What is Melbourne Now?

Volume 10 Number 2 February 10 - March 9 2014

Aftermath. Ross Coulter.
Aftermath. Ross Coulter.

 

 

Liz Banks-Anderson explores the contributions from VCA artists and alumni to the Melbourne Now exhibition, currently on show at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Many things can define our thriving metropolis. Art is weaving its narrative around Melbourne’s identity, with the landmark Melbourne Now exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria reflecting the city’s unique and dynamic cultural identity. 

Victorian College of the Arts School of Art staff and alumni are well represented in the exhibition, open until March. Among the 300 artists, architects and designers who are participating, there are 86 alumni and 18 current staff, revealing the depth and breadth of contemporary art practice undertaken in Melbourne and the VCA’s contribution to the broader artistic community. 

Director of the VCA Su Baker is the former Head of the School of Art and also on the Board of Trustees at the NGV. 

Professor Baker says the School of Art has made a significant contribution to the history of Australian art and continues to do so in Melbourne Now. Explaining the curatorial strategy behind the exhibition, devised by NGV Senior Curator of Contemporary Art Max Delany, she says the exhibition represents a snapshot of what is current and exemplary in contemporary art in Melbourne. 

“This exhibition includes a broad cross-section of disciplines from visual art, design, architecture, dance and some music, and interestingly, represents the model of the arts at the VCA.” 

Civic engagement is key to this exhibition, which is always changing, keeping the audience in touch with new artists and the evolving identity of the city. In this way, Melbourne Now allows artists to contribute to a conversation. 

“Art by its very nature is a contestable field of exchange, making a contribution to the community in as much as it is a public ‘conversation’, presented visually, musically or otherwise performatively. In each case, the artists are wanting audiences to respond and form opinions and insights,” Professor Baker says. 

Professor Baker says VCA School of Art students use their intelligence and imaginations to add to Melbourne’s reputation as a creative city.

“We hope this also adds to its livability. We’re at the heart of the arts precinct and as such are a source of constant renewal as generations of creative and energetic young people flow through our doors,” she says.

Contributing to this exchange is Melbourne artist and VCA alumni Ross Coulter.

The Fine Art graduate’s series of photographs Aftermath (#1, #2, #3) feature in the exhibition documenting the result of the release of 10,000 paper planes by 165 volunteers into the La Trobe Domed Reading Room at the State Library of Victoria in 2011. 

Mr Coulter says the VCA School of Art helped establish him as an artist as it provided a place to conduct activities and explore ideas he realised would be considered art. 

“I learnt how to establish a studio practice. I joined and developed a supportive and engaged cohort of artists. I listened to and, to some degree, tried to follow the examples of the artists and lecturers who taught there,” he says.

Mr Coulter was compelled to contribute to the exhibition as it showcases the diversity of contemporary art practice in Melbourne.

“There’s always something else the city can reveal,” he says. 

The idea of launching paper planes came to Mr Coulter when he was in the copy section of the State Library in the late 1990s. 

“Internet and email was slowly becoming a commonly used technology for communicating and moving information. I wondered about the way information might move through space.” 

The collaborative work is framed by notions of levity and gravity and can be seen as a poetic gesture articulating a sense of Melbourne’s identity.

“The Dome is like a cranium,” he says, “a large cavernous space in which ideas and thoughts could waft around. The release of a paper plane can be seen as an articulation of an idea, much like a thought aloft, floating through space.” 

Melbourne Now is on show at both campuses of the NGV until 23 March.

 

www.vca.unimelb.edu.au