This program in early Term 1 gives students insight to four Bendigo Art Gallery exhibitions, providing ideal stimuli for folio themes, artist study and exhibitions. Resources will be provided giving insight into curatorial considerations related to the display of specific artworks in exhibitions and exhibition viewing. Teachers can value add to their day by planning to visit exhibitions at other art spaces in Bendigo such as Pennyweight Walk with its new display of commissioned public artworks.

Presentations:

• Folio presentations and tips from high scoring students
• Analysis of how specific artworks are presented in exhibitions 
• Meet the artist curator: Tansy Curtin, Curatorial Manager will discuss the considerations of curators in the preparation, presentation, conservation and promotion of specific artworks in the current exhibition Gothic Beauty.

Exhibitions:

Rupture: Jessie Boylan
22 September 2018 – 10 February 2019 
Rupture investigates the ways in which the body and the world mimic each other in modes of panic and crisis. In this immersive video and sound installation, Central Victorian based artist Jessie Boylan collaborates with trauma-informed psychotherapist Jenna Tuke, digital media artist Linda Dement and writer and performer Virginia Barratt to interpret how symptoms of ‘disorder’ can be seen as an appropriate response to personal traumas and global catastrophe.

Gothic Beauty: Victorian notions of love, loss and spirituality
6 October 2018 – 10 February 2019
From a 19th Century Victorian horse drawn hearse to the pulsating futurist video work of Jess Johnson, Gothic Beauty traces early Victorian rituals of mourning and pursuits of pleasurable terror from the 1800s to today. Feelings of horror and escapism were explored through early literature and artists sought to evoke and capture ideas of sublime and terror in the landscape.  This exhibition includes dark and beautiful works by Jane Burton; Bill Henson; Michael Vale and Janet Beckhouse amid historic Pre Raphaelite paintings and objects, mourning jewellery and costumes drawn from state collections. This exhibition is exclusive to Bendigo Art Gallery.

Frida Kahlo, her photos
8 December 2018 – 10 February 2019
Drawn from the extensive archive of the Casa Azul (Blue House) this exhibition includes highlights from the personal collection of Frida Kahlo. The interests and obsessions that Kahlo grappled with throughout her life are reflected in this series of photographs: her family, her fascination for Diego Rivera and other loves, her crippled body and medical science, her friends and enemies, political struggles and art, the pre-Columbian past and her great love for Mexico and its traditions.

The exhibition reveals Kahlo’s passion for collecting historical photographs as reference material for her work, as well as the photographs of contemporaries including Man Ray, Martin Munkácsi, Edward Weston, Tina Modotti, Pierre Verger, and Lola and Manuel Álvarez Bravo.
Exclusive to Bendigo Art Gallery in Australia, this exhibition from the Frida Kahlo Museum and Diego Rivera Museum, curated by Pablo Ortiz Monasterio, and toured by Terra Esplêndida. Banco de México is the fiduciary of the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museums.

Daughters of the Sun: Christian Waller & Klytie Pate
10 November 2018 – 10 February 2019
This exhibition tells the story of Christian Waller, celebrated Australian printmaker of the Art Deco era, and her niece, the pioneering ceramic artist, Klytie Pate. 

Christian Waller, born in Castlemaine in Central Victoria in 1894, had a deep personal interest in spiritualism and the mystical philosophies of the modern theosophical movement. Her print work is characterised by a complex symbolism, combining ancient classical and literary subjects alongside occult motifs in a dynamic style owing much to the bold geometry of Art Deco and the handmade ethos of the Arts and Crafts movement. In 1954, aged 59, Waller died a virtual recluse in the Fairy Hills home she shared with her artist husband, Napier Waller. At this time, she had also established a reputation as one of Australia’s leading stained glass artists, having produced some 65 windows for churches in Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales. 

Christian Waller’s niece, Klytie Pate, came to live with the Wallers as a young teenager. As Pate’s maternal figure from a formative age, Christian Waller was an influential force in Pate’s life, directing her notable artistic talent into formal studies and guiding her early career. Klytie Pate mastered her chosen craft of ceramic art, forging innovations in design and glazing to become one of Australia’s foremost studio potters of the 20th century. Her aunt’s influence, in design and in subject, continued in Pate’s work for the whole of her long and successful career. 
Daughters of the Sun: Christian Waller & Klytie Pate explores the intertwining lives and work of these artists, bringing together works from Bendigo Art Gallery’s own collection, as well as the Klytie Pate Treasury at Beleura, the National Gallery of Victoria and other galleries and lenders. 

Bendigo Art Gallery acknowledges the support of the Department of Education and Training through the Strategic Partnerships Program.