Drawing Horizon. Solar-light Installation. North Sea Satellietgroep. James Geurts, 2011
Melbourne and Netherlands-based artist James Geurts has been awarded the 2016 Georges Mora Fellowship, including a $10,000 grant, a residency at State Library Victoria, one year’s premium membership to the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA), and – for the first time – a residency at the La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre (VAC) in Bendigo.
Read moreOn Thursday 18 February, State Library Victoria will host an information night detailing the range of Fellowships it will host in 2016...
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A new solo exhibition from 2014 Georges Mora Fellow Inez de Vega will take place across all three gallery spaces of the Alliance Française heritage-listed mansion in St Kilda from mid September 2016.
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Having secured funding to publish a book, 2010 Georges Mora Fellow, Ross Coulter, is in the process of photographing an audience gathered in every gallery in Melbourne, watching a performance that doesn’t exist. The project tilted “Audience” is a photographic series that documents an audience who is gathered in a gallery space and has been instructed to imagine that they are viewing a performance art event. Participants are required to stand or sit in an empty gallery, in which there is no art, while black and white photographs are taken of them. The subjects are asked to direct their gaze to different parts of the gallery space and evoke a variety of expressions.
By drawing on the visual language of 1970s performance art documentation images, he is seeking to construct a photographic archive of an audience witnessing a number of performance (non) events in and around Melbourne. In this series of black-and-white photographic prints however, the performer and performance are absent, cropped out of the picture. The focus of the images is both the audience, looking on with a variety of expressions as they bear witness to a non-event, and the identity of the gallery space itself. Australian artist and art historian Charles Green notes that, “through documentation (of performance art happenings or events), the exemplary ‘truthfulness’ of performance deteriorates.”
With a planned production date of October 2017, Performing Disorder! will be the outcome of Inez de Vega’s 2014/2015 Georges Mora Fellowship in partnership with the State Library of Victoria.
Performing Disorder! is a fully immersive spectacle of spoken word, dance, song and projected image that will take place under the library's famous dome. At night, the panopticon of the dome will erupt with a madness and pathos that will unveil the true stories of women incarcerated in Victoria’s psychiatric institutions. Set in an institutional time warp, the audience will be transported from the 1890s, through the now and into the future.
Half theatre/half art-installation, it involves collaboration with up to 35 artists, dancers, singers, composers, choreographers, producers, technicians and mentors, and is De Vega's most ambitious project to date.
Inez de Vega, Bed Therapy, 2014, ACCA Upstarts. Photos: Ben Taranto
Read the essay by Catherine Deveny here.
Inez de Vega will be therapist-in-residence in the pop-up shipping container gallery in the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art forecourt from 11th to 15th November.
Bringing her own brand of street counselling to weary city dwellers who feel alienated and in need of support, she will provide a welcome source of unexpected comfort (in a cosy bed) for passers by who feel ill at ease with the demands of urban life.
Inez will have one participant at a time join her in bed (though the public can listen in). She will engage her participant in an intimate discussion about their life, the challenges they face and their feelings. Inez’s bed is a place where we are encouraged to admit we carry wounds beneath the veneer of strength that we show to the world.
We are all wounded, yet as we go about our business in the urban environment we are expected to present a robust and uncomplicated exterior. Inez is offering her participants a rare moment of vulnerability in a communal space — where the public might risk an intimate encounter with a caring stranger and access their deeper feelings.
Bed Therapy will take place from 11.30am – 2.30 pm daily. Each therapy session will run for 40 minutes. If you would like to book in for therapy with Inez, please contact ACCA reception on (03) 9697 9999 (sessions are free).
Linda Tegg's Grasslands, a grand meditation on nature versus culture at the State Library of Victoria, is on exhibition from Sat 11 Oct – Sun 23 Nov as part of the Melbourne Festival.
Grasslands is an attempt to re-create the pre-settlement grasslands that once occupied the site on which the State Library of Victoria now stands. Working with experts at The University of Melbourne Department of Resource Management and Geography, Tegg selected a plethora of specially grown native plants and grasses.
This project is supported by The Georges Mora Foundation, the State Library of Victoria, the Australia Council, the City of Melbourne and the Melbourne School of Land and Environment, Melbourne University.
