The COFA Blog

When: Tue, 13 Oct, ‘09
Where: College of Fine Arts, cnr Oxford Street and Greens Road, lecture theatre: EGO2, 6:00 pm

Architect’s impression of the new COFA by Architectus.

When: Tue, 6 Oct, ‘09
Where: College of Fine Arts, cnr Oxford Street and Greens Road, lecture theatre: EGO2, 6:00 pm

John Kaldor and Anthony Bond  in conversation on the Kaldor gift to the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the development of Kaldor Art Projects.

Anthony Bond

Anthony Bond is currently Assistant Director Curatorial at the Art Gallery of NSW where he has been responsible for collecting international contemporary art since 1984. He has curated many significant projects at AGNSW in those years. He recently worked on a survey of 40 years of John Kaldor projects and is preparing for a major series of exhibitions with the Kaldor collection and Contemporary AGNSW collections starting 2011. His major future project is Kurt Schwitters 2012 at AGNSW.

John Kaldor

John Kaldor AM is a devoted collector, patron and supporter of contemporary art. He has been collecting and commissioning art since the late 1950s and since 1969 has shared his love of art with the Australian public through his series of art projects. He has brought innovative contemporary art to Australia for over 40 years through what is now the not-for-profit organisation Kaldor Public Art Projects. Kaldor Art Projects have included such memorable installations as Christo & Jeanne-Claude’s Wrapped Coast at Little Bay in 1969 and Jeff Koon’s Puppy in 1995.

When: Tue, 6 October, ‘09
Where: College of Fine Arts, cnr Oxford Street and Greens Road, lecture theatre: EGO2, 6:00 pm

FREE

For details on how to get to COFA and to navigate yourself around the campus, please visit: www.cofa.unsw.edu.au/about/location/

To listen to the past COFA Talks please visit UNSW TV:
Semester One Talks: http://tv.unsw.edu.au/collection/cofa-talks-sem-1-2009
Semester Two Talks: http://tv.unsw.edu.au/collection/cofa-talks-sem-2-2009

When: Wed, 30 Sep, ‘09 - Sat, 17 Oct, ‘09
Where: FirstDraft Gallery

The work of Sarah Contos blends literature, Australian history and autobiographical references that combines painting, drawing, collage and soft sculpture in the creation of psychological fictional environments.
Using the blackest humour with melancholic overtones and an openness honesty, the discursive approach Contos takes aims to envelope the viewer in a dreamscape of erotic illusions and tantalising nightmares.
For her first solo show in Sydney “Great Expectations”, Contos draws inspiration from the Charles Dickens novel and fuses it with Australian urban legends, autobiographical nuances and fetishist tendencies, in the transformation of Firstdraft into a sort of abstracted house.
Within this house symbolic objects are either magnified or left to decay:
Soft sculptures made of PVC, chain and drip down wallpapered walls…
Oil painted birds in gilded cardboard cage-frames perch high above a myriad of sequined eyed collaged cats, lurking provocatively beneath them.
Rorschach ink portraits run mental rife while a burnt fireplace still ignites with the memory of flames…
The ghost of the lady of the house reaching for her burnt wedding dress…
Using theatrical lighting of low wattage, lamps and spotlights will infuse the tonal range of black, white, grey and sepia existing alongside dusty pink, gold and opal sequins and glitter in faux candlelight.
The aim of the installation is to suggest comfortability yet to frighten, to make you smile but then weep of loneliness, to seduce yet revolt, contradictions are many as are the numerous possible interpretations…

When: 30 September to 17 October 2009

Where: FirstDraft Gallery, http://www.firstdraftgallery.com

When: Tue, 29 Sep, ‘09
Where: College of Fine Arts, cnr Oxford Street and Greens Road, lecture theatre: EGO2, 6:00 pm

When: Wed, 9 Sep, ‘09 - Sun, 22 Nov, ‘09
Where: Museum of Contemporary Art, The Rocks, Sydney

Wade Marynowsky Autonomous improvisation v1 2007 prepared and automated Pianola, 4 networked computers, 3 projectors, 3 screens, monitor, amplifier, speakers, sound, custom built software to randomly play 37 different video files and to play the Pianola contributing artists: Kristina Harrison (left), Marty Jay (centre) Rev. Kriss Hades (right) installation dimensions variable Installation view, Artspace, Sydney, 2007 Image courtesy and © the artist Photography: Silversalt

“As contemporary art continues to expand outwards, artists are practising with a new level of fearlessness and curiosity.”
Jeff Khan, Guest Curator, Primavera 2009

This year the MCA’s popular Primavera series comes of age as the annual exhibition celebrates its 18th anniversary. With a reputation for uncovering new talent in the visual arts, Primavera provides valuable exposure for emerging artists aged 35 years and under.

Primavera 2009 guest-curator Jeff Khan has selected nine of today’s most exciting young contemporary artists from across the country to explore the relationship between art and the viewer. Discover highly experiential works that engage you through humour, emotion, performance and immersive experiences both inside and outside the galleries.

Working across a range of disciplines, the Primavera 2009 artists are COFA graduates Michaela Gleave and Wade Marynowsky and artists Andy Best, Christine Eid,, Christopher LG Hill, Ross Manning, Roderick Sprigg and spat+loogie.


