Gary Hill : Bruce Nauman
New International Media Art
14 December 2002 – 21 April 2003

This exhibition presents works by renowned international artists exploring the possibilities of new media. In their art they use sound and video images on monitors or projected on the walls of the exhibition space to transmit clear visual ideas, concepts and issues.

More information

detail: Gary Hill with Paulina Wallenberg-Olsson 'Remembering Paralinguay' 2000 photography Courtesy Donald Young Gallery Chicago

Out and About
The National Gallery of Australia tours Australia

The National Gallery of Australia is celebrating its 21st anniversary since opening in 1982. To mark the occasions some of the Gallery’s most treasured works have been travelling to people throughout Australia for the past year.

nga.gov.au/OutandAbout

detail: Sidney Nolan 'Ned Kelly' 1946 Collection of the National Gallery of Australia Gift of Sunday Reed 1977

Jackson Pollock's Blue Poles
4 October 2002 – 27 January 2003

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Jackson Pollock's Blue Poles, the Gallery will mount an exhibition focused around this important painting. Presenting Pollock's work in its original artistic context, the exhibition will also document the responses his art has provoked in Australian art and the public arena.

nga.gov.au/Pollock

detail: Jackson Pollock 'Blue poles' 1952 Collection of the National Gallery of Australia © Jackson Pollock 1952/ARS Licensed by VISCOPY Ltd Sydney 2002

The Big Americans
The Art of Collaboration
4 October 2002 – 27 January 2003

Albers, Frankenthaler, Hockney, Johns, Lichtenstein, Motherwell, Rauschenberg, Stella

Utilising the Gallery's outstanding collection of international prints, Big Americans documents printmaking at a key 20th Century workshop frequented by significant artists of the day who worked with Master printer Ken Tyler - a major figure of the 'Print Renaissance' in the United States of America post-war.

nga.gov.au/BigAmericans

detail: Jasper Johns 'Figure 7' 1969 Collection of the National Gallery of Australia © Jasper Johns 1969/VAGA Licensed by VISCOPY Ltd Sydney 2002

Seeing the Centre
The art of Albert Namatjira 1902-1959
4 October 2002 – 19 January 2003

Seeing the Centre reassesses the life and art of Western Aranda (Arrernte) artist, Albert Namatjira (1902-1959). For all his success, Namatjira's achievements were dismissed as purely derivative by many art commentators. He is now seen to have reworked the models of the European watercolour tradition to express a personal vision. His subjects were not chosen for their beauty in European terms, but as ancestral landscapes though which he expressed his relationship with the country to which he was spiritually bound. His images are of a land unshaped by evidence of European settlement.

nga.gov.au/Namatjira

detail: Albert Namatjira 'Untitled landscape' 1955 Gift of Thomas William and Pamela Joyce (Joy) Falconer Canberra 1987 © Albert Namatjira 1955 Licensed by VISCOPY Ltd Sydney 2002

Royal Africa
Kings and Chiefs
3 August 2002 – 12 January 2003

Royal Africa: Kings and Chiefs will be shown in the Children's Gallery. It will drawn from the Gallery's collection, evoking the splendour and diversity of royal courts in West and Central Africa over 600 years. It will highlight commercial, military and artistic connections between Europe and Africa long before the colonial period.

nga.gov.au/RoyalAfrica

detail: Artist unknown Yoruba people Nigeria Ade: beaded crown early 20th century

Colour & Concept
International Colour Photography
7 September – 1 December 2002





For many photographers and members of the public serious photographic art means black and white prints. The term 'chocolate box' as a description of a colour view has usually meant a disparaging comparison to the slick and saturated colour photography of advertising and travel brochures. Over the past five years the Gallery has acquired a number of works from the 1930s to the present. The exhibition Colour and Concept looks at new acquisitions of colour works as well as older works in colour by conceptual artists.

nga.gov.au/colour

detail: Sean Scully 'Omaha door' 2000 Collection of the National Gallery of Australia © Sean Scully

By Appointment
Norman Hartnell's sample for the Coronation dress of Queen Elizabeth II

nga.gov.au/ByAppointment

detail: Norman Hartnell designer Queen Elizabeth II Coronation gown embroidery sample 1953 Collection of the National Gallery of Australia

Tales of the Unexpected
aspects of contemporary Australian art
13 July – 22 September 2002