Artist: Linda Tegg
Horticulturist: John Delpratt
Landscape Architect: Anthony Magen
Linda Tegg preparing Grasslands
![Grasslands-(Site-test-SLV)-2014.-Linda-Tegg_0[1].jpg](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/527db5d1e4b05ebb58c0898c/1412921017755-F6T2YD5EKS69OB5YHW2D/Grasslands-%28Site-test-SLV%29-2014.-Linda-Tegg_0%5B1%5D.jpg)
Philip Brophy, 2009 Georges Mora Fellow, is in the group exhibition
BENGLIS 73/74
curated by Geoff Newton
at TCB art inc.
01.10.2014 - 18.10.2014
Philip Brophy, The Lady in the Lake, digital verctor mural print series, 2013
The Georges Mora Foundation is delighted to announce that Clive Scott has joined the Georges Mora Foundation as Chair. Clive is the General Manager of Sofitel Melbourne on Collins and and Area General Manager – Sofitel Australia and Fiji and is a well-known and respected supporter of the arts in Melbourne. He is on the board of Craft Victoria, is Chairman of the Department of Management and Marketing Advisory Board at the University of Melbourne, and is Chairman of Judges for the 2014 Melbourne Awards. He was an ambassador of the 2014 Melbourne Art Fair. Clive has been honoured with the Gold Tourism Medal from the French Minister of Tourism for his contribution to tourism development between France and Australia.
We also welcome curator and arts writer Laura Lantieri to the board. Laura brings diverse experience, she currently works at Arc One Gallery and in 2013 she worked in Italy at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and the Australian Pavilion for the 55th Venice Biennale. She holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Honours) and a Master of Art Curatorship from the University of Melbourne
From left:
Clive Scott, Chair of The Georges Mora Foundation
Inez de Vega, 2014 Georges Mora Foundation Fellow
Caroline Williams, Foundation Founder
Louise Vigar, former Chair of the Georges Mora Foundation
photograph courtesy of State Library of Victoria photographer James Braund.
Louise Vigar joined the foundation in 2005 – the year it was launched – becoming the chair shortly thereafter. Lou was key to the foundation’s development and subsequent growth. With a great respect for artists together with a rock solid belief in the necessity of art, Lou brought both gravitas and a sense of responsibility to the role. Her long commitment is greatly appreciated by The Georges Mora Foundation.
"The idea for the collaboration between Arthur Boyd and Peter Porter on The lady and the unicorn prints and poems was inspired by Georges Mora who had seen the beautiful medieval tapestries on this theme at the Cluny Museum in Paris and thought it would be an ideal subject for art and poetry. " - National Gallery of Australia, Arthur Boyd: Agony and Ecstacy, 5 September - 9 November 2014, exhibition themes
VIEW A GALLERY OF THESE WORKS HERE
The 2014 Georges Mora Foundation Fellow, Inez de Vega is presenting work in three exhibitions:
F Word Contemporary Feminist Art
Ararat Regional Gallery
28 August - 12 October 2014
The Substation Contemporary Art Prize
Substation, Melbourne
15 August - 12 October 2014
Play
Blindside, Melbourne - Online Exhibition
17 August - 11 October 2014
Inez de Vega, Dying Not to Be, 2013
Still from HD Video, 08:00min
Linda Tegg's Choir will be exhibited at West Space, Melbourne, from 1 -30 August 2014.
Linda TEGG, Choir, 2013
Still from HD Video, 07:00min
The two-part video Choir was developed through the Georges Mora Foundation Fellowship at the Centre Intermondes d’Art, La Rochelle with Coup de Chœur.
Linda Tegg was the 2012 Georges Mora Foundation Fellow and in 2013 was awarded an Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship resulting in Linda soon commencing study at School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Linda is also the recipient of an Australia Council New Project Grant, the City of Melbourne Arts Grant and an Arts Victoria Grant 2014.
“Beneath the veneer of strength that we are expected to present to the world, most of us carry disturbing complexes of fear, guilt or shame. Unless we acknowledge these internal states, I suspect we won’t be able to change them.” - Inez de Vega, 2014
Inez de Vega, Lillian Temple-Dumble & Greatest Hits' Maximalist Cat, 2014
Firstly congratulations on being awarded the 2014 Georges Mora Foundation Fellowship! What are some of your hopes for the year ahead and the possibilities the fellowship opens up?
