Free music machines, science and blood, forays into undiscovered areas and curatorial projects in fashion houses: this is just a small snapshot of what’s on offer at Melbourne’s Nite Art. Featuring more than 60 artists across 25 galleries and museums, the one-night-only event aims to forge new contexts, relationships and experiences for artists and audiences.
Taking place on 27 July, Nite Art is ultimately a celebration of Melbourne’s arts community. “Collaborations and relationships are at the heart of Nite Art,” explains co-founder Deborah Stahle. “The night enables people to discover new spaces and make very real and direct connections with artists and curators.”
Among the many events on offer, Nite Art is playing host to Berlin-based artist Fabian Knecht, who will be presenting a lecture-performance on his works SPLIT (SPALTUNG) and ISOLATION. Created during Knecht’s recent visit to Australia, SPLIT (SPALTUNG) looks at land interventions in a remote conversation reserve, while ISOLATION considers the impact of bringing the gallery space into the wider world.
Another Nite Art highlight is curator Nikki Lam’s moving image curatorial project, Frames of Seeing, which will be housed in fashion house Alpha 60. Meanwhile US artist Jordan Eagles will host his blood projection Illuminations. Arts Centre Melbourne will be screening looped highlights from The Other Film Festival. And galleries including West Space, BLINDSIDE, Linden New Art, CAVES and Flinders Lane Gallery will open their doors for the evening.
Alongside these events, Nite Art also branches out to Melbourne’s academic community. “We’ve been working with the museums and collections at the University of Melbourne by engaging curators and artists to develop a contemporary response to the various collections,” says Stahle. For example, the Grainger Museum will be hosting music and sound performances which explore the legacy of Percy Grainger, while the newly established Science Gallery will investigate both the literal and symbolic nature of blood.
With such a wide variety of events on offer, Nite Art doesn’t indulge any particular curatorial premise. Instead the night looks towards the energy of Melbourne’s art community. As Stahle points out, “It’s a creative snapshot of the creative ecology within the city at this point in time and of course that’s constantly changing, so it doesn’t need the imposition of a curatorial focus as artistic life is constantly evolving.”
Nite Art
Various locations across Melbourne CBD and the University of Melbourne
Thursday 27 July
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.
Whether beloved pets or superstitious omens, animals have always existed in art. The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia’s latest exhibition is paying tribute to two of the most beloved animal figures: cats and dogs.
About Face is a smart piece of marketing. The new book on portrait painting from Australia and New Zealand has a mission to change buyers’ minds about the field. But as Jane O’Sullivan discovers, any sales pitch wears thin if it’s repeated often enough, and the close attention to how portrait painting is received by the market means that other important conversations fade to the background.
Developed in 2022 by Artback NT as part of Apmere Mparntwe—the Australian Ceramics Triennale— touring exhibition Clay on Country, showing now at New England Regional Art Museum, showcases the diversity of ceramics in the Central Desert.
