Antarctica

24 May–1 July 2012

Antarctica is a critical place in terms of the scientific significance of the physical and natural environment, and despite its remoteness the pristine wilderness remains extremely vulnerabe to the actions of humans and to climate change. For visitors to the continent: explorers, scientists and artists, Antarctica has been an inspiration of sublime beauty, fragility and mystery.

The exhibition, Antarctica, presents the responses of seven artists: Sidney Nolan; Chris Drury (UK); Bea Maddock; Anne Noble (NZ); Jan Senbergs; Philip Hughes (UK) and Jörg Schmeisser, to their experiences in visiting Antarctica since 1960. Each of the artists selected has undertaken a physical voyage to the continent and confronted the extremes of climate, environment, geography and isolation. These themes, as well as connections to science and creativity, are reflected in their artwork.

The exhibition has been conceived to complement the 2012 International Consortium of Humanities Centres and Institutes conference on the Humanities and Climate Change, which is being convened by the Australian National University Research School of the Humanities and the Arts. The conference explores the effect of the agency of human beings on the Earth's ecosystems and our complex and challenging future.

Curated by Dr Caroline Turner of the Humanities Research Centre, Nancy Sever, Director of the ANU Drill Hall Gallery and Tony Oates, Exhibitions Officer.

Image: Chris Drury, Albatross, inkjet print on rag paper with blue crayon line (ed 1/50), 75 x 75 cm. Courtesy the artist.

E(merge): Two spiritualities – Angelina Pwerle/Hi Qinwu

5 July–12 August 2012

2011/12 is a celebratory year for Chinese/Australian cultural interaction. To mark this important relationship this exhibition brings together the work of two painters, Hi Qinwu from China and Angelina Pwerle of Australia, whose art shares a spiritual sensibility deeply anchored in connections with an ancestral past.

Hu Qinwu was born in Shandong province in 1969 and currently works in Beijing as a painter, photographer and printmaker. He paints layers of individual marks that create a harmonious whole suggesting infinity - like the Buddhist idea of kong bai or empty space. He believes paintings should speak of what is inside, not outside. ‘I have my own language', he says.

Born in 1946 in Utopia, NT, Angelina Pwerle inherited ownership of the Bush Plum Dreamtime story. This story is central to her painting of country as its retelling is the means by which the past is perpetuated into continuity. In her painting she meticulously builds miasmas of movement out of tiny dots that could be the seeds of the bush plum blown by the wind, or the cosmos whirling through time.

Curated by Reg Newitt and presented in association with China Art Projects and Niagara Galleries.

Image: Hu Qinwu, 11504, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 150 x 117 cm. Courtesy the artist, China Art Projects and Niagara Galleries, Melbourne.

Seeking permission: Michael Nelson Jagamara & Imants Tillers

16 August–23 September 2012

Seeking Permission addresses the controversial issues of cultural ownership, the relationship between indigenous and post-modernist art, and the reconciliatory power of collaboration.

In the 1980s, Imants Tillers appropriated Michael Nelson Jagamara's painting Five Dreamings ‘without permission' in his work The Nine Shots. This act provoked intense discussion about Tillers' motivation as post-modernism and Australian indigenous art seemed to represent diametrically opposed cultural ideologies. In 1999 Jagamara responded to Tillers by appropriating back his own motifs from Nine Shots in a series of paintings exhibited in the Third Asia Pacific Triennial and in 2001 Jagamara and Tillers agreed to make collaborative works in which each artist contributes layers to the painting, with Jagamara getting both the first and last say.

To contextualise their unique collaborative works this exhibition will also survey some of the artist's most important and pivotal individual works created prior, during and within the context of the debate surrounding appropriation and Indigenous art.

Curated by Michael Eather, Imants Tillers and Nancy Sever.

Image: Imants Tillers & Michael Nelson Jagamara, Fatherland, 2008, acrylic and gouache on 90 canvas boards, 228 x 356 cm overall. Courtesy the artists and Fireworks Gallery, Brisbane.

Drill Hall Gallery 20th Anniversary Exhibition

27 September–4 November 2012

For twenty years the ANU Drill Hall Gallery has been presenting a range of stimulating exhibitions to the Canberra public. A feature of the program has been the Gallery's survey exhibitions of significant practicing artists. As important as these opportunities were to the artists, they also gave the viewing public a chance to see work at crucial points in the artists' careers. Long term relationships between artists and the institutions that exhibit them are essential to a vibrant art community and the ANU Drill Hall Gallery is proud of its contribution to the visual arts.

To celebrate the milestone of two decades of lively gallery activity, the Drill Hall Gallery brings together a selection of artists who have had survey exhibitions at the gallery and invited them to participate in a group exhibition with work done since their individual shows. The participants include local as well as national and international artists who have made key contributions to art practice in Australia and are considered to be innovators in their fields.

Curated by Nancy Sever, Tony Oates

Image: Betsabeé Romero, Dot car, 2002, Buttercup english muffins on Datsun 120Y. Courtesy the artist.

AIATSIS Collections: Likan’mirri II

8 November–16 December 2012

The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies was established in the early 1960s by an Act of Parliament. Anthropological as AIATSIS' initial agenda was, many of the individual collectors involved in its early years were motivated by a passionate appreciation of the enduring qualities of indigenous society and this is reflected in the richness of the Institute's vast collection.

This exhibition follows on from the 2004 exhibition Likan'mirri that was exhibited at the Drill Hall Gallery and showcased a selection of key art pieces from the AIATSIS collection. For Likan'mirri II guest curator Wally Caruana revisits this wonderful resource to make a selection of recently acquired works which are contextualised by rare works from the archive that are of major historical and cultural significance. Many of the works included in the exhibition have never before been on public display.

The exhibition is presented by the Australian National University Centre for Indigenous Studies in association with the Drill Hall Gallery and is a collaborative project of AIATSIS.

Curated by Wally Caruana.

Image: Bogwarda, Turtle and boat, 1962, natural pigments on bark, 62 x 73 cm. On permanent loan to AIATSIS from Alice Moyle (ATS 533c).