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Powerful, challenging and enlightening, the largescale retrospective at Melbourne’s famed Anna Schwartz Gallery profiles a visionary founder and the groundbreaking artists who helped evolve Australia’s contemporary art scene. By Cushla Chauhan.
A challenging Melbourne exhibition honours a visionary founder and the artists behind Australia’s contemporary art scene.
ANNA SCHWARTZ IS used to hard work, but the lead-up to her Melbourne gallery’s landmark exhibition, Never the Same River, must be one of the most intense yet. “It’s full-time for me,” she states matter-offactly. “If you’re doing something like this there’s no clocking on or off, it’s just as much as you can do and as much time you can give.”
Fortunate then that the formidable gallerist clearly still sparks with the same passion that has always driven her, and is as focussed on this project as any she’s tackled over her nearly four-decades-long career.
Never the Same River is in part an acknowledgement of Schwartz’s extraordinary tenure: a major retrospective including works from more than 50 local and international artists spanning the 1960s until today and drawn from the exhibition archives of the four galleries she has founded: Melbourne’s (art collective) United Artists (1982-1988) and (her own) City Gallery (1988-1993) and the Anna Schwartz Gallery in Melbourne (1993 to present) and Sydney (2008-2015).
But the ambitious display also carries a much greater significance in the art world, charting a pivotal period and perspective that has shaped the Australian contemporary art landscape into the rich scene it is today. “I think we’ve grown up conceptually over that time,” reflects Schwartz. “Some important ideas have been presented and the conversations between artists of this country and the world have been developed.”
Indeed, back in the early 80s, when Schwartz emerged onto the art scene, she proved her mettle by championing artists whose work attracted a strong critical response. “I’ve always been drawn to art that I feel is important, that is protagonistic, that is taking the language further, asking pertinent questions of itself and the audience and the culture,” she says.
Among the artists represented in the three-month, two-part showcase across multi-mediums are the likes of Shaun Gladwell, Joseph Kosuth, Jenny Watson and Yin Xiuzhen. A public program of events to coincide with the Melbourne International Arts Festival, including a series of lectures, will add another layer of depth to the retrospective.
While gallery director and exhibition curator Tania Doropoulos was instrumental in bringing Never the Same River into being through her conversations with Schwartz about the gallery’s history, the show was also inspired by Schwartz’s dialogue with writer and critic Doug Hall, whose new book Present Tense will be launched as part of the program.
“The book looks at 35 years of contemporary Australian art through the lens of this gallery’s history,” explains Schwartz of Present Tense, which is also a biography of her own remarkable life. “I feel very honoured that he’s written a book with this focus.”
Schwartz hopes visitors leave with an optimistic outlook. Not only taking away, as she quips, a work of art, but also: “I’d like them to feel we live in a very rich culture and a very intelligent, exciting culture.” Never the Same River is on until December 21. Go to www.annaschwartzgallery.com.