Texta book club
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
QUT Art Museum, Tuesday 20 November, 6:15pm, Free
Texta is no ordinary book club; it's for people who love art. We use fiction (mostly) to unpack the subjects, themes and emotions of art. Conversation is never colourless, and is facilitated by our brains trust from QUT Creative Industries Faculty.
To coincide with the exhibition Beyond Reason, we will be discussing our final book for the year, Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino.
Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.
In a garden sit the aged Kublai Khan and the young Marco Polo – Mongol emperor and Venetian traveller. Kublai Khan has sensed the end of his empire is coming soon. Marco Polo diverts his host with stories of the cities he has seen in his travels around the empire: cities and memory, cities and desire, cities and designs, cities and the dead, cities and the sky, trading cities, hidden cities. As Marco Polo unspools his tales, the emperor detects these fantastic places are more than they appear.
The evening commences with a brief tour of the current exhibition, followed by a glass of wine and generous amounts of conversation about the title of choice.
Texta is held through the year on Tuesday evenings from 6:15pm. Purchase this title from the QUT Bookshop or QUT Art Museum.
Download your Texta bookmark (PDF, 145 kb)
Purchase this title from QUT Bookshop
Artist-to-artist workshop
Presented by Amber Boardman
QUT Art Museum, Saturday 17 November, 12pm-4pm, Free
SOLD OUT
Join Amber Boardman in an artist-to-artist Workshop during the Beyond Reason exhibition at QUT Art Museum. Amber will be engaging in one-on-one dialogues with artists and will offer her experience as a fellow artist, university lecturer and PhD student. These one-on-one workshops are suitable for emerging and established artists alike.
Amber started running artist-to-artist workshops during an exhibition in America last year as a way of rethinking what it means to show work. She can offer artists assistance with grant proposals and artist statements, as well as informal chats about art and what it means to be an artist.
Please bring along anything you would like to discuss – ideas, images, documents, images on a website or a USB stick.
Participants can register for a 30 minute session between 12pm and 4pm.
More information about Amber Boardman.
Artist floor talks
Beyond Reason
Floor talk with Aleks Danko | 12:30pm
Floor talk with Louise Paramor | 1:00pm
Floor talk with Matthew Clarke | 1:30pm
Join us for floor talks presented by artists Aleks Danko and Louise Paramour, preceding the opening of Beyond Reason. The exhibition is a picaresque collection of works that venture into the fairytale, the absurd, masquerade, animal/human transformation, theatre, satire, anti-fashion and parody. Beyond Reason exudes whimsy, improvisation, spontaneity, humour, gesture and intuition whilst exploring ideas of cultural identity, popular culture and sexuality.
Aleks DANKO
EEVA HESSA ATTA HERRADRESSA (that which falls to the floor, stays on the floor ... ) 2017
laser prints, ink on carved wood relief, rolled rawhide bones, oil based paint on steel wire
594mm x 420mm each
Courtesy of the artist
QUT Vintage Book Sale
for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation
Gardens Theatre Foyer, Gardens Point Campus
Wednesday 17 October, 12pm – 3pm, Free entry
Book lovers unite! Bring your friends, tote bags and keen eye for a bargain. Come shop from a wide range of beautiful vintage books – all to raise incredibly vital funds for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, which helps provide books and literacy programs to remote communities. Book topics include art history, fashion, photography, film, design and more.
Find out more about the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.
Texta book club
Trick of the Light by Laura Elvery
QUT Art Museum, Tuesday 18 September, 6:15pm, Free
Texta is no ordinary book club; it's for people who love art. We use fiction (mostly) to unpack the subjects, themes and emotions of art. Conversation is never colourless, and is facilitated by our brains trust from QUT Creative Industries Faculty.
To coincide with the The churchie national emerging art prize exhibition we will be discussing Trick of the Light by Laura Elvery.
With a keen eye for detail and rich emotional insight, Laura Elvery, Brisbane based writer and QUT alumni, reveals the fears and fantasies of everyday people searching for meaning. Ranging from tender poignancy to wry humour, Trick of the Light is the beguiling debut collection from one of Australia's rising stars.
