Meet the training artist, founder-director of LON Gallery and curator of the brand new Hellenic Museum up to date artwork exhibition The solar at midnight.
Hellenic Museum CEO & Head of Curation Sarah Craig, Exhibitions Curator Adam Stone and Curatorial Volunteer Peta Petrakis in entrance of works by Ngilan Margaret Dodd & Grace Wooden in The Solar at Midnight. Photograph: Tangerine Inventive.
On the event of the opening of a brand new up to date artwork exhibition The solar at midnightwe spoke to Adam Stone, the founder-director of Melbourne-based LON Gallery, who curated the exhibition in collaboration with the Hellenic Museum.
Housed in an intimate new gallery within the coronary heart of the Hellenic Museum, this exhibition invitations you to contemplate the universality of Hellenism. Works by 5 up to date artists – Ann Debono, Rob McLeish, Stephen Benwell, Grace Wooden and Ngilan Margaret Dodd – have been curated to point out that Hellenic affect can seem in surprising locations.
Taken in isolation, many of those works could not evoke classical affect. However place them collectively within the coronary heart of the Hellenic Museum, and you can’t fail to look at their binding thread of Hellenic motifs and ideas. Collectively they create a dialogue concerning the methods during which Greek classicism continues to permeate and evolve in up to date tradition.
Hey Adam! Inform us a bit of about your self.
I’m an artist, curator and gallerist based mostly in Naarm/Melbourne. I graduated with a Bachelor of Positive Arts (Honours) from the Victorian Faculty of the Arts in 2013 and have since exhibited broadly in Australia and a bit of internationally. I see my curatorial follow as an extension of my very own artwork making, the place I can work with artists to discover concepts past my capability as a person. It’s extremely rewarding and stimulating to work with artists who’ve spent a few years honing their abilities and who’re masters of their subject as an example or problem curatorial themes.
Do you are interested in Greek artwork in your private or skilled follow?
Throughout my time at VCA I struggled enormously to discover a voice for my follow. The primary piece I made the place issues clicked was once I made a two meter tall sculpture of a crashing skateboarder; which I noticed as a up to date iteration of the parable of Icarus. Since then, I’ve used the juxtaposition of mythology and up to date popular culture and as a technique to create artworks.
How did you come to work with the Hellenic Museum?
I used to be invited by curatorial volunteer Peta, on behalf of the museum’s government director Sarah Craig, to suggest a collection of latest artwork exhibitions that spoke to the historical past of Hellenic tradition. Peta is a training artist who I beforehand curated for an exhibition at LON Gallery the place she confirmed alongside Sydney based mostly ceramicist, Ryan Hancock. The exhibition had the title ‘For and towards classicism’ and was a present that explored notions of Hellenic classicism related to up to date artwork.
What impressed The solar at midnight? How did you select the title?
The exhibition’s title speaks of artwork’s phenomenological capability to operate as a channel between time, place and tradition; on this case connecting two historic civilizations, Greek and First Nations Australia with native up to date views.
How did you select the actual artists and works proven?
This was one of many harder elements of the method. I’d have appreciated to have included one other 10-15 artists within the present, however there was solely room to decide on 5 or so. With that limitation in thoughts, I made a decision to pick out a broad pattern of artists whose follow addressed the curatorial theme whereas at completely different phases of their careers and dealing in numerous media. A few of the artists within the present I’ve labored with earlier than, whereas others, like Stephen Benwell, are artists I’ve admired for a few years and have not had the chance to work with till now.
Have you ever chosen works that present Hellenic affect via the artist’s intention, or has it been introduced out within the curatorial imaginative and prescient?
I believe it was in all probability a mixture. Grace Wooden’s follow addresses elitist artwork histories that embody your complete discourse of Western male-dominated artwork. Equally, the works of Rob McLeish and Ann Debono contact on Hellenic classicism, however though it’s a recurring motif of their work, it stays extra on the periphery of their private line of inquiry. For Stephen Benwell and Ngilan Margaret Dodd, Greek tradition has a fantastic affect. For Ngilan Margaret Dodd, all her sculptures are based mostly on hydria, and Stephen’s ceramic and bronze works all discuss with Greco-Roman statues.
Any enjoyable information concerning the present that you just’d prefer to share?
I used to be solely just lately launched to the work of Ngilan Margaret Dodd. My mom noticed her sculptures at Everywhen Artwork, which is a gallery that displays Australian First Nations artwork. When she noticed that Ngilan’s work merged conventional indigenous weaving strategies with the traditional type of the Greek hydria, she was actually excited concerning the relevance to the Hellenic Museum present that she knew I used to be creating. Thanks for the expertise scouts mother!
What do you hope folks come away with after seeing this exhibition?
I’m excited that Hellenic Museum audiences may have the chance to interact with a brand new vary of latest artwork practices. And in addition for the native up to date artwork group to be taught concerning the wealthy histories via the opposite exhibitions that may be seen on the Hellenic Museum. Particularly, I hope that this exhibition sheds mild on the lineage of Hellenic tradition and its affect on up to date artwork.
The solar at midnight is the primary exhibition within the Hellenic Museum’s new Modern Artwork Area, which is able to host rotating up to date exhibitions. So what’s subsequent?
I will not give an excessive amount of away, however the subsequent exhibition will pair sculptures by one in all Australia’s main multidisciplinary artists with artefacts from the museum’s personal assortment.