http://www.ima.org.auENhttp://www.ima.org.aukatrina@ima.org.aukatrina@ima.org.auInstitute of Modern ArtWebsite Baker Content Management SystemAt the opening of Brisbane Airport Fresh Cut on Saturday, Kate Woodcroft and Catherine Sagin, of the collaborative artist-duo Fiona Mail, engaged in a spectacular ten-minute fencing bout. Sagin prevailed, coming from behind to win 10-8. Her prize: naming rights. For the next twelve months, the duo's ongoing collaborative work will be presented not under Fiona Mail's name, but Sagin's. The artists described their battle for supremacy as a means to 'kill off' their pseudonym. But is this truly the end of Fiona Mail? Thanks to Chevaliers Fencing Club and Queensland Fencing Association for helping us stage the event. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/fiona-mail-grudge-match181.phpWe are pleased to announce the artists selected for this year's emerging-artists show, Brisbane Airport Fresh Cut 2010. They are Sally Golding, Kelly Hussey-Smith, Fiona Mail, and Elizabeth Willing. Each receives $5,000 from Brisbane Airport to support making work for the show. Sally Golding works in 'expanded cinema', combining film projection with performance and installation elements. She is currently completing a Masters at the Queensland College of Art. Recently, she has developed performance works where she projects films directly onto her body, creating live cine-sculptures and interactions. She works solo and with Joel Stern as Abject Leader. As a member of the OtherFilm collective, she has been involved in curating innovative moving-image and performance events and exhibitions throughout Australia and internationally. For Fresh Cut, she will be creating an installation using a 16mm film loop, a two-way mirror, strobe lighting, and the viewer's own body. Kelly Hussey-Smith studied photojournalism at Queensland College of Art, graduating with first-class honours last year. She comes out of an activist-photography tradition. Over the last few years she has collaborated with NGOs such as Operation Smile, who provide free surgery to children born with cleft lips and palates in developing countries. She was editor of The Australian PhotoJournalist in 2007-8. Caged, her new series of photographs and videos, considers the tragic living conditions of animals in zoos. With this work, she hopes to prompt a dialogue about our relationship with animals and question our use of animals as decoration and entertainment. Kate Woodcroft and Catherine Sagin studied together at Queensland University of Technology. In 2008 they started making collaborative works under the name Fiona Mail. These works explore the dynamics of collaboration through task-based activities that often border on parody. For Fresh Cut they are studying fencing in preparation for a duel on opening night. For the next year, their collaborative works will be exhibited under the name of the winner. Woodcroft and Sagin are also co-directors of the artist-run initiative No Frills*. Elizabeth Willing studied at Queensland University of Technology, completing a Honours degree in Fine Arts last year. Her works explore material and sensual aspects of food and food imagery. She is particularly drawn to sweets: she made wallpaper, retracing a William Morris pattern in lollies; she rendered gallery walls stucco-style in royal icing; she made a model of GoMA in marzipan; in a video, she licked her way through a pane of toffee. Willing is one of the directors of the art-run initiative Accidentally Annie St. Brisbane Airport Fresh Cut 2010 opens at the IMA on Saturday 7 August. Thanks again to Brisbane Airport for their visionary support of this project. [image: Sally Golding] http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/fantastic-four178.phpWe were amused and engaged by Andrew Frost's reading of our current show Scott Redford vs. Michael Zavros on his website, The Art Life. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/the-enrapture-of-surface180.phpBrisbane Airport Fresh Cut is the IMA's annual showcase for emerging Queensland artists. This year's instalment will feature four artists born or based in Queensland, up to six years out of art school, who have not shown at the IMA before. Each will be given $5000 towards the development of new work for the show. This support has been generously provided by our business partner, Brisbane Airport Corporation. Eligible artists are invited to submit portfolios and proposals for works they would do if successful. These should be posted (PO Box 2176, Fortitude Valley BC QLD 4006) or emailed to the Director (robert@ima.org.au) by 20 April. Mark submissions 'Brisbane Airport Fresh Cut'. Submissions will not be returned. We thank Brisbane Airport Corporation for their visionary support. Brisbane Airport Fresh Cut 2010 opens 7 August. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/brisbane-airport-fresh-cut-2010-call-for-submissions174.phpAt the AGM on Wednesday, the board was elected. They are: Richard Fidler (President), Anna Glass (Treasurer), Timothy Hill, Crow Hirst, John Kotzas, Andrew McNamara, Kim Machan, Douglas Quayle, Miranda Wallace (Vice President), Dirk Yates (Secretary), and Jay Younger. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/new-board176.phpWe are working with Naomi Stead, from the Architecture Theory Criticism History research group in the School of Architecture, University of Queensland, to stage a two-day academic symposium addressing the relationship between writing and architecture. Writing Architecture will take place on Thursday 22 July (at the State Library of Queensland) and Friday 23 July (at the Gallery of Modern Art). Possible topics include: 
 WRITING: When and how is writing an architectural practice? What is gained in translation, and what is lost, when architecture is represented in writing? What is the critical influence of writing—as itself a medium, technique, and mode of representation—in architectural criticism? What happens when architectural criticism becomes explicitly or implicitly literary, a mode of art practice? CONVENTION: What are the genre conventions of architecture writing and architectural criticism? What do they arise from, and what would it mean to bend or break them? What might an experimental architectural writing look like? MEDIATION: How does the vehicle and platform of publication affect what can be written, by whom and for whom? What can be said, differently and variously, in newspaper criticism, professional journals, popular journals, academic journals, books, and blogs? What are the potentials and limitations of architectural writing in the new media? HISTORICITY: How does historical specificity bear on architectural criticism? Why would we read old critiques? How does contemporary criticism write buildings into history? How is the historian a critic and the critic a historian? How does criticism use, abuse, or depend on an architectural canon? JUDGMENT: What is the significance of judgement in architectural critique? Has judgement been de-emphasised in current criticism in favour of description, interpretation, or evocation? What is the significance of architectural awards, prizes, and competitions, when seen as a mode of architectural criticism? What are the different kinds of criteria used to evaluate architecture in criticism, and which are correct? Is architectural criticism 'critical enough'? How could or should it be more or less so? DISCIPLINARITY: What is the relationship between disciplinary architectural criticism, and broader cultural critiques that take architecture as an example? How do critical practices in architecture compare with and differ from critical practices in the visual and performing arts, design, film, television, and literature? How does architectural criticism implicitly or explicitly frame architecture as an art, a profession, a discipline, a service industry, a body of technique, an artifice? OBJECT: What is the object of written architectural criticism? How important is architectural criticism, to whom, when, and why? The symposium is being held in association with a two-day masterclass on innovative modes of writing and photography of Queensland places (19–20 July 2010). Anyone interested in presenting at or attending the symposium or participating in the masterclass should consult the project's webpage for further details. Writing Architecture received financial assistance from the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/writing-architecture173.phpOn Friday 17 and Saturday 18 August we host the colloquium, Architecture, Disciplinarity and the Arts. It is being presented by the Architecture Theory, Criticism and History Research Group of the University of Queensland. Here's the abstract: 'It was common practice among eighteenth century writers on the arts to compile a system under which the various arts were ranked. From ancient times to the Renaissance the status of all kinds of knowledge had been systematised, but in the 18th century a new realm of the fine arts became the principal subject to this ordering, and the modern category of "Art" its ultimate foundation. The criteria for ranking the arts ranged from ancient ideas of the menial nature of manual work, to new aesthetic concepts that distinguished sense from utility. Philosophers used the new concepts to judge the aesthetic potential of the various arts, while the rising academies of the different arts used a mixture of aesthetic and traditional criteria to rank genres and degrees of nobility among their practitioners. In this process the materials and techniques of trades such as building and painting, themselves become aestheticised and a modern concept of artistic media arises. 'In the early nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the Arts and Crafts movement and the constructivist avant-garde attacked both the division of the arts and the distinction of art from other cultural activities. The effect of these critiques was contradictory: the weakening of the disciplines leading to a practices of making based on aesthetic precepts, while elsewhere the critique of art-as-such led to a re-assertion of the disciplines and their autochthonous problematics. In the most constructivist art and architecture, this contradiction was pronounced. Architecture limited its claims to be an art to the armature of thought and of practice. While proposing that architectural productions were buildings and hence not artworks, all building could then instance the art of architecture. Modern architecture's strong claims to disciplinary autonomy and artistic status were thus on the basis of a kind of meta-utility, an accountability for the design of life in its totality which equalled the uselessness of the autonomous arts. 