Thank you so very much. I am absolutely delighted to have been awarded the fellowship. In the next 12 months, I shall continue experimenting and strive to put up work that does justice to the decision of the board to award me this great honour. Georges Mora has an esteemed reputation both in Australia and in France for his services to culture and the arts. I am told he was a remarkable human being who railed against the stifling conservatism of Melbourne in the 50s and 60s, encouraging artists to bravely embrace their unique voice. If I were to use two adjectives to describe my practice it would be ‘personal’ and ‘transgressive’ so it feels like the perfect fit to be working with the foundation in the year ahead. I believe that Melbourne artists, in particular, are indebted to Georges’ legacy and I am very excited to be a part of that.
More specifically, the fellowship will provide me with both the financial and logistical resources (of the State Library) to research my project. This will involve the exploration of transgression in contemporary Australian art.
How and when did you decide to pursue being a visual artist? Was it a decisive moment or gradual steps that led to this career path?
It was a very gradual process to find my way as a visual artist. I have always had a strong interest in the creative arts (albeit in a very low-brow sense). As a child, I learned tap-dancing; and as a family, we loved watching old Hollywood musicals. My siblings and I would devise impromptu shows for our parents. But my first degree was in the very rational field of Economics and, without any personal insight, I landed in the banking industry — in hindsight an enigmatic career choice, to say the least! It was the onset of depression and a need to express myself creatively that put a stop to my banking career. I wrote and I painted, and I ended up applying to go to art school. Then, in the wonderfully experimental and supportive environment of the VCA, my childhood performances came back to me and I first entertained the idea of becoming a performance artist — although I had no idea what that might look like. Each day is still a mystery and sometimes I feel like a big fraud living out my childhood fantasy!
still image: Inez de Vega, Dying not to be, 2013, HD video
Still image: Inez de Vega, My father the fool, 2011 HD video
Your practice brings together performance and personal narratives intertwined with theatrical and/or cinematic scripts and influences. What are some of the things you have been looking at or considering recently?
I’m a sucker for a good, emotional narrative, which makes me quite irredeemable in many ways because, of course, abstraction and minimalism are still probably the most pervasive forms of expression in contemporary art. I’m also enamoured of beauty and (to my own chagrin) am not usually inspired by the orthodoxy of conceptualism, nor the anti-aesthetic in the visual arts. I crave to be moved. Watching a stunning movie, having a big belly laugh, reading a gripping novel or hearing beautiful music transports me — these are the things I seek out for pleasure and am driven to try to utilise in my own practice. I have arrived at the conclusion that, despite being a Buddhist, I am definitely not a minimalist in this lifetime – but I think by virtue of its suggestion to practise kindness towards myself and others, Buddhism is teaching me it’s okay to embrace my maximalism!
Your work is often heavily loaded with challenging content. How do you personally negotiate and maintain your experimental, provocative practice and what are the triumphs and difficulties artists working in these ways face?
I was the black sheep of my family, the rebel; so challenging people is in my make-up. Although in the art world people often wear their difference with pride, I’ve found it hasn’t been an easy path for me to see the world in opposition to the majority. In my childhood, it cost me a lot to be different. As I’ve matured and become more aware of this tendency to transgress, I find I can channel it into my art practice, where it generally finds a healthy and legal outlet. This is undoubtedly the benefit of being provocative. Mostly though, even today, I still have to hold myself back from completely letting go because I wouldn't want to harm others because of my tendency to push the limits!
The other danger in being provocative is that there is often a backlash against those who challenge the status quo. In principal, we like the idea of thinking of ourselves as different and flexible, but change is very difficult and we will oftentimes actively resist it. So to do anything provocative is to open yourself up to criticism and hatred, and this is very painful. I find I have to strike a balance between protecting myself and going for it.
Over many years of doing live and video-mediated performances what are some things you have learnt about performing that have surprised you? Does it get easier over the years?
