Page 22 - Art Almanac (February 2020)

Present Tense

Anna Schwartz Gallery and Thirty-Five Years

of Con mporary Australian Art

Doug all

‘Present Tense’ is a
record of the journey
and contribution Anna
Schwartz has made with
several contemporary
Australian art galleries
and her unwavering
advocacy for artists and
ideas. It is not only a
recollection of events but
also the active element by
which 35 years of artistic
alchemy is enacted – the
relationships one forms.
The book communicates
an oeuvre of personal and
professional creativity,
perhaps these are
inextricable, through
historical vignettes,
interviews, photographs
and artworks traversing
key figures in Australian
art and culture, at
home and as they take
international stage. The
book opens with a rich
family history, imparting
how Schwartz’s personal
and family’s ideological
compass and experience
of Modernism in Australia
foregrounded bold
experimentation in the
arts. As Schwartz shares ‘A defining moment [for me] was the installation in the side room at City
Gallery of a pail of potatoes, a work by John Nixon signifying labour and the earth. Defending this
work to the local sceptics was formative in the representation of an artistic practice I considered
to be salient.’ Author, Doug Hall describes her as ‘an important catalyst in Melbourne’s cultural
life’, noting her ‘intellectual altruism’. Schwartz’s story parallels and is at points intertwined with
the advent of a more socially and culturally progressive Australia.

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