'It is interesting, then, for architects to observe the current debate over intermediality in the visual arts and new constellations emerging there of medium, discipline and object condition. Over the twentieth century, the relationship between arts and their media has changed considerably, to the point where intellectual content of an art need not look to its traditional media for historical continuities. The various productive antagonisms between the visual arts and architecture in constructivism, minimalism, land art, and installation art seem ready to go through another twist. It seems almost as if the visual arts have reached the point that architecture arrived at in the early twentieth century, and now an auteurist concept of the architect genius has grabbed the public imagination so that we speak with few cautions of buildings as "art-works". How much are these matters necessarily linked? To what extent is there an implicit "system" of the arts, a "differential specificity" of which Rosalind Krauss writes with regard to media in the visual arts? And how much should we understand the dynamics of such a system historically? This colloquium asks: what is architecture, now, among the "system of the arts"?' Presentations will be given by Antony Moulis, Daniel Barber, John Macarthur, Mark Dorrian, Peter Kohane, Deborah van der Plaat, Darren Jorgensen, Gevork Hartoonian, Andrew McNamara, Naomi Stead, Rosemary Hawker, Andrew Leach, Bart Verschaffel, Charles Rice, Sandra Kaji-O’Grady, Nicole Sully, and Craig Johnson. The organisers welcome expressions of interest from those who wish to attend. Please email: andrew.leach@uq.edu.au [image: Callum Morton] http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/time-for-discipline59.phpWe organise at least three artist residencies each year: an international, a national and a regional residency. This year’s international resident is New-York-based Swiss artist Olaf Breuning (visiting in July), the national resident is Sydney sculptor Hany Armanious (October), and the regional resident is Abe Muriata from far north Queensland (also October). Abe Muriata, a Girramay man of the Cardwell Range area, currently lives in Tully. He weaves jawun, the traditional basket of the rainforest people of North Queensland. He learnt weaving techniques from watching his grandmother. His baskets are crafted from lawyer cane, which is collected, split and woven into the distinctive bicornal shape. He is also skilled in making wooden shields. Traditionally wooden swords and shields were used in ceremonies and to sort out disputes. Muriata's shields are carved and painted with local ochres in traditionally derived Girramay designs. We have additional residency projects with Japan's Lieko Shiga (August/September) and New Zealand's Yvonne Todd (October). A photographer and video artist, Lieko Shiga will be producing a show for Melbourne's Seventh Gallery in October as part of RAPT! 20 Contemporary Artists from Japan. It will investigate Brisbanites' unconscious views of their city and will be based on replies she receives to an anonymous questionaire. When Harald Szeemann awarded Yvonne Todd the 2002 Walters Prize, he said it was because it was 'the work that irritated me the most'. Two years later New Zealand Listener critic Anthony Byrt described her as the 'the best New Zealand artist of her generation'. Todd trained in commercial photography before doing art school, and her work draws heavily on its genres, including product, wedding, industrial and portrait photographies. While commercial photographers are trained to make things look perfect, to perfect a fantasy-of-reality, Todd’s images deliberately fall short of the ideal—they are not quite right. Or, as an early review put it: 'Todd avoids the hackneyed sentiments of the fantasist and the drudgery of the unmitigated realist, instead amalgamating the two to form a unique oeuvre at once erotic, nostalgic and deeply effecting.' Her residency is funded by Creative New Zealand. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/theyre-coming12.phpAt the beginning of December, the spotlight was on the Queensland Art Gallery, when its new Gallery of Modern Art opened with the Fifth Asia-Pacific Triennial. Seizing the moment, we teamed up with Artworkers to stage a Writers Workshop over two weeks. Eight writers—four from Brisbane (Holly Arden, Ellie Buttrose, Jessica Campbell, and Kris Carlon), two from interstate (Ulanda Blair and Lily Hibberd), and two from New Zealand (Stella Brennan and Jon Bywater)—wrote responses to the space and the show, and interviewed artists and curators. The results were published as a free newspaper, The Artreader: APT5 Companion, under the direction of editor Lee Weng Choy, co-director of Singapore's The Substation. Copies of The Artreader are available throughout Brisbane, including from the GOMA bookstore. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/the-artreader9.phpWe are touring exhibitions this year, and not just our petrol-head show Supercharged. Mirror Worlds (a joint project with Sydney's Australian Centre for Photography) will be on at Auckland gallery Two Rooms in March and April, coinciding with the Auckland Triennial and Auckland Festival. Our Olaf Breuning show Home (another joint project with ACP) will be on at ACP in March and April; a cut-down version goes on to Melbourne's Gertrude Street soon after. Hany Armanious's show Morphic Resonance—a joint project with City Gallery Wellington—opens at City Gallery mid year. Plus we have collaborated with Canberra Contemporary Art Spaces and Asialink on Streetworks. Curated by outgoing deputy director David Broker, it features two leading Australian video artists, Sydney’s Shaun Gladwell and Brisbane’s Craig Walsh, whose works were highlights of the 2005 Yokohama International Triennale. Streetworks opens at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University Gallery in February, before moving on to venues in Malaysia and Singapore. It has been supported by the Australia Council and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. [image: Agnolo Bronzino]     http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/we-put-out36.phpFashion went al fresco on the IMA courtyard catwalk on 17 August as part of SOOB, the Straight out of Brisbane Festival. The show starred Brisbane indie fashion designers Poke, Beserk, Satin Dolly, Ghost & Lola, and Limedrop, and featured a special collaboration between clothing label Peeple, those crazy Wolf Pandas and the Japanese MC Potato Masta. Beserk offered their take on the nurse's uniform: 'Beserk loves blood, kisses, hearts, violence, skeletons, cherry blossoms, crosses.' We are proud to be involved in SOOB, an event dedicated to excavating the best in Brisbane's and Australia's independent culture. [image: Beserk/photo: Mick Richards] http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/hot-august-night25.phpAt our AGM on Thursday 8 May, two new board members were appointed, both young artists, Dirk Yates and Peter Alwast. Yates was formerly involved in the artist-run space The Farm. Longstanding board members Angela Goddard and Sarah Blanck stood down. We wish them well and thank them for their years of service. The new board is: Peter Alwast, Tom Burke, Gary Carsley, Richard Fidler (President and Acting Treasurer), Timothy Hill, Crow Hirst, John Kotzas (Vice President), Andrew McNamara, Kim Machan, Douglas Quayle, Eliza Tee, Richard Martin, Dirk Yates, Jay Younger, and Ian Were. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/peter-and-dirk84.phpSince its development in the early years of last century, the car has played a pivotal role in Australian cultural life. Where travel and communication has been restricted by the tyranny of distance, the car has provided freedom. The car has come to play a major role in the business and leisure activities of Australians from every corner of the continent. But the car is more than practical, it is symbolic, a marker of status and identity. Our new touring show Supercharged: The Car in Contemporary Culture brings together the work of twelve artists exploring the vehicle's iconic status in Australian life: Roderick Bunter, Sadie Chandler, Bill Henson, Martin Mischkulnig, Tracey Moffatt, Ben Morieson, Louise Paramor, Patricia Piccinini, Scott Redford, Tim Ryan, Daniel Wallwork and Anne Zahalka. Latrobe Regional Gallery, 4 November–10 December 2006; Mildura Art Centre, 8 March–22 April 2007; 24 Hr Art, Darwin, 1 June–6 July 2007; Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, 5 October–8 November 2007; Pinnacles Gallery, Thuringowa, 23 November 2007–13 January 2008; Logan Art Gallery, 12 February–15 March 2008; and Redcliffe Art Gallery, 24 March–26 April 2008. Supported by Visions of Australia and the Gordon Darling Foundation. [Image: Martin Mischkulnig] http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/art-for-petrol-heads23.phpAt the AGM in March a new board was elected. We are pleased to welcome five new faces, including a new President and Vice President. Our new President is Richard Fidler, a presenter on ABC Radio Brisbane and former presenter of the television culture show Vulture. Fidler began his career in television with anarchic comedy group the Doug Anthony Allstars, performing on such seminal shows as The Big Gig and DAAS Kapital.

