5 September 2009 - 7 February 2010

MUSEUM SPACE

DUBBO 10 - COMMUNITY VOICES

Dubbo 10: Community Voices is a social history exhibition which interprets artefacts from Dubbo Regional Museum selected by ten members of Dubbo community.

These historical objects are collected for over fifty years and reflect life of Dubbo community from 1830 to 1950 and beyond.

Behind each of them rest a rich narrative; the stories about local people and events, local industries, trades and crafts, cultural activities, literacy and education, regional immigration, leisure activities, living conditions, religion, governance and customs and beliefs of the people who live here.

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Download Catalogue (1.17mb)

Clock c1890

Collection Dubbo Regional Museum

24 October 2009 - 31 January 2010

NEW MEDIA SPACE

THE LINE OF LODE & DEATH OF CHARLIE DAY: ANGELICA MESITI

Inspired by the grandeur of its physical landscape and the unique place it occupies in our cultural consciousness, the artist used the outback mining town of Broken Hill in the far West of NSW as the location for this video work.

Focusing on social groups both animal and human that inhabit an Australian outback town, The Line of Lode and Death of Charlie Day is a meditation on the connections that link them to their landscapes and therefore each other. Streams of pre nocturnal images form independent scenes that interrelate without being bound by narrative; suburban kids riding bikes in the sunset shadows, a flock of pigeons released for their evening flight, the dusty twilight interiors of an out of business hotel, a goat enjoying the cool air of dusk.

A diversity of people including a local livestock trader, hotel proprietor, competition pigeon breeder, aboriginal land council elder, mining equipment engineer, local artists and historians were involved in the process. The bike-riding scene was developed out of a workshop involving 12 kids from the Broken Hill PCYC Youth Club.

Angelica Mesiti

The Line of Lode and Death of Charlie Day 2008
15mins, HD Video transfered to DVD

Image © Angelica Mesiti

7 November - 31 January 2010

MAIN GALLERY

A IS FOR ANIMALS: AN A TO Z OF ANIMALS IN WAR

A is for Animals offers an A to Z of animals in war, from mascots and messengers to creepy-crawlies. Animals are put to many uses in war. Sometimes they have jobs to do, are used as mascots and pets, or are symbols on badges and flags. This exhibition also looks at the unwelcome animals that make life in the field even more difficult and dangerous.

The exhibition has been developed with a young audience in mind, but visitors of all ages will enjoy its fascinating and moving stories.

The Australian War Memorial’s Travelling Exhibitions Program is funded by the Australian Government’s Commemorations Program.

German gas mask for a dog c1914-18 AWM RELAWM04098

Image © AWM

19 September - 6 December 2009

CHILDREN'S GALLERY

HOOKED ON BOOKS: THE ALBERT ULLIN COLLECTION

Hooked On Books is an exhibition of seventy-three framed artworks - the unique collection of original illustrations from Australian Children’s books acquired over the past 30 years by Albert Ullin, founding owner of the Little Bookroom, Melbourne’s specialist children’s bookshop.

Included in the exhibition are works by such well-known and loved illustrators as Jeannie Baker, May Gibbs, Peter Gouldthorpe, Bob Graham, Leigh Hobbs, Elizabeth Honey, Robert Ingpen, Alison Lester, Andrew McLean, Patricia Mullins, Donna Rawlins, Gregory Rogers, Shaun Tan, Jane Tanner, and Julie Vivas to name a few.

Madeleine Winch
Illustration for The 1993 Little Ark Children’s Calendar,

compiled by Albert Ullin Cover and April image — Child and Lorikeets in a Tree
Watercolour and pencil
Published by Allen and Unwin Pty Ltd, 1992

Image © Allen & Unwin

5 September - 13 December 2009

REGIONAL ART SPACE

SINGING: PENNY VOLKOFSKY

Dubbo-based artist Penny Volkofsky, has created an installation of printed dressed created using tissue paper and various relief printing techniques.

