Designed to showcase leading contemporary art practice in a global context, All that is solid… the third TarraWarra International will feature works by leading Australian and International artists that elicit imaginative responses to dynamic change, past and present.
The title of the exhibition is derived from a phrase in the Communist Manifesto (1848) by Marx and Engels, “all that is solid melts into air” – which was popularised by US author Marshall Berman in his book of that title published in 1982. The Berman text examined social and economic modernisation and its conflicting relationship with modernism.
For this exhibition, only the first part of the phrase is stated, leaving the audience to imagine and ponder how the sentence might finish, with works by Didem Erk (Turkey); Cao Fei (China); Tom Nicholson (Australia); Patrick Pound (Australia) and Cyrus Tang (Australia).
TarraWarra Museum director, Victoria Lynn, curator of the exhibition, says the artists have depicted precarious histories, and their art offers imaginative responses. “Conscious that we live in the midst of dynamic change, each of the artists in this exhibition considers historical and precarious moments and images,” says Lynn.
“While some have used an historical event or archival fragment as a starting point for their work, imagining connections between the past and the present, others depict the current social changes, turbulent conflicts, and altered political and urban landscapes with a new imaginative filter.
“Viewers will encounter sewn books, robotic vacuum cleaners, cremated encyclopaedias, charcoal, ash, porcelain, and images of changing architectural and natural environments – some in a state of ruin – presented on video and in photography. The artists present the transformation of all that was solid into their own unique 21st century visions.”
TarraWarra International 2017: All that is solid…
Tarrawarra Museum of Art, 311 Healesville-Yarra Glen Road, Healesville
Exhibition continues to 12 November 2017
Admission fees apply
For more information, visit: www.twma.com.au for details.
Image: Cao Fei, Rumba II-Nomad, 2015 (video still) 14:16min. Sound by Dickson Dee. Courtesy the artist and Vitamin Creative Space