Audiences in Stanthorpe and surrounds can experience highlights from the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art’s (QAGOMA) long-running Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT) series of exhibitions, when ‘Asia Pacific Contemporary: Three Decades of APT’ tours to Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery from 6 May until 3 July.
QAGOMA Director Chris Saines said, ‘Asia Pacific Contemporary: Three Decades of APT’, featuring works of art commissioned or collected from APT1 (1993) through to APT9 (2018-19), would tour extensively across regional Queensland from December 2021 until July 2024.
“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to tour this exciting exhibition profiling key moments from the Gallery’s flagship exhibition series, which has contributed so much to our audience’s engagement with and understanding of contemporary art and culture in the region,” Chris said.
“This diverse travelling exhibition also underscores the success of the APT’s role in the Gallery’s collection development strategies, highlighting internationally significant works by leading artists dating from the 1980s to the present day.”
‘Asia Pacific Contemporary: Three Decades of APT’ includes works by Heri Dono (Indonesia), Lee Wen (Singapore), Tracey Moffatt (Australia/United States), Lorraine Connelly-Northey (Waradgerie people, Australia), and Michel Tuffery (Aotearoa New Zealand).
Commencing at the Noosa Regional Gallery, the tour of ‘Asia Pacific Contemporary’ will extend to 12 other regional venues including John Mullins Memorial Art Gallery Dogwood Crossing, Miles and Hervey Bay Regional Art Gallery.
Curator of contemporary Asian art at QAGOMA Reuben Keehan said the exhibition included works in a diversity of media including painting, sculpture, works on paper, video and performance.
‘It reflects APT’s embrace of contemporary art in all its forms, ranging from the ceremonial to the conceptual, and the deeply personal to the resolutely social,’ Reuben Keehan said.
“These vibrant and innovative works encompass diverse customary practices and cultural encounters, and illustrate extraordinary social change over almost thirty years.”
Unmissable moments within the exhibition include otherworldly mythological paintings from the early 1990s by Heri Dono, drawing on traditional Javanese culture narratives and Indonesia’s political history.
Tracey Moffatt’s moving-image work Other 2009, a witty commentary on preconceptions in cinema’s depictions of romantic relationships, and Povi tau vaga (The challenge) 1999, a pair of sculptural bulls made from branded corn beef tins by Michel Tuffery, first featured as part of a performance during APT3.
‘Asia Pacific Contemporary: Three Decades of APT’ commences its tour during the opening week of ‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art,’ showing in Brisbane from 4 December 2021 to 26 April 2022, and is presented in parallel with regional touring exhibitions ‘Asia Pacific Video’ and ‘APT10 Kids on Tour.’
For more information visit qagoma.qld.gov.au/whats-on/touring/asia-pacific-contemporary-three-decades-of-apt or www.srag.org.au/events/2022/5/6/asia-pacific-contemporary-three-decades-of-apt