"I remember when as a child I first found a cicada shell clinging to the bark of a tree. It looked like a living creature basking in the sun. To find that it was just an empty shell was such a shock. How did the insect get out of there and leave its shell so intact?

Our bodies are like cicada shells that will one day be left behind; like clothes we take off at the end of the day; like crumpled wrapping paper for a precious gift. One day I’ll be unwrapped and the paper will be discarded; I’ll be stripped and re-clothed. One day someone will find my empty shell and know that I am out there singing." Penny Volkofsky

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Download Room Brochure (1.79mb)

Penny Volkofsky
Singing 2008-9

Installation view

Image © Penny Volkofsky

26 September - 6 December 2009

PROJECT GALLERY

GOOGLEGRAMS: JOAN FONTCUBERTA

One of Spain’s most prominent and innovative artists, Joan Fontcuberta is best known for exploring the gaps between art, science and illusion. In this series – first exhibited in Paris in November 2005 – he has used the popular internet search engine Google to create large, colourful photo-mosaics that construct an elegant metaphor for the current era’s liaisons between mass media and ideas of collective consciousness.

The images are created by a generative process which automatically culls images from the internet. The artist’s only control is to select the initial larger image to be rebuilt and to define the specific key words for the search that generates the thousands of small ‘tiles’ from which the mosaic is constructed. Often-challenging, the results are a synthesis of language and a search-engine code that is designed for the market to generate results that satisfy more people more often. As such Google image search prioritises images that have, on previous searches, been selected by other users.

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Download Room Brochure (210kb)

Joan Fontcuberta
Auschwitz 2005

Type C print 120 x 160cm

Image © Joan Fontcuberta

18 September - 18 October 2009

NEW MEDIA SPACE

INTIMATE TRANSACTIONS: TRANSMUTE COLLECTIVE

Intimate Transactions is a new form of interactive installation that allows two people in geographically separate spaces to interact simultaneously using only their bodies. As this highly immersive experience evolves, each person begins to sense their place in a complex web of relations that connects them and everything else within the work.

Each participant uses a physical interface called a ‘Bodyshelf’. By gently moving their bodies on this ‘smart furniture’, they instigate ‘intimate transactions’, which influence an evolving ‘world’ created from digital imagery, multichannel sound and tactile feedback.

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Website

Transmute Collective
Intimate Transactions 2009

Installation view WPCC

Image © WPCC

19 September - 1 November 2009

MAIN GALLERY

COUTURE OF PASSION: COSTUMES OF DAME JOAN SUTHERLAND FROM THE OPERA AUSTRALIA COLLECTION

The purpose of the exhibition is to provide an opportunity for regional audiences to gain an insight into the world of opera through a selection of costumes and outfits designed for the first lady of Australian Opera and one of the world's greatest opera singers, Dame Joan Sutherland.

The history of opera is the history of passion. Couture of Passion traces young Joan Sutherland’s zeal for singing and sequentially outlines her astonishingly successful career - from a secretary singing at music clubs in Sydney to performing the most applauded operas of all times in Covent Garden, La Scala and Metropolitan Opera in New York. The exhibition is designed to highlight retrospective of Dame’s artistic career through display and interpretation of opera couture designed to the roles she was playing in major operas. Most of the selected costumes were designed with the finest craftsmanship and are accompanied by a multitude of descriptive and stylistic narratives.

Couture of Passion is proudly sponsored by Dubbo Terrazzo & Concrete Industries.

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Download Catalogue (3.88mb)

Dame Joan Sutherland as Elettra in La Idomeneo

The Australian Opera, Sydney 1979.

Courtesy of Photographic Archive, Opera Australia.
Photographer Branco Gaica.

25 July - 13 September 2009

MAIN GALLERY

ARCHIBALD PRIZE 09

The Archibald Prize is one of Australia’s oldest and most prestigious art awards. JF Archibald’s primary aims were to foster portraiture, support artists and perpetuate the memory of great Australians.

Since its inception in 1921 the prize has been awarded to some of Australia’s most important artists, including George Lambert, William Dobell and Brett Whiteley.

