The Moet & Chandon Touring Exhibition 1999
National Gallery of Australia
19 June - 17 July 1999

Troubled times

Kathy Temin Troubled Times 1997-98

The final selection of 21 works go to make up the Moët & Chandon Touring Exhibition, an immensely valuable programme. Each year the host gallery receives a $50,000 grant to purchase contemporary Australian art which has benefited hundreds of artists over the years.

With around 10,000 entries since establishment, 260 young Australian artists have been selected to exhibit in the Touring Exhibition, an accolade that significantly encourages wide recognition of their art and talent. Record attendance of approximately 3 million affirms that viewers find the exhibition compelling.

The Annual Fellowship
Each year, a newly invited panel of visual arts professionals, meet to view the works of preselected artists to select a core of 21 works for the Touring Exhibition. From this selection the Moët & Chandon "Fellow" is chosen.

This year's judges are: Mike Parr, highly acclaimed artist from Sydney, Jane Hylton, Curator of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia and Rachel Kent, Curator of The Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne

Over 500 artists applied from which 118 aspirants were preselected working in a broad range of media including painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, performance, photography and multi media.

The choice of the panel is based on an analysis of the artists' development of ideas and the high standard that they have achieved in the works presented.

The judges this year focused on presenting a coherent exhibition choosing final works which reflect general themes prevalent in youth culture: globalisation,communication and new technology in contrast to ambivalence and social alienation. This has to be the most challenging exhibition ever presented by the Moët & Chandon Foundation, stated the Foundation director Maudie Palmer.

The annual Fellow is awarded $50,000 cash and a year's residency at a studio located in the historic surroundings of the Abbey of Hautvillers of the House of Moët & Chandon at Epernay in Champagne, France.

The Moët & Chandon Touring Exhibition dates and venues are:

Principal Sponsors are Ansett Air Freight, Novotel, Hotel Sofitel, Grand Mercure Hotel, Mount Lofty House, Adelaide Hills, South Australia
Associate Sponsors are Spicers Papers and Perrier