Bundanon Unveils Major New Exhibition Season Wilder Times: Arthur Boyd and the Mid-1980s Landscape

Bundanon has unveiled WILDER TIMES: Arthur Boyd and the mid-1980s landscape, a major new exhibition and live program of 80s-inspired events, on now until 13 October 2024.

WILDER TIMES provides a snapshot into a period of cultural dynamism in Australia, when ideas of landscape, land ownership and environmental protection were actively interrogated.

The exhibition includes the work of more than 25 Australian artists of the mid-1980s. The starting point of the exhibition is Arthur Boyd’s renowned 1984 commission of fourteen powerful landscape paintings for Arts Centre Melbourne, which have returned to Bundanon for the first time since they were created. These monumental works are presented alongside over 60 works by other seminal Australian artists of the era.

Artists include David Aspend, Mac Betts, Vivienne Binns, Brian Blanchflower, Arthur Boyd, Mike Brown, Arthur and Corinne Cantrill, Judy Cassab, Bob Clutterbuck, Liz Coats, Bonita Ely, Gerrit Fokkema, Helen Grace, Robert Jacks, Tim Johnson, Robert Macpherson, Susan Norrie, John Peart, Toni Robertson, Howard Taylor, Rover Joolama Thomas, Imants Tillers, Timmy Payungu Tjapangati, Richard Woldendorp, and The Women of Utopia.

Boyd’s commission for Arts Centre Melbourne in the early 1980s was one of several invitations to leading artists of the time by renowned designer, John Truscott, to create new work for the interiors of Arts Centre Melbourne. These commissions were integral to Truscott’s conception of the theatres as a ‘secular cathedral to the arts’. The ambition to create a space where artforms interconnect resonates deeply with Arthur and Yvonne Boyd’s vision for Bundanon, and speaks to the cultural dynamism of that period across Australia. In preparation for major upgrades to the State Theatre as part of the Melbourne Arts Precinct Transformation, Boyd’s grand lyrical suite of large-scale landscape paintings have been reunited with the Shoalhaven bushland and river they depict.

Drawn from rough paintings and sketches made in the landscape and painted in his studio at Bundanon, the canvases record the river Bangli/Shoalhaven from dawn to midnight, capturing the passing of time and the changing of the light. Presented in the main gallery space of Bundanon’s Art Museum, the series is a testament to the celebrated Australian painter’s deep appreciation of the landscape and commitment to environmental preservation – a commitment that ultimately resulted in the gifting of Bundanon to the Australian people less than a decade later.

The accompanying survey brings together important works across painting, film, photography and printed material created by leading environmentally engaged artists working throughout the mid 1980s. On loan from significant public and private collections across Australia, this selection of key works contextualises the rapidly changing social, cultural and political climate in which Boyd was producing large suites of new work for exhibitions across Australia and Europe.

Presented works include Imants Tillers’ Pataphysical man, presented in the 1984 exhibition ‘An Australian Accent’ at MoMA PS1 New York which attracted critical acclaim; a series of aerial photographs of the Kimberley, Pilbara and Shark Bay by Richard Woldendorp AM, declared a State Living Treasure of WA in 2012 for his contribution to the arts and appreciation of the Australian landscape; Timmy Payungu Tjapangati’s Snake Dreaming, 1984, is a work by an artist who was among the first Pintupi men to begin painting on hardboard at Papunya, a movement that played a significant role in shifting perceptions on Indigenous art from the early 1970s; and the film work Serious Undertakings, 1983, by artist Helen Grace which sees a rigorous and witty feminist critique of Australian identity and the historical art canon, touching on themes of domesticity, motherhood and women’s experience of the landscape.

“Reunited with the landscape that inspired them, Boyd’s 1984 commissioned suite of paintings are a hymn to the river, the rocky outcrops and the ever-changing natural world,” said Sophie O’Brien, Head of Curatorial and Learning at Bundanon.

“Looking back at this period through the lens of Australian collections, Wilder Times presents a view onto a particular time in Australian cultural history and invokes the vision Arthur and Yvonne Boyd had for a future Bundanon from their earliest days in this place” O’brien added.

“Taking these paintings out of their dedicated setting and sending them home to Bundanon where they were created, presents the opportunity to see the Arthur Boyd commission in a new light,” commented Dr Steven Tonkin, Curator Art & Design at  Arts Centre Melbourne.

“Viewing these paintings under contemporary gallery lighting for the first time reveals the richness of colours and textures in each work, as well as unearthing details and nuances in the respective landscapes that go unnoticed in their usual context.”

WILDER TIMES will be accompanied by a full-colour catalogue publication with essays by the curator, Sophie O’Brien, and Dr Steven Tonkin, Art Curator at Arts Centre Melbourne.

LIVE PROGRAMS

Alongside WILDER TIMES, Bundanon presents an expanded live program responding to the environmental activism and nostalgic cultural dynamism of the 1980s. Highlights include:

Keep The Fire Burning | Thurs 11 July: A panel discussion with leading fire practitioners discussing how “good fire” is used by Aboriginal people to care for Country at Bundanon.

80s Double Bill Film Weekend | Sat 13 & Sun 14 July: A pop-up cinema featuring a weekend of seminal films from the 1980s exploring the Australian landscape and social psyche, including Where the Green Ants Dream (1984), Bliss (1985), Sweetie (1989), Razorback (1984).

Women in Art & Film | Sun 14 July: A conversation between writer & curator Julie Ewington, artist Helen Grace, cinematographer Erika Addis and producer & director Pat Fiske highlighting the work of women in contemporary art and film.

Professor Terry Smith on Arthur Boyd in the 1980s | Sat 10 August: A talk by leading Australian art historian and critic, Professor Terry Smith on the importance of Arthur Boyd’s work in the mid 1980s, and its influence on writers at the time.

Wild Queer Times with William Yang | Sat 7 September: Iconic artist William Yang shares tales from the front lines of the Australian queer scene of the 1980s

Breaking Bread with Bonita Ely | Sun 8 September: A luncheon and long discussion exploring the trailblazing art practice of performance artist Bonita Ely. In conversation with Sophie O’Brien, Head of Curatorial and Leaning, Bonita will share stories from her feminist and environmentally charged practice, over a meal designed by the artist and Bundanon Executive Chef Douglas Innes-Will.

STAY WEEKENDS

Bundanon’s weekend accommodation packages for 2024 have also been curated to coincide with the exhibition, responding to themes of environmentalism, riverscape exploration, and wild foraging. These will include; a special Architectural Weekend co-presented with comedian and architecture enthusiast, Tim Ross and special guests Kerstin Thompson AM and Mary Featherston AM (14–15 Sept); a weekend celebrating Arthur Boyd’s artistic practice and environmental activism in the 1980s (10–11 Aug); a weekend centred on the best of the 1980s era (7–8 Sept); and a weekend of walks focusing on biodiversity, conservation and regeneration (13–14 Jul).

More events and activations will be announced throughout the season. More info available here.

More info on the full Stay Weekend program: bundanon.com.au/upcoming-stay-events/