The prize is awarded to the best portrait painting preferably of a man or woman distinguished in art, letters, science or politics. The winner receives $50,000 in prize money.

Entry: $8 / $5 Friends / concession

Michael Zavros                   

Ars longa, vita brevis

Image courtesy Art Gallery NSW

Photographers: Carley Wright & Johan Palsson

8 August - 13 September 2009

NEW MEDIA SPACE

THE FOLLY: ARLO MOUNTFORD

The Folly is a three-channel digitally animated video by Melbourne-based artist Arlo Mountford. Mountford has re-imagined three paintings by sixteenth century Flemish painter Pieter Breughel the Elder, Hunters in the Snow (1565), The Corn Harvest (1565) and The Fall of Icarus (c1558). Mountford has animated the still images, adding an audio component, and inserting a range of contemporary references throughout the work.

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Room brochure (835kb)

Arlo Mountford                    

The Folly 2008-09

3 video channel 4 audio channel digital animation
duration: 9 minutes
Edition 2/5 + 2 AP
Collection Dubbo Regional Gallery
Image courtesy the artist and GRANTPIRRIE, Sydney

25 July - 30 August 2009

MUSEUM SPACE

COURAGE TO CARE

Since 1999 Courage to Care has been travelling New South Wales conveying a message of communal tolerance and living in harmony. Developed by B’nai B’rith, the exhibition emphasises the importance of standing up against racism and persecution, especially in relation to minority groups. This is done by focusing on rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust and the brave people who put themselves at enormous personal risk to save Jewish people. Overridingly the exhibition celebrates the difference one individual can make. The lessons of these events are as relevant for today as they were 60 years ago.

School groups will engage with the exhibition through workshops with Holocaust survivors and trained facilitators.

Students listening to Adrianus van As, Righteous Among the Nations

Image © Courage To Care

11 July - 6 September 2009

REGIONAL ART SPACE

COLOURING SPACE: PAULA GARRARD

Colouring Space is an exhibition that explores how colour, tone, line and form work within space to create perceptual direction and a visual experience. It is an exploration into perceptual illusion, movement and space and strives to entertain painting as an experience, as opposed to an object placed in a space.

There are a series of canvasses which use formal painterly concepts mounted in the space, as well as an ephemeral work, which becomes a space.

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Room brochure (362kb)

Paula Garrard

Untitled No.2 2009
oil on canvas
160 x 160cm

4 July - 13 September 2009

CHILDREN'S GALLERY

THE ENCHANTED FOREST: NEW GOTHIC STORYTELLERS

Six of Australia’s most respected contemporary artists evoke a mesmerising woodland with intersecting storylines possessing both the charm and the implied menace of a Grimm’s fairytale. The enchanted forest: new gothic storytellers is a spellbinding touring exhibition that trails the uncanny, charmed and cursed, whilst revisiting a time when animals and trees were thought to speak, when man was at the mercy of the forest, and the boundary between civilisation and the wilderness was less clearly defined.

A Geelong Gallery and NETS Victoria touring Exhibition

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Download Ed Kit (1.80mb)

Website

Jazmina Cininas
Rima knows the curse of being born on Christmas Eve 2006
reduction linocut
Courtesy the artist and Port Jackson Press Australia (Melbourne)

23 May - 13 September 2009

PROJECT GALLERY

BILL O'SHEA: BEYOND THE SANDSTONE CURTAIN

Bill O’Shea paints rural life. Whilst the natural world dominates, the impact of man is shown as a sympathetic intruder: indeed, man becomes a part of the natural world itself.

Proudly a ‘bushie’, O’Shea comes from a great tradition of similar bush painters such as Pro Hart, who have explored and in a sense, defined, the myth of the Australian outback. In rich tones that add vitality to the often dry landscape, the artist depicts a way of life that has always been under threat. Far from the city, and its influence, the Australia O’Shea finds is simple, honest and diligent.

This Exhibition has been proudly sponsored by Peacockes Solicitors.

