Noosa Regional Gallery was chosen to launch Asia Pacific Contemporary: Three decades of APT 31-month tour of regional Queensland on 10 December, in the same week the 10th Asia Pacific Contemporary Triennial opens in Brisbane.
Noosa Regional Gallery director Michael Brennan said APT helped us to understand the diversity of cultures and communities in our corner of the globe, so to be the first stop on a state-wide, multi-year tour of this major survey exhibition was an amazing privilege.
Curator, Contemporary Asian Art, QAGOMA Reuben Keehan said in presenting highlights from nine iterations of the series of exhibitions, the touring exhibition “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”.
Including a diverse range of media such as painting, sculpture, works on paper, video and performance, the exhibition features art commissioned or collected from APT1 (1993) through to APT9 (2018-19).
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) “encompass diverse customary practices and cultural encounters, illustrating extraordinary social change over almost 30 years,” Mrr Keehan said.
A highlight of the exhibition is a pair of articulated, life-sized bulls created by artist Michel Tuffery from corned-beef tins. Titled Povi tau vaga (The challenge) 1999, the bulls first featured in APT3 as part of a performance.
Heri Dono’s early 1990s otherworldly mythological paintings which draw on traditional Japanese culture narratives and Indonesia’s political history, and Tracey Moffatt’s moving-image work, titled Other 2009- a witty commentary on preconceptions in cinema’s depictions of romantic relationships, are prominent moments not to be missed.
Asia Pacific Contemporary: Three decades of APT opens for the first time on Friday 10 December at Noosa Regional Gallery and runs until 27 February 2022. It will travel to 12 other regional venues including the John Mullins Memorial Art Gallery at Dogwood Crossing, Miles and Hervey Bay Regional Art Gallery.