 Fidler also works in digital media, and won an AIMIA award for his work on Real Wild Child, an interactive history of Australian rock music. He says: 'The IMA deserves to be one of Brisbane's major conversation points. Contemporary art has the potential to hold the city’s attention and inspire surprise, indignation and real pleasure. At the IMA, people expect to be exposed to new ideas and to be excited, even rattled, from time to time.' Our new Vice President is John Kotzas, artistic director at Queensland Performing Arts Centre. Our other new board members are Eliza Cole, an indigenous curator and Gallery Manager at Crafts Queensland; Richard Martin, a director of a Brisbane-based firm specialising in overseas development; and prominent architect Timothy Hill of Donovan Hill, whose current projects include Queensland's new State Library. [image: Richard Fidler] http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/new-broom2.phpIn March Deputy Director David Broker left to take up the directorship of Canberra Contemporary Art Space. He has been a key figure in our organisation for 10 years and will be dearly missed. He was a prolific curator, critic and broadcaster, presenting a regular arts radio show on Brisbane's 4ZZZ. As well as making innumerable exhibitions for us, he curated the 2002 Primavera for Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art. A mainstay of the Queensland art scene, he will be remembered as a passionate supporter of local art and as a friend to artists. We wish him well with his new job, and look forward to working with him on future projects. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/local-hero5.phpWe'll be at the Melbourne Art Fair in August, presenting No Place Like Home, a new project by Brisbane's Scott Redford. The show develops out of his recent models for public sculptures based on Las-Vegas style Gold-Coast motel signage. Redford is fascinated by the Gold Coast, his home town, with its Las Vegas flourishes, pastel high-rises, and surfer boys. He sees it as a parallel world that fulfils and contradicts our notions of modernity, and post-modernity. He explains: 'What attracts me is that no matter what is said about it, it will always exceed and disappoint our expectations. It is a sort of rebus or mirror. It can be projected onto and reviled. It is both beautiful and a whore. Utopia and distopia. You get the picture? I think it is ART.' Redford's Melbourne Art Fair project will argue a link between the Gold Coast's motel signs and Russian revolutionary period 'event architecture', like Tatlin's infamous Monument To The Third International. It will also include two new 'surf paintings', paintings made using surboard-making techniques. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/going-to-the-fair3.phpThere is a lot of talk about design at the moment. It is linked with ideas like 'the creative industries', 'creative cities' and 'the creative class'. But what is 'design'? The term can be used to brand a diversity of activities from engineering bridges to engineering taste. In recent years many projects have emerged which intertwine art and design, some to exploit the connection, others to probe it. On Thursday 10 April at 6pm, Katherine Moline and Toni Ross present papers addressing this. These days designers often produce exhibition pieces—a practice known as 'critical design'. But since fine art and design are distinct fields, are claims for the legitimacy of design as art unfounded? Do they reduce avant-gardism to a marketing strategy? Katherine Moline's paper will ask: Does exhibiting design make it art? Toni Ross is also ambivalent about the newly enhanced status of design as art and the recent 'massification' of design production and consumption. Drawing on the formulations of French philosopher Jacques Ranciere, her paper will explore how modern art and design resemble and contradict each other. Ian Woodward and Kathleen Cattoni will respond. This discussion will also provide the setting for the launch of the IMA's first issue of the Journal of Art, which features an essay on Andrea Zittel by Toni Ross and an interview with Jacques Ranciere by Toni Ross and Andrew McNamara. [image: Marc Newson] http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/design-as-ideology79.phpIf you weren't here on Saturday night, you missed our excellent Annual Members Cocktail Party. Early evening rain washed out much of the circus theming and forced revelers to relocate indoors for the first hour or so. But there's nothing like a deluge to galvanise a crowd, especially when washing down hot dogs with champagne. Of the art on show, the crowd couldn't get enough of Slave Pianos' comprehensive music installation The Execution Protocol, or Pianology: A Schema & Historo-Materialist Pro-gnostic, whose maintenance required a team of technicians in orange overalls. At one point a tipsy girl clambered over the giant electric chair and danced to its sparking Telsla coil and had to be restrained. Outside the show, Byron Bay's The Space Cowboy swallowed swords, bent spoons Uri-Geller-style, and swung electric irons from fishhooks in his eye sockets. Scarier for some, The Outpost's Matt Brady and Ponyloaf's Daniel Tempelmann wore the same designer shirt! Fairyfloss made a late appearance. Special thanks to Sarah Byrne for her three-screen video backdrop of circus images. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/no-elephant106.phpAt the end of October IMA Exhibition Manager Vanessa McRae heads to Hong Kong to undertake a two month Asialink residency at Videotage. Founded in 1985, Videotage is a non-profit interdisciplinary artist collective which focuses on the development of video and new media art. As part of the residency, McRae is working on a project featuring Australasian and Hong Kong artists who draw inspiration from obsolescent technologies. Featuring Stella Brennan, Lawrence English, Francis Lam, Ellen Pau and Eric Siu, Lo<->No Tech opens at the Cattle Depot on 4 October with a special performance by Melbourne's Robin Fox. [image: Stella Brennan]   http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/big-in-hong-kong60.phpDue to public demand—or outcry—we have decided to hold a forum on our current show Feminism Never Happened. It will be on the last day of the exhibition, Saturday 20 March, at 3pm. Panelists are Rex Butler (University of Queensland), Courtney Coombs (artist), Julie Ewington (Queensland Art Gallery), and Amanda Howell (Griffith University). http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/but-it-did-happen168.phpYesterday, none of the IMA staff came to work imagining that we might be visited by the awesome Amanda Palmer (from the Brechtian punk-cabaret band The Dresden Dolls), who was due to play at The Zoo that evening. Several of us are big fans. While on tour, Palmer often does impromptu performances alongside her big gigs. She calls them 'ninja gigs'. Receiving a tweet that she was looking for a venue, our enterprising designer Katrina Stubbs responded. And so, several hours later, we—and a massive entourage of her faithful top-hatted and black-corsetted fans—were treated an intimate audience. Palmer's buskeresque set closed with her cover of Radiohead's 'Creep', played on ukelele. It made our day. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/amanda-palmer-plays-the-ima171.phpNew-York-based artist Anthony McCall, a key figure in the history of avant-garde cinema, is giving a lecture. McCall is in the history books for his 1973 film-installation Line Describing a Cone, where he projected, through hazed air, a film of a white circle slowly forming on a black ground, in the process generating a spectral sculptural 'cone'. Through the 1970s, McCall developed this idea in a seies of 'solid light' films. As he explained in 1974, a solid light film 'exists only in the present: the moment of projection. It refers to nothing beyond this real time. It contains no illusion. It is a primary experience, not secondary: i.e., the space is real, not referential; the time is real, not referential. No longer is one viewing position as good as any other ... every viewing position presents a different aspect. The viewer therefore has a participatory role in apprehending the event: he or she can, indeed needs, to move around relative to the slowly emerging light form.' At the end of the 1970s, McCall withdrew from art, but, over twenty years later, he has returned to the idea, using digital projectors rather than film ones. Come hear him talk. Thursday 11 March at 6pm. A joint project with OtherFilm. Thanks to Adam Art Gallery, Wellington. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/legend169.phpTrue to its name, this weekend's music festival The Lost Weekend was cancelled, leaving visiting acts stranded without a gig. We have grabbed this eleventh-hour opportunity to organise a concert with Melbourne art-hop renegades Curse Ov Dialect and Canadian laptoper Tim Hecker as part of our microMONO series, curated by Lawrence English (Room 40). Music Australia Guide described Curse Ov Dialect as 'tying traditional Middle Eastern and European folk, field recordings, and found sounds into a visceral, multilingual, and wildly experimental avant-hip-hop knot ... drawing from anything from psychedelic Turkish rock to Mandarin Opera'. The New York Times described Hecker's works as 'foreboding, abstract pieces in which static and sub-bass rumbles open up around slow moving notes and chords, like fissures in the earth waiting to swallow them whole'. Limited seating. First in, best dressed. Saturday 6 March at 7pm. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/silver-lining170.phpOur 2007 regional resident is Arthur Pambegan Jr. He was born in 1936 and lives in Aurukun on the Cape York Peninsula. He is an elder of the Wik-Mungkan people and a member of the Winchanam ceremonial group. His main traditional lands lie between the Small Archer River (Tompaten Creek) and the Watson River. Pambegan grew up under the strict reign of the Presbyterian Mission Superintendent William MacKenzie. He was separated from his parents and raised in the boys' dormitory until he was old enough to work. He first collaborated with his father on ceremonial carvings of the Bonefish Story Place and Flying Fox Story Place in 1962 (these works are now in the National Museum of Australia). Pambegan has in turn passed on these two traditional stories (which convey customary laws and beliefs) and the carving techniques for ceremonial sculpture to his son, Alair. Pambegan's works are in public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane. He undertakes his residency in October. We have three other artists-in-residence for this year. Melbourne's Philip Brophy will be here in July and October preparing his show with us, which opens in October, and working on its accompanying publication. We also host two international artists in conjunction with the exhibition Grey Water. Bill Culbert comes out from Britain in early August to install his work Flotsam and Teresa Margolles comes from Mexico in September to talk on her work. [image: Arthur Pambegan Jr] http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/regional-resident-announced54.phpA couple of years back, we curated a touring package of single-channel video works by Queensland artists called Greatest Hits and Previously Unreleased Tracks. We are now planning a sequel. We invite local artists to submit works for consideration. Please post your disk to: Volume II, IMA, PO Box 2176, Fortitude Valley BC QLD 4006, Brisbane. Submissions close 15 October. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/volume-ii140.phpIn November, Auckland artist Peter Madden will be in residence at the IMA, preparing an exhibition and publication for next year. Madden draws much of his imagery from old issues of National Geographic, plundering and reworking its discredited 'empire of signs' to forge his own. His surrealistic pictures, objects, and installations have a watchmaker level of detail and intensity. They have been described as 'microcosms' and 'intricate kingdoms thick with flying forms'. A creator of metaphor-rich other-worlds, Madden has one foot in the vanitas still-life tradition and other in new-age spirituality. On the one hand, he is death-obsessed: a master of morbid decoupage. Moths and butterflies—symbols of transient life—abound. His assemblages in bell jars suggest some Victorian taxidermist killing time in his parlour. On the other hand, with his flocks, shoals, and swarms of quivering animal energy, Madden revels in biodiversity. His works manage to be at once morbid and abundant, rotting and blooming, creepy and fey. Madden's residency has been supported by Creative New Zealand. