@50

Tolarno Galleries has been operating for 50 years. To mark this milestone, the gallery will be staging a series of shows, the first is a collection of disparate works by 13 of its represented artists. Another two exhibitions will take place in the coming months. Tolarno Galleries has a long history and reputation for showing challenging works by artists of international significance, such as Juan Davila, whose work was first shown in Australia at Tolarno in 1977, as well as Howard Arkley and Patricia Piccinini.

Artists on show in ‘@50’, including Brook Andrew, whose protean approach to art-making was demonstrated in his powerful recent solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, ‘The Right to Offend is Sacred’, are of notable critical standing. Another strata of male artists represented by the gallery, such as Brendan Huntley and photographer Douglas Lance Gibson, have such casualness to their work, that their inclusion seems driven by an entirely different taste – and reminiscent of the kind of artists who were shown at the now-closed Utopian Slumps (2007 to 2014).

If there is a thread that connects the currently represented artists, it is an obscure one. This is not necessarily a criticism, as the incongruities give rise to unexpected interactions between the works selected.

David Wadelton’s Untitled (triptych) (2017), showing three disconnected images – of an overstuffed second hand bookshop, a heavily patterned living room, and an outdoor seat overgrown by a bed of ivy – is satisfyingly self-contained. Wadelton, whose work as a painter sits alongside his longstanding photography practice, including fascinating documentation of Melbourne since the 1970s, is drawn in both mediums to curious, uncanny interactions between images and plays with scale. Untitled (triptych) is resolved and coherent. It is enjoyable to follow the interests of his eye.

In the main room is Bill Henson’s Untitled (2011/2012), a portrait of a teenage girl, pale neck exposed towards the camera, with what appear to be tears running down her cheek. The subject is Alice Heyward, who is now a dancer and choreographer, who has recently spoken publically about her experience posing for Henson. She is clearly a talented model. However, the work itself, and the artistic project from which it is drawn, seems tired, the emotion laborious and hollow. It is clear to me that over the last decade of art viewing, I have grown very disinterested in what men over 50 think when they look at the teenage daughters of their friends. Henson’s is not an eye that is rewarding to follow.

A work by Dan Moynihan sits nearby, and is a pleasure to view. Bricks and Mortar 6 (2017) is a mirror-finish brick wall that seems like a visual one liner, and perhaps a subtle communication of something akin to stubbornness. Moynihan’s ‘down-to-earthness’ resonates with Anastasia Klose’s works on paper, neatly presented in a back room. The accompanying text explains Klose’s recent move into working at Animal Welfare League as a social media person, where she creates content on the organisation’s Facebook page in the hope that someone will adopt a dog. The difficulty in reconciling her intense focus on her day job (which she describes as ‘applied art’) with her identity as an artist, and the fact that the art world continues to tick on, is channeled into emotive pastels and text works that continue the enduring themes of Klose’s work – loneliness, pathos, and the coexistence of tragedy and comedy in single moments.

It is true that the art world marches on, and that the commercial galleries seem to be refreshed, year on year. Yet, amongst it all are challenging, inquiring artists whose work continues to evolve.

Anusha Kenny is a writer and lawyer from Melbourne.

Tolarno Galleries
Until 2 September 2017
Melbourne