Shepparton Art Museum debuts new permanent collection exhibition Stories from the SAM Collection
11 October 2024
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is pleased to present Stories from the SAM Collection, a permanent yet ever-changing exhibition featuring a dynamic selection of artworks drawn from the extensive SAM Collection. Unfolding across a series of thematic rooms, each section of the exhibition uniquely explores the history and the make-up of the collection, from the earliest acquisitions to the expansion of our significant holding of ceramics, and our growing representation of South East Australian Aboriginal artists through the gifting of works from the Carrillo and Ziyin Gantner Indigenous Art Collection.
Familiar and beloved artworks, including John Perceval’s Delinquent Angel and Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori’s King Alfred’s Country, are presented alongside recent acquisitions, including works from Afghani-Australian artist Khadim Ali and David Noonan, inviting the viewer along on a journey that not only explores the genesis of the SAM collection, but its continuing evolution to reflect the changing landscape of contemporary Australian art.
Recently appointed SAM Artistic Director, Danny Lacy, says of the exhibition:
“The team have seized the opportunity to unearth some fascinating stories from the SAM Collection. This exhibition model embraces a new permanent format to present a greater diversity of artworks and artists, allowing our audience to gain a deeper, more holistic understanding of not only what artworks we’ve amassed in the collection over our 88-year history, but also how we are continuing to build on it. Our collection is a shared one and has grown through the generosity of our community. We hope that visitors to the exhibition can take a sense of pride in what has been created through our shared passion and vision for a vibrant, significant collection.”
Stories from the SAM Collection is now showing in The People’s Gallery on Level 2 of the museum.
Joining Danny in a new executive role is Andrew Gooley, who has recently been appointed as SAM’s Director of Business. These joint Director appointments come as the SAM Limited Board implements a new strategic vision that continues to elevate its focus on artistic programming and business development.
Stephen Merrylees, SAM Limited Board Chair, says of the appointments:
“The SAM Ltd Board is committed to delivering on SAM’s vision to be recognised as Australia’s premier regional destination for arts and culture, to contribute to the cultural enrichment, community engagement, and economic prosperity of our region. We’re excited to see the establishment of a new permanent exhibition to view the depth of SAM’s collection including works from the gifted Gantner collection, for visitors to enjoy year-round.
As newly appointed joint Directors, Danny Lacy and Andrew Gooley step into their respective positions with impressive experience and industry knowledge to lead the next phase of SAM’s continued growth, as we work to deliver on our ambition to showcase inspiring exhibitions and experiences in Shepparton.”
An exhibition opening event will be held at SAM on 18 October to celebrate the local artists of SAM Open and the new season of exhibitions at the museum. Registrations to this free event can be made via Humanitix: https://events.humanitix.com/sam-exhibition-celebration
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Top image: Stories from the SAM Collection, installation view, Shepparton Art Museum, 2024. Photo: Shepparton Art Museum
Bottom image, L-R: SAM Director of Business Andrew Gooley and SAM Artistic Director Danny Lacy. Photo: Shepparton Art Museum
Local artists highlighted in SAM Open 2024
19 August 2024
SAM Open 2024, Shepparton Art Museum’s (SAM) annual open-call group exhibition, returned to the museum’s Hugh D.T Williamson Community Gallery on Saturday 17 August. The callout for entries to the exhibition resulted in 70 submissions from artists and creatives living or working in the Goulburn Valley and Hume regions. All 70 entries are displayed in the exhibition, with each work reflecting the artists’ unique responses to the theme of ‘remnants, memories, and objects’.
SAM Open celebrates and showcases the creativity of the artistic community across the Goulburn Valley and the Hume Regions. The works on display span an array of styles and approaches, including photography, poetry, ceramics, and sculpture.
SAM Open provides an opportunity to bring together local practitioners to share their creativity with audiences and presents their work in dialogue with exhibitions by nationally recognised Australian artists. The featured works in SAM Open 2024: Remnants, memories, and objects explore the theme through treasured objects, recollections of travel, moments with loved ones, and reflections on personal growth. The range of perspectives represented creates opportunities for viewers to reflect on their own stories and the objects that make up their lives.
Caroline Esbenshade, SAM Curator – Community, says of the exhibition:
“Each year I have been thrilled and surprised by the breadth of talent in our community when the submissions to SAM Open roll in, and this year is no exception. The responses to the theme of ‘Remnants, memories, and objects’ are richly diverse, but as always, there is something for everyone. This show is beautiful snapshot of the creativity of our community.”
SAM Open 2024: Remnants, Memories, and Objects in now showing at Shepparton Art Museum until 17 November 2024.
SAM Open 2024 exhibiting artists:
Meredith Arnold, Maureen Ball, Fasiha Batool, Greg Beckenham, Andrew Bond, William Boyer, Bec Bromley Humphries, David Doc Brown, Val Callister, Margaret Carey, Alan Cartlidge, Rhonda Chrisanthou, Valerie Clements, Ann Cremean, Ross Dainton, Kim D’Arma, Letizia D’Augello, Beverley Dowd, Michael Flatt, Jeanette Fry, Anna Generalova, Barbara Gray, Kerry Handwerk, Dianne Hanna, Carolena Helderman, Samantha J Heriz, Raymond Hill, Amanda Hocking, Wendy Hogben, honeypot pottery, Belinda Hook, Kirsten Ives, Wendy Jagger, Donna Kaye, Fiona Kennan, David Kerr, Lois Krake, Janice Laidlaw, Marion Langford, Jodi Lewis, John Martin Lewis, Miki Mackenzie, Peta Manning, marikartoons (Linda Marikar), Elizabeth Masters, Ron Miliado, Joan Mullarvey, Diane Nally, Steven Nash, Merinda Page, lyn patone, Kaye Poulton, Maria Radanov, Jill Riordan, FAN ROARHEART, Judith Roberts, Lucia Rossi, Angie Russi, Kate Ryan, Judy Simm, Lucy Smyth, Narelle Snelling, Rebecca S. Trevaskis, Laurie Tyndall, Megan Walker, Anna White, Janine Wilson, Jen Wilson, Beverley Williams, Vicki Woodhouse.
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Shepparton Art Museum announces award winners of SAM Fresh 2024
16 August 2024
Shepparton Art Museum announces award winners of SAM Fresh 2024
Shepparton Art Museum is pleased to announce artists Gabriella Vittorio and Kat Parker as the respective winners of the SAM Fresh 2024 La Trobe University Award and People’s Choice Award. The winners of the awards were announced to an excited crowd of over 80 attendees at the museum on Saturday 3 August during the official exhibition celebration, which included remarks from SAM Acting Artistic Director Danny Lacy and SAM Curator – Community Caroline Esbenshade.
Both artists’ winning entries have been on display in the SAM Community Gallery as part of the SAM Fresh 2024 exhibition, an annual, open-call group exhibition for young creatives aged 16-25 living, working, or studying in the Goulburn Valley and Hume regions.