The evening commences with a brief tour of the current exhibition, followed by a glass of wine and generous amounts of conversation about the title of choice.
Texta is held through the year on Tuesday evenings from 6:15pm. Purchase this title from the QUT Bookshop or QUT Art Museum.
Download your Texta bookmark (PDF, 145 kb)
Purchase this title from QUT Bookshop
Music in the museum:
String Theory
QUT Art Museum, Saturday 25 August, 1pm – 1:30pm, Free
Join us on the last weekend of the exhibition Salon de Fleurus for music in the art museum performed by QUT Music Society's string ensemble, String Theory.
We encourage you to lounge back in the salon space as String Theoryserenade you with their French and classical music repertoire.
Part artwork, part exhibition, Salon de Fleurus is a reconstruction of Gertrude Stein's Parisian salon that existed at 27 rue de Fleurus from 1904–34.
Questions of Taste
Writers and Ideas at QUT
QUT Art Museum, Thursday 23 August, 5pm – 7pm, Free
Writers and Ideas at QUT brings together writers, academics and industry figures to discuss key debates and ideas animating the field of contemporary creative writing. Open to all, these free seminars developed by QUT Creative Industries invite speakers and audience members to engage with a spectrum of ideas about what it means to be a writer today, and debate the cultural factors contributing to our ideas of writing and publishing.
Join us for August's seminar at the QUT Art Museum for a special collaboration with Salon de Fleurus, a contemporary reconstruction of Gertrude Stein's Parisian salon.
The idea of having 'good taste' in art and literature is sometimes associated with snobbery or exclusivity. But do notions of high, middle and low-brow art still have an impact on the way that books and other art forms exist in the world?
These very popular seminars are free and seats are limited, please register to attend. Champagne and light refreshments will be served.
Panel members:
Susan Johnson, award-winning writer and journalist at Qweekendmagazine
Chris Saines CNZM, Director at Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA)
Craig Bolland, award-winning playwright, a short film maker, and Lecturer in Creative Writing at QUT
Panel chair: Kári Gíslason, writer and Associate Professor in Creative Writing at QUT
Texta book club
A Few Days in the Country by Elizabeth Harrower
QUT Art Museum, Tuesday 24 July, 6:15pm, Free
Texta is no ordinary book club; it's for people who love art. We use fiction (mostly) to unpack the subjects, themes and emotions of art. Conversation is never colourless, and is facilitated by our brains trust from QUT Creative Industries Faculty.
To coincide with the exhibitions Abstraction: Celebrating Australian women abstract artists and Salon de Fleurus we are discussing A Few Days in the Country by Elizabeth Harrower.
Internationally acclaimed for her five brilliant novels, Australian author Elizabeth Harrower is also the author of a small body of short fiction. A Few Days in the Country brings together for the first time her stories published in Australian journals in the 1960s and 1970s, along with those from her archives. Essential reading for fans of her work, these finely turned pieces show a broader range than the novels, ranging from caustic satires to gentler explorations of friendship.
The evening commences with a brief tour of the current exhibitions, followed by a glass of wine and generous amounts of conversation about the title of choice.
Texta is held through the year on Tuesday evenings from 6:15pm. Purchase this title from the QUT Bookshop or QUT Art Museum.
Download your Texta bookmark (PDF, 145 kb)
Purchase this title from QUT Bookshop
In Conversation
Graduating Artists Forum
QUT Art Museum, Friday 22 June, 4pm – 7pm, Free
Undergraduate third year students of visual art or art history are invited to join a one night only event to meet and critique each other's artwork within the Salon de Fleurus exhibition at QUT Art Museum. Selected students will present a brief artist talk and documentation of their artwork, followed by a group critique where the audience are invited to make observations and ask questions.
Chaired by QUT graduating art students and QUT Art Museum interns Anna Litwinowicz and Madelyn Power, this event aims to give graduating art students an opportunity to network and improve their critical skills. Following the event, students are encouraged to produce a piece of writing on one of the featured artworks which will then be published in a zine format. Places are strictly limited. If you are not interested in presenting your work and would still like to participate in the group conversation you are still encouraged to come along.