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Download catalogue (292kb)

Bill O'Shea
Mallowran Shed 2008
Oil on board
50 x 30cm
Collection of the artist

Image © Bill O'Shea

23 May - 2 August 2009

NEW MEDIA SPACE

LOOP: NEW AUSTRALIAN VIDEO ART

Loop: new Australian video art showcases innovative contemporary video art by five of Australia’s leading artists, including Daniel Crooks, Shaun Gladwell, Jess MacNeil, Arlo Mountford and Daniel von Sturmer. Testing the boundaries of this visual medium, the works in Loop present a spliced meditation on time, space, motion, place and perspective.

Curated by Daniel McOwan, the Director of Hamilton Art Gallery, Loop provides regional audiences with the unique opportunity to access and engage with contemporary video art, which is rarely presented outside of metropolitan art spaces.

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Download Curator Q & A (271kb)

Download Education Kit (407kb)

Website

Daniel Crooks

Static No.9 (a small section of something larger) 2005

still from DVD

Hamilton Art Gallery Collection

Courtesy the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery

23 May - 19 July 2009

MAIN GALLERY

PERSPECTIVES.ART.ECOLOGY

Perspectives.Art.Ecology. is a curatorial framework which heralds an invitation to several Central West regional artists and communities to participate in discussions about their environment – the history, contemporary challenges and future responsibility of the place they share. 

The exhibition also provides a platform for a cultural mapping of the history and memory of the Central West region.  It traces the relationships shared between knowledge of biodiversity, communities, Indigenous spirituality and mythology, all forming the foundation for the artists’ holistic and interdisciplinary research.

Curated by Adnan Begic. Developed by WPCC in collaboration with Peter Charuk, Kim Goldsmith and Gail Naden.

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Download catalogue (400kb)

Peter Charuk
Aqualux, 2005 Video still.

Image © Peter Charuk

4 April - 19 July 2009

MUSEUM SPACE

MAGIC LANTERN SHOW: FILM & PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE CENTRAL WEST

Magic Lantern Show is a Dubbo Regional Museum curated exhibition that will explore the social impact of the medium of photography and film on Dubbo and the Central West. 

The museum collection includes an array of photographs, glass cinema slides, cameras and film, Magic Lantern will explore the significance of these items and the role they played in developing our sense of identity and community as well as the connections they helped forge between Dubbo and the wider world.

The exhibition aims to revisit the excitement and wonder of emerging innovations in photographic technology from the late 1800s to the present day and aims to recreate this sense of wonder and engagement for contemporary audiences. 

Curated by Jessica Moore & Andrew Glassop

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Download catalogue (703kb)

Butler Air Transport Cinema advertisement c1940s

Glass cinema slide

Monarch Empire Theatre, Dubbo (1911-1959)

Collection Dubbo Regional Museum

23 May - 5 July 2009

REGIONAL ART SPACE

MILENA SALLUSTIO: SHE LOOKED IN AND SAW HER DESTINY

The world of symbols opens itself up to the inspection of Milena Sallustio’s curious but insistent gaze. Working in drawing and ceramics, she explores the reaches of our understanding of the personal and inter-personal. The bowl, an everyday symbol of domestic life, becomes a multi-themed portent of much deeper meaning. Confronted with a series of bowls, the viewer is forced to examine how meanings can vary, and that each action of our own is actually a complex set of convergent and divergent symbols, allowing us to make our own meaning.

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Download room sheet (135kb)

Milena Sallustio
She Looked In And Saw Her Destiny 2009
Charcoal on paper

Image © Milena Sallustio

23 May - 23 June 2009

CHILDREN'S GALLERY

A CHILD'S EYES: VAN SOWERWINE

Van Sowerwine is a multi-disciplinary artist who works with video, photography, sound, installation and sculpture. She has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally including Art Cologne and the ICA in London and had work screened in the Sundance Film Festival, USA. A Child’s Eyes presents a selection of her work exploring the state of childhood using tableaux, diorama, interactivity and the moving image.