Working in a surrealist style, Gabriella Vittorio’s winning entry, titled Lunchtime, is a digital drawing exploring her Italian heritage and the challenges of growing up as a culturally diverse person in Australia. Vittorio’s work depicts the common experience shared by many multicultural school students of self-consciousness around packed lunches from home. Vittorio receives a cash prize of $1,500 as the recipient of the La Trobe University Award.
An accomplished printmaker and artist, Kat Parker’s winning entry, titled Discarded III, features a life-sized 3D linocut model of a Robust White-Eye, an extinct species formerly found on Lord Howe Island. The artwork appears like a bird in flight, suspended on a barely-visible wire from the ceiling of the gallery. Parker receives a cash prize of $500 as the recipient of the People’s Choice Award, which was open for voting by visitors since the opening of the exhibition in May.
Caroline Esbenshade, SAM Curator – Community, says of the award winners:
“Both winning works really connected with audiences and represent a high level of skill within their practices. Parker’s Robust White-eye is such a unique approach to printmaking. Made of many artworks within an artwork, it is composed of multiple linocut prints that she has layered together to create a three-dimensional form. The resulting sculpture looks like it has taken flight in our galleries and at any moment will chirp!
Vittorio’s work has truly been a conversation piece. I have heard people off different generations and backgrounds sharing with each other what lunches they took to school, what was considered to be a ‘cool lunch,’ what was their least favourite thing to have for lunch and more. It’s been a beautiful point of connection between audiences and staff.”
SAM Fresh 2024 closed at SAM on Sunday 11 August.
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New installation at Shepparton Art Museum reflects on historic Olympic moment.
16 August 2024
New installation at Shepparton Art Museum reflects on historic Olympic moment.
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is pleased to present Peter, Tommie & John / reliving the dream, a large-scale textile installation from Melbourne-based artist Stewart Russell exploring one of the most influential political actions of the 20th century through the eyes of Australian Olympic silver medallist Peter Norman.
Expanding on an earlier project created by Russell in collaboration with late artist Kate Daw, Peter, Tommie & John / reliving the dream tells the story of the historic podium-top act of protest against racism instigated by African American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, together with Australian athlete Peter Norman, at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico following their record-breaking final in the 200-metre track event. Whilst Tommie Smith and John Carlos returned to the USA as heroes of the civil rights movement, Peter Norman returned to Australia to suffer unofficial sanction and ridicule.
Featuring images and transcriptions drawn from interviews conducted with Peter prior to his death in 2006, the new works focus on the triumph of the athletes’ personal friendship, which endured in spite of their protest’s continued political repercussions.
Danny Lacy, SAM Acting Artistic Director, says of the exhibition:
“These new works from Stewart Russell are a timely tribute to the extraordinary actions of Peter Norman and his personal sacrifice to a cause he believed in. While the images of the protest will be familiar to many, the story behind the image and of what followed are lesser known, though equally as fascinating. As we enjoy the 2024 Paris Olympics, we encourage our community to visit SAM, reflect on Peter’s words and experiences, and learn more about a little-known moment in Australian sporting history.”
Stewart Russell: Peter, Tommie & John / reliving the dream is now showing at SAM with free entry.
About the artist:
Stewart Russell (b. 1965, Scotland) employs a range of media to examine narrative of cultural inheritance, collective identity, nationalism, and social justice.
Formerly working as director of London Printworks, Russell established Melbourne-based studio Spacecraft in 2000, where he works individually and collaboratively with artists, architects, and fashion designers to produce artworks which can be found in public spaces, galleries, and collections across the world.
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New collection exhibition Big Ceramic Energy to open at Shepparton Art Museum in August 2024
22 July 2024
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is thrilled to present Big Ceramic Energy, a new SAM Collection exhibition featuring a selection of Australian, First Nations, and international contemporary artists whose creative practices push the boundaries of the ceramic medium through experimentation, innovation, and imagination.
The artworks featured in this exhibition are drawn from the museum's dynamic collection, which has expanded and developed through donations, bequests, select acquisitions and curatorial commissions, as well as special acquisitions from past editions of the museum’s Sidney Myer Ceramic Award and Indigenous Ceramic Award.
Recent acquisitions from artists Isadora Vaughan and Karen Black will make their SAM debut, whilst beloved works from Deborah Halpern, Kaye Poulton and Bankstown Koori Elders will emerge after years in storage. Through eccentric forms to experimental glazes, the grouping of highly individual artworks in Big Ceramic Energy exude a shared boldness of character, with each work expressing the artists’ unique techniques and approaches to the medium.
Danny Lacy, SAM Acting Artistic Director, says of the exhibition:
“Big Ceramic Energy is a show dedicated to celebrating artists in the SAM Collection who challenge audience preconceptions of what ceramics can or should be, investigating complex stories and histories that find new depth through their use of material and technique. SAM has a rich legacy of supporting artists as they innovate in the field of ceramics and has built up an impressive holding of artworks that reveal the journey that the ceramic medium has taken through the experimentations of these artists. Longtime visitors to SAM will be glad to see the return of some familiar artworks from the collection in Big Ceramic Energy, whilst discovering artworks that we hope go on to become new favourites.”
Big Ceramic Energy opens at SAM on Saturday 3 August 2024 with free entry.
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Full list of exhibiting artists:
Bankstown Koori Elders Group, Karen Black, Stephen Bowers, Penny Byrne, Greg Daly, Lynda Draper, Deborah Halpern, Steve Hilton, Jenny Orchard, Kaye Poulton, Isadora Vaughan, Graeme Wilkie.
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.
Image: Jenny Orchard, Durian Head and Choko Nose (c. 2007), Shepparton Art Museum Collection, acquired as the winner of the 2017 Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award, 2017 © Jenny Orchard. Photo: Christian Capurro.
Shepparton Art Museum’s major international exhibition Ryan McGinley: YEARBOOK to close 14 July 2024
3 July 2024
Shepparton Art Museum’s major international exhibition Ryan McGinley: YEARBOOK to close 14 July 2024
After more than four successful months of display, Shepparton Art Museum’s (SAM) major exhibition YEARBOOK from American photographer Ryan McGinley will draw to a close on 14 July 2024. Showing exclusively at SAM as part of PHOTO 2024 International Photography Festival, this presentation of McGinley’s famed international project marked the artist’s first solo exhibition in Australia.
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 gallery space with bold colour and form. 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.
Melinda Martin, SAM CEO, says of the exhibition closing:
“It has been such a privilege to welcome visitors to SAM to experience YEARBOOK over the past months. The exhibition contains such joy, inclusivity, and pride, and we’ve found ourselves constantly surprised and thrilled at the responses people have had to the work. It has been wonderful to be able to present an exhibition that so many in our community have been able to connect with through the incredible representation of people, bodies and identities captured by the artist. It’s a real coup for our community to now have our town on the list of locations this exhibition has travelled to, and we hope people can feel a sense of pride from this.