Scribbles from the salon
QUT Art Museum, Tuesday 19 June, 6:15pm – 8:15pm, Free
Step back in time and join us at Gertrude Stein's Parisian Salon de Fleurus, which existed at 27 rue de Fleurus from 1904 – 34, for an evening of poetry readings inspired by Stein, an influential American author, poet and art collector. Credited as the 'first museum of modern art', the salon was one of the first gathering places for burgeoning artists and writers including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Stein herself, along with her brother Leo Stein and her life partner Alice B. Toklas.
Poetry presented and written by Ella Jeffery, Emily O'Grady, Laura Kenny, Zenobia Frost, Rebecca Cheers and Anna Jacobson, Creative Writing Higher Degree Research students at QUT. Event organised by Dr Penny Holliday and Sarah Holland-Batt, academics, QUT Creative Industries Faculty.
Curator's floor talk
Abstraction: Celebrating Australian women abstract artists
QUT Art Museum, Saturday 16 June, 1:30pm – 2:00pm, Free
Realistic painting has proved to be a blind alley. We have reached the end of that alley, and been obliged to turn around and retrace our steps. Now we have started on the new track, and already find it rich in new discoveries.
Join us for a curator's floor talk presented by Elspeth Pitt, Curator, Australian Painting & Sculpture (20th, 21st Century), National Gallery of Australia, preceding the opening of Abstraction: Celebrating Australian women abstract artists. The exhibition examines and celebrates the myriad of ways that Australian women have championed abstraction including the importance of Indigenous women artists to the development of this field.
Mary WEBB
Abstract painting 1955
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1976
Courtesy National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Texta book club
The Fish Girl by Mirandi Riwoe
QUT Art Museum, Tuesday 22 May, 6:15pm, Free
Special guest
We are excited to have the author Mirandi Riwoe join us at the start of the evening for book signings and an informal Q&A. We will then resume with our usual format, a brief exhibition tour followed by our book discussion.
Texta is no ordinary book club; it's for people who love art. We use fiction (mostly) to unpack the subjects, themes and emotions of art. Conversation is never colourless, and is facilitated by our brains trust from QUT Creative Industries Faculty.
To coincide with the exhibition Transboundaries: art + connection we are discussing The Fish Girl by Mirandi Riwoe. Mirandi is a QUT alumnus and her novella was shortlisted for The Stella Prize 2018.
Register now to receive a limited edition Texta book plate signed by the author, awarded to the first 20 attendees!
Sparked by the description of a 'Malay trollope' in W. Somerset Maugham's story, 'The Four Dutchmen', The Fish Girl tells of an Indonesian girl whose life is changed irrevocably when she moves from a small fishing village to work in the house of a Dutch merchant. There she finds both hardship and tenderness as her traditional past and colonial present collide.
The evening commences with a brief tour of the current exhibition, followed by a glass of wine and generous amounts of conversation.
Texta is held through the year on Tuesday evenings from 6:15pm. Purchase this title from the QUT Bookshop or QUT Art Museum.
Download your Texta bookmark (PDF, 145 kb)
Purchase this title from QUT Bookshop
Meditation in the museum
QUT Art Museum 11, 18, 24 April, 12:30pm – 1:15pm, Free
William Robinson Gallery 2, 9, 16 May, 12:30pm – 1:15pm, Free
Both art and meditation offer us a much-needed sense of spaciousness and respite from the frantic world around us. If words such as embodiment, silence, grounding, tranquility, stillness or reflection ring resonantly in your being then we invite you to join us for Meditation in the museum. Led by Emma Cain, Zen practitioner from Open Way Zen and art historian, lunchtime sessions will run in conjunction with the exhibitions Transboundaries at QUT Art Museum in April and Eternal Present: The still life paintings of William Robinson at the William Robinson Gallery in May.
Please register for as many sessions as you would like to attend.
Grant STEVENS
The waterfalls I-XI, 2016
archival ink on archival paper
Courtesy the artist
Curator floor talk
Transboundaries: art + connection
QUT Art Museum, 8 & 12 April, 12:30pm – 1:15pm, Free
Join Transboundaries: art + connection Curator Kevin Wilson for a lunch time floor talk on Sunday 8 April or Thursday 12 April.
