Page 43 - Art Almanac (February 2020)

Laurie Anderson Collector/Collected

& Hsin-Chien Huang Shepparton Art Museum

Chalkroom Until 1 March, 2020
Victoria
Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts
9 February to 19 April, 2020

Western Australia

Giant blackboards construct a vast virtual The Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) has
space where walls, floors and ceilings are invited contemporary artists Tony Albert, Kate
covered in handwritten text and drawings Daw, Geoff Newton and David Sequeira who
in this collaboration between artists Laurie have a preoccupation with ideas of collecting
Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang. Guided and collections to artistically respond to the
by Anderson’s voice, visitors enter the concept, materiality and action of collecting,
‘Chalkroom’, an almost entirely black-and- and the collector. Looking back, SAM also
white dream-like world, navigating through showcases two major collections of Australian
a labyrinth of fractured memories as words studio pottery from the 1960s and 70s: the
sail through the air only to fall to dust – Studio Pottery from the John Nixon Collection
continually forming, and reforming. In our and SAM’s own collection from this period.
disembodied state, we are encouraged to
interact; to immerse ourselves in the narrative
and architecture of the space.

Laurie Anderson & Hsin-Chien Huang, Chalkroom, 2017, Phyl Dunn and Reg Preston, untitled (yellow dinner set), not dated,
fluorescent paint on slate walls glazed stoneware, 2007
Courtesy the artists and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Shepparton Art Museum collection, donated by Joanne Trumble,
Western Australia 2007
© the artist’s estate and Susie Cordia
Photograph: Stephanie Bradford
Courtesy Shepparton Art Museum, Victoria
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