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/rotting-and-blooming142.phpWe are still hunting for our new Program Manager. Who will it be? We have extended the closing date for applications to Wednesday 17 March. This is an exciting, demanding job. The successful applicant will have experience in exhibition making and gallery management. They will be dynamic, well connected, passionate about contemporary art, and totally commited to the work of the organisation. They must be able to lead a small team and to take complete charge in the Director's absence. The full position description and selection criteria can be accessed here. Post your application addressing the selection criteria to 'Institute of Modern Art, PO Box 2176, Fortitude Valley BC QLD 4006, Australia', or email it to robert@ima.org.au. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/yes-the-second-best-job-in-the-world167.phpIn January we team up with Audiopollen to present a concert by two legends of underground music, Eugene Chadbourne (USA) and Mani Neumeier (Japan). A guitarist and banjoist, Eugene Chadbourne scrambles Nashville country music, bluegrass, and rockabilly, with free jazz and noise. In his hands traditional forms bristle with humour and anarchist energy. His work combines a kaleidoscope of rock and jazz guitar techniques, the chaotic structures of Charles Ives's symphonies and Frank Zappa's dadaistic pieces, a demented sense of humour, and a tone of punk irreverence. Chadbourne has cut a remarkable track through the world of new music, collaborating with the likes of Jello Biafra, John Zorn, Fred Frith, Derek Bailey, Kevin Blechdom, Camper Van Beethoven, They Might Be Giants, Violent Femmes, and Sun City Girls. German percussionist Mani Neumeier is a pioneer of free jazz, krautrock, and kosmiche. He founded the seminal group Guru Guru, Acid Mothers Guru Guru (with Japanese psych-lords Acid Mothers Temple), and Harmonia, and has played in countless engagements with Damo Suzuki, Peter Brotzmann, and other key figures of non-conformist music. Chadbourne and Neumeier will perform sets solo and together. Tuesday 20 January at 7pm. [image: Eugene Chadbourne] http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/pop-goes-chadbourne108.phpIn early February, Artspace, Sydney, and the IMA will host Lionel Bovier, a curator, writer, and editor, and head of the Zurich-based art-publishing house JRP|Ringier. In a mere five years, JRP|Ringier has become one of the world's leading contemporary art publishers, with over 400 titles in active distribution. JPR|Ringier works both as an independent publisher and as a publishing partner for artists, curators, galleries, and museums, and has built a network of associate editors in different countries. Recent titles include Hans Ulrich Obrist's A Brief History of Curating and volumes on Urs Fischer, Alberto Giacometti, Mike Kelley, and Michaelangelo Pistoletto. In Sydney, Bovier will conduct a workshop for artists who wish to self-publish, and, in Brisbane, a workshop for art publishers. His visit has been facilitated by the Australia Council's International Visitors Program. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/publish-or-perish164.phpEvery year the IMA presents Fresh Cut, our pick of emerging Queensland artists. This year's show will feature four, who are either at art school or up to six years out of art school, and have not shown at the IMA before. Each will be given $5000 to develop work for the show. This support has been generously provided by our major partner, Brisbane Airport Corporation. The artists will be selected by a panel comprising IMA Director Robert Leonard, artist Jemima Wyman, and QCA Gallery Director Simon Wright. The panel will work from its knowledge of local art practice, but eligible artists are also invited to submit portfolios by Friday 17 April. These should be emailed (to robert@ima.org.au) or posted (to Fresh Cut, PO Box 2176, Fortitude Valley BC QLD 4006). Submissions will not be returned. One of the selected artists may also be invited to present a work in the new Brisbane Airport international terminal. We would like to thank Brisbane Airport Corporation for their visionary support for this project. Fresh Cut 2009 opens in early July. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/fresh-cut-2009-call-for-submissions120.phpWe are looking for a new Program Manager. This is an exciting, demanding job. The successful applicant will have experience in exhibition making and gallery management. They will be dynamic, well connected, passionate about contemporary art, and totally commited to the work of the organisation. They must be able to lead a small team and to take complete charge in the Director's absence. The full position description and selection criteria can be accessed here. Post your application addressing the selection criteria to 'Institute of Modern Art, PO Box 2176, Fortitude Valley BC QLD 4006, Australia', or email it to robert@ima.org.au. Applications close Friday 25 December. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/the-second-best-job-in-the-world163.phpDendy Cinemas Portside and Icon Films invite IMA people to a special preview screening of Nowhere Boy, a chronicle of John Lennon's childhood directed by British artist Sam Taylor-Wood. Imagine John Lennon’s childhood... A lonely teenager, curious and sharp, growing up in the shattered city of Liverpool. Two women clash for his love: Mimi, the formidable aunt who raised him, and Julia, the mother who gave him up. Yearning for a normal family, he escapes into music and finds a kindred spirit in the young Paul McCartney. But just as John's new life begins, the truth about his past leads to a tragedy he can never escape. Poignant and powerful, it's the untold story of the boy who created The Beatles. Starring Aaron Johnson, Kristin Scott-Thomas, and Anne-Marie Duff. Dendy Portside Cinemas, Portside Wharf, Remora Road, Hamilton. Wednesday 9 December at 6.30pm. To book email us. Seats are limited. Confirmations will be sent by email. No phone calls please. Thanks Dendy. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/free-movie160.phpJoin online. There's still time. It's only $50. The Annual Members Cocktail Party is coming up. It's from 7pm to 10pm on Friday 4 December—the night before the big public opening of the Asia-Pacific Triennial at the Gallery of Modern Art. Entertainment includes degenerate American one-man band Bob Log III, artist-DJs Chris Bennie and Sebastian Moody, food from Caxton Street Catering, drinks from Clovely Estate, Tiro, and Splitrock, and choice door prizes. You have to be a specially invited guest or a member to attend. Don't miss out.  http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/party-party-party157.phpOur Annual Members Cocktail Party is on Friday, 7–10pm. It's for IMA members and invited guests. Those who want to come who are not current members or already invited will need to join online by Thursday. Invitations are not transferable, and you cannot bring additional people unless they are also members or also invited. We will not be signing up new members on Friday. Please come early. Peach Bellinis will be served on arrival at 7pm. The exhibition Mirror Mirror will be open until 8.30pm. Bob Log III will perform at 9pm. And thanks again to you—Akira, Blonde Venus, Clovely, Dendy, Dogstar, Nelson Molloy, The Outpost, Space Furniture, Ultra Suite, and The Zoo—for supplying all the fabulous door prizes. See you at the party. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/party-news159.phpDeputy Director Vanessa McRae is leaving the IMA team. She has just got a new job, as curator at QUT Art Museum. We will miss her, but we look forward to working with her in her new role. McRae came to us six years ago from Latrobe Regional Gallery, where she worked as Curator. She will be especially remembered for putting together Supercharged, our raunchy petrol-head show, in 2006. Featuring Bill Henson, Patricia Piccinini, Tracey Moffatt, and others, it addressed the car in contemporary Australian art and toured to eight venues. We are now looking for a new Exhibitions Manager/Deputy Director. We will be advertising the position soon. In the meantime, expressions of interest can be made to the Director. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/sweet-sorrow158.phpIndependent critic and curator David Teh will be the new Eyeline/IMA writer-in-residence. He arrives in time for the opening of the Asia-Pacific Triennial in early December. Until this year, Teh was based in Bangkok, Thailand, where his projects included Platform (Queen’s Gallery and The Art Center, Chulalongkorn University, 2006); The More Things Change: The 5th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (2008); and Unreal Asia (55th International Short Film Festival, Oberhausen, Germany, 2009). He is  a member of Bangkok art collective, As Yet Unnamed. In Australia, he was a co-founder of the Fibreculture forum for internet culture; a founding director of artist-run initiative, Half Dozen; and remains a director of Sydney’s Chalk Horse Gallery. He has contributed to numerous journals and magazines including Art Asia Pacific, Art and Australia, C-Arts, Eyeline, and The Bangkok Post. He recently took up a post as Assistant Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore. His current research focuses are video in South-east Asia and Thai contemporary art. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/new-writer-in-residence156.phpOn Monday 23 November, the Institute of Modern Art and Queensland Art Gallery join forces to present Art Teachers Day. It's an opportunity for Queensland secondary-school art teachers to connect with what’s happening in contemporary art, engage with important contemporary artists, preview the IMA's and QAG's education programs, and meet with colleagues. This year Art Teachers Day will feature artists talks by Del Kathryn Barton and Peter Madden, a workshop with Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan, a tour of the IMA show Mirror Mirror, and a preview of QAG's upcoming Asia-Pacific Triennial. Not to mention a sumptuous lunch with wine. If you haven't taken the opportunity to attend Art Teachers Days before, this is the year to start. It costs $50 (GST inclusive), including lunch with wine and the bus trip to GoMA. Spaces are limited. Contact Dhana. Strictly teachers only. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/attention-art-teachers153.phpThe Deadnotes launch their new-old album Orange Trumpet on Thursday 5 November at 7pm. The Brisbane group's eccentric semi-spontaneous pop music has drawn comparisons to Ennio Morricone, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, The Magic Band, Moondog, and even The Minutemen. Since forming in 2005, The Deadnotes have written and recorded hundreds of miniature odes to this and that. Amongst their earliest, Orange Trumpet's thirty tracks are brimming with ideas and presented with loose abandon, having been recorded way-back-when in a fibro practice shed in Northgate. The record is like a minimalist, mariachi-informed version of Grow-Up's The Best Thing. The U.S.-released LP has been pressed in a numbered edition of 400. Buy a copy and hear the band perform a set of old party favorites and on-the-spot newbies, complete with squeaky pedals, leaky valves, false starts, and early endings. The Deadnotes are Eugene Carchesio, Stuart Busby, Leighton Craig, and now Sandra Selig. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/deadnotes-record-launch154.phpJapanese curator Shihoko Iida has moved to Brisbane, on a scholarship from Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs. For the last eleven years, she has worked at the contemporary art centre Tokyo Opera City. Last year, with Performance Space curator Bec Dean, she co-curated Trace Elements: Spirit and Memory in Contemporary Japanese and Australian Photomedia, which included work by Philip Brophy, Leiko Shiga, and others. She has also contributed an essay to an upcoming IMA book on Brophy. Iida will be stationed at Queensland Art Gallery as a 'visiting curator'. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/shihoko-iida150.phpOur Exhibitions Assistant, artist Ross Manning, is in Berlin for four weeks on a residency with Umatic and XXXXX Micro Research Workshop. The residency has been facilitated by Aphids. Dhana Meritt will be filling in for him. She is an artist and one of the team at Flipbook, the Westend artist-run-space. Manning's work currently features in Primavera at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/interchangable152.phpAnna Zammit has been busy. In her spare time, the IMA administrator has been organising Independent Exhibitions Brisbane, a project to develop exhibitions with local emerging artists in vacant commercial spaces throughout Brisbane. The artists include Sally Golding, Chris Bennie, Sky Needle, and Paul Mumme. The first project, however, is by duo Fiona Mail, opening at TCB Fashion Avenue on 29 September. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/a-plug-for-anna151.phpLast night twenty-five-year-old filmmaker Aaron Burton won our inaugural $10,000 Jeremy Hynes Award. Burton was chosen by a panel consisting of IMA Director Robert Leonard and artists Jay Younger and Craig Walsh. The Award was presented by Doug Hall, 2009 Australian Commissioner for the Venice Biennale. Robert Leonard says, 'The panel was hugely impressed by Burton's short films, particularly two keenly-observed portraits of socially marginal characters from 2006, Princess of Paradise (about a cross-dresser who persists in wearing a pink bikini in public in Surfers Paradise in the face of threatened prosecution) and The Point (about an Aboriginal man railing against Captain Cook’s presumption in claiming the country). Burton has perfected a manner of low-budget documentary filmmaking combining video footage and still photography and interweaving the personal and the political. He's already produced a remarkable and substantial body of work. We expect great things.' The award will be made every two years to an experimental Queensland artist in the name of the late Jeremy Hynes. [image: Aaron Burton] http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/aaron-burton-receives-jeremy-hynes-award118.phpWe have double passes to the new Australian movie Blessed to give away. Based on the critically lauded play Who's Afraid of the Working Class?, it interweaves four moving stories which follow the misadventures of six children wandering the city streets through a day and a night. 'It's a film about the depth of love between mothers and their young, and the life force that ultimately connects us all.' Contact Anna. Thanks Dendy. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/blessed148.phpLast night, at the Australia Business Art Foundation's 2009 Queensland Awards, the IMA and Brisbane Airport Corporation were announced as national finalists in the Young and Emerging Artist category. The IMA's 2008 Fresh Cut exhibition, which was revamped with support from BAC, proved to be an important stepping stone for the four artists selected. We are the only Queensland finalists in ABAF's national awards. Our ongoing thanks to BAC. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/a-guernsey143.phpWe have initiated a writer's residency in collaboration with Eyeline magazine. The 2009 Eyeline/IMA writer-in-residence will be prominent critic and academic Anthony Gardner. Originally from Melbourne, Gardner currently lives in London. He will spend three weeks at the IMA from mid-April. We are also pleased to announce our other 2009 residents. Our international resident will be American photographer Taryn Simon. Our national resident will be Christian Capurro, who will be producing work for Mirror Mirror. Our regional resident is Ipswich artist Lincoln Austin, who is known for his optical works. He shows with Andrew Baker Art Dealer in Brisbane. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/meet-the-residents122.phpIMA director Robert Leonard just judged the Prometheus Visual Arts Award, organised by All Saints Anglican School on the Gold Coast. He gave the $15,000 prize to Anastasia Klose's Film For My Nanna. In this video the artist wanders about Melbourne engaging passers-by. She wears a white wedding dress and bears the handwritten sign, 'Nanna I Am Still Alone'. In awarding the prize, Robert Leonard said: 'Feminism has been big news in the artworld recently. Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party, the Sistine Chapel of the Women’s Art Movement, has finally found a permanent home in the Brooklyn Museum. There are also two massive feminist shows on in the US. There's a rambling survey, Global Feminism, also at the Brooklyn Museum, and Wack, at LA MOCA, which surveys the early days of the mission. These projects seek to underline the ongoing significance of feminism to contemporary art. But perhaps this needs to be said because it doesn't go without saying. One of the big things that constantly surprises me is how many young women artists today make work as if feminism never happened, and, for them, perhaps it didn’t. The new generation sees things quite differently. The work I have selected, I think, exemplifies this to a tee. Actually it is all about generation gaps, and not. It is at once heroic and pathetic, touching and irritating, entertaining yet utterly self-indulgent. We are embarrassed to watch, yet we identify. It might not seem finely crafted and yet—for what it is trying to do—I don’t think it could be done better. It feels completely contemporary—it could be on YouTube.' http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/nanna-art49.phpOn the weekend of 15–16 August, we play host to Writing Architecture, a symposium organised by Naomi Stead from the Architecture Theory Criticism History Research Group, School of Architecture, University of Queensland, in conjunction with Heat. Speakers will address such questions as: When and how is writing an architectural practice? What are the genre conventions of architecture writing? What might experimental architectural writing be? What are the potentials for architectural writing in new media? Is architectural criticism critical enough? How do critical practices in architecture compare with those in other fields? Participants include Bernard Brown, Karen Burns, Cristina Dreifuss-Serrano, Helene Frichot, Gevork Hartoonian, Paul Hogben, Andrew Leach, Steve Loo, John Macarthur, Andrew Nimmo, Veronique Patteeuw, Deborah van der Plaat, Julian Raxworthy, Charles Rice, Magnus Rönn, Alex Selenitsch, Naomi Stead, Lee Stickells, and Sarah Treadwell. As seating is limited, we ask that those interested in attending submit a short written expression of interest, indicating their relevant professional experience, their willingness to engage in discussion, and the days they wish to attend. Expressions of interest should be emailed to paarch@uq.edu.au by Friday 7 August. Registration is $50 per day and you can register for one or both days. Writing Architecture is held in association with AA Roundtable 02: Media and Architecture: Building Communities, a chaired public discussion convened by Justine Clark, Editor of Architecture Australia. University of Queensland Art Museum, Friday 14 August, 6–8pm. www.architecturemedia.com/roundtable/ RSVP essential: reception@archmedia.com.au http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/writing-architecture139.phpAt the AGM, back in May, a new board was elected. After many years of service, Kim Machan, Director of Multimedia Art Asia-Pacific, stood down. So did Eliza Tee, who is now working for Art + Place at Arts Queensland. We confirmed previously co-opted Treasurer, Anna Glass, a forensic accountant from KPMG, and welcomed art historian Dr Miranda Wallace. Wallace is Senior Managerial Researcher at Queensland Art Gallery, where she curated the recent exhibition Place Makers, showcasing Queensland architects. Our board is now Peter Alwast, Tom Burke, Gary Carsley, Richard Fidler (President), Anna Glass (Treasurer), Timothy Hill, Crow Hirst, John Kotzas (Vice President), Andrew McNamara, Douglas Quayle, Richard Martin, Dirk Yates, Jay Younger, Miranda Wallace, and Ian Were. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/belated-posting130.phpIf you are a Queensland artist and not a member of Artworkers Alliance, you should be. For over twenty years, Artworkers has provided artists with industry advice on all aspects of professional practice: exhibitions, writing applications, art prizes, business plans, insurance, contracts, marketing, and more. For just $27.50, IMA members can now become Artworkers affiliate members and receive all the benefits of individual membership. Email info@artworkers.org, or visit www.artworkers.org. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/artworkers-deal107.phpIn 2009 we are offering a four-week residency for an artist from regional Queensland. It's a great opportunity to have quality time in Brisbane, meeting and networking with other artists and arts workers. We provide travel expenses, a weekly stipend of $525, and accommodation in one of our centrally-located apartments. Applications should include up to ten images of your work, an abridged CV, a brief outline of the activities or project you would like to undertake while here, and an indication of how you think the residency would benefit your practice. Deadline for applications: 31 March. Contact Vanessa. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/regional-residency-2009109.phpBree Jackson has left the IMA to follow the yellow brick road. She is now in L.A. We wish her well. Our new program assistant is Ross Manning—one of the artists featured in our recent exhibition The New Fresh Cut 2008. Welcome, Ross. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/revolving-door110.phpWe are teaming up with Room40 and Kick Arts to present Japanese psych-folk duo, Tenniscoats, in Cairns, as part of their Australasian tour. The BBC described Saya and Ueno Takashi’s music as 'gorgeous'; Village Voice called them 'one of the most unique groups to emerge from Japan in recent years'. COCA, 96 Abbott Street, Friday 13 February at 7pm. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/tenniscoats-play-cairns111.phpWe are pleased to announce the artists in this year's Brisbane Airport Fresh Cut 2009: Aaron Burton, Sarah Byrne, T. P. Kerr, and Hiromi Tango. Each receives $5000 towards the creation of work for the show from our major partner Brisbane Airport Corporation. The exhibition opens early July. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/fab-four125.phpRegrettably, we have had to cancel Justin Clemens's talk on Cao Fei and Second Life that was to have taken place on 11 June at 6pm. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/cancelled126.phpWe announce an unadvertised addition to our programme, an intellectual double-feature, two lectures back to back ... Morgan Thomas from the University of Canterbury presents The Last Picture Show: Late Rothko; Rex Butler from the University of Queensland presents Practical Religion: On the Afterlife of Colin McCahon. Thursday 5 June at 6pm. Much of the writing on Mark Rothko's later serial work has used psychoanalytical approaches and the art-historical trope of the 'endgame', understanding the paintings as a series of negations reflecting the failure of the modernist project. Considering the seriality, darkness, and indistinctness of Rothko's 1960s paintings, Thomas argues for a different approach. Investigating Rothko's later work alongside contemporary painters like Ad Reinhardt, Frank Stella, and Barnett Newman and, more broadly, in the context of radical shifts in late twentieth-century visual culture, she suggests that the radical 'turn' in Rothko's late work propels it into a visual terrain that is distinctively, and errantly, cinematic. What would it mean to believe—to know—that you were a great artist, if you happened to live and work in faraway and provincial New Zealand in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s? Nothing would more condemn you to irrelevance and being forgotten after you died. The great New Zealand painter Colin McCahon faced this situation and deliberately organised his life and work so that it would live on after his death. In fact, Buter suggests, we might say that McCahon does not so much have a life as an artist as an afterlife, that his afterlife precedes and makes possible his life. [image: Mark Rothko] http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/stop-press86.phpThis year’s residents are Jacky Redgate (our national resident) and Kyle Jenkins (our regional resident). Based in Toowoomba, where he teaches at the University of Southern Queensland,  Jenkins is an abstract painter. He works in ongoing series, including his Untitled (Blueprint) series (featuring horizontal stripes), I.E.B (Construction) series (geometric wall drawings and paintings), Monocuts (deconstructed canvases), Monochrome Cowboy (a film and photography project), and Urban Geometries (images which can be read as pure abstractions or as images of the urban environment). A new series explores biomorphic imagery.    http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/2008-residents113.phpFor the second forum in our Taboo Topics series, The Water Closet, on Thursday 12 June at 6pm, Dr Alison Moore and Mark Taylor will address our engagement with excretion and toilets. Moore will speak on their appearance in twentieth-century art to critique the art object as commodity and challenge middle-class propriety, focusing on the work of Piero Manzoni, Wim Delvoye, and Stuart Brisley. Taylor will tackle the way public conveniences actively produce and reproduce social relations and identities, and how aspects of displayed sexuality inform design. Moore teaches in the Centre for the History of European Discourses at the University of Queensland. Her research concerns the history of excretory taboos in 19th Century Europe and their relationship to visions of progress, bourgeois class conformity and colonial identification. Her essay 'Kakao and Kaka: Chocolate and the Excretory Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe' was published in the collection Cultures of the Abdomen: Diet, Digestion, and Fat in the Modern World. She is working on a book entitled The Anal Imagination: Psychoanalysis, Capitalism, and Excretion. Taylor is Senior Lecturer in Interior Design in the Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering and the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology. His research concerns nineteenth-century writing on decoration and the home, and the spatial and social construction of 'interior' in turn-of-the-century amateur writing. It draws on philosophy, feminism, cultural studies, and gender studies. [image: Piero Manzoni] http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/shit-happens87.phpLast Thursday we were privileged to host a lecture by visiting American curator and scholar Anne Rorimer, a leading authority on minimalism and conceptual art. Rorimer has been involved in such pivotal shows as Forest Of Signs: Art In The Crisis Of Representation (1989), Reconsidering The Object Of Art: 1965-1975 (1995) and A Minimal Future: Art As Object 1958–1968 (2004), and is the author of several books including New Art In The 1960s And 1970s: Redefining Reality (2002). Her lecture 'Envisioning Reality In Conceptual And Installation Art' addressed the Conceptual Art generation, and their redefinition of the art object in relation to ideas of documentary, ethnography and enactment. We presented her lecture in partnership with the Arts Media, Design and Modernity Research Group, Queensland University of Technology. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/anne-rorimer58.phpLast year V-Energy drink started V-Raw, a MySpace site designed to help those in the design, fashion and music industry find their first dream job. V-Raw sources hot job opportunities twice a year and has so far placed over 60 people in creative companies. They are currently offering an intern position here at the IMA. Interested? Head to their site and click on the jobs tab. Applications close 12 October. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/raw-talent94.phpOn 29 November we close IMA@TCB, our temporary satellite space in TCB fashion avenue in the Valley. Since opening in April this year we have mounted six exhibitions and five window projects at TCB. Laith McGregor's show as part of The New Fresh Cut 2008 and Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan's window project Flight will be our last. The space proved an excellent means for exposing ourselves to a wider public and we look for further opportunities to franchise the IMA. We would like to thank TCB for this great opportunity. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/sweet-sorrow100.phpEvery year the IMA puts on a 'big day out' for Queensland’s secondary school art teachers. Art Teachers Day is a great opportunity to catch up with what's happening in art and to swap notes with colleagues. This year counterpoints lectures by two very different artists: Brisbane aesthete Michael Zavros (whose super-realist paintings mine the worlds of high fashion, fast cars, opulent drawing-rooms, and male dandies) and Melbourne's Danius Kesminas (famous for his art-music projects Slave Pianos, The Histrionics and Punkasila). Curator Adam Free will talk on Kaldor Art Projects' new initiative for schools. Move: Video Art in Schools is an innovative teaching resource consisting of video works by Australian-art stars Shaun Gladwell, Patricia Piccinini and Daniel Von Sturmer. Over a catered lunch and drinks, IMA director Robert Leonard will give a tour of the IMA's current shows, the Diena Georgetti survey and The New Fresh Cut 2008. And after lunch we'll head across the river to GoMA, for a tour of their blockbuster Australian survey show Contemporary Australia: Optimism. Monday 24 November 9am-4pm. Tickets $40 (including lunch with wine, and the bus to GoMA). Secondary school teachers only. Contact Peta. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/teachers-big-day-out101.phpWe have shown some great single-channel video works by Queensland artists recently. It’s nice to share, so we are sending a selection on the road. The first stop will be Umbrella Studios, Townsville (6 July – 5 August). Greatest Hits / Previously Unreleased Tracks features works by Peter Alwast, Christopher Bennie, Daniel McKewen, Tracey Moffatt, Archie Moore, Paul Mumme, Scott Redford, Sandra Selig, Van Sowerwine, Grant Stevens, and Jemima Wyman. Wyman deserves special mention. In her half-appealing half-annoying video Lady In Red, she amplifies traditional tools of female seduction – red lippy, red dress, red heels, big eyes, cleavage, up-skirt angles. Holding the camera overhead looking down or strapping it to her leg looking up, she becomes grotesquely forshortened, while dancing solo and singing Chris De Burgh's romantic standard. [image: Jemima Wyman]   http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/video-easy55.phpLast Sunday night the IMA was the place to be. Those attending the OtherFilm Festival event Looking Backwards Looking Forwards were witness to Nethergate, a remarkable expanded-cinema performance by New York artist Bruce McClure. McClure superimposed projections from three 16mm film projectors. Each ran an identical film loop – opaque, except for every sixth frame, which was clear. McClure had installed metal cutouts inside each projector, between the film plane and the lens plane, so they projected flickering shapes: a vertical bar, a horizontal bar and a full frame rectangle. With each projector, McClure could control the focus, the speed (and thus the relative strobing), and the intensity and colour of the light. With an obvious penchant for long-haul exegesis, McClure explored these parameters for the best part of an hour, conjuring a dizzying diversity of optical effects. A pulsing soundtrack was generated by the projectors, which interpreted the clear frames as an optical soundtrack, with McClure modifying that input through various guitar effects boxes. The experience was overwhelming. Messing with our vision, and even driving some poor souls to the bathroom, the work looked back to the phenomenological inquiries of flicker filmmakers like Paul Sharits and Tony Conrad, but extended this into an exploration of the expressive potentials of the film projector in live performance. McClure presents once more in Brisbane, on Friday 23 November at the old Museum, as part of the OtherFilm Festival's Indecent Exposures night. He then heads to Melbourne for a show at Tapespace. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/epileptics-beware65.phpEsteemed Japanese architect Momoyo Kaijima is giving a lecture at the IMA, on Friday 20 June at 6pm. She and her partner Yoshiharu Tsukamoto founded Atelier Bow-Wow, the Tokyo-based architecture practice. Atelier Bow-Wow has been described as 'one of the most unique practices of its generation, embracing a kind of accidental urban vernacular, using their research and work to chronicle the complex and often unforgiving logic of the city'. Acting as urban detectives, Atelier Bow-Wow have catalogued the agility of Tokyo's fabric in producing radical programmatic collisions and nuanced microarchitectures. Such observations have informed their own work, as documented in their recent publications Made In Tokyo, Post-Bubble City, Graphic Anatomy and Pet Architecture Guidebook. Armed with the understanding of architecture's maneuverability in Tokyo, Atelier Bow-Wow posits a practice engaged in 'lively space', space willingly infected with the accidents of site and program. Atelier Bow-Wow practice, teach and publish, as well as exhibiting in art contexts. They have participated in numerous art and architecture biennales and triennales. Momoyo Kaijima is currently an Assistant Professor at Tsukuba University. She was Visiting Faculty at Havard in 2003 and was Guest Professor at the ETH in Zurich from 2005 to 2007. She is being brought to Brisbane by the ATCH Research Group, School of Geography, Planning and Architecture, University of Queensland. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/architectural-behaviourology85.phpResearch using psychedelic substances was a big thing in psychiatry in the 1960s. But when researchers like Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert started experimenting on themselves, it precipitated a methodological crisis. Consequently, today the idea of 'psychedelic research' is one that stretches the limits of 'research'. This Thursday we hold a forum on psychedelic research with presentations by Dr Mark Pennings, Julian Raxworthy, Dr Des Tramacchi, and Torsten Wiedemann. Topics include modelling psychosis, psychedelic perfume, a literature review of psychedelic research, and amateur research into neuropharmacology. This is the first in a series of forums on 'taboo topics'. Thursday 24 April 2008 at 6pm. [image: molecular structure of LSD] http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/psychedelic-research-forum83.phpFor the last 11 years the IMA has mounted Fresh Cut, an annual best-of-graduates show featuring work from Queensland art schools. This year we are changing our approach. The New Fresh Cut will feature four emerging Queensland-based or Queensland-born artists, either at art school (graduating and post-graduate students) or up to six years out of art school, who have not shown at the IMA before. Each will be given $5000 towards the development of new work for the show. This support has been generously provided by our new business partner, Brisbane Airport Corporation. One of the artists chosen may also be invited to present a work in the new Brisbane Airport international terminal. The artists will be selected by a panel:  IMA director Robert Leonard, new Queensland Art Gallery curator Russell Storer, and artist Russell Storer. The panel will work from its knowledge of local art practice, but eligible artists are also welcome to submit portfolios and proposals by 20 July. There are no forms or guidelines. This is an opportunity for you to tell us about your practice so we can consider you for the show. So simply tell us what you think we need to know. Submissions will not be returned, so do not send original artworks or unique documentation. They should be emailed to the director (robert@ima.org.au) or posted (PO Box 2176, Fortitude Valley BC QLD 4006). Please mark submissions 'The New Fresh Cut'. We would like to thank Brisbane Airport Corporation for their visionary support for this project. The New Fresh Cut opens in early October. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/the-new-fresh-cut88.phpProfessor Terry Smith is in Brisbane to give the Daphne Mayo lecture at Queensland University Art Museum. His lecture 'The History Of Contemporary Art: Paradoxes And Antinomies' will address contemporaneity in art today as an uneven unfolding of – and volatile interaction between – three currents: sensationalist remodernism, the art of rampant globalisation; a critical internationalism arising from geopolitical decolonisation and anti-globalisation; and a more personal yet shared search for place and cultural identity within dislocation and all-pervasive mediation. At noon this Saturday, 9 August, he will participate in a follow-up seminar at the IMA. In this informal session, he will respond to questions and reactions to his lecture by local art historians, Rex Butler, Rosemary Hawker, Angela Goddard, and Donna McColm, and artist Scott Redford, as well as taking questions from the floor. Smith is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh, and a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Architecture, University of Sydney. His most recent books are The Architecture Of Aftermath, Contemporary Art And Philanthropy and Antinomies Of Art And Culture (which he edited with Nancy Condee and Okwui Enwezor). http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/we-are-so-contemporary91.phpThe Brisbane art scene was shocked by the death of Jeremy Hynes late in 2006. During the 1990s Hynes produced a body of audacious performance work, which was presented at the IMA and artist run spaces like ISNT. He was much loved and respected by fellow artists, and was due to have a show at the IMA in 2007. From a bequest made in his name by his parents, Jan and Ross Hynes, the IMA will be make a biannual award of $10,000 to an Queensland experimental artist to honour Jeremy's memory. The first recipient – to be selected by a panel consisting of IMA director Robert Leonard and artists Jay Younger and Craig Walsh—will be announced in February 2009. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/the-jeremy-hynes-award89.phpWe have free double passes to the Tuesday 9 December opening night of the Hola Mexico Film Festival at Dendy Portside, where a screening of Teo's Journey will be followed by a fiesta with Mexican food, beer and music. The Festival showcases thirteen new features, ten shorts and a 1960s Grindhouse double feature—Ship of Monsters and Planet of the Women Invaders. Just email us your details to be in the draw for the opening night tickets. For more information on the festival click here. Thanks Dendy. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/mexican-movie-offer105.phpWe are trying to find out who our audience is, so we'd love you to complete our audience survey. It takes no time at all. And you'll be in the draw to win a hamper with lovely wines from Clovely Estate. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/who-are-you102.php140 Queensland secondary school art and media teachers enjoyed our 2007 Art Teachers Day (Thursday 7 December). The programme included keynotes by well known artists, Brisbane’s Judy Watson and Melbourne’s Philip Brophy. Watson is an indigenous artist from North West Queensland. She represented Australia in the 1997 Venice Biennale and won the Moet et Chandon Fellowship in 1995. Her work is held in major Australian and international collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the British Museum, London. In the last few months she unveiled a major commissioned work in the Musee Du Quai Branley, Paris, and won the prestigious Clemenger Prize. Brophy is an experimental audiovisual artist. His work encompasses interests in pop culture, sex, film and music. He has just curated a show of the work of Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy and the founding father of Japanese anime for Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria and Australian Centre for the Moving Image. He will have a solo show at the IMA next year. The day also included Vanessa McRae and Robyn Daw's presentation on the education programmes for our touring show Supercharged; lunch in the Scott Redford show Bricks Are Heavy; and a bus trip to the Queensland Art Gallery's new Gallery of Modern Art for the official launch of QAG's 2007 education programme. [image: Judy Watson] http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/teachers-fun-day29.php'Fashion is a field which scholarship tends to link to other domains. The fashion and art nexus, so important within modernism, still dominates discussion of the aesthetic register in which fashion might be recognised within the academy. It is a dialogue which tends to reduce fashion to a two-dimensional trace, one of cubistic abstraction or surrealistic pun.' So argues Peter McNeil, who gives the first in series of IMA lectures on fashion, this Thursday 28 August at 6pm. Tracing the relationship between fashion and art from the late Middle Ages to the present, he will challenge the idea that fashion is simply another art form. McNeil – Professor of Design History, University of Technology, Sydney – co-edited the recent Berg anthology Shoes: A History From Sandals To Sneakers. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/fashion-focus93.phpWe have a brand new Treasurer. Anna Glass, from KPMG, has joined the board. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/new-recruit92.phpOur Visions-funded touring exhibition Supercharged is almost at the end of its epic run. It cruises close to Brisbane soon. Curated by Vanessa McRae, this cars-in-art show, with its line-up of prominent Australian artists – including Patricia Piccinini, Scott Redford, Anne Zahalka, Tracey Moffatt and Bill Henson – opens at Logan Art Gallery, Corner Wembley Road and Jacaranda Avenue, Logan Central, on Friday 15 February at 6pm. Join us for the party, but remember to bring a designated driver.   