Transboundaries features QUT-trained artists whose practices cross over many disciplines. This triennial exhibition is a wide-ranging exploration of interactions between the social and political, ecological, and psychological.
Seasonal 2016
single channel video installation
Photo courtesy Denis Beaubois
Ground Truth – Fire, Flood and Human Endeavour
An immersive exploration of place and change
QUT Art Museum, 7 – 15 April, Free
Ground Truth is inspired by the science of remote sensing: using data from satellites, airborne sensors and ground-based platforms to map and monitor vast landscapes, and how they change over time.
In a unique collaboration, media artist Grania Kelly has teamed with Queensland Government remote sensing scientists and visualisation experts at QUT Institute for Future Environments to bring this mapping to life.
Satellite imagery and datasets of Queensland regions that have experienced dramatic, sometimes rapid change in the past 30 years have been time-lapsed and then linked to motion sensitive technologies and a creative soundscape to engross the audience in an intuitive, place-based interaction. This new sensory experience allows audiences to orchestrate their own dynamic 'ground truth' experience, while encouraging scientific discovery at the same time.
Texta book club
The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose
QUT Art Museum, Tuesday 20 March, 6:15pm, Free
Texta is no ordinary book club; it's for people who love art. We use fiction (mostly) to unpack the subjects, themes and emotions of art. Conversation is never colourless, and is facilitated by our brains trust from QUT Creative Writing and Literary Studies.
To coincide with the exhibition STEEL: art design architecture, our first book for the year is The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose.
A mesmerising literary novel about a lost man in search of connection – a meditation on love, art and commitment, set against the backdrop of a significant art event in modern history, Marina Abramović's The Artist is Present. The Museum of Modern Love was the winner of the 2017 Stella Prize and the Christina Stead Award for Fiction in the New South Wales Premier's Prizes.
The evening commences with a brief tour of the current exhibition, followed by a glass of wine and generous amounts of conversation about the title of choice.
Texta is held through the year on Tuesday evenings from 6:15pm at QUT Art Museum. Books can be purchased from the Gardens Point QUT Bookshop or from QUT Art Museum.
Download your Texta bookmark (PDF, 145 kb)
Purchase this title from QUT Bookshop
Forging Ahead
STEEL panel discussion and floor talk
QUT Art Museum, Saturday 17 February
Panel discussion 1:00pm – 1:45pm
Floor talk 2:15pm – 2:45pm
Join us for the launch of STEEL: art design architecture at QUT Art Museum with a panel discussion hosted by Exhibition Curator Margaret Hancock Davis, Senior Curator at JamFactory, Adelaide.
Dating back 4000 years, the era of mass steel production began in the 19th century and today steel is one of the most pervasive materials in our society. Steel was a much-admired and new material for many Modernist architects, artists and designers, who sought ways to reveal its key characteristics of malleability and strength. How is steel perceived and used today? What are the practical and aesthetic considerations of this medium in public art, design and architecture? Hear from leading local artists, designers and architects who are utilising steel in exciting and innovative ways throughout Brisbane and beyond, in this discussion about the art of working with steel.
Panelists
Samuel Mayze, Project Director of UAP Australia
Lincoln Austin, Artist
Brian Steendyk, Architect and Product Designer
Post discussion
This discussion is followed by a curator-led exhibition floor talk of the exhibition STEEL: art design architecture.
Reverb Wire Chair, 2010
Hand formed, mirror stainless steel rods
Photo: Marzorati Ronchetti
Collection of Patrick Brillet of Patrick Brillet Fine Art Ltd.
Draw it. Code it.
QUT Summer Holiday Program
6 – 14 January 2018, 10am – 4pm, Ages 5+, Free, QUT Art Museum & The Cube
Visit QUT Gardens Point Precinct this January to enjoy our free arts, craft and robotics activities! QUT Art Museum and The Cube have joined together to offer an exciting family holiday program featuring a diverse mix of interactive activities to suit the tech-inclined and those who love to draw, play and create.
At QUT Art Museum, children can draw a self-portrait, become a character in our dress-up zone or create, perform and play with their own shadow puppets! Be inspired by the exhibition Portray and Play featuring portraits from major Dutch photographers Hendrik Kerstens and Erwin Olaf, and works from the QUT Art Collection.
