For centuries, artists have been captivated by the female form. From the exaggerated bodies of Neolithic fertility figurines to Renaissance heroines, the female body is a constant thread in the history of art. In daily life, people select clothing and accessories to act out a particular role or version of themselves. The women in these…
John Russell, like his contemporaries Claude Monet and Henri Matisse, were particularly captivated and inspired by the small island of Belle-Île, with its vivid turquoise waters, steep cliffs and craggy rock formations. Roger Benjamin visited France’s wild Atlantic coast to explore the island’s resonance as a motif in French painting. In June 2018, before the…
Continue reading » “Passage to Belle-Île: A motif for John Russell’s paintings”
Our ‘experience’ is the primary ‘material’ Carsten Höller manipulates as an artist. He aims to alter how we perceive the world and spark the senses in new ways. Inspired by his work as a biologist, Höller uses the museum to make scientific and philosophical experiments that reshape our expectations about art and produce unexpected outcomes.…
Continue reading » “Can a slide be art? Watch as we install Carsten Höller’s Left/Right Slide”
Ron Mueck’s In bed depicts a middle-aged woman who has been carefully composed so that the position of her body and facial expression suggest a range of possible emotional states. Is she anxious or quietly reflective? While the viewer may at first be taken aback by the monumental scale of the work, this is ultimately…
Continue reading » “Ron Mueck’s ‘In bed’: Is she anxious or quietly reflective?”
Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s installations combine the technical with the aesthetic and sensorial; the artist refers to them as functioning like a ‘dispositif’ rather than an installation. The term, loosely translated as device or structure, foregrounds the potential to engage viewers in both the operational and aesthetic components of a work. From here to ear (v. 13)…
When the Queensland Art Gallery opened in a new building at South Brisbane in 1982, the contrast with the first art gallery established in Queensland could not have been more marked. The Queensland National Art Gallery was established in 1895, occupying a room on the first floor in the Brisbane Town Hall.1 It was truly…
Continue reading » “Galvanised into action: The transformation of the Queensland Art Gallery”
We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art stands and recognise the creative contribution First Australians make to the art and culture of this country.