Cover image of the review
Ethel Spowers, Resting models, 1934, linocut, printed in colour inks, from four blocks. National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra. Purchased 1979.

Spowers & Syme


23 Jul 2022
Geelong Gallery 16 Jul - 16 Oct 2022

Monographs are out. Polyphony is in. The strongest curatorial statements being made in Australia seem to be that all artists have voices, and that the most legitimate way to represent that is to give them all space—a brief solo—before the chorus reasserts itself. This is a strategy designed for managing the discordance of contemporary art, but it has been equally applied to historical artworks. What do we do then when we only have two artists? Less space to hide in a duet. But more than that, what do we do when the two artists in question seem at first glance to be one artist? A solo sung by two mouths.

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