Driving Filipino artist Leeroy New from Melbourne Airport to Bendigo in 2008, La Trobe Art Institute’s managing curator Paul Northam had to break some bad news to his visiting artist in residence: there wasn’t much of a materials budget for the six-week project ahead of them. So they would have to visit the tip and scrounge. New, renowned for enormous public sculptures, did not flinch. “What’s the tip?” he asked.
That project was such a success and had such an impact on New that he is now well known for enthusiastic use of recycled materials, a direction sparked by his La Trobe residency. When the artiist visited to make work for the Castlemaine State Festival, he made many trips to the local recycling stations for a thorough fossick. The result is a massive faux entrance covering up the heritage-listed façade of the Castlemaine Art Museum.
No one could have predicted what emerged, though his previous works have intertwined the visual arts with fashion, film and theatre, and he takes inspiration from mythology, film and video games.
Invited jointly by La Trobe University and the 2017 Castlemaine State Festival, in conjunction with the Castlemaine Art Museum and Manila’s Ateneo Art Gallery, New was also commissioned to make a sculpture for the central courtyard at the La Trobe Art Institute for the Mutable Truths exhibition. He was astonishingly busy during his three-week visit. Northam, though, has seen the artist in action and says he delivers “extraordinary results within ridiculous timeframes”.
La Puerta Del Laberinto
Leeroy New
Castlemaine Art Museum
17 March – 26 March
Mutable Truths: Perspectives on Philippine Contemporary Art Practice
La Trobe Art Institute
15 March – 30 April
65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art is an extraordinary account of the unique art of this continent, published alongside a landmark exhibition at the Potter Museum of Art. Necessary and urgent, it tells the story of Indigenous Australian art; a new art history unlike anything we’ve seen. For Jane O’Sullivan, it’s a remarkable and must-read book.
In a new series of illustrated postcards available as a free gift with purchase only at the Art Guide Bookstore, Oslo Davis takes on classic and contemporary art terms and genres and reimagines what they could be referring to.
With so much to choose from, we’ve rounded up the major summer exhibitions in each capital city, open all summer long. Spanning Yayoi Kusama, Magritte, the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, and many more.
First Nations artist Reko Rennie possesses the gift of creating memorable images that are simultaneously puzzling, intriguing and entertaining.
In a new collaborative exhibition at PS Art Space, in partnership with Cool Change Contemporary, five artists with process-lead practices contemplate material ethics through actively engaging in slowness and reuse.
Heide Museum of Modern Art’s summer blockbuster exhibition is unveiling the breadth and beauty of Italian modernism through design. With over 170 objects spanning sixty years, Molto Bello explores the cultural impact of this period of creativity and invention.
