Opening of major exhibition from legendary American photographer Ryan McGinley at Shepparton Art Museum to be celebrated on 9 March.
23 February 2024
Opening of major exhibition from legendary American photographer Ryan McGinley at Shepparton Art Museum to be celebrated on 9 March.
In partnership with PHOTO Australia, Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is pleased to present YEARBOOK – a major exhibition from American photographer Ryan McGinley. From 1 March to 14 July 2024, YEARBOOK will be on display at SAM in an Australian exclusive. This presentation of YEARBOOK marks McGinley’s first solo exhibition in Australia, with an opening celebration featuring an exclusive talk from the artist to take place on Saturday 9 March.
Consisting of a single artwork featuring over seven hundred vinyl-printed studio portraits of creatives living and working in New York City and adhered to every available inch of wall in the gallery, YEARBOOK envelops the entire space with bold colour and form. Despite the distinct individuality of each subject, the posters are unified by McGinley’s exceptional skill in capturing a fleeting moment. First presented in New York City in 2009, McGinley has shown this ever-evolving work at major public institutions in Tokyo, Denmark, Korea, and Spain. The wallpaper-style presentation of the work adapts to each gallery space it features in, making every new presentation unique and site-specific.
Internationally renowned for his snapshot-casual style of photography, McGinley’s work draws influence from his personal experiences and American street culture from his youth to present day, with a strong focus on queer identities. Described by GQ Magazine in 2014 as “the most important photographer in America”, his artistic style has evolved from the documentary-photography style that first led to his public discovery, to a more orchestrated creative vision. Commencing the project in 2008, the early photos within YEARBOOK represent McGinley’s first forays into colour studio photography, later signaling his shift into an increasingly studio-based practice.
Artist Ryan McGinley says of the exhibition:
“There’s a synergy between all the images that make up YEARBOOK; the constellation of hundreds of fleeting moments captured on camera share a timeless quality that is at the same time highly contemporary.
The physical display of the work itself is inspired by the wheat-paste street posters of New York; in this, though, the techniques of image mass-production are used to create something incredibly personal.”
McGinley will join SAM on 9 March for the official exhibition opening event, where he will present an exclusive, free artist talk reflecting on his now decades-long career, providing rich insights into the evolution of YEARBOOK and his photographic practice. The event will also feature opening remarks from Justine Dalla Riva, CEO of Victorian Pride Centre, and is a feature event of PHOTO 2024’s regional weekend.
Melinda Martin, SAM CEO, says of the exhibition:
“We’re thrilled to present such a major part of the PHOTO 2024 program in Shepparton, and to be premiering Ryan McGinley’s work to an Australian audience. Ryan has worked prolifically throughout his career, producing exhibitions and photographs that capture both a raw humanness and a timeless euphoria. We’re honored to have him join us to celebrate this presentation of YEARBOOK in March during his brief visit to Australia. The mark Ryan has made on visual culture since the beginning of his career is immense, with both his commercial and studio work present in every major fashion and arts publication of the past 20 years. Having him share his insights into his practice at the opening and the conversations that will flow out of it will surely be fascinating, revealing, and inspiring.”
YEARBOOK will be showing at SAM from 1 March until 14 July 2024 with free entry. To register your attendance at the exhibition opening event on 9 March, visit the SAM website: https://sheppartonartmuseum.com.au/event/exhibition-opening-celebration-ryan-mcginley-yearbook-photo-2024/
About Ryan McGinley:
Ryan McGinley is a New York–based photographer. His early photos displayed the unseen intersection of skateboard and graffiti culture, with a strong queer focus. At age twenty-five, he became the youngest artist to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (NYC). For over a decade, McGinley has road-tripped continuously throughout the United States to create work that incorporates the human body within the American landscape. Dubbed by GQ as “the most important photographer in America”, McGinley can often be found on the streets of NYC participating in queer activism, fighting for LGBTQIA+ rights. McGinley frequently presents international solo gallery and museum exhibitions and has an ongoing studio practice photographing members of NYC’s creative community.
About PHOTO Australia:
PHOTO Australia was founded in 2018 to launch a major new photography biennale in Melbourne and sites across Regional Victoria. Taking place every two years, the festival addresses the major issues of our time in a program of free exhibitions, outdoor displays and artist commissions across the city, as well as awards, talks, workshops, tours and experiences. Presenting ideas critical to contemporary photographic discourse, PHOTO encourages the public to engage with and think about photography and visual culture in new and inspiring ways.
The inaugural festival PHOTO 2021 ‘The Truth’ presented 105 exhibitions by 160 artists. PHOTO 2022 ‘Being Human’ saw presentations of 130 artists across Melbourne including icons Cindy Sherman and Helmut Newton, with British Journal of Photography claiming the biennale is “Australia’s most prestigious photography festival.” Both festivals have attracted a total of more than 250,000 participants. PHOTO 2024 01–24 March ‘The Future Is Shaped by Those Who Can See It’ will be the third edition.
About SAM:
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is located on Yorta Yorta Country, Shepparton, Victoria.
As a leading Australian regional art museum, SAM showcases its exhibitions and collections in new and exciting ways, creating a welcoming, inclusive, and engaging space for all visitors.
Recognised for its significant Australian ceramics collection and nationally significant collection of Indigenous art, SAM’s programming is designed to be locally relevant and engages with global contemporary ideas. Through its exhibitions, collection, programs and events, SAM creates a place where art helps us to better understand the ancient cultures of this country and contemporary multicultural Australia.
Featured image: Ryan McGinley, YEARBOOK, installation view Pretty Free at Marlborough Gallery, London, 2020. Image courtesy of the artist. © the artist.