I think every performance artist will have a different definition of what performance art is. I used to think of it as an exploration of authenticity, compared with the actor who deliberately and expertly takes on a role. I now think we all take on roles, whether we are actors or not. And perhaps through performance, I am attempting to explore how we perform! A sort of meta-analysis of performing, if you like. Bit by bit, I am exposing my panoply of selves until maybe I will just be naked with the viewer and not feel the need to take on any more roles… but maybe that is just a philosophical construct.
As for getting easier, yes and no. I am becoming more confident in my ability to perform and to contextualise my practice. However, I still struggle everyday with the fear of beginning a new work, and the fear that I won’t be a ‘good enough’ artist— however nebulous that is.
What do you hope to change in the viewer with your art practice?
Ooooh, that is a tough question. I don’t know that I can change the viewer but, like any little dancing girl, I do want to entertain my audience. The most depressing thing for me is making a work that fails to engage the viewer. I strive to put on a good show! I guess in many ways I employ fairly obvious tools such as narrative, emotion, humour and a lack of subtlety to try to make a connection, and then I repel people with challenging content that deals with issues such as trauma and suicide.
Do you think of yourself as a feminist and if so does this influence your work?
Oh, absolutely I’m a feminist. I never set out specifically to create a feminist artwork, only to make something that interests me. But because I am motivated to tell stories about female subjectivity, domestic violence, child abuse and psychological transformation — and more generally to effectively represent affect in art — I think my work tends to evoke a feminist reading. I relate very strongly to the feminist creed of the 1970s that the ‘personal is political’.
Georges Mora Foundation founder and board member, Caroline Mora Williams today announced Inez de Vega as recipient of the 2014 Georges Mora Foundation Fellowship.
Inez de Vega is a performance and video artist based in Melbourne.
Referencing compelling visual imagery from the history of art, cinema and theatre, Inez plays with the past to create contemporary narratives of trauma, transgression and psychological neuroses.
Inez grew up in a family addicted to Hollywood musicals and it is this popular art form that delivers the starting point for her performances. Merging a theatrical aesthetic with her own personal allegory, she creates boldly satirical characters.
Through performance and video, the individuals she inhabits are driven to extremes. They transgress social norms and articulate the mental states that collectively we do our best to hide from one another. But whether our mental suffering is the result of a diagnosable psychiatric illness or merely the anxieties of everyday living, we each find a way of acting out our neuroses. And therein lies her obsession: how do we perform our own madnesses?
Announcing the 2014 Georges Mora Foundation Fellow, Caroline Mora Williams commented that “Inez encapsulates what the Georges Mora Foundation values – courage, creativity and the unexpected to challenge the status quo and give strength to new thinking in art.”
The Georges Mora Foundation Fellow is awarded $10,000 generously donated by arts supporters. Inez will also receive in-kind support from the State Library of Victoria and Alliance Française de Melbourne and access to a residency with Centre Intermondes in La Rochelle, France.
In May the 2014 Georges Mora Foundation Fellowship Judges convened to assess nominations. The panel comprised the following eminent arts and cultural professionals:
Mark Burlace – Head of Programming, Melbourne Festival
Ross Coulter – Artist and 2010 Georges Mora Foundation Fellow
Kate Daw – Artist and academic
Robert Heather – Manager, Collection Interpretation, State Library of Victoria
Julie Kantor – Director, Annamila Foundation
Anaïs Lellouche – Curator, Centre Pompidou Australian Association
Louise Vigar – Chair, Georges Mora Foundation
Caroline Williams Mora – Artist and Founder Georges Mora Foundation
Kit Wise – Artist and academic
The panel noted the exceptionally high standard of this year's nominees.
The Foundation Board wishes to thank the Judges for their engagement and rigour in selecting the 2014 Fellow. We look forward to announcing the 2014 Georges Mora Foundation Fellow later this month.
We were delighted to receive a record number of applicants for the 2014 Georges Mora Foundation Fellowship. Currently shortlisting is taking place.
Applications for the Georges Mora Foundation Fellowship 2014-15 are now open
Please see the 2014 Fellowship for guidelines and to download the application form.
The Georges Mora Foundation Fellowship is awarded each year to a contemporary artist to engage in fresh thinking and to research new possibilities in their art.