http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/clocked74.phpThe IMA is going to the mall. We're opening a temporary satellite space in the swanky TCB fashion avenue, which runs between the Brunswick Street Mall and Chinatown in Fortitude Valley. There we will rub shoulders with local fashion houses like Chelsea de Luca and Gael Sorronda. Our first shows will be Simon Obarzanek’s portrait archive 80 Faces and Dane Mitchell's Inaugural Curse. Grand opening Friday 11 April, 5.30 - 7.30pm. [photo: Manille Joy] http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/the-arcade-project77.phpIn 2008 we are offering a four week residency for an artist based in Regional Queensland. It's a great opportunity to have quality time in Brisbane, meeting and networking with other artists and arts workers. We provide travel expenses, a stipend of $525 per week, and accommodation in one of our centrally located apartments. Applications should include up to ten images of your work, an abridged CV, a brief outline of the activities or project you would like to undertake while here and how you think the residency would benefit your practice. The timing of the residency depends upon the availability of accomodation. Deadline for applications: 1 March 2008. Contact Vanessa. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/regional-residency73.phpIceland resident, Bjork collaborator and current icon of the European post-electronic sound, Ben Frost is coming to Brisbane for his first show in years! His new album Theory Of Machines has created quite a stir, and, alongside his recently re-pressed Steelwound, seems to be further proof that he is onto something unique with his densely textured works. He comes to Brisbane to launch both his new album and Steelwound Redux at the IMA on Saturday January 19th from 8pm. It's going to be dark, dense and loud! Not only that, but we can also now confirm that percussionist Chris Corsano will be joining the bill. From rolling with the free-folk scene (Sunburned Hand Of The Man, MV+EE and Tower Recordings), through Free Jazz (Evan Parker, John Edwards and Paul Flaherty), Noise (Vampire Belt, Jim O, Thurston Moore and Dream Aktion Unit +++) and onto the big stages playing in Bjork's live band, Corsano has fired sparks of invention in every instance. His solo sets are jaw-dropping displays not only of technical prowess but advanced musicality. Not to be missed! Presented in conjunction with ::Room 40::. microMONO at the IMA, tickets on the door. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/ben-frost-gig71.phpIt's a great thrill for us to be hosting two lectures by renowned art historian Alexander Alberro early in the New Year. Associate Professor of Art History at the School of Art and Art History, University of Florida, Alberro is best known for his 2003 book Conceptual Art And The Politics Of Publicity, in which he turns the conventional view of conceptual art – as resistant to the commodity form of the art object – on its head. In Alberro's account, conceptual art reappears as the avant-garde precursor of a new historical form of commodification. Alberro's essays have appeared in a wide array of journals and exhibition catalogues. He has also edited and co-edited a number of books, including Museum Highlights (2005), Recording Conceptual Art (2001), Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology (2000) and Two-Way Mirror Power (1999). Alberro's first lecture 'Robert Smithson's Mirror Games’ (Monday 21 January at 6pm) will argue that Smithson’s intensity is characterised by a peculiarly mordant version of the psychedelic sensibility of the period. In Smithson’s work, the existential and visionary sides of the 1960s mingle with notions of impending catastrophe and the return of nature to a crystalline state. 'Neo-Concrete Art And The Legacy Of The Non-Object' (Tuesday 22 January at 6pm) takes as its starting point one of the more provocative artworks in 2002's Documenta 11, Cildo Meireles's Disappearing Element / Disappeared Element. To understand the underpinnings of Meireles's at once fully egalitarian, participatory and yet ultimately disposable proposal, Alberro considers the relationship between this work and the legacies of Brazilian neo-concrete art, that sought to transcend the traditional limitations of the aesthetic object and the institutional framework. Alberro's lectures are presented in association with Visual Arts and AMDM Research Group, Queensland University of Technology. [image: Robert Smithson] http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/alexander-alberro-lectures66.phpWe were devastated by the death of our friend Jeremy Hynes on Tuesday. Hynes was a key figure in the Brisbane art scene. His performances at the IMA, at the artist-run space ISNT and in the 1990s were anarchic yet precise. In I Am Genius. I Am God, he regarded himself in mirrors, then turfed them down a stairwell, shattering his image. The audience watched via closed-circuit television, sharing his viewpoint. In The Water Piece, he swam down a 20 metre transparent plastic tube full of water wearing a suit, freeing himself at the far end, only to be washed down the street by the torrent released. We had been planning a Hynes one-night performance retrospective to take place early next year, which Hynes had entitled UNInsured, a nod to the fact that his risky works were now nearly impossible to stage given occupational health and safety requirements. While this can no longer happen, we do plan to produce a publication on his performance work. Hynes was also known as a video artist. His music clip for Regurgitator’s Polyester Girl was nominated for an Aria. He stars in the video Inhaling Kurt, which he made with his friends Scott Redford and Ben Wickes, which will debut in Redford’s show Bricks Are Heavy at the IMA in December. A wake was held at the IMA on Friday 10 November. Our condolences to friends and family. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/last-artist30.phpDella Churchill has just joined the IMA team in the new position of Business Partnership Manager. She will be creating and developing relationships with a new family of business partners. Business partnerships will deliver an array of benefits, including special events, networking opportunities, use of the gallery for entertaining, and corporate collection advice. Churchill comes from the film industry, where she has worked in a variety of capacities on projects that range from major feature films to small independent productions. Her latest project is producing eight short films with emerging filmmakers. Wes Hill also joins us for six months as Editorial Assistant on the Australian And New Zealand Journal Of Art, a position made possible through a Strengthening The Sector grant from Arts Queensland. Hill is half of the art-duo Wilkins Hill. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/new-players56.phpOn Sunday 3 June we presented Generationext, a free event for highschoolers. They took in the show by internationally acclaimed Australian sculptor James Angus, met local artists, and enjoyed live music by local sensation Shiver Like Timber and an appearance by The Lampshade Ladies (courtesy The Brides of Frank). However the biggest hit was the collective graffiti wall. Generationext is a youth initiative of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, presented in partnership with the IMA, and supported by the Balnaves Foundation. [image: Daniel Wallwork] http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/the-bored-will-approve43.phpThe Australian And New Zealand Journal Of Art, the refereed art history journal, has come to Queensland. The IMA will publish the next three issues in association with the Art Association, Australasia's professional body for art historians. They will be edited by a team of Queensland art historians: Rex Butler and Sally Butler from the University of Queensland, Andrew McNamara and Mark Pennings from Queensland University of Technology, Rosemary Hawker from Queensland College of Art, and Robert Leonard from the IMA. Angela Goddard from Queensland Art Gallery and Courtney Pedersen from Queensland University of Technology are reviews editors. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/its-academic40.phpWe had our AGM on 18 March. Longstanding board member Julie Ewington, head of Australian art at Queensland Art Gallery, stood down; as did artist Grant Stevens (now in Los Angeles) and academic Theodor Wyeld (who has moved back to Adelaide). They will be sorely missed. New board members are artist Gary Carsley; artist Jay Younger, associate professor at Queensland College of Art; and Ian Were, publications manager at Queensland Art Gallery. The full line up then: Sarah Blanck (Treasurer), Tom Burke, Gary Carsley, Richard Fidler (President), Angela Goddard, Timothy Hill, Crow Hirst, John Kotzas (Vice President), Andrew McNamara, Kim Machan, Douglas Quayle, Eliza Tee, Richard Martin, Jay Younger and Ian Were. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/new-faces42.phpWe note with sadness the passing of Jean Baudrillard, the French philosopher. He died on 6 March aged 77. A thinker of verve and originality, Baudrillard did more than anyone to reflect on the dislocating realities of modern consumer culture. Identified with postmodernism, he was best known for his concept of 'hyperreality': the thought that people today are lost in a world of 'simulacra', images and signs created and presented as 'real' by the mass media. Baudrillard's nihilist outlook led to startling conclusions. For instance his 1991 book The Gulf War Did Not Happen argued that that War was conducted as a media spectacle, a simulation, a news event, a videogame. Baudrillard was influential in the international art scene, particularly on pop-inspired artists of the 1980s. But he was singularly influential on Australian art and cultural sciences. As Rex Butler observes, his work 'spoke to a generation of young scholars in the humanities, allowing them to escape the stifling ideology critique or political correctness of their 1960s-era teachers. He opened up wider conceptions of feminism, the visual arts and of cultural practice in general.' Baudrillard visited Australia on several occasions. His 1984 Sydney lecture was sold out, and acolytes were forced to watch via closed-circuit television. (His cult status here was epitomised in the title of Andre Frankovits' book Seduced And Abandoned: The Baudrillard Scene.) Baudrillard returned in 1994, to contribute to the IMA's symposium Baudrillard In The Nineties: The Art Of Theory and to attend our exhibition of his photos The Ecstacy Of Photography. We subsequently published Jean Baudrillard: Art And Artefact, a volume of writings by Baudrillard, Rex Butler, Nicholas Zurbrugg and others. http://www.ima.org.au/pages/posts/jean-baudrillard-dies39.php