At The Cube, kids and families can sharpen their tech skills, tinker with learning tools at the drop-in maker space, discover robot and recycling facts with a roving treasure hunt, and learn the basics of robotics at The Cube's latest interactive project Code-A-Bot.
QUT summer holiday program
Artist in residence – Gosia Wlodarczak
6 – 14 January 2018, 10am – 4pm, Ages 5+, Free, QUT Art Museum
Take advantage of this unique opportunity to see drawing artist Gosia Wlodarczak in residence at QUT Art Museum, where she will create her performance drawing and installation A Room of Facial De-Construction. Draw a self-portrait in the Art Museum and submit your work to the artist to become a part of the artist's evolving installation.
During the nine days of the Summer Holiday Program, Gosia will be working inside a closed, custom-built room within the Art Museum, creating a performance drawing in response to a selection of the submitted self-portraits, as well as the space itself. Watch the artist at work via a live webcam, and view the final installation throughout the exhibition period when the room is opened at the completion of the artist's residency.
Gosia is a Polish born artist based in Melbourne who is renowned for her cross-disciplinary drawing practice that extends towards performance, interactive situations, installation, sound and film. This work is a part of her ongoing series The Rooms which explores the idea of existence through the biological and symbolic internal functions of the human body.
This activity is part of the Draw It. Code It. | QUT Summer Holiday Program.
Shadow puppets activity zone
6 – 14 January 2018, 10am – 4pm (except Saturday 6 January, drop-in activity available 12:30pm – 2:15pm), , Ages 5+, Free, QUT Art Museum
Explore the wondrous world of shadow puppetry through creating and performing with your own shadow puppet character! In this drop-in activity designed by The Dead Puppet Society, construct a character then walk through the step-by-step process to learn the manipulation skills needed to bring your character to life. Your audience will be amazed as you learn the techniques of Focus, Breath and Gravity and then put your performance skills to the test in our shadow play space.
In their quest to reawaken the art of puppetry, The Dead Puppet Society is a production house and design company which creates eclectic puppet-based visual theatre in Australia and the United States.
Portray zone
6 – 14 January 2018, 10am – 4pm, Ages 5+, Free, QUT Art Museum
Artist Hendrik Kerstens' series of photos in the exhibition Portray and Play depict his daughter Paula in the style of the Dutch masters, but using everyday modern objects including a tea towel and lampshade!
Using a combination of everyday objects, accessories and outfits from the dress up stand, create your own inspired look. Strike a pose and take your photo in the framed backdrop or draw your portrait as a character.
Play zone
6 – 14 January 2018, 10am – 4pm, Ages 5+, Free, QUT Art Museum
Explore and experiment in the play zone with a range of fun art, craft, writing and reading materials and activities, inspired by the exhibition Portray and Play. Let your imagination run wild!
Draw it. Code it. Treasure hunt
6 – 14 January 2018, 10am – 4pm, Ages 5+, Free, QUT Art Museum
The Draw it. Code it. Treasure Hunt invites you to follow the in-game missions and upload your answers using the App GooseChase*. GooseChase blends together the tried-and-true fun of a treasure hunt with mobile technology.
You can get active, and test your knowledge, while exploring QUT Art Museum and The Cube.
Please note this game is recommended for participants over the age of 13 and requires parental supervision.
Game registration and game devices will be hired to visitors at Room 506A.
Shadow puppet workshop with the Dead Puppet Society
6 January 2018, 10:15am, 11:30am, 2:30pm, Ages 5-8 years, Free, QUT Art Museum
Create and perform with your own shadow puppet character in this hands-on workshop. Construct and personalise your puppet in the maker space, then learn the elements of Focus, Breath and Gravity to bring your puppet to life in performance! Led by Helen Stephens, Artistic Associate at The Dead Puppet Society, this fun-filled workshop introduces the magical world of Shadow Puppetry and provides opportunities to make, play and perform.
In their quest to reawaken the art of puppetry, The Dead Puppet Society is a production house and design company which creates eclectic puppet-based visual theatre in Australia and the United States.
