Running simultaneously, a trio of new exhibitions has launched at TarraWarra Museum of Art on Wurundjeri Country in Healesville, Victoria. Two of the exhibitions are in fact set up in dialogue with one another, with the work of contemporary Melbourne-based artists Peter Atkins and Dana Harris presented in conversation with a survey of Clement Meadmore’s designs.
Atkins and Harris’ work is presented in the SUPERsystems exhibition, alongside The Industrial Design of Clement Meadmore: The Harris/Atkins Collection. The title of the latter gives a clue about the connections with the former, as it’s Atkins and Harris’ very own extensive collection of Meadmore’s furniture and lighting on display. Also on display is Systems and Structures, an exhibition featuring a selection of works by leading Australian artists drawn from the Museum’s collection.
“These three exhibitions provide an exciting opportunity to consider new and recent works by leading contemporary artists in conversation with paintings, sculptures and designs by significant figures of Australian modernism,” says TarraWarra Museum of Art Curator, Anthony Fitzpatrick.
“TarraWarra Museum of Art is fortunate to have worked closely with Dana Harris and Peter Atkins, not only to premiere their most recent bodies of abstract work, but also to share their outstanding collection of modernist designs and sculptures by Clement Meadmore. Meadmore’s distinctive visual language was often informed by the modernist principles of the Bauhaus and the De Stijl movement – a source of inspiration shared by Harris and Atkins.
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“The third exhibition of predominantly abstract painting and sculpture by Australian artists from the Museum’s own collection deepens this sustained exploration of the formal and conceptual systems and principles that guide creative practices and artmaking.”
Widely regarded as one of Australia’s most important sculptors of the twentieth century, Clement Meadmore is also acknowledged as a significant and pioneering figure within the history of Australian modernist design. The Industrial Design of Clement Meadmore features an extensive group of individual pieces from the 1950s and early 1960s, highlighting his highly distinctive approach to industrial design and his remarkable ability to manipulate the most basic, readily available materials – steel rod, cotton cord, glass, sheet metal, canvas and thin plywood – into functional, innovative and durable objects.
The exhibition presents the the Harris/Atkins Collection for the first time in its entirety, having been painstakingly assembled over the past 25 years. The collection includes Meadmore’s iconic chairs, tables and lighting.
Meanwhile, Systems and Structures includes works by artists such as Robert Hunter, Hilarie Mais, Rosalie Gascoigne, Howard Arkley, Lesley Dumbrell, Mark Galea, Robert Jacks, Callum Morton, John Nixon and Robert Owen.
SUPERsystems, The Industrial Design of Clement Meadmore: The Harris/Atkins Collection, and Systems and Structures are at TarraWarra Museum of Art from 23rd March to 14th July, 2024.
TarraWarra Museum of Art
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