Sculpture Exhibitions as Demonstrations of Revisionist Histories
1 December 2022 at 11:30:00 pm
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Session Convenors
Dr Jane Eckett, University of Melbourne
Session Speakers
Lesley Harding, Heide Museum of Modern Art
Dr Bronwyn Hughes, University of Melbourne
Associate Professor Alison Inglis, University of Melbourne
Dr Jane Eckett, University of Melbourne
Curators of historical exhibitions rarely set out to present ‘the already known’, instead revisiting works from the past to propose new interpretations. Paradigmatic shifts, changes of perspective, engagement with historically underrepresented groups of artists, reassessments of individual artists, and recently re-discovered artworks all help transform existing art historical narratives. In this sense, historical exhibitions effectively enact or demonstrate revisionist histories. This is particularly relevant in the case of sculpture, where exhibitions offer a palpable three-dimensional and temporal experience that is almost impossible to convey through printed text or photographic reproduction. But can complex revisionary narratives and arguments plausibly be proposed through the exhibition format? And are such revisionist histories even necessary for audience engagement? This panel considers three recent exhibitions of twentieth-century modernist sculpture and stained glass at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Hamilton Art Gallery, and McClelland Sculpture Park and Gallery. All three present work more usually encountered in architectural and urban public art contexts. The curators of each exhibition reflect on the specific challenges this entails and the possibilities for revising art historical narratives through the exhibition format.
Margel Hinder: Modern in Motion
Lesley Harding, Heide Museum of Modern Art
In 1953 Margel Hinder was awarded third prize in a global sculpture competition on the theme of The Unknown Political Prisoner—the largest competition of its kind held in the twentieth century, with 3500 entries from 57 nations and luminaries such as Barbara Hepworth, Naum Gabo and Alexander Calder as co-finalists. The acknowledgement of Hinder’s work on the world stage triggered a turning point, giving her the confidence to begin her remarkable constructed kinetic mobiles, works of great conviction and at the cutting edge of developments in sculpture, and the imprimatur to begin the next chapter in her career, in which she focused on realising large-scale public art commissions for social and architectural contexts. While her public sculptures remain prominently on view in civic settings in Sydney, Canberra and Newcastle, apart from her inclusion in a few surveys of local modernism Hinder’s vanguard practice and its legacy have been largely overlooked since the 1980s, and her work was not the subject of a major institutional retrospective until 2021, twenty-five years after her death. This paper reflects on the obstacles and revelations of curating an exhibition seeking to redress under-recognition, reassess the artist’s contribution in a local and international context, and represent an oeuvre in which the major works are unfeasible for display in the gallery environment.
Luminous: John Orval stained glass artist – a revisionist exhibition?
Dr Bronwyn Hughes, University of Melbourne
Associate Professor Alison Inglis, University of Melbourne
In this paper, Bronwyn Hughes and Alison Inglis examine the idea of ‘the exhibition as revisionist art history’, taking as their case study the recent exhibition of stained glass by the twentieth-century Dutch-born Australian artist, John Orval, at Hamilton Gallery. In many respects, the contents of the exhibition – Luminous: John Orval stained glass artist - can be seen to fulfil the criteria of revisionist art history: it engages with an historically marginalised art form (twentieth-century stained glass); it seeks to reassess the work of a little-known group of artists (Dutch émigré artist-designers in Australia); it changes the established perspective (a regional rather than metropolitan focus); and it incorporates newly discovered works of art in the display. But to what extent does the exhibition format reinforce a revisionist message? As co-curators of the exhibition, Hughes and Inglis will reflect on the exhibition’s design and their use of the Gallery spaces to reposition Orval’s career within a large narrative of post-war international modernism in Australia. They will argue that exhibitions, in fact, offer the most appropriate conduit for revisionist interpretation of stained glass, a medium, which, like sculpture, is poorly conveyed through printed text and reproduced image.
Centre Five at McClelland: bridging the (knowledge) gap
Dr Jane Eckett, University of Melbourne
Long embedded in narratives of modernist Australian sculpture, deemed visionaries and vanguards, the Centre Five group arguably needs little introduction. Yet the last exhibition surveying the group was held in 1984, at the Heide Museum of Modern Art. So, how well do we truly know their work? Documentary photographs and texts can go some way towards conveying a sense of scale and purpose, but the actual physical encounter—so vital to any real understanding of sculpture—can only be experienced piecemeal with works by the group scattered nationally across public and private collections. The opportunity therefore to guest curate the current exhibition Centre Five: bridging the gap, for McClelland Gallery at Langwarrin, presents a rare opportunity to assess the group on their own terms: namely, in three dimensions. But is it possible to present a balanced and nuanced history of the group, to fill a gap in our collective knowledge, through the exhibition format? And can this history be revisionist in nature? In this paper I reflect on the exhibition’s curatorial premise, some of the challenges and decisions guiding its development, and the experience of bringing together works that have occupied my thoughts for the past fourteen years.
Biographies
Dr Jane Eckett, University of Melbourne
Jane Eckett is a postdoctoral researcher and teaching associate in the art history program, School of Culture and Communication, at the University of Melbourne. Her research concerns modernist sculpture, public art and memorials, diaspora art and émigré networks. Publications include Melbourne Modern: European Art and Design at RMIT since 1945 (RMIT Gallery, 2019, co-edited with Harriet Edquist) and the forthcoming On Bunurong Country: a history of art and design in Frankston and Centre Five: bridging the gap (both McClelland Gallery, 2022).
Lesley Harding, Heide Museum of Modern Art
Lesley Harding is the Artistic Director of Heide Museum of Modern Art. She previously held curatorial roles at Heide, Arts Centre Melbourne and the National Art School, Sydney. Over the past 25 years she has curated more than 50 exhibitions of modernist and contemporary art and written six books. Current projects include Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium, the first survey of Hepworth’s work in Australia for display at Heide in 2022–23, and a co-authored biography of artist Joy Hester for Thames & Hudson for publication in 2024.
Dr Bronwyn Hughes, University of Melbourne
Bronwyn Hughes is an art historian with specific interests in stained glass of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Shrine of Remembrance exhibition, William Montgomery’s commemorative stained glass, co-curated with Jean McAuslan, resulted in the publication of Lights Everlasting: Australia’s commemorative stained glass from the Boer War to Vietnam, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2022. She is founding president of the not-for-profit GLAAS Inc, dedicated to promoting the creative use of glass in twenty-first century architecture and preservation of Australia’s historic stained glass through research, education and publication.
Associate Professor Alison Inglis, University of Melbourne
Alison Inglis is an Honorary Fellow in the Art History program at the University of Melbourne. Her research interests focus on nineteenth-century British art, and the history of art collections and exhibitions. She has been a member of several museum boards and was appointed Emeritus Trustee of the National Gallery of Victoria in 2010. She has curated several exhibitions in regional Victoria including, with Bronwyn Hughes, Luminous: John Orval stained glass artist, at Hamilton Gallery (August–October 2022). Other relevant publications: Australian Art Exhibitions: Opening Our Eyes, with J. Mendelssohn, C. Speck and C. de Lorenzo, Thames & Hudson, 2018.