Tales of the unexpected includes the work of some of Australia's most engaging artists: Kate Beynon, Robert Boynes, Lyndell Brown & Charles Green, Rosemary Laing, Sally Smart and Anne Wallace. These artists are concerned with implied narratives and dream-spaces, reinventing the world in fantastic and unexpected ways. Across the media of painting, animation, collage, computer manipulated images and photography, works in the exhibition invoke a sense of filmic or theatrical possibilities, inviting journeys of imagination.

nga.gov.au/Tales

detail: Anne Wallace 'She Is' 2001 Collection of the National Gallery of Australia

Transparent Things
Expressions in Glass

Transparent Things – Expressions in Glass illustrates various responses by visual artists to the defining characteristic of glass: its transparency. The exhibition draws upon the extensive glass collections of the National Gallery of Australia and the Wagga Wagga Regional Art Gallery.

nga.gov.au/Transparent

detail: Matthew Curtis 'Stria (Olive/Cobalt)' 2001Collection of the National Gallery of Australia

Sol LeWitt
Drawings, Prints and Books 1968–1988
13 June – 25 August 2002





Sol LeWitt will display works on paper from the Gallery's collection by the renowned American contemporary artist Sol LeWitt. LeWitt was a leader in the conceptual art movement of the late 1960s. However, as the exhibition will demonstrate, his work is never dry or intellectual. Combining the most basic visual elements, such as lines, arcs and geometric figures in endless series and variations, he produces startlingly beautiful compositions.

Sol LeWitt: Drawings, prints and books 1968-1988

Cover to cover: Sol LeWitt's Artist's books

detail: Sol LeWitt 'Six geometric figures in three colors on three colors and all their combinations' 1978 Collection of the National Gallery of Australia Reproduced courtesy of the artist

Life in the Emperor's Tomb
Ceramics from ancient China
23 February – 21 July 2002

From elegant storage vessels through to magnificent images of horses and camels, Life in the Emperor's Tomb recaptures the spirit of past worlds through one of the most traditional artistic mediums. This exhibition of ceramics date from the prehistoric period (c.2500 BC) through to the Ming dynasty (1368–1644).

nga.gov.au/TTTsui

detail: 'Guardian Figure [lokapala]' Tang Dynasty (618-907) Collection of the National Gallery of Australia Gift of Dr. T.T.Tsui LLD JP

Material Culture
Aspects of contemporary Australian craft and design
9 February – 30 June 2002





Material Culture reveals innovative approaches to functional and decorative objects by thirty-four Australian craft and design practitioners. Focusing on their recent work in ceramics, glass, textiles, furniture, jewellery and metal, it illustrates the manner in which some of Australia's most experienced designers and makers are expressing themselves through their material culture. The exhibition includes recently-acquired works that challenge our perceptions of objects, materials and their place within Australian culture.

nga.gov.au/Material

detail: Klaus Moje 'Fragments 1-2001' 2001 Photograph: Klaus Moje

Three Centuries of Italian Art
28 March – 16 June 2002

Three Centuries of Italian Art offers a treasure house of masterpieces, representing a vast range of artistic styles and movements and celebrating the best of Italian art as it developed over three centuries throughout the many regions of Italy.

There are several major works by each of four key artists: Titian, Caravaggio, Canaletto and Tiepolo. Other artists featured include Leonardo, Correggio, Giorgione, Moroni, Pontormo, Rosso, Veronese, Caracci, Reni, Guercino, Ricci, Bernini and Canova.

The exhibition has been arranged by the Italian Government as their major international cultural promotion in the visual arts for 2002. It arose from the Italian Government's wish to send a splendid display of Italian Old Masters to Australia.

nga.gov.au/theitalians

detail: Leonardo da Vinci 'Testa di Cristo [Head of Christ]'

Rough Cuts
European Figurative Prints from Gauguin to Paladino
9 March – 2 June 2002

From the Gallery's collection of International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books, Rough Cuts will draw on works from two major periods of European figurativism, the early period of 'German' Expressionism – 1895 to 1925, and the later neo-figurative period of the 70s and 80s.

Featured artists from the earlier period will include Gauguin, Munch, Heckel, Kirchner, Nolde and Pechstein amongst others; while the later period will include works by German artists such as Immenforff, Penck, Baselitz and Polke; and the Italians Francesco Clemente, Sandro Chia, Mimmo Paladino, Mario Merz and Enzo Cucchi.

nga.gov.au/roughcuts

detail: A.R.Penck 'Die Arbeit geht weiter [The work goes on]' 1982 Collection of the National Gallery of Australia Gift of National Panasonic 1984