Sowerwine’s works examine the polarities of human behaviour via the context of childhood play. Her characters innocently move through the world, negotiating the real and imagined, the seen and unseen. Viewers are invited to interact with the works offering an alternative engagement with childhood memory, our physical and social environments and our innate desire to play.

Curated by Kent Buchanan

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Download Essay (57.2kb)

Download Activity sheet (597kb)

Van Sowerwine

Still from Expecting 2003

A collaboration with Isobel Knowles and Liam Fennessy 

Interactive installation. MDF and felt, interactive stop motion animation.

An Experimenta New Visions commission

Courtesy the artist.

4 April - 10 May 2009

DUBBO REGIONAL GALLERY - THE ARMATI BEQUEST

GREAT COLLECTIONS

Picture the thrill of seeing Jurassic period fish specimens, Captain Cook’s sextant, an Arthur Streeton painting, bushranger Captain Moonlite’s death mask, along with major contemporary artworks for the first time in your home town.

Curated by John McPhee for Museums & Galleries NSW, this exhibition supports and promotes the vital role communities play in safeguarding their cultural heritage, and highlights the important work local and state government does in preserving and providing access to cultural material through their galleries, libraries and museums.

Drawn from the magnificent collections of New South Wales’ eight premier cultural institutions, these significant items are representative of Australia’s vibrant history. They shape our psyche, record our development, provide insight into our national spirit and inspire us for the future.

The Art Gallery of NSW, Australian Museum, Botanic Gardens Trust, Historic Houses Trust of NSW, Museum of Contemporary Art, Powerhouse Museum, State Library of NSW and State Records NSW have embraced this ground-breaking exhibition’s innovative vision and made cultural material from their extensive collections available for inclusion.

This landmark exhibition brings iconic treasures together for the very first time and showcases them to metropolitan, regional and interstate audiences.

GREAT COLLECTIONS is an initiative of Museums & Galleries NSW (M&G NSW). M&G NSW is the key support agency for the museum and gallery sector in NSW.

Image top:

William JOHNSON, photographer

Henry Lawson c1910

8 x half-length portraits, gelatin silver photograph 11.2 x 15.8 cm photograph

Image courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

CHINA, Yuan dynasty 1279 - 1368

Maitreya (Buddha of the Future) 1300s

gilt bronze

69.0 x 40.0 x 31.0cm

Art Gallery of New South Wales

Purchased 1996

Image bottom:

THE KINGPINS

Welcome to the Jingle 2003

2 channel digital video, transferred to DVD, edition 2/4 5.25 minutes

Image courtesy Museum of Contemporary Art

© the artists

7 February - 29 March 2009

MUSEUM SPACE

JUST ADD WATER: SCHEMES & DREAMS FOR A SUNBURNT COUNTRY

Water. Not a day goes by when we don’t think about it, talk about it, drink it, or in some cases pray for it. It’s a valuable resource. In Australia, we’ve stored more in dams per person than any other country. We’ve piped it, pumped it, and even dragged it down from the clouds, becoming a nation of plumbers in the process. This National Archives of Australia Exhibition taps into their vast collection to present this travelling exhibition which examines our historical relationship with water.

Devil’s Gate Dam, part of the Mersey-Forth hydro-electric scheme, Tasmania, 1971 

National Archives of Australia: A1200, L96132

14 February - 22 March 2009

CHILDREN'S GALLERY

ARTIST AT WORK: CHIRSTINE MCMILLAN
This second Artist At Work exhibition focuses on the practice of Kandos-based artist Christine McMillan. Christine uses materials that she finds near her home to create her artworks, arranging, ordering and manipulating them to create new forms and relationships. She also describes the built environment (the buildings and footpaths) and how it influences our lives. Some of the materials that the artist uses are grass seeds, echidna spines and cotton gauze. The stories told in the artworks are about our environment and natural world.

Get involved with Christine's project through her blog-site or watch her work on the weekends beginning 28 Feb and 7 March from 11.00am to 1.00pm.

Christine McMillan, Breeze Block 1, xanthorrhoea seeds on paper.
Image © Christine McMillan