Exhibition of Asia Pacific Art to open in Townsville

Date: Wednesday, 18th February 2009

An exhibition of up to fifty photographic and moving image art works from the Queensland Art Gallery’s Asia Pacific Collection will be on display at the Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville from 20 February 2009.

Queensland Art Gallery Director Tony Ellwood said Frame by Frame: Asia Pacific Artists on Tour would provide the opportunity to experience works by leading contemporary Asian and Pacific artists, including Ai Weiwei (China), Rashid Rana (Pakistan), Tsuyoshi Ozawa (Japan), Qin Ga (China), Stephen Page (Australia), and Sima Urale (Samoa/New Zealand).

‘This is the first tour of these works, many of which have been acquired for the Collection through the Gallery’s Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT) exhibition series,’ he said.

APT is the Queensland Art Gallery’s flagship international contemporary art event and is the only major series of exhibitions in the world to focus exclusively on the contemporary art of Asia and the Pacific, including Australia.

‘The artists featured in Frame by Frame use the mediums of photography and the moving image to explore issues of history, resemblance and difference, transparency and illusion as well as national and individual identity,’ Mr Ellwood said.

‘Each artist has used the camera as a tool in creating an experimental art form, intersecting with other mediums, histories and narratives,’ he said.

Mr Ellwood said the diverse range of works included in the exhibition reflected the dynamism of artistic practice and expression coming out of the region.

Included in the exhibition is Michael Parekowhai’s series The consolation of philosophy – “Piko nei te matenga” 2001, featuring images of funereal flowers coupled with evocative place names, recalling the historic battlefields of World War One.

Intended as tributes to the Maori battalions who fought on foreign soil, through Parekowhai’s work the mutual power of both photography and history to trick and conceal is emphasised with the realisation that the flowers are in fact artificial silk and plastic replicas of species non-native to New Zealand.

Other works featured include Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s Dropping a Han dynasty urn 1995; Justine Cooper’s Saved by science 2004 series, created during a residency at the American Museum of Natural History in New York; Sima Urale’s O Tamaiti 1996, which provides an insight into Samoan family life; and Stephen Page’s commissioned performance Kin 2006, a story of an Indigenous Australian family, community and history.

Exhibition Opening

7pm Friday 20 February 2009 by Russell Storer, Curator, Contemporary Asian Art, Queensland Art Gallery

Free Floor Talk

6pm Friday 20 February with Russell Storer, Curator, Contemporary Asian Art, Queensland Art Gallery

Exhibition Dates

20 February to 19 April 2009

Frame by Frame: Asia Pacific Artists on Tour is a regional program of the Queensland Art Gallery`s Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, which is supported by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments, administered by Arts Queensland.

Interviews and photo opportunities are available.

For more information please contact: Public Programs Coordinator, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, 4727 9627