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28/3/2012

The MCA reopens

Museum of Contemporary Art - MCA, Sydney

The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) reopens on Thursday 29 March 2012 as a bold, new and expanded museum. Following a AUD$53 million redevelopment, the Museum will be transformed into a major cultural centre for contemporary art and creative learning.

The MCA is Australia’s Museum of Contemporary Art, dedicated to exhibiting, collecting and interpreting the work of today’s artists. The widely anticipated reopening of the Museum is a highlight on the international art calendar. This milestone will be celebrated with a week-long series of launch events culminating in a dynamic schedule of free artist talks and public programs throughout the opening weekend.

The new MCA opens with Marking Time, an international exhibition which presents major works by eleven artists in the spacious new top floor galleries. The world-renowned and highly-acclaimed 24-hour video installation The Clock by Christian Marclay occupies the largest of all galleries, the Level 1 Gallery in the new Mordant wing.

The Museum has also commissioned Performance Space to curate a performance program in and around the new building. Local Positioning Systems comprises six artists from Australia and a UK collaborative. The new MCA opens with its first collection hang, Volume One: MCA Collection, which features works by more than 150 Australian artists.

The second season comprises the 18th Biennale of Sydney across two floors of the MCA. In October, the annual Primavera exhibition will showcase young Australian artists, alongside the first major solo survey devoted to the work of renowned Australian artist Ken Whisson. Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro will take over the Museum’s Level 1 Gallery in the new wing. In December, artist Brook Andrew will curate a thought- provoking exhibition which presents recent and new artworks by Indigenous artists from Australia and around the world. And the MCA will present the first major exhibition by Anish Kapoor in Australia as part of the Sydney International Art Series. The exhibition will be on two of the Museum’s Levels, Level 3 and Level 1 North.

Another addition to the Museum are the new rooftop venues. Created to take advantage of their location, the venues offer spectacular views across Sydney Harbour from the Opera House to the Harbour Bridge.

‘I am delighted to confirm the redeveloped MCA will open in March 2012 with a dynamic program of exhibitions showcasing work by Australian artists alongside their international peers. As we move into the final months of construction, it is thrilling to see the new MCA take shape. The creation of wonderful new spaces for art and for creative learning, right on the harbour is a landmark in the Museum’s history. The cutting-edge architecture complements the existing building and the use of new technology sets a new standard for collaboration with audiences. The new MCA will be a world-class hub of art and creative learning which responds to the Museum’s growing audience and reaches out across the country,’ said MCA Director, Elizabeth Ann Macgregor.

A key feature of the new MCA’s program is a series of commissions by Australian artists. Brook Andrew will install a permanent work on the Circular Quay façade which draws attention to the colonial naval dock remains underneath the new extension. The work is a poetic response to one aspect of the interpretation of the heritage of the site.

The artist who represented Australia in the 2011 Venice Biennale, Hany Armanious, will create the first work for the new Sculpture Terrace, a spectacular space for art overlooking Sydney Harbour. Each year an artist will be invited to create a site-specific installation to be exhibited for a period of up to 12 months. The MCA Sculpture Series will stimulate ambitious and significant new work to fire the public imagination.

Melbourne artist Emily Floyd will create the first commission for the MCA’s Bella Room for children with specific needs. In response to a brief to create a work for children with visual impairments, Emily is developing a playful sensory and tactile environment which will enhance the experiences of touch and smell in a creative learning space.

Grant Stevens will create a video work for the new MCA foyer featuring the names of the donors who have contributed to the Museum’s redevelopment. It will complement Imants Tillers’ Pure Beauty in the previous Museum entrance, which was commissioned in 1993 after the existing building was converted into the MCA.

Helen Eager will create a large-scale wall painting for the Circular Quay entrance. The commission, the artist’s largest artwork to date, will be added to the MCA’s collection of wall drawings and will provide a strong statement in the entrance for the first year.

Melbourne-based artist Andrew McQualter will re-install his site-specific work Untitled wall painting (for Helen Johnson) first commissioned in 2007 for the MCA’s Collection. McQualter is a Primavera artist whose metaphoric imagery suggests relationships we cultivate and nurture, gardening and cultural production. His wall painting will be in the passageway leading from the new building to the MCA’s Foundation Hall.

The MCA would like to thank the following galleries for their support of the MCA’s commissioned artworks: Brook Andrew - Tolarno Galleries Melbourne, Hany Armanious – Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery Sydney, Emily Floyd - Anna Schwartz Gallery Sydney and Melbourne, Grant Stevens - Gallery Barry Keldoulis, and Helen Eager - Utopia Arts Sydney.

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Marking Time
29 March – 3 June 2012
Level 3

The new MCA’s inaugural international exhibition, Marking Time presents major works by eleven artists from Europe, the USA, Brazil, Japan and Australia. This exhibition will be presented in the Museum’s spacious new top floor galleries.

In Marking Time, time is extended, made circular, wound backwards, and articulated through performative, durational acts. In keeping with its theme, the exhibition unfolds over a 24-hour cycle. Some works come to life only at night, illuminating the Museums’ front lawn. Others materialise slowly during the course of the exhibition, revealed through the footsteps of visitors passing through the Museum atrium and stairwells.