In its final weeks, we invite everyone to visit, enjoy some final moments with these powerful portraits, and perhaps take some time to watch the interview we recorded with Ryan to hear about the process of making and presenting such a monumental and ever-evolving artwork.”
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.
YEARBOOK will be on display on Level 1 at SAM until 14 July 2024 with free entry.
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 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, Shepparton Art Museum, 2024. Photo: Shepparton Art Museum
Applications now open for SAM Selects 2025 & SAM Spotlight 2025
28 June 2024
Applications are now open for Shepparton Art Museum’s Community Gallery 2025 exhibition program.
Two opportunities for local creatives to present work as part of the 2025 exhibition program in Shepparton Art Museum’s (SAM) Hugh D.T Williamson Community Gallery are now open for applications.
SAM Selects accepts exhibition proposals from local artists, curators, creative practitioners, and community groups to exhibit an existing original creative project or body of work in the Community Gallery at SAM. Previous SAM Selects exhibitions include artist Jen Valender’s multimedia exhibition Field and After the Rain from Echuca-based artist group Tuesday Junction.
SAM Spotlight is a paid solo exhibition opportunity open to emerging artists living, working or studying in the Goulburn Valley. The artist selected for SAM Spotlight will develop a body of work for exhibition over the following twelve-month period with support from the SAM Curator – Community. In November 2023 Echuca-based artist Ellen Lee presented Landscape; of sight, of sound for her SAM Spotlight exhibition, which featured a selection of large-scale abstract works on paper.
Caroline Esbenshade, SAM Curator – Community, says of the opportunities:
“SAM’s Community Gallery is dedicated to showcasing the talent of creatives in the region. The two opportunities are geared toward artists, curators and community groups who are interested in presenting an art exhibition in the Community Gallery. For both emerging and established creatives, the opportunities offer a rare chance to exhibit within an art museum context, raising the profile of their work and offering unique professional development opportunities.”
Applications to SAM Selects and SAM Spotlight must be submitted by 11.59PM on 1 August 2024 via the SAM website. The successful exhibition proposal for SAM Selects will be on display at the museum from 23 February to 18 May 2025, with the successful SAM Spotlight solo exhibition to follow later in the year from 23 November 2025 to 15 February 2026.
To learn more about SAM Selects and SAM Spotlight and submit your application, visit our website: https://sheppartonartmuseum.com.au/support-get-involved/exhibit-at-sam/
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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.
Media enquiries, please contact: Mikela Guseli, Marketing Officer, SAM
p: (03) 4804 5009 e: mguseli@sheppartonartmuseum.com.au
Featured image: Artist group Tuesday Junction with their 2023 SAM Selects exhibition After the Rain. Photo: Shepparton Art Museum
Shepparton Art Museum appoints Danny Lacy as Head of Curatorial Programming & Collections
8 May 2024
Shepparton Art Museum appoints Danny Lacy as its new Head of Curatorial Programming and Collections, to commence on 11 June 2024.
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is pleased to announce the appointment of Danny Lacy in the role of Head of Curatorial Programming and Collections.
Having previously been a part of the SAM curatorial team from 2010-2012, Danny rejoins SAM with outstanding credentials, having spent the past 8 years at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery (MPRG), initially as Senior Curator and later as Gallery Director. During this period, he has led MPRG through a period of sustained growth and change. Notably, Danny was instrumental as one of the Artistic Directors behind the Mornington Peninsula’s ambitious public art project Front Beach, Back Beach, developed in collaboration with Deakin University’s Public Art Commission.
Prior to working at MPRG, Danny held an active curatorial practice across a range of contemporary art spaces, including as Director of West Space, Curator at SAM, Program Administrator at Monash University Museum of Art, and Installation & Project Coordinator at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. He holds a Master of Arts (Visual Culture) and Postgraduate Diploma of Arts (Art History and Film Studies) from Monash University. In 2015 he was based in Singapore for three months as he undertook an Asialink Arts Management residency.
Melinda Martin, SAM CEO, says of the appointment:
“We are thrilled to welcome Danny back to SAM and to Shepparton for an exciting new chapter. Having grown up in a regional community himself, Danny understands the importance of regional art museums and the integral part they play in the community. We are looking forward to seeing the many contributions he will make to the organisation as he leads our curatorial and collections team.”
Danny says of his appointment:
“I’m really excited at the opportunity to work with Melinda and the team at SAM. I’m looking forward to returning to Shepparton, engaging with the community, inspiring people through our creative programming, and supporting SAM to be one of the most vibrant art museums in the country. “
Danny will commence his role as Head of Curatorial Programming and Collections on Tuesday 11 June.
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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.
Media enquiries, please contact: Mikela Guseli, Marketing Officer, SAM
p: (03) 4804 5009 e: mguseli@sheppartonartmuseum.com.au
Shepparton Art Museum to present a playful new Art Wall celebrating the region’s fruit preservation industry.
7 May 2024
Shepparton Art Museum to present a playful new Art Wall celebrating the region’s fruit preservation industry.
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is pleased to present its latest Art Wall in May 2024. The new work by Narrm/Melbourne-based artist Kenny Pittock, will be a playful homage to the fruit growing and preserving industries of the Goulburn Valley. Titled Can You Peel The Love Tonight, this installation becomes the fifth commission for the Furphy Family Art Wall on SAM’s Level 4.
Kenny Pittock is a visual artist who works with ceramics, painting, and drawing to playfully critique the seemingly mundane, often using humour as an entry point to discuss topics such as anxiety, both on a personal level as well as on a global scale.
Can You Peel The Love Tonight draws inspiration from the iconic canned fruit produced in the region, presenting a large-scale still life painting that celebrates the agricultural heritage of the Goulburn Valley and the community that dwells here in Pittock’s signature joyful style.
Melinda Martin, SAM CEO, says of the exhibition:
“This Art Wall from Kenny is a wonderful celebration of our region’s famed fruit preservation industry, and the people who have contributed to its growth and success over many decades. So many people in our region are connected to either the fruit growing or canning industry, sometimes across generations, and we’re so excited that Kenny has chosen them as the inspiration for his Art Wall commission. We invite everyone to visit SAM during the Art Wall’s exhibition and see their story expressed in Kenny’s playful work.”
On Saturday 18 May, Pittock will join SAM CEO Melinda Martin for free artist talk exploring his creative practice, inspirations, and the story behind his Art Wall commission.
