Changes are afoot at Bendigo Art Gallery, as staff begin preparing for the exhibition Collective Vision which launches in early March next year.
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In 2017 Bendigo Art Gallery will celebrate 130 years, with this dynamic new exhibition of historic, contemporary, curious, significant, and much-loved favourites from the gallery’s renowned collection.
Considering 130 years of collecting in the context of social, artistic and community change, as well as the evolution of the gallery itself, the curatorial team will take a fresh approach to presenting the immense variety of items acquired, purchased and donated throughout the gallery’s long history.
Visitors will see new acquisitions by leading contemporary Australian artists including Hany Armanious, Michael Cook and Polixeni Papapetrou alongside some of the first works acquired by the founders of the gallery in 1887.
These will be joined by long-time favourites and lesser-known gems from the collection.
Old favourite works will return to display after undergoing extensive conservation, including the immense painting The Horse Market by Franz Hochmann and Thomas Clark’s Ulysses and Diomed capturing the horses of Rhesus, King of Thrace.
These works are much-loved by gallery visitors and will make a welcome return to display in March.
The gallery’s curatorial team have been working together to develop a thematic approach to the display, engaging with themes and ideas which have attracted artists for centuries. Themes such as portraiture; landscape, natural and built environments; animals, their role in everyday life; the human form and myth, allegory and narrative.
The gallery’s vast collection of decorative arts will also be highlighted including furniture, glassware, porcelain and silverware – illustrating the changing tastes in interior decoration over the last two hundred years.
Collective vision will fill every space within the gallery and will offer visitors the opportunity to see works that may not have been on display for many years.
Collective Vision will fill every space within the gallery and will offer visitors the opportunity to see works that may not have been on display for many years.
- Tansy Curtin
New contexts will be created with historic works displayed alongside contemporary; highlighting the themes and subject matter which remain pertinent to artists, as well as examining the stylistic differences in representation.
Collective vision will launch on March 4.