Cultural Exchange

Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces has a longstanding history of developing cultural exchange projects, bringing recent tendencies in international art to Melbourne, whilst also developing opportunities for contemporary Australian artists to present their work internationally, in collaboration with international peers, thereby establishing new opportunities and professional contexts for their work. Encompassing visiting artists-in-residence programs, bilateral studio exchanges, international exhibitions, publications and curatorial projects, recent cultural exchange projects include:

Frame: a selection of Italian artists 2006

Curated by Chiara Agnello and Roberta Tenconi, curators-in-residence at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces in August / September 2006, Frame was an evolving project, offering a dynamic overview of Italian contemporary art practice. Incorporating video projections and installations from some of Italy’s most respected emerging artists, Frame’s changing 22-day program included work from Elisabetta Benassi, Armin Linke, Amedeo Martegani, Marzia Migliora, Diego Perrone, Patrick Tuttofuoco, Zimmerfrei and more. Incorporating a video program in Studio 12, as well as occasional installation and web-based projects in the otherwise private space of Studio 18, Frame invited audience speculation on a range of topics that presently occupy the Italian imagination – from irony and nonsense, to architecture and minimalism, to sound and music, to autobiography. A full description of the program and calendar is available HERE

Chiara Agnello is Curator at Careof in Milan, a documentation centre for visual arts. Her freelance projects include the recent exhibitions Inhabituel, Dena Foundation for Contemporary Art, Milan / Paris, 2005 and Diari, Milan, 2006. Roberta Tenconi is a curator and critic based in Milan who has most recently been working with the 4th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art as well as for Flash Art magazine.

Frame is part of M.M.M (milano.melbourne.milano), a cultural exchange project between the sister cities of Milan and Melbourne, which was developed and coordinated by independent curator Natalie King, and Monash University Museum of Art’s Director, Max Delany. The project will continue in February 2007 with exhibitions of Australian artists in Milan.

Visting Curator Programng Curator Program

The Visiting Curator Program is an initiative in which an invited international curator undertakes a six-week residency in Gertrude's Studio 18. During this period, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces facilitates a series of studio visits and meetings with artists and professionals involved in the Australian contemporary arts sector. The aim of the Program is to open new opportunities for Australian artists to present and promote their work in an international context, and for international curators to establish ongoing, in-depth relationships with Australian arts practitioners. The program started in 2005 with inaugural participants Danae Mossman (Director of the Physics Room in Christchurch, New Zealand), and Aminudin Siregar (Ucok) from Bandung, Indonesia. 2006 participants included Judith Schwarzbart (Copenhagen, Denmark) and Chiara Agnello & Roberta Tenconi (Milan, Italy).

Supernatural Artificial, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, 2004; Art Centre, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, 2005; Fine Arts Museum of Vietnam, Hanoi, 2006.

Supernatural Artificial examined the notion of artificial fabrication and staging in photo-based media. Presenting the work of nine leading Australian artists working in photography and video, Supernatural Artificial was a highly charged and moody exhibition that uncovered the un-natural and theatrical in contemporary photographic practice. Mixing equal parts fantasy and reality, each artist choreographed intense and strange scenarios, imbuing their images with unsettling drama and potency. Curated by Natalie King, the exhibition presented the work of Pat Brassington, Cherine Fahd, Eliza Hutchison, Tracey Moffatt, David Noonan & Simon Trevaks, Darren Siwes, Darren Sylvester, Monika Tichacek and Anne Zahalka. Supernatural Artificial was a joint project of Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces and the Asialink Centre of The University of Melbourne.

Use-by2, Bangkok, Thailand 2002
Expanding upon the initial Use-by exhibitions in Melbourne in 2000, which celebrated the resourcefulness of the prolific artist-run and independent gallery scene in the Asia-Pacific region, curators Tessa Dwyer and Sarah Tutton collaborated with Project 304's Gridthiya Gaweewong to facilitate an artistic collaboration between four artists in Bangkok. Visual artists Alexander Knox and Christian Thompson (Melbourne), sound designer Tul Waitoonkait and filmmaker/artist Prapon Joe Kumjin (Bangkok) set up a studio together at Project 304, working in pairs to develop work for exhibition. Sharing a commitment to exchanging ideas, swapping contexts and refashioning resources, the artists and curators aimed to explore new ways of working across and between cultures.

ARCO, Madrid 2002
In his role as a member of the Australia Council's ARCO 2002 committee, Director Max Delany contributed to the development of Australia's involvement as guest country at ARCO, a leading international art fair held annually in Madrid. Max was also involved in convening a series of Panel Discussions involving Australian and international artists and curators, in collaboration with Tony Bond, from the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Screen Life, Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid, 2002
Screen Life/Pantalla Viva: Videos from Australia was a two-part program of video work by Australian artists, developed for presentation on a large, architecturally-scaled screen on the façade of the Reina Sofia Museum, and complemented by a program of theatre-based screenings surveying the work of the 12 participating artists in greater depth. Screen Life was commissioned to coincide with Australia's participation as guest country at ARCO, and was designed to coincide with the ongoing program of the Reina Sofia Museum in surveying international video practice. Curated by Max Delany and Stuart Koop, in association with Victoria Lynn, Screen Life presented the work of 12 leading established and emerging Australian artists, and encompassed a diversity of positions and video formats: from the documentation of 1970s performance art; and aboriginal TV from the 1980s; to a selection of artists' film and video projects over the past decade including a feature-length 'horror' movie; short narrative, drama and experimental works; excerpts from installation and performance works; reconstructed music clips and digital environments. The exhibition has subsequently toured to two venues in New Zealand: the Govvett Brewster Gallery, New Plymouth and the Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland.