A moving image exhibition inspired by the landscape and agriculture of Dookie is now open at Shepparton Art Museum.
16 February 2024
A moving image exhibition inspired by the landscape and agriculture of Dookie is now open at Shepparton Art Museum.
A new moving image exhibition entitled Field, featuring the work of multidisciplinary artist Jen Valender, is now showing at Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) in the Hugh D.T Williamson Community Gallery until 5 May 2024 as the latest instalment of the museum’s annual SAM Selects program.
Created during Valender’s artistic residency at The University of Melbourne’s Dookie campus for the Centre of Visual Arts’ Art + Ecology program, Field features a multi-channel video installation made up of four moving image works: Re-search, Bovine Harp, Artist as Animal, and Sediment. Set amongst the fluorescent canola fields and dairy farms of Dookie, each film combines sculpture, performance, and video to explore various aspects of agricultural life and the relationship between art and the natural world.
Across the four films, the viewer is taken on an unexpected journey; in Artist as Animal, we see Valender force her way through a hardy canola crop; in Bovine Harp, she teaches a calf to use its tongue to strum the strings of a harp. The films reframe the recognisable landscape of Dookie, allowing the familiar views for locals to be seen through an outsider’s perspective.
Caroline Esbenshade, SAM Curator - Community says of Valender’s work:
“Through her durational performances, Jen Valender highlights the labour and resilience required by the farming industry to succeed. The work is a celebration of the region, an invitation to see the fields and paddocks around us as cinematic landscapes and a nod to the ties between the metropolitan and suburban to the rural.”
Valender says of her exhibition:
"My work is often shaped by the location in which I am based, and I allow the research and conversations that I have with local residents to inform and drive the artworks that I make. While making the works for Field, I was instantly drawn to the rhythm and mechanics of the college’s robotic milking shed and laboratories. The seemingly endless fields of golden canola, with brilliant blue cloudless skies overhead, also made the surrounding landscapes ready-made artworks in themselves. I hope that the whimsy-meets-endurance nature of the exhibition, combined with the rolling hills of Dookie, brings people some delight in seeing the familiar made anew.”
Jen Valender: Field is now showing at SAM until 5 May 2024, with free entry.
About the artists:
Jen Valender is a multidisciplinary artist who creates performative encounters on and with the landscape that raises questions about the relationship between art and the natural world.
Through moving image, she explores the ways in which art may be used as a navigational tool to investigate human and nonhuman connections. Jen has exhibited widely in galleries and museums in Australia, France, Germany, South Africa, and Portugal and holds a Master of Fine Arts (Research) from the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne.
About SAM:
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is located on Yorta Yorta Country, Shepparton, Victoria.
As a leading Australian regional art museum, SAM showcases its exhibitions and collections in new and exciting ways to create a welcoming, inclusive, and engaging space for all visitors.
Recognised for its significant Australian ceramics collection and nationally significant collection of Indigenous art, SAM’s programming is designed to be locally relevant and engages with global contemporary ideas. Through its exhibitions, collection, programs and events, SAM creates a place where art helps us to better understand the ancient culture of this country and contemporary multicultural Australia.
Image: Jen Valender, Artist as Animal (still, 2022). Image courtesy of the artist.
Shepparton Art Museum collection exhibition Dance Me to the End of Love to close 11 February.
5 February 2024
Shepparton Art Museum collection exhibition Dance Me to the End of Love to close 11 February.
Shepparton Art Museum’s (SAM) major collection exhibition Dance Me to the End of Love comes to a close on 11 February 2024.
For visitors, the end of the exhibition means a farewell to the public display of a number of key SAM collection items, including Sam Jinks’ Woman and Child and Penny Byrne’s Four Horsemen of the 21st Century Apocalypse. These works will re-enter the SAM collection store, where they will be documented for the museum’s growing digitisation archive in addition to receiving conservation works to ensure their long-term preservation, where needed.
Melinda Martin, SAM CEO, says of the exhibition closing:
“This past year, we’ve been delighted by the reception of this immense exhibition. Dance Me to the End of Love returned Woman and Child and many other renowned works from the SAM Collection to our gallery, and it’s been wonderful to see people return over again to see the work and to bring along friends and family to share the experience. We encourage everyone to visit SAM before the exhibition’s final day on 11 February to experience this touching display and visit their favourite work one last time before it re-enters the collection.”
Dance Me to the End of Love will be on display on Level 1 of SAM until 11 February 2024 with free entry.
About the exhibition:
Dance Me to the End of Love evokes the grand cycles of life, traversing from birth to death through artworks in the SAM Collection. Spanning one hundred and twenty years, the diverse selection of artworks includes ceramics, sculpture, painting, printmaking, drawing, assemblage, and installation.
From their individual perspectives the thirty-nine artists in Dance Me to the End of Love share stories of a life lived and delve into connective experiences of creation, parenthood, spiritualism, life seasons, death, and the afterlife.
About SAM:
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is located on Yorta Yorta Country, Shepparton, Victoria.
As a leading Australian regional art museum, SAM showcases its exhibitions and collections in new and exciting ways to create a welcoming, inclusive, and engaging space for all visitors.
Recognised for its significant Australian ceramics collection and nationally significant collection of Indigenous art, SAM’s programming is designed to be locally relevant and engages with global contemporary ideas. Through its exhibitions, collection, programs and events, SAM creates a place where art helps us to better understand the ancient culture of this country and contemporary multicultural Australia.
Image: Dance Me to the End of Love, installation view, Shepparton Art Museum, 2023. Photo: Leon Schoots