Can You Peel The Love Tonight will be on display at SAM from 18 May 2024. To learn more about Kenny Pittock’s artist talk and reserve a spot, visit our website: https://sheppartonartmuseum.com.au/event/sam-talks-kenny-pittock/
About Kenny Pittock:
Kenny Pittock (b. 1988 Melbourne) is an artist based in Narrm/Melbourne who works with ceramics, painting, and drawing to playfully critique the seemingly mundane, often using humour as an entry point to discuss topics such as anxiety, both on a personal level as well as on a global scale. Pittock has held solo exhibitions in Italy, Singapore, and New Zealand, as well as in many public institutions throughout Australia. Pittock's artworks are included in many public collections including Bendigo Art Gallery, Artbank, the University of Queensland, and the National Gallery of Victoria. Pittock is represented by MARS Gallery, Melbourne.
Artist talk details:
SAM Talks: Kenny Pittock
Saturday 18 May, 11am-12pm
Level 4, SAM
Free – bookings encouraged: https://sheppartonartmuseum.com.au/event/sam-talks-kenny-pittock/
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.
Media enquiries, please contact: Mikela Guseli, Marketing Officer, SAM
p: (03) 4804 5009 e: mguseli@sheppartonartmuseum.com.au
Shepparton Art Museum announces the 2024 winner and runners-up of The Urbach.
29 April 2024
Shepparton Art Museum announces the 2024 winner and runners-up of The Urbach.
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is pleased to announce the 2024 winner and runners-up of The Theodore Urbach Landscape Prize and Studio Scholarship (“The Urbach”), a new $10,000 prize and scholarship encouraging explorations in the field Australian landscape painting. Echuca-based artist Ellen Lee becomes the inaugural winner of The Urbach, with artists Wendy Jagger and Anna Mackrell named the two runners-up.
Ellen Lee is an artist based in Echuca, Victoria. Her creative practice takes the form of large-scale, abstract works on paper that explore her personal, sensory experience of nature. In 2023, Lee presented a solo exhibition at SAM after being named the 2023 SAM Spotlight artist.
The 2024 finalists were selected from seven applications to the prestigious award. Four artists from the seven were shortlisted, going on to present their applications to an expert judging panel. The 2024 judging panel, chaired by SAM CEO Melinda Martin, consisted of Hannah Presley (Senior Curator, University of Melbourne), Dr. Drew Pettifer (Associate Professor RMIT and SAM Ltd Board member), David Hagger (Melbourne-based curator, consultant, and project manager), Rachel Arndt (Director, Wangaratta Art Gallery), and Briar Stevens (Equity Trustees representative for The Theodore Urbach Landscape Painting Scholarship and Prize Charitable Trust).
Of the strength of the applications, Dr. Drew Pettifer says:
“I was genuinely impressed by the standard of the applications to the Urbach this year. The high calibre of painting practice in the Shepparton area is a testament to the quality of the arts and culture in the region. The judges faced a difficult task in narrowing the field down to one final applicant, but after extended deliberations we settled on a unanimous winner.
Ellen Lee embodies so many of the values central to The Urbach and SAM. Working in an expanded painting practice, Lee engages with landscape, environment, place, and time through careful observation and generative site responsiveness. We look forward to the outcomes of her engagement with the site and community surrounding SAM."
Theodore Urbach Landscape Painting Scholarship and Prize Charitable Trust representative Briar Stevens says:
“We extend our congratulations to Ellen Lee and runners up Wendy Jagger and Anna Mackrell on becoming the very first recipients of The Urbach. We are delighted that Theodore Urbach’s vision can now be realised through his testamentary charitable trust, to support appreciation of the Australian landscape and the translation of that into art.”
As winner of The Urbach, Lee will receive a $5,000 cash prize and a scholarship stipend of $5,000 to support her as she undertakes the three-month scholarship at SAM’s onsite artist studio from 1 May to 31 July 2024. Lee’s focus in this scholarship period will centre on the immediate surrounds of the museum, Lake Victoria, and the bird life that inhabits it.
As runners-up, Wendy Jagger and Anna Mackrell will each be awarded a $2,500 prize in recognition of their time and commitment in developing their applications. In an additional outcome from the judging, Jagger was awarded access to the SAM Artist Studio for one month later this year to further expand her practice.
Image: Ellen Lee, artist portrait, 2024. Photo courtesy of artist.
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.
Media enquiries, please contact: Mikela Guseli, Marketing Officer, SAM
p: (03) 4804 5009 e: mguseli@sheppartonartmuseum.com.au
Shepparton Art Museum is inviting local creatives to exhibit their artwork in SAM Open 2024
16 April 2024
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is inviting local creatives, working, or studying in the Goulburn Valley and Hume regions to submit original artwork that responds to the theme of Remnants, memories & objects for the annual group exhibition SAM Open.
This opportunity is available to creatives aged 26 years and over, at all experience levels or career stages. This year’s exhibition theme of remnants, memories and objects invites artists to create artworks that explore items or moments that make up their story. From poetry to painting, photography to sculpture, artists can use their creative practice to immortalise, reinterpret or create an entirely new keepsake or memento, or imagine what might remain of them in the future.
Artists are welcome to submit an artwork created in any medium that addresses the theme. Artists may create new work, or submit existing work created in the past two years that fits within the theme.
Caroline Esbenshade, SAM Curator – Community, says of the opportunity:
“SAM Open is always met with such enthusiasm by our creative community, and we expect this year to be no exception. The exhibition theme of ‘remnants, memories & objects’ can be interpreted as literally or as abstractly as the artist chooses. It presents an opportunity for creatives to share formative memories, treasured objects, and personal narratives through whatever medium they choose. I look forward to learning more about the artists in our community through their art and I anticipate that audiences will resonate deeply with the personal nature of these works.”
Applications for SAM Open 2024 are now open and will close on 17 June 2024. SAM Open 2024 will be on display in the Hugh D.T Williamson Community Gallery at SAM from 17 August to 17 November 2024.
Applications to SAM Open can be made online – information on the full process, guidelines and artwork specifications can be found on the SAM website: https://sheppartonartmuseum.com.au/whats-on/upcoming/sam-open-2024-remnants-memories-and-objects/
Image: SAM Open 2023: Home, installation view, Shepparton Art Museum, 2023. Photo: Shepparton Art Museum
SAM Open 2024 Details:
- Open to creatives aged 26 years and over
- Applicants must be living, working or studying in the Goulburn Valley or Hume Regions.
- Artwork submissions must respond to the theme of Remnants, memories & objects.
- Application guidelines on the SAM Website: https://sheppartonartmuseum.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/SAM-Open-2024_Guidelines.pdf
Key Dates:
Applications open: 15 April 2024
Applications close: 17 June 2024
Exhibition dates: 17 August – 17 November 2024
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.
Media enquiries, please contact: Mikela Guseli, Marketing Officer, SAM
p: (03) 4804 5009 e: mguseli@sheppartonartmuseum.com.au
Shepparton Art Museum announces artists of SAM Fresh 2024
12 April 2024
Shepparton Art Museum announces artists of SAM Fresh 2024
Shepparton Art Museum is pleased to announce the full list of artists whose work will be featured in the upcoming Community Gallery exhibition SAM Fresh 2024. SAM Fresh is an annual, open-call group exhibition for young creatives aged 16-25 living, working, or studying in the Goulburn Valley and Hume regions. The exhibition creates a space within the museum’s Community Gallery to celebrate and support the blossoming creative scene of the region’s emerging artists.
