Entertainment News

Alice Springs, Northern Territory
14-23 September

The Festival features a feast of comedy, cabaret, food, dance, film, literature, music, theatre, arts exhibitions and workshops.
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4 August - 22 September

The exhibition documents landscape painting from the colonial 1850s to the immediate period following World War II.
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Picasso: Love & War 1935-1945
Friday 30 June to Sunday 8 October 2006
Public Programs
Bookings 03 8662 1555
General Information 03 8620 2222

Gala evening: Picasso and Dora Maar
For one night only, experience Picasso and Dora Maar through the eyes of the world’s pre-eminent Picasso scholar and Director of the Musée National Picasso in Paris and the Curator of Picasso: Love & War 1935-1945 - Anne Baldassari. Through her in-depth study of Picasso and Dora Maar, Anne Baldassari will provide a rare insight into the work and lives of these two extraordinary artists. Tickets are strictly limited and include exclusive exhibition viewing, live music, fine food and wine.
Speaker Anne Baldassari, Director, Musée National Picasso, Paris
Date Friday 30 Jun, 6.30-10.30pm
Cost $75 / $60 NGV Member
Venue Great Hall, NGV International
Event code P0714
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NGV International and The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Federation Square, will be jumping this Easter with activities for everyone, from a major exhibition on the great Impressionist Camille Pissarro, to free Easter eggs.
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Box Office ph: 9486 1677
open 12-8pm Monday to Friday and 4-8pm Saturday
Tickets at the NSC box office at 301 High St, Northcote or online from www.northcotesocialclub.com
Doors 9.30 Supports from 9.45 Headline acts from 10.45
All shows smoke free!

ANNOUNCEMENTS

STARDUST FIVE (featuring Dan Kelly, Paul Kelly, Dan Luscombe, Pete Luscombe & Bill McDonald) with special guest
Thu 20 April
Doors 9.30
The members of Stardust Five play, and have played, in other bands including The Last Gasp, The Alpha Males, Max Q, The Blackeyed Susans and Michelle Shocked. They came together, naturally, without a master plan, because they enjoyed tossing ideas around. Rehearsals often developed into something that took on a life of their own where diverse ideas were explored and collectively worked on. A number of the recordings were prompted by different requests for film/TV soundtrack submissions. This gave the Stardust Five its underlining theme – songs with a visually evocative feeling. Whilst the films that accompany the tracks may never be conceived, maybe it doesn’t matter. Listen, and invent your own.
$20+bf
$25 at the door if still available
Tickets from NSC box office (301 High St, Northcote), Ph: 94861677 and online via www.northcotesocialclub.com
www.musichead.com.au
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Pissarro: The First Impressionist
Opens this week

“Painting and art in general, entrances me. It is my whole life.
Nothing else matters.” Camille Pissarro

An exhibition celebrating the work of the great Impressionist artist Camille Pissarro opens at the National Gallery of Victoria on 4 March 2006.
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Land Marks - the first exhibition to take up the entire Indigenous Gallery spaces at NGV Australia since opening to public acclaim in October 2002

To coincide with the staging of the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, the NGV is presenting Land Marks, a major exhibition in the BlueScope Steel Indigenous Galleries at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia.

The exhibition opens Friday 10 February 2006.

Land Marks looks at the history of Indigenous art and identifies momentous changes that have occurred since works were first made for Europeans in 19th century Victoria by William Barak and Tommy McRae.

The exhibition will feature more than 200 works dating from 1875 until 2005, including drawings, paintings, ceramics, sculptures and fibre works.

Landmark artists making their mark

We are not telling lies when we talk about the culture of our ancestors, sacred places and paintings, our people, our spirit. These are the things we are making public today, so we can all see these things. White people and we black people, today, we are the same, all living together…We didn’t create this culture recently. It lies in the ground. It lies in the earth, but we are bringing it out. We bring it out and paint it … where we can see it. Ivan Namirrkki, Maningrida 2004

· To coincide with the staging of the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, the NGV is presenting Land Marks, a major exhibition in the BlueScope Steel Indigenous Galleries at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia opening 10 February 2006.

· Closed for refurbishment since 9 January, Land Marks will re-launch the exhibition space with the first complete revitalisation of the Indigenous Galleries since they opened to public acclaim in October 2002.

· Land Marks looks at the history of Indigenous art and identifies momentous changes that have occurred since works were first made for Europeans in 19th-century Victoria by William Barak and Tommy McRae.

· The exhibition will feature more than 200 works dating from 1875 until 2005, including drawings, paintings, ceramics, sculptures and fibre works.

· Land Marks acknowledges the spirit and invention of Indigenous art, celebrates its diversity in expression across Australia and over time and looks at the art of diverse peoples whose visual culture reflects linguistic, ceremonial and topographical distinctions, as well as radically different experiences of colonisation.

· The exhibition traces the dramatic evolution of new forms of painting and sculpture. It contrasts periods of occasional art production by individual artists working in isolation with the current situation, where groups of artists live and work together creating major bodies of work that exist in the mainstream and are supported by facilities and infrastructure.

· NGV Director, Gerard Vaughan, says: “The Indigenous Galleries at NGV Australia have always recognised the cultural diversity, innovation and power of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art. Now, with this exciting and creative re-thinking of our indigenous collections, our new exhibition will represent some of the major historical and contemporary moments in the world’s oldest living art tradition.”

· Land Marks encompasses aspects of Indigenous art including: 19th century drawings; Namatjira and the Arrarnta landscape tradition; Bark painting and sculpture in Northern Australia; Koori art in south eastern Australia; the evolution of Papunya Tula and Central Desert art; Art of the Kimberley; Art of Indigenous Women; and the rise of New Minimalism.

· NGV Senior Curator of Indigenous Art, Judith Ryan, says: “Land Marks honours the great masters of Indigenous art - serious painters and sculptors in ritual contexts, pioneers in the development of new art forms, and warriors for social justice. It celebrates continuity, re-invention and transformation of a great art tradition that is unique to this continent.

· “In asserting the importance of land and their inalienable oneness with it, Indigenous artists are making art that is profoundly political and spiritual, which now underscores the way we perceive Australia. The best Aboriginal works are no longer trapped in an ethnographic category but also possess a unique aesthetic aura born of truth.”

· A highlight of the exhibition will be the work of artists over the past decade who have positioned themselves at the forefront of contemporary practice, including Brook Andrew, Paddy Bedford, Lorraine Connelly-Northey, Julie Dowling, Mick Jawalji, John Mawurndjul, Clinton Nain, Samuel Namunjdja, Lena Nyadbi and Judy Watson.

· NGV Curator of Indigenous Art, Stephen Gilchrist, says: “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists tell us who they are and where they come from - their work is anchored in their cultural origins yet lives in the mainstream and points to the future. It thrives today because artists such as William Barak, Albert Namatjira, Lin Onus, Paddy Compass Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri, Rover Thomas and Emily Kam Kngwarray have trail blazed a path for others to follow.

· “These landmark artists are united in their ideology — paint, painting, painter. All are the Land.”

· A range of public programs and events has been organised in association with the exhibition and an extensive catalogue will be available from the NGV Shop.

· Admission is free.

· Land Marks is on display at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Federation Square from Friday 10 February to Friday 11 June 2006.

· Principal Sponsor: BlueScope Steel

· The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Federation Square is open Tuesday–Sunday, 10am–5pm. Closed Mondays. For more details visit www.ngv.vic.gov.au or call (03) 8662 1553.