Museum of Old Money
What is art worth? This playful exhibition by The Good New$ Bank (a collaboration between artists Nicholas Hanisch and Cassie Thring) invites audiences to reflect on the value of art and artists through works such as an art vending machine (previously featured at the Art Gallery of South Australia in 2019) and other pieces that offer moments for audience participation. The show, which is running during Adelaide Fringe at The Mill, will feature low-cost items that are available for purchase – giving guests the chance to become collectors of contemporary art. “Museum of Old Money invites audiences to engage with contemporary notions of currency, value and worth – ideas that are especially relevant now in the face of inflation, rising interest rates and costs of living,” says curator Steph Cibich. “The exhibition connects audiences through tongue-in-cheek explorations of key issues … bringing new contexts and provoking important questions about consumerist culture and the value of art.”
Running until March 24. Free.
New Exuberance: Contemporary Australian Textile Design
Jam Factory is bringing together design, art, fashion and textiles in a new touring exhibition that kicks off in Adelaide this month. Curated by Meryl Ryan, the Gallery One show celebrates the work of more than 30 artists and designers from around the country, including Babbarra Women’s Centre, Frida Las Vegas, Grace Lillian Lee, Paul McCann, Ikuntji Artists, Tiwi Design, Wah-Wah Australia, Iordanes Spyridon Gogos, and more. It also features collaborations between artists and labels – including Romance Was Born and The Social Studio with Atong Atem, and Lisa Waup with Verner – as well as 10 commissioned furniture pieces produced by designers associated with Jam Factory. Over in Gallery Two, Built Worlds features the work of five ceramic artists whose creative practices are inspired by architectural forms and the aesthetics of our built environments.
February 17–April 16. Free.
Rivus: a river that flows both ways
This collaborative exhibition between ACE and the Biennale of Sydney (BoS) tackles timely environmental themes including climate change and the effects of colonisation on First Peoples’ custodianship of ecosystems. Presented as part of Adelaide Festival, the group exhibition features significant works by BoS artists Aluaiy Kaumakan (Paiwan Nation), Yuko Mohri (Japan), Imhathai Suwatthanasilp (Thailand) and Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi (Tonga). “In this particular day and time – in the wake of a planetary halt that forced us all to give a hard look at our real needs and priorities – we need to be conscious of the impact of our decisions and actions on the social, political and natural environment,” says Rivus artistic director José Roca. Indigenous knowledge systems have long framed non-human entities as living ancestral beings with a right to life that must be protected. This exhibition poses the question: if we recognise them as individual beings, what might they say?
Running until March 18. Free.
Responsive Forms
Hugo Michell Gallery opens its 2023 season with two exhibitions: Responsive Forms, a curated group exhibition featuring works by Bridie Gillman, Sam Gold, Jahnne Pasco-White and Justine Varga that explores the expressive power of abstraction through painting, ceramics, and photography, and solo show Colour Me Soft by Anna Horne, featuring a series of sculptures exploring tension, contradiction and balance. Horne’s work references the domestic and architectural space by using both industrial and commonplace materials, employing methods of casting and assemblage with the likes of concrete, floor vinyl and styrofoam alongside found items such as beach balls, plastic bags and wine sacks.
Running until March 11. Free.
All the years/lost & found (as if snow, melting)
This exhibition by sculpture and installation artist Sonja Porcaro investigates her familial and childhood ties to the Adelaide Central Market. The show, which incorporates ideas of memory, parenting, loss and reparation, draws on the artist’s early memories of pre-dawn visits to the east end markets as a child with her Italian migrant father to procure supplies for his fruit and vegetable store, as well as the ongoing significance markets hold for generations of her family. The new body of work, which is showing at Feltspace, is the outcome of an 11-month residency at