From the collision of past and present in Edgar Arceneaux’s ambitious wall-scale drawings, to concepts of ‘deep’ or universal time in Tatsuo Miyajima’s video and photographic works and Lindy Lee’s weather paintings harnessing fire and water, to Rivane Neuenschwander’s poetic flip-clocks and calendars, time becomes elastic and open ended. Elisa Sighicelli literally rewinds time through the medium of film: exploded fireworks contract to pin-points against the night sky, as ends return to beginnings; and Katie Paterson examines ancient cosmic phenomena in her durational confetti installation 100 Billion Suns and moon inspired works. Gulumbu Yunupingu also turns her gaze upwards, depicting celestial formations upon bark panels and hollowed memorial (Larrakitj) poles. The relationship between real time and digital artifice is explored in John Gerrard’s epic, slow moving animations of American mid-western scenes; while Jim Campbell uses computer-programmed light to create flickering, ever-changing scenes inspired by family albums and events. Finally, Tom Nicholson’s vast wall drawing relates geo-political dates throughout history, while Daniel Crooks’ mesmeric videos stretch and reconfigure time into abstract bands of colour.

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The Clock
29 March – 3 June 2012
Level 1 North

For its much anticipated public opening on Thursday 29 March 2012, the MCA is delighted to announce the inclusion of Christian Marclay, winner of the Golden Lion for best artist at this year’s 54th Venice Biennale, with The Clock. The Clock has attracted record breaking crowds wherever it has been shown, and has been described as ‘the most complex thing made by any artist so far this century’.

The Clock comprises several thousand short extracts from cinema history, each suggesting a particular time of day or referencing a specific moment, often through the appearance of a watch or clock-face. They are edited together to form a continuous visual sequence synchronised with the real time of visitors in the gallery who watch the film; and they suggest countless interlocking narratives despite the constant changes in genres, eras, locations and plotlines.

Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, MCA Director, said: ‘The MCA is excited to bring to Australia this extraordinary and much sought after work of art. We are thrilled to be the first venue to show The Clock in the southern hemisphere and it complements perfectly MCA Senior Curator Rachel Kent’s opening exhibition Marking Time.’

Rachel Kent said ‘The Clock highlights the centrality of time within conventional cinematic narratives – the way it binds stories together and leads us through their events. Yet by the same token, cinema traditionally immerses viewers within an illusory sense of time, suspending momentarily the real time of the world outside. The Clock creates an uncanny correspondence between cinematic and real time, drawing viewers into a parallel awareness of what they watch on screen and experience beyond it.’ The Clock is a 24-hour video that will be shown in its entirety on the MCA’s opening day, then played continuously during regular museum opening hours. Every subsequent Thursday there will be a special 24-hour presentation of this work. The Clock will be shown in the MCA’s spacious Level 1 gallery in the new wing.

Christian Marclay was born in California in 1955 and grew up in Switzerland. He now lives between London and New York. He is aninternationally acclaimed artist who has employed the concept of collage since the 1970s across diverse media including film and video, photography, installation, sound and music.

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Local Positioning Systems
29 March – 3 June 2012
Multiple locations

Local Positioning Systems curated by Performance Space adds a season of performance, participatory and site-specific art celebrating the launch of the new MCA. This is the first partnership between Performance Space and the MCA.

Local Positioning Systems brings performance and live art to the MCA under different guises and in several locations. The project takes as its starting point the newly reconfigured architecture of the MCA, and breaks down the threshold between the Museum and its surrounding environment and communities. Local Positioning Systems forges new relations with the audiences and artworks, defining the MCA’s engagement with the broader social and built environment—the performances take place in the Museum’s forecourt, first aid room, library, education facilities and the surrounding landscape of Sydney Harbour and The Rocks.

The program features six Australian artists - Julie-Anne Long, Jason Maling, Bennett Miller, Stuart Ringholt, Latai Taumoepeau, Lara Thoms - and the UK- based collaborative Walker & Bromwich.

Performance Space is Australia’s leading organisation for the development and presentation of interdisciplinary arts. They have been around for almost thirty years in Sydney, and have been located at Carriageworks for the last five years. Their program incorporates a broad range of experimental arts practice. They commission new works by contemporary visual and installation artists and run a performance program which produces and presents new work from theatre to contemporary dance, and everything in-between.

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Volume One: MCA Collection
Opens 29 March 2012 with rotating displays across the new MCA Collection Galleries
Level 2 & Level 1 South

The Museum will reopen with a major focus on its collection. Volume One: MCA Collection features works by more than 150 Australian artists acquired since the founding of the MCA in May 1989. This new presentation will reflect the diversity of Australian contemporary art over the past 20 years, including work by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, the consolidation of film and video practice from a marginal to central position; the emergence of diverse cultural voices; as well as ephemeral and performative practices.

The selection references the MCA’s exhibition and collecting history. A purpose-built screen space will engage visitors with video artworks. A resource room within the original boardroom of the Maritime Services Building will provide opportunities to research the Collection and view works from the MCA’s Contemporary Art Archive, a unique aspect of the MCA Collection.

For further information, images or interviews please refer to the following contacts:
Kelly Stone MCA PR Manager, Sydney M: + 61 (0) 429 572 869 Kelly.Stone@mca.com.au
Jeffrey Walkowiak Blue Medium Inc., New York T: +1 (212) 675 1800 Jeffrey@bluemedium.com
David Field Calum Sutton PR, London T: +44 (0) 20 7183 3577 David@suttonpr.com

Opening Weekend 29 March-1 April 2012
Thu 10am-9pm - Fri-Sun 10am-5pm

MCA Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
140 George Street The Rocks Sydney NSW 2000
Opening Hours
Mon – Wed 10am-5pm
Thu 10am-9pm
Fri – Sun 10am-5pm

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