What: Primavera
Where: MCA, The Rocks, Sydney
When: 9 September to 22 November 2009

Ena Lane Napangarti, Lupul (Ena’s father’s country), acrylic on canvas, 61 x 91.5cm. Courtesy the artist and Papunya Tjupi Arts.

In May 2009 the Ivan Dougherty Gallery held an exhibition titled Building Papunya Tjupi. Curated by the Papunya Tjupi art centre’s directors, Kasumi Ejiri and Simon Taylor, Building Papunya Tjupi showcased the talent of the artists who’ve been working at the centre over the last 18 months.
Etchings and relief prints from workshops conducted at Papunya and at the College of Fine Arts’ Cicada Press revealed the progress the artists have made in this new medium. Descendants of the original founders of Papunya painting presented large family canvases and individual works highlighted how the artists have developed with access to a professional environment.

A slide show about the exhibition with a voice over by Vivien Johnson is accessible from: http://www.unsw.edu.au/news/pad/uniken/multimedia/papunya/slideshow.html

When: Fri, 2 Oct, ‘09 - Sat, 31 Oct, ‘09
Where: Carriageworks, 245 Wilson Street Darlinghurst 2008

Gabriella Mangano & Silvana Mangano, The Surround, 2009 single-channel video, black & white/sound, 16:9

COFA Presents Bec Young: Conversation Observation, as part of Art & About 2009, presented by the City of Sydney

COFA Bachelor of Fine Arts student Rebecca Young will have work included in Art & About 2009. The artwork, titled Conversation Observation is a site specific installation using LED moving message signs placed in the windows of various shops along Oxford Street in Darlinghurst. The variable message signs will display snippets of conversations overheard on Oxford Street, and will be constantly changing. The project will have a discrete ‘minder’ who will listen to pedestrians talking and program the signs through a computer or SMS service.

Conversation Observation taps into the way technology has changed our access to private information in recent years. For example, the boundaries between public and private become blurry as people scream the most intimate things into their mobile phones as they walk down the street. This artwork playfully highlights the fact that not only is big brother watching (and listening), everyone else is too.

COFA Presents Bec Young: Conversation Observation, an associated event of Art & About, presented by City of Sydney

For more information on Art & About please visit: artandabout.com.au

Conversation Observation will be available for public viewing at venues during Art & About October 1st to 25th , 2009 :

Beauchamp Hotel 265-267 Oxford St, Sydney NSW 2000

The Falconer Bar Cafe Restaurant 31 Oxford St, Sydney NSW 2000

Iku Wholefood 62-64 Oxford St, Sydney NSW 2000

Gary Galego, Carbonwood

COFA graduate and designer, Gary Galego, has been chosen as one of the Top Ten Finalists in the Bombay Sapphire Design Discovery Award 2009. Galego was chosen from over 90 entrants in the competition, more entrants than any previous year, for Carbonwood, an interesting design of a bicycle comprising of both wood and carbon.

“Wood and carbon is a relatively new combination of materials. It allows you to strengthen the structure in areas where wood may not be entirely appropriate. The design aims to highlight the possibilities of a material which is a quality I try to imbue in all my work” explains Galego.

The winner will be judged on the 14 October by a panel of judges including COFA graduate Liane Rossler from Dinosaur Designs, Vogue Living editor David Clark and Object director Steven Pozel.

The award provides opportunities for emerging Australian designers, on a local and international level, culminating in an exhibition hosted at Establishment, Sydney from 9 to 30 November before travelling to Melbourne in February and Brisbane in April.

The Bombay Sapphire Design Discovery Award was established in 2003 and is one of the most prestigious design awards, with over AU$40 000 worth of prizes to be won, including a trip to the Salone del Mobile, in Milan Italy. The winner receives a $30 000 grant.

Sylvia Ross, Resonance, 2009, One tonne of coal, 3.2m x 20m.

If you happen by the COFA campus in the next couple of weeks you will see a 20meter long word spelled out with coal on the grass strip outside of the sculpture department. The artwork, which was created by Sylvia Ross, the Head of the School of Art at COFA, is made from one tonne of coal and spells out the word Resonance.
“The artwork is not a political piece regarding the use of coal, its’ more of a prompt for people to think about coal products and waste. Whatever you do has a consequence- it resonates“ explains Ross.
The placement of the artwork is not a matter of chance, because in early Colonial times the grass strip outside the COFA sculpture department was on of the outlets of a waterway called Busby’s Bore.
Busby’s Bore, named after John Busby who in 1826 recommended that the then Lachlan Swamps (now Centennial Park), where Sydney was drawing most of its water from with carts after the Tank Stream became quiet putrid, be delivered to a reservoir at the then Racecourse (today’s Hyde Park) via a bore. The 3.5 kilometre convict built sandstone bore is still underground today, and is protected by a Permanent Conservation Order.

The COFA Campus is open to the public on Saturday the 19th of September for our annual Spring Fair.
Please come down and visit us and check out Resonance.

For more information on how to get to the COFA campus please visit: http://www.cofa.unsw.edu.au/about/location

For more information on the Spring Fair, please visit:  http://www.cofa.unsw.edu.au/newsevents/events/event_0298.html