Highlight #37: Read the modern Western society through art

What Australia, Turkey, Canada and Austria are looking at

Australia, Melbourne <Making the Australian Quilt: 1800-1950>

22 July ~ 6 November 2016_National Gallery of Victoria(NGV)

NGV offers its viewers the opportunity to appreciate a rich Australian cultural heritage: quilts. The exhibition brings together more than eighty quilts on the motifs of native flora and fauna, early coats of arms, and everyday life in the nineteenth century. Through the symbols sewed on quilts, the exhibition reveals personal stories of the Australian character, wisdom, and thriftiness.

One eye-catching piece in the exhibition is <The Rajah Quilt>. Considered one of Australia’s most important textiles, it is the only surviving piece that was made by convicts sent from London to Van Diemen’s Land during their three-month sea voyage. This quilt is decorated with bird and flower designs thought to be stitched by female convicts. Due to its sensitivity to light, it is rarely displayed in public, but it is specially shown for the exhibition. This exhibition provides a unique look at the brief Australian colonial period through the history of quilt and the lives who made them.

Misses Hampson <The Westbury quilt (Sampler quilt)> 1900-03

Cotton (flannel) (embroidery and applique) 200.0 x 300.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased through the Australian Textiles Fund 1990
Annie Ellis <Dressing gown>(detail) 1935

Silk, wool, cotton, viscose, rayon, metallic thread (a) 128.0 cm (centre back), 51.0 cm (sleeve length) (dressing gown) (b) 242.0 x 10.0 cm diameter (variable) (belt) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Mrs Annie C. Champion, 1989 (CT136.a-b-1989)
Mary Jane Hannaford <Wedding quilt> 1922

Cotton, wool, glass (beads), sequins (applique) 169.0 x 195.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Gift of Miss Swanson 1997

Turkey, Istanbul <One and the Many>

6 September ~ 13 November 2016_Salt Galata

The exhibition draws from research on the production and distribution of commodities between 1955 and 1995 in Turkey, the period of gradual industrialization. This was the period when industrial products were introduced to the mass market and manufacturers in Turkey could trade in foreign currencies without surveillance of the state, leading to an economic boom. Urban areas of Turkey saw rapid development, absorbing local and global brands that offered consumers provident lifestyle choices.

The exhibition looks back at the period’s material culture through artifacts from various industries, including automotive, white goods, toy, stationery, textile, and food and beverage. By displaying industrial products of 1980s, the period when the products were introduced to public market, the exhibition emphasizes its subject.
The research and narrative of the exhibition is set around the notion of genuine copies and invites the viewers to look at the history of Turkey’s industrialization from different perspectives. The exhibition lets us see the economic revolution Turkey has made and the economic development humans have accomplished through looking into the history of Turkey.

Anadol STC-16 automobile boarding the plane for test runs in the UK, Istanbul, 1973 Ford Otosan Archive
Export Oyak Renault automobiles, Mudanya Pier, Bursa, 1980 Oyak Renault Archive
Textile printer, Sumerbank, date unknown Tudita Archive

Canada, Vancouver <I Had an Interesting French Artist to See Me This Summer: Emily Carr and Wolfgang Paalen in British Columbia>

1 July ~ 13 November 2016_Vancouver art gallery

This exhibition reveals the historic meeting of Canadian artist Emily Carr and Austria-born Surrealist painter Wolfgang Paalen in 1939. Emily Carr, one of the most renowned Canadian artists, was born in British Columbia in 1871. Her Canadian landscapes are considered to have inspired a breakthrough in Modernism. Wolfgang Paalen was born in Austria in 1905 and later settled in Mexico. Holding exhibitions in Europe, he was one of the most active Surrealist painters of the time.

Carr and Paalen, as Modernist artists, struggled to understand the world and demonstrate their transcendent visions. In the summer of 1939, Paalen left Europe and traveled to British Columbia to experience First Nations culture, and met Carr for the first time. Carr’s landscape paintings opened such exciting new possibilities for Paalen that he renounced Surrealism. With the belief that art and science could transform contemporary he dedicated himself to writing and publishing in Mexico. Visit the exhibition and check Carr and Paalen’s fateful meeting and see their chronicle at one at a glance.

Wolfgang Paalen <La roue de l’orage> 1935

Oil, tempera on canvas Collection of Lucid Art Foundation
Photo: Courtesy of Gallery Wendi Norris
Wolfgang Paalen <Messagers des trois poles> 1949

Oil on canvas Collection of Lucid Art Foundation
Emily Carr <Juice of Life> 1938-39

Oil on canvas Collection of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Gift of Dr. Ethlyn Trapp, Vancouver
Photo: Stephen Topfer, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria

Austria, Vienna <Nathalie Du Pasquier: Big Objects Not Always Silent>

15 July ~ 13 November_Kunsthalle Wien

Born in France and based in Milan, Italy, Nathalie Du Pasquier is an artist who embraces all genres of art. She began her career in textile design and is now breaking the boundaries between fine arts, design and craft. For Du Pasqueir, there are no rules in art. Du Pasquier’s earlier career was concentrated more on design, being the youngest founding member of a design and architecture collective in Milan called Memphis, established in 1980. Since 1987, her focus and passion for art shifted from design to painting. As a visual artist, she concentrates on producing work, but at the same time, she is concerned with the hierarchies within artistic fields: "What bores me about the art world is the myth that art is so precious and that it should be expensive. Art is just what you do."

The exhibition shows the rather unique artistic viewpoint of Du Pasquier in a free and lyrical way. Instead of listing the works in chronological order, the exhibition portrays the evolution of her oeuvre by presenting pieces from different periods side by side. Don’t miss this good opportunity to look at Du Pasquier’s 35-year career in one afternoon. ■ with ARTINPOST

<o.T> 2009

Oil on canvas 150×150 Courtesy the artist and Exile Gallery, Berlin
<o.T> 2015

Courtesy the artist and Exile Gallery, Berlin
<Project for Textile> 1983

Courtesy the artist and Exile Gallery, Berlin