Responding to the open callout, twenty young creatives submitted their original artwork for inclusion in the exhibition. Themes addressed in the works encompass a variety of cultural and social issues articulated through diverse mediums, including painting, ceramics, fibre/textile arts, and film.
Caroline Esbenshade, SAM Curator – Community, says of the exhibition:
“We’re delighted to be exhibiting all the artworks that were submitted this year. It’s always exciting to see what the region’s next generation of artists are exploring in their creative
practices, and while some entries share common themes, the artworks are all incredibly diverse and individual. Our community is always hugely supportive of the exhibitions that are presented by local creatives, and we look forward to hearing the rich conversations that will emerge when people experience this show.”
SAM Fresh 2024 will open in SAM’s Hugh D.T Williamson Community Gallery on Saturday 11 May.
Announcing the SAM Fresh 2024 artists:
Maria Abblitt
Mya Bathman
Kody Bothwell
Ketiah Bwihambi
Leah Doyle
Grace Garner
Georgie Giustino
Kristi Hardman
Lily Leys
Ashleigh Molisak
Kat Parker
Joy Parnell
Anika Robinson
Lehansa Samaranayake
Oriana Teasdale
Katelyn Trevaskis
Brin Vesty
Neiki Vesty
Gabriella Vittorio
Ruby Wyatt-Carter
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.
Image: SAM Fresh 2023, installation view, Shepparton Art Museum, 2023. Photo: Leon Schoots
Selected works from the National Gallery of Victoria’s permanent collection to be presented at Shepparton Art Museum.
21 March 2024
Selected works from the National Gallery of Victoria’s permanent collection to be presented at Shepparton Art Museum.
In partnership with National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is pleased to present The Land is Us: Stories, Place and Connection – a new major exhibition that brings together notable artworks from the NGV Collection to offer an expanded consideration of landscape art. With free entry, the exhibition will be on display at SAM from 30 March to 1 September 2024.
Through artworks from Australian, First Nations, and international artists, The Land is Us explores our fascination with and our connection to land and place. Curated into a series of rooms, the artworks traverse a number of themes, from the role of the land in shaping personal and national identities, to mythmaking, to the displacement experienced by refugees.
The many artists presented within the exhibition give voice to the diverse experiences that are shared with the landscape. Australian Impressionists Frederick McCubbin and Hans Heysen present the familiar visuals of Australian bushland and the activities of early settlers; contrastingly, Wiradjuri/Ngunnawal artist Brook Andrew and Kamilaroi artist Reko Rennie subvert the traditional landscape to re-insert and reaffirm the presence of First Nations people in Australian history. Addressing the changing and sometimes hostile nature of the Australian landscape is artist Patricia Piccinini’s sculptural work The Rescuers; poignant and lifelike, the work confronts the reality of the increasingly severe climate crisis faced by the Australian population.
Melinda Martin, SAM CEO, says of the exhibition:
“It’s a privilege to be presenting significant works from the NGV Collection in a regional setting. It brings important context to the artworks on display and allows regional audiences to not only access these works closer to home, but see them in proximity to the scenery that inspired the artists. We’re excited to again be featuring artwork from Yorta Yorta artist Lin Onus at SAM – an artist whose work many will remember from the solo exhibition that launched the 2021 artistic program in our new museum, as well as being the namesake of our major gallery space on SAM’s Level 1. The Land is Us speaks to spectrum of relationships people across Australia have with the land and investigates the complexities of those relationships through the lenses of colonisation, migration, and cultural heritage, amongst others.”
Melinda Martin, CEO, SAM. Photo: Cam Matheson
Portrait of Tony Ellwood AM, Director, NGV. Photo: Tim Carrafa
Tony Ellwood AM, Director, NGV says:
‘We’re delighted to contribute important works from NGV’s Collection for the presentation of The Land is Us at Shepparton Art Museum. By bringing such diverse works together as part of one exhibition and displaying them in a fresh new context allows audiences to appreciate a fuller and richer picture of Australia’s relationship with the land.’
An opening celebration event for The Land is Us will take place at SAM on Wednesday 27 March at 6PM. The event will feature an official welcome from Greater Shepparton City Council Deputy Mayor Cr. Sam Spinks, followed by opening remarks from NGV Deputy Director Andrew Clark and SAM CEO Melinda Martin, and will grant attendees an exclusive first look at the exhibition ahead of its official opening to the public on Friday 30 March. Attendance at the event is free, with refreshments available at bar prices.
The Land is Us: Stories, Place and Connection will be showing at SAM from 30 March until 1 September 2024 with free entry. To register your attendance at the exhibition opening event on 27 March, visit the SAM website: https://sheppartonartmuseum.com.au/event/exhibition-opening-celebration-the-land-is-us-stories-place-connection-artworks-from-the-ngv-collection/
Featured image: John Brack, The car (1955), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased, 1956 © National Gallery of Victoria
The Land is Us | Opening celebration event details:
Wednesday 27 March, 6pm-8pm
Shepparton Art Museum, 530 Wyndham Street, Shepparton
FREE – bookings encouraged: https://sheppartonartmuseum.com.au/event/exhibition-opening-celebration-the-land-is-us-stories-place-connection-artworks-from-the-ngv-collection/
Full list of exhibiting artists:
Hoda Afshar, Brook Andrew, Gordon Bennett, John Brack, Marylin Brown Petyarr, Louisa Bufardeci, Destiny Deacon, Rosalie Gascoigne, John Glover, Treahna Hamm, Taloi Havini and Stuart Miller, Hans Heysen, Beth Mbitjana Inkamala, Judith Pungkarta Inkamala, Rosemary Laing, Myoung Ho Lee, Frederick McCubbin, Trevor Nickolls, Grant Nimmo, Sidney Nolan, John Olsen, Lin Onus, Patricia Piccinini, John Pule, Ben Quilty, Cliff Reid, Reko Rennie, Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Jane Sutherland, Rahel Kngwarria Ungwanaka, May Vale, HJ Wedge, Fred Williams, Walter Withers, Ah Xian, John Young
About NGV:
The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) is the oldest and most visited gallery in Australia. Situated over two buildings – NGV International and The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia – the Gallery hosts a wide range of international and local artists, exhibitions, programs, and events; from contemporary art to major international historic exhibitions, fashion and design, architecture, sound, and dance.
The NGV’s permanent collection of more than 75,000 works is at the heart of the Gallery’s activities and programs. Since its foundation in 1861, the Collection has come to span the history and development of Australian, Indigenous and international art, design and architecture. As it grows and evolves, the Collection embraces and reflects diversity in cultural identities, artistic practices and geographies as it connects art and people.
