‘The National 2019: New Australian Art’ has announced its list of 65 emerging, mid-career and established Australian artists to be exhibited across the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), and Carriageworks from 29 March to 23 June 2019.
Returning to Sydney for its second iteration after a successful debut in 2017, ‘The National 2019’ will be showcasing new and commissioned work through a broad range of media, encompassing painting, video, photography, sculpture, installation, drawing and performance.
Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, The Dogs, 2017, stained wood, chandeliers, installation view, Dark Horizons, Pataka Art + Museum, Porirua City, 2017. Photograph: Jonathon Wilson. Courtesy the artist and Moore Contemporary © the artist
The overarching thematic focus will explore the interrelation between ideas of hierarchy and power, dystopic futures and ritual and improvisation. These concepts are unpacked and lengthened within each venue’s unique thematic focus.
AGNSW curator, Isobel Parker Phillip said that ‘states of suspense and anticipation characterise the exhibition at AGNSW, as 24 artists investigate the boundary between chaos and control in work that is by turns political, poetic and personal.’ She has described the works as intricate, complex and charged with a sense of precariousness – which speak to the speculative nature of the more comprehensive themes featured in ‘The National 2019’ on a macro scale.
Eugenia Lim, The Australian Ugliness (still), 2018, multi-channel high-definition video, installation, colour, sound. Photograph: Tom Ross. Courtesy and © artist
Over at Carriageworks, the 19 exhibiting artists will present newly commissioned works against a backdrop of ‘dark sunshine’ that ‘map memory and place-making, where the work of art is a form of emotional tourism,’ as expressed by curator Daniel Mudie Cunningham. The works will collectively explore the relationship between the individual and their geographical as well as temporal place in a constantly fluctuating world.
The 21 remaining artists in will be exhibiting at the MCA. More than half of these artists are women who all come from diverse geographical and cultural backgrounds within Australia. MCA co-curators Clothilde Bullen and Anna Davis stated ‘we have selected a diverse group of artist whose practices reflect urgent contemporary concerns.’ Their work will reflect current national sociopolitical debates through an engagement with ritual, experimentation and rhetoric.
‘The National 2019’ is the only recurring exhibition in Sydney focused solely on contemporary Australian art. The program this year situates it firmly as a uniquely Australian event – not only being exclusive to Australian artists, but engaging with a huge breadth of Australian subculture, politics and identity.
