza [at] twma.com.au / T +61 (0) 3 5957 3100