The Fellowship provides financial support, residency opportunities and access to organisations and individuals with specialist knowledge to supports the artist to research, experiment and create.
Announcing the 2014 Fellowship, Georges Mora Foundation founder and board member, Caroline Mora Williams today recalled Georges’ belief that ‘the artist participates in the wholeness of life, in the connectedness of things whereas art comes from this without admitting a thing’.
The Georges Mora Foundation seeks an artist who has shown continuous commitment to the field of contemporary art and wishes to challenge their practice and the field of contemporary art further, and whose past work has demonstrated gravitas.
The Georges Mora Foundation Fellowship is awarded with funds generously donated by arts supporters and with the support of the State Library of Victoria, Alliance Française de Melbourne and other partners. The Fellowship will be awarded by an independent panel of recognised arts and cultural professionals.
Artworks by two past recipients of the Georges Mora Foundation Fellowship, Ross Coulter (2010) and Brook Andrew (2013) are part of Melbourne Now currently on exhibition at NGV. Other Fellows are Trinh Vu (2007), Cyrus Tang (2008), Philip Brophy (2009), Linda Tegg (2012) and Trent Walter (2013).
The Fellowship is open to any Australian citizen or resident who has a recognised and reputable body of work in the field of contemporary art. There is no age limit.
Named in honour of Georges Mora, the renowned restaurateur, art dealer, patron, mentor and cultural catalyst, the Georges Mora Foundation aims to facilitate and encourage new and independent thinking required for the development of art in Australia.
Submissions close 17 April 2014
Enquiries georgesmorafoundation@gmail.com or 0400 048 050
www.georgesmorafoundation.org.au
Ross Coulter's 10,000 Paper Planes - Aftermath (1) was acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria in 2012. This work was created during Coulter's Georges Mora Foundation Fellowship residency at the State Library of Victoria in 2011. The large scale photograph will be on display, alongside the other two photographs that resulted from the performance event, as part of the NGV exhibition Melbourne Now from 22 November 2013 until 23 March 2014. Read Senior Curator of Photography, Susan van Wyk's text about the performance and documentary photograph HERE.
Ross COULTER
10,000 Paper Planes - Aftermath (1) 2011
type C photograph
156 x 200 cm (image and sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased NGV Foundation, 2012
2012.332
(top image) Melbourne Now installation photograph courtesy of National Gallery of Victoria.
Brook Andrew's work in Melbourne Now is the large scale Vox: Beyond Tasmania, 2013 pictured below.
Brook ANDREW
Vox: Beyond Tasmania 2013.
Wood, cardboard, paper, books, colour slides, glass slides, 8mm film, glass, stone, plastic, bone, gelatin silver photographs, metal, feather. 267cm x 370cm x 271cm.
Melbourne Now installation photograph, courtesy of National Gallery of Victoria & Tolarno Galleries
Brook Andrew's inclusion in Melbourne Now is a continuation of the artists relationship with The National Gallery of Victoria. Key works by Andrew in the NGV Permanent Collection include Sexy and dangerous 1996; printed 2005, a computer-generated colour transparency on transparent synthetic polymer resin acquired by the gallery with funds from the Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, 2005 and Polemics, 2000, neon, mirror, transparent synthetic polymer resin, Gift of the artist, 2002.
Brook Andrew was one of three contemporary artists selected for The Barak Commissions in 2011, commissioned by The Felton Bequest to create works that pay homage to the celebrated Wurundjeri artist William Barak. His resulting installation at NGV Australia was, Marks and Witness: A lined crossing in Tribute to William Barak 2011.
"...Marks and Witness uses Wiradjuri designs of zigzag and diamond to represent Barak’s use of possum skin cloak designs of both moieties in his drawings. The zigzag and diamond designs on opposite walls are connected through neon lines to add another dizzying perspective that represents fire and Barak’s strong ideas and understanding of culture." - Brook Andrew 2010
Brook ANDREW
Marks and Witness: A lined crossing in Tribute to William Barak 2011
polyvinyl chrloride, neon, transformer
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Felton bequest 2011
Installation photograph courtesy of the National Gallery of Victoria & Tolarno Galleries