Exchange with Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, LA, USA 1994-2001
Established in 1994, the studio exchange between Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces and Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, with financial and administrative support from the School of Art and Culture at RMIT, provides the opportunity for a Victorian-based artist to visit Los Angeles for a period of four months and work on faculty in the prestigious postgraduate program at Art Center College of Design, and, in alternate years, for an artist associated with Art Center to visit Melbourne as artist in residence at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, teaching on faculty in the School of Art & Culture at RMIT University and presenting an exhibition at Gertrude. Previous artists to LA include: Chris Ulbrich, Callum Morton, Martine Corompt and Mike Stevenson. Previous artists to Melbourne include: Sabina Ott, Gabrielle Jennings, and Andy Alexander.

Artissima, Turin, Italy 2001
Gertrude contemporary art spaces presented Emily Floyd's work In the Before Time,.2001, in Italy on the occasion of Artissima, an international art fair held annually in Turin. The Director was one of 12 curators invited to present a project room at the fair as part of 'Present/Future', a curated program devoted to the newest and most interesting artists from around the world. Emily Floyd's critically-acclaimed work In the before time 2001 was presented among 12 artists from Europe, USA, Asia and Australia, and was a runner-up in the Illy caffè award selected by a jury of international
collectors.

UKS Biennial, Oslo, Norway 2001
Following previous exhibitions in Melbourne and Oslo from 1999, Gertrude
contemporary art spaces' ongoing exchange with colleagues in Norway was manifest in 2001 with a major project presented as pasrt of the UKS Biennial, Oslo involving Norway's Ole Jorgen Ness working in collaboration with Melbourne's Angus Blackburn.

Hot Rod 12
Hot Rod is a streetwise fashion, art, music and lifestyle magazine published in Oslo and distributed internationally. For Hot Rod 12, guest editors Max Delany and Rick Swallow were invited to contribute a feature on art and lifestyle in Melbourne, which included commissioned artist's pages from Sharon Goodwin, Matthew Griffin and Lyndal Walker, an interview with Mutlu Çerkez by Damiano Bertoli, as well as articles and picture essays dedicated to Melbourne's active music and bar scene. An accompanying exhibition was prtesented at Gertrude to coincide with the launch.

USEby: Asia Pacific Artist Initiatives Project, Melbourne, Australia 2000
Initiated in collaboration with Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, and presented in association with the Melbourne Festival. Continuing Gertrude contemporary art spaces' commitment to cultural exchange between artists and organisations, USEby explored the burgeoning phenomenon of artist-run and independent galleries throughout the Asia Pacific region, and involved artists from Bangkok, Christchurch, Hong Kong, Manilla, Melbourne, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo. Curators Tessa Dwyer and Sarah Tutton developed the project from the perspective of artist-run spaces, focussing on artistic collaboration and the way in which practical and social limitations function as creative tools. USEby also incorporated a website, a Forum Series coordinated by Danny Huppatz, featuring local and international speakers, a screening of recent Thai film and video, and a satellite exhibition at 1st Floor Artists and Writers Space. The exhibition was successful in developing ongoing dialogue and exchange between artists and independent galleries in the Asia Pacific region.

Brand New Master Copy, Oslo, Norway 2000
Developed by Gertrude contemporary art spaces in response to an invitation by UKS Gallery to present a reciprocal exhibition in Oslo, (following Gertrude Street's presentation of the Norwegian Pavilion as part of the Melbourne International Biennial), Brand New Master Copy featured the work of three of Melbourne's most exciting younger artists - Julia Gorman, David Jolly and Ricky Swallow. Curated by Ricky Swallow, the exhibition and catalogue provided a significant opportunity for Melbourne artists to present their work in an international context. The project was also successful in consolidating relationships between artists and organisations in both centres, with ongoing projects and residencies undertaken in 2001. Brand New Master Copy was also accompanied at UKS Gallery by Blockbuster 99, a compilation of recent video works, selected by Ricky Swallow.

Akihabara TV II, Tokyo, 2000
Following a visit to Melbourne and residency at 200 Gertrude Street by Masato Nakamura and Myeong-eun Shin, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces was invited to be involved as commissioning curator for Jacinta Schreuder's participation in Akihabara TV2, a public art project developed by Tokyo-based artist-run group command-N for hi-fi stores and electronic billboards in Tokyo's electric town.

Melbourne Scotland Cultural Exchange Project, 1998-99
The Melbourne Scotland Cultural Exchange program encompassed a series of projects between contemporary art institutions, curators and artists in Melbourne and Scotland. Exhibition and studio exchange projects were presented in Melbourne in 1998 by the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Centre for Contemporary Photography, 200 Gertrude Street (Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces) and the Museum of Modern Art at Heide. A further series of exhibition and studio exchange projects were presented in Glasgow at the Glasgow School of Art (GSA) and Transmission Gallery in 1998 and 1999 respectively, and in Edinburgh at Stills Gallery and Collective Gallery in 1999. The program was co-ordinated by the following curators: Charlotte Day (then 200GS), Max Delany (then MOMA at Heide), Stuart Koop (then CCP) and Clare Williamson (then ACCA). These curators worked initially with Charles Esche and Toby Webster (The Modern Institute) and Sam Ainsley (GSA); and subsequently with the Committee at Transmission, Kate Tregaskis at Stills, Sarah Munro at Collective, Toby Webster at the Modern Institute, and Francis McKee at the CCA. The program integrated the work of Australian and Scottish artists in a coordinated series of solo, group and site-specific exhibitions, a bilateral studio exchange, and a series of illustrated catalogues and publications with commissioned essays.