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.
Legendary American photographer Ryan McGinley joins Shepparton Art Museum on 9 March for the official opening of YEARBOOK
4 March 2024
Legendary American photographer Ryan McGinley joins Shepparton Art Museum on 9 March for the official opening of YEARBOOK
In celebration of newly-opened major international exhibition YEARBOOK, American photographer Ryan McGinley will join the Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) for the exhibition’s opening celebration on Saturday 9 March from 5pm.
The opening event, which is part of the PHOTO 2024 International Photography Festival, will feature opening remarks from Victorian Pride Centre CEO Justine Dalla Riva, followed by an exclusive in-conversation between Ryan McGinley, SAM CEO Melinda Martin, and PHOTO Australia Founder/Artistic Director Elias Redstone. This appearance from McGinley marks the only free event that audiences can enjoy during his brief visit to Australia.
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.
Consisting of a single artwork featuring over seven hundred vinyl-printed studio portraits of creatives living and working in New York City, YEARBOOK floods the gallery 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.
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/
Ryan McGinley: YEARBOOK, installation view, Shepparton Art Museum, 2024. Photo: Shepparton Art Museum.
Event details:
YEARBOOK Exhibition Opening Celebration
Saturday 9 March, 5PM-8PM
Shepparton Art Museum, 530 Wyndham Street, Shepparton
Free – bookings essential: https://events.humanitix.com/exhibition-opening-celebration-ryan-mcginley-yearbook
Justine Dalla Riva (CEO, Victorian Pride Centre) will officially open the exhibition. This will be followed by in-person conversation with artist Ryan McGinley, Melinda Martin (CEO, SAM) and Elias Redstone (Founder/Artistic Director, PHOTO Australia)
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.
Ryan McGinley. Image courtesy of the artist
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, Shepparton Art Museum, 2024. Photo: Cam Matheson
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
Shepparton Art Museum launches The Urbach – a new $10,000 Australian landscape painting prize and scholarship
22 January 2024
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is pleased to announce the launch of The Theodore Urbach Landscape Prize and Studio Scholarship (“The Urbach”), a new $10,000 prize and scholarship encouraging explorations in the field Australian landscape painting.
The Urbach will be awarded to a Goulburn Valley or Hume-based artist working in the field of Australian landscape painting. The awarded artist will receive a $5,000 cash prize and a scholarship stipend of $5,000 to support them as they undertake the three-month scholarship at SAM’s onsite artist studio from 1 May to 31 July 2024. In addition to the first prize, two runners-up will each be awarded a $2,500 prize in recognition of their time and commitment in developing their applications.
The Urbach celebrates the creative process and acknowledges that artists need time and space to further their creative practice. The Urbach prize and scholarship provides artists with the time, studio space, and financial support to immerse themselves in the creative process and study of the landscape of the Goulburn Valley and Hume regions, with no set deliverable outcomes. In addition to the prize, the awarded artist will receive tailored professional development opportunities to aid in the development of their practice. For the 2024 launch, The Urbach will be open to artists living in the Goulburn Valley and Hume regions only.
Of the opportunity, SAM CEO Melinda Martin says:
“We understand the challenges that artists can face in balancing the pursuit of their craft with the realities of work, life, and even securing appropriate studio space. This is why we’re so thrilled to be introducing this wonderful prize and scholarship to our creative community. The Urbach presents an exciting opportunity to artists to dedicate time, energy, and focus to their practice while giving them exclusive access to our state-of-the-art onsite artist studio. SAM is fortunate to be nestled in the unique landscape of the Goulburn Valley, which will provide endless inspiration to the artists of The Urbach.”
The Urbach program is generously supported by the Theodore Urbach Landscape Painting Scholarship and Prize Charitable Trust. The trust, established through the will of late philanthropist and arts patron Theodore Urbach, was designed to provide prizes and scholarship opportunities to benefit artists and students working in the field of Australian landscape painting.
Online applications to The Urbach open on 22 January 2024. To view the full eligibility criteria, application process, and program guidelines, visit the SAM website: https://sheppartonartmuseum.com.au/support-get-involved/the-urbach/
The Urbach 2024 Details:
- Open to artists working in the field of Australian landscape painting, which includes painting, drawing and photography.
- Applicants must be living in the Goulburn Valley or Hume regions.
- The Urbach First Prize
- $5,000 cash prize
- $5,000 scholarship stipend
- 3-month access to the SAM Artist Studio to undertake the scholarship
- Tailored professional development opportunities.
- The Urbach Second Prizes
- $2,500 cash prize for two runners up in recognition of their time and commitment in developing their applications and presenting to the panel.
- The Urbach First Prize
Applications open: 22 January 2024
Applications close: 29 February 2024
Application & guidelines on the SAM Website: https://sheppartonartmuseum.com.au/support-get-involved/the-urbach/
Shepparton Art Museum is inviting young creatives aged 16-25 to exhibit their work in SAM Fresh 2024
10 January 2024
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is inviting submissions from young creatives aged between 16-25 years living, working, or studying in the Goulburn Valley and Hume regions to exhibit as part of SAM Fresh 2024.
The exhibition aims to create a space within the museum’s Community Gallery that celebrates the blossoming arts scene amongst the region’s new generation of creatives. Submissions to the exhibition can be of works in any medium, and of any theme or subject.
Caroline Esbenshade, SAM Curator – Community, says of Fresh:
“We’re so excited to be presenting a new format of SAM Fresh in 2024. We have listened to community feedback and are now opening the eligibility to a wider age group. This acknowledges that for many young people in the community that arts aren’t just for the classroom–you can have a creative outlet or passionate hobby outside of school or work. This opportunity creates a platform for young local artists to share their experiences and perspective of the world and hopefully will foster a lifelong engagement with the arts.”
An information session for those interested in learning more about SAM Fresh will be held at SAM on 8 February 2024 from 5.30pm to 6.30pm. Applications for SAM Fresh can be submitted via the SAM website from 13 January, and close on 18 March. Learn more about SAM Fresh via the SAM website: https://sheppartonartmuseum.com.au/whats-on/upcoming/sam-fresh-2024/
SAM Fresh 2024 Details:
- Open to creatives aged 16-25 years
- Applicants must be living, working or studying in the Goulburn Valley or Hume Region.
Applications open: 13 January 2024
Applications close: 18 March 2024
Application guidelines on the SAM Website: https://sheppartonartmuseum.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/SAM-FRESH-2024_Guidelines.pdf
Information session: 8 February 2024, 5.30 to 6.30pm. RSVP: https://events.humanitix.com/sam-fresh-information-session
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.
Featured image: SAM Fresh, installation view, Shepparton Art Museum, 2021. Photo: Cam Matheson
SAM Selects, SAM Spotlight 2024 artists announced
12 December 2023
Shepparton Art Museum announces Jen Valender and Carmel Robertson as 2024 Community Gallery artists.
The Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is pleased to announce that multidisciplinary artist Jen Valender has been selected as the successful applicant to the SAM Selects exhibition program for 2024. The SAM Selects exhibition program allows artists, creatives, curators, and community groups to submit a recent creative project to be exhibited in SAM’s Hugh D.T Williamson Community Gallery. Applications for the space are reviewed by an external panel. Valender will become the third artist to participate in SAM Selects, with her exhibition Field opening 3 February 2024.
Created during her artistic residency at the University of Melbourne’s Dookie campus as part of the Centre of Visual Arts’ Art + Ecology program, Valender’s SAM Selects exhibition Field features a multi-channel video installation made up of four moving image works: Re-search, Bovine Harp, Artist as Animal, and Sediment. The exhibition will also display a set of wind harps created from antique surveyor’s equipment, and a soundscape created using the harps. 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.
Caroline Esbenshade, SAM Curator – Community, says of Valender:
“Jen is in an extremely exciting place in her career—she exhibited widely in 2023, including at MPavillion in Melbourne, and was recently selected as a regional winner in the M&C Saatchi Group & Saatchi Gallery Art for Change Prize, with two of her works currently on display at Saatchi Gallery in London. We are delighted to have her as part of our 2024 exhibition program and to be the first to present these works together, highlighting her experience of making work in response to the region. We hope the exhibition will bring a new perspective of the Goulburn Vallery for locals and visitors alike.”
Later in 2024 SAM’s Community Gallery will feature a new body of work from local artist Carmel Robertson, who has been selected as the 2024 SAM Spotlight artist. SAM Spotlight is an annual paid opportunity for an emerging solo artist based in the Goulburn Valley and Hume region to work closely with the SAM Curator – Community to develop a new body of work for exhibition. Successful artists are selected through an application process, which is also reviewed by an appointed panel.
Jen Valender: Field will open at SAM on 3 February 2024, with SAM Spotlight: Carmel Robertson to open in November 2024.
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. Valender 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.
Image: courtesy of the artist
Carmel Robertson is an early career artist living in Shepparton, Victoria. She began painting full-time in 2016 after a 22-year career in art education, teaching art and photography at Notre Dame College in Shepparton. For the past seven years she has been exploring approaches to realism in oil paint and has exhibited in group shows locally, including past SAM Community Gallery exhibitions, and presented a solo exhibition at the Euroa Butter Factory in 2022.
Image: courtesy of the artist
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.
Major international photography exhibition YEARBOOK comes to SAM for PHOTO 2024
4 December 2023
Shepparton Art Museum announces major international solo exhibition from USA-based photographer Ryan McGinley as part of PHOTO 2024 regional program.
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is pleased to announce its participation in the biennial PHOTO 2024 festival in March 2024. From 1 March to 14 July 2024, American artist Ryan McGinley's photographic project YEARBOOK will be showing at SAM, marking the artist's first solo exhibition in Australia.
An ever-evolving project, YEARBOOK is a large-scale photographic installation consisting of over seven hundred studio portraits of musicians, artists, and creatives living and working in New York.
A joyful celebration of the diversity of the human body, each photograph in YEARBOOK features its subject posing against vibrant candy-coloured backgrounds, appearing like fashion or rock band promotional posters. Plastered over every available millimeter of the gallery walls, the installation envelops the visitor. Each individual image is a unique portrait that grants the viewer access to a delicate, once-private moment between the photographer and sitter. First presented in 2008, YEARBOOK has featured in several in major public institutions across Japan, Denmark, Korea, and Spain.
Melinda Martin, SAM CEO, says of the exhibition:
“It’s a privilege to be a part of PHOTO 2024, and we’re thrilled to be premiering Ryan McGinley’s work to an Australian audience. Ryan’s work is so vibrant and celebratory, and many people will be able to see themselves reflected in the multitude of bodies represented in his portraits. Despite its scale, each portrait in the installation possesses its own distinct identity; each subject’s unabashed ownership of their moment in front of the camera works as a collective rejection of the ‘perfect body’.”
A regional weekend celebration of PHOTO 2024 and YEARBOOK will take place at SAM on 8 March 2024. Details of the weekend’s program will be announced in 2024. YEARBOOK will be showing at SAM from 1 March until 14 July 2024 with free entry. To learn more about the upcoming PHOTO 2024 program, visit their website: https://photo.org.au/
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 'Body Loud' at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, 2016. Courtesy the artist.
Picasso ceramics, a stunning 15th century Renaissance work and more now showing at SAM
16 November 2023
Picasso ceramics, a stunning 15th century Renaissance work and much more are now showing at the Shepparton Art Museum as part of The ARNDT Collection: From One World to Another.
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is delighted to welcome audiences to new major exhibition The ARNDT Collection: From One World to Another, now showing exclusively at SAM for the summer. Visitors are invited to join international art collector Matthias Arndt on a free guided tour of the exhibition this Friday 17 November at 2pm.
The ARNDT Collection: From One World to Another is curated from the private collection of Matthias Arndt and Tiffany Wood. The exhibition features over forty significant artworks spanning painting, film, sculpture, ceramics, photography, works on paper, and furniture design. From One World to Another explores Arndt and Wood’s passion for collecting, weaving together personal narratives that collectively resound with the ARNDT Collection philosophy: that art inspires new ways of experiencing the world.
In exploring the exhibition, visitors will discover one of the oldest works in the collection – a Renaissance-era religious panel from the 15th century by Florentine artist Lippo d’Andrea. Cycling forward through the centuries, visitors can experience a celebration of Black womanhood with South African artist Zandile Tshabalala’s bold, arresting painting Paradise IIIII. Downstairs, a trove of ceramics from Spanish artist Pablo Picasso can be found on display in the museum’s Level 1 showcase.
Melinda Martin, SAM CEO, says of the exhibition:
“SAM is thrilled to present this rare glimpse into Matthias and Tiffany’s private collection. This exhibition is an exciting moment for SAM and features the work of leading artists that can often only be seen in major European galleries. The selection from the ARNDT Collection that we have displayed includes works from artists that many will know, such as Picasso, Sophie Calle, and Gilbert & George, along with contemporary artists that many may be encountering for the first time.”
To hear the story behind the exhibition directly from the collector, join Matthias Arndt for a free guided tour at SAM on 17 November at 2PM. The tour will provide attendees with an opportunity to gain a deeper, more personal understanding of the growth of the ARNDT Collection and the passion of the collectors that have built it. Bookings for the tour can be made via Humanitix: https://events.humanitix.com/arndt-collection-or-from-one-world-to-another-exhibition-opening-lunch-with-matthias-arndt
The ARNDT Collection: From One World to Another will be showing at Shepparton Art Museum from 11 November 2023 until 10 March 2024. Entry to this exhibition, and all exhibitions at SAM, is free.
Further programs and special events will be announced throughout the duration of the show.
Image: The ARNDT Collection: From One World to Another, installation view, Shepparton Art Museum, 2023.
Photo: Leon Schoots.
Step into the world of The ARNDT Collection at SAM this summer.
31 October 2023
Step into the world of The ARNDT Collection at SAM this summer.
Showing exclusively at Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) this summer, new major exhibition The ARNDT Collection: From One World to Another provides an insight into the private art collection of Matthias Arndt and Tiffany Wood.
Curated by Rachael Vance, Director and Curator of the ARNDT Collection, From One World to Another explores Arndt and Wood’s passion for collecting and the special, lasting relationships that are developed with artists through collecting their work. Featuring over forty significant artworks spanning painting, film, sculpture, ceramics, photography, works on paper, and furniture design, the exhibition weaves together an array of personal narratives that collectively resound with the ARNDT Collection philosophy: that art inspires new ways of experiencing the world.
Matthias Arndt and Tiffany Wood say of the collaboration:
“As art collectors, we take great pleasure in acquiring artworks and cherishing them in our daily lives. However, collecting art carries a profound responsibility and the privilege of sharing the art we're passionate about with a broad audience.
This is why we’re particularly thrilled about collaborating with SAM and the opportunity to showcase a carefully curated selection from our art collection, engaging in a dialogue with a larger audience. My encounter with contemporary art has been life-changing, and working in this field and collecting art is a continuous source of inspiration and wonder.
We extend our warmest thanks to the visitors of SAM and our exhibition. Above all, we wish them a wealth of encounters, joy, inspiration, and a deep appreciation for the transforming powers of art.”
Highlights of the exhibition include a selection of Pablo Picasso’s ceramics, UK duo Gilbert & George’s photo-collage Union Dance (2008), French artist Sophie Calle’s mixed media The view of my life (2020) and Filipino artist Rodel Tapaya’s painting Beaten with many stripes (2020), as well as works from renowned Australian artists Del Kathryn Barton and Ben Quilty. Echoing the way in which much of the ARNDT Collection fills the home of the collectors, the exhibition design incorporates living space elements that lend the gallery a more intimate, personal atmosphere that emulates the residence of Arndt and Wood.
While the exhibition primarily occupies the museum’s People’s Gallery on Level 2, the display extends to the ceramics showcase outside of the Elsewhere at SAM Café to highlight Picasso’s ceramics alongside sculptural works from German-born artist Joseph Beuys, allowing visitors to experience the artworks as the collectors do – amongst friends, family, food, and conversation.
Rachael Vance, Director and Curator of the ARNDT Collection, says of the curating the exhibition:
"From One World to Another illuminates the intimate and beautiful evolution of shaping an art collection. However, finding a harmonious balance between such an array of distinctive artistic voices was complex due to the abundance of world-class pieces within the collection's holdings.
A significant element in curating the exhibition within a museum context was the importance in recognising private collections as contemporary sources that actively frame the public’s relation to art and current artistic influences. This interplay between the public and private spheres was integral to acknowledge. With this sentiment, I am so extremely thrilled to let the world in to see this first institutional exhibition from the ARNDT Collection."
Following the exhibition’s opening to the public on 11 November 2023, visitors are invited to join Matthias Arndt for a free, exclusive guided tour of the exhibition at SAM on 17 November at 2PM. The tour will provide attendees with an opportunity to gain a deeper, more personal understanding of the growth of the ARNDT Collection and the passion of the collectors that have built it. Bookings for the tour can be made via Humanitix: https://events.humanitix.com/arndt-collection-or-from-one-world-to-another-exhibition-opening-lunch-with-matthias-arndt
The ARNDT Collection: From One World to Another will be showing at Shepparton Art Museum from 11 November 2023 until 10 March 2024. Entry to this exhibition, and all exhibitions at SAM, is free.
Further programs and special events will be announced throughout the duration of the show.
List of featured artists:
Del Kathryn Barton, Joseph Beuys, Kwesi Botchway, Sophie Calle, Joe Colombo, Lippo d’Andrea, Johnson Eziefula, Rainer Fetting, Zaachariaha Fielding, Gilbert & George, Thomas Hirschhorn, Jitish Kallat, Alicja Kwade, Tahnee Lonsdale, Heinz Mack, David Noonan, Pablo Picasso, Sigmar Polke, Ben Quilty, Julian Rosefeldt, Gareth Sansom, Rodel Tapaya, Zandile Tshabalala, Xiyao Wang, Ambera Wellmann, and Franz West.
Image: Gilbert & George, Union Dance (detail), 2008, JACK FREAK PICTURES. Courtesy of ARNDT Collection.
© Gilbert & George.
30 October 2023
Celebrate local artists at the closing event of After the Rain at Shepparton Art Museum.
The official closing celebration for current Shepparton Art Museum exhibition After the Rain will take place on Saturday 14 October from 2.00pm to 4.00pm. After the Rain features the work of selected members from Echuca-based arts group Tuesday Junction and reflects on their experiences of the 2022 flood event that impacted the region. The exhibition was selected as the 2023 SAM EOI exhibition, which allows local artists, curators, creative practitioners and community groups an opportunity to propose and present an existing project within the SAM Community Gallery through a call-out and application process.
The closing celebration will feature a panel discussion between artists Jill Kenley, Anne Mawson, Bronwyn Morton, Carolyn Rolls, Penny Silver, Rebecca Wells, Kerry Williams and SAM Curator – Community Caroline Esbenshade. The group will explore their individual art practices and their collective experiences of the flood disaster as expressed through their creative responses.
For visitors with an interest in growing their art skills, Tuesday Junction artists Bronwyn Morton and Penny Silver will lead a hands-on workshop on Saturday morning prior to the exhibition celebration. In the workshop, titled Colliding on Canvas with Penny Silver and Bronwyn Morton, the artists will guide participants through the process of creating mixed-media artworks informed by their own practices.
Caroline Esbenshade, SAM Curator – Community, says of the events:
“This closing event is a wonderful opportunity for our community to come together to celebrate the passion and talent of the Tuesday Junction artists, as well as reflect on our collective resilience and progress in recovering from the devastation of last year’s floods. We’d love to see as many people there as possible to support our local creatives and share in an afternoon of art, conversation and connection. The workshop is also an incredible opportunity for people to learn from exhibiting artists and get creative in a relaxed and supportive environment.”
The Colliding on Canvas workshop will take place in the SAM Level 2 Workshop from 10am to 1pm on Saturday 14 October, followed by the After the Rain exhibition closing celebration in the SAM Community Gallery on Level 2. Attendance at the exhibition closing celebration is free, while the workshop participation ticket price is $75. Further details and registration links can be found on the SAM website: https://sheppartonartmuseum.com.au/events/?tribe_eventcategory%5B%5D=21
Image: Tuesday Junction: After the Rain, installation view, Shepparton Art Museum 2023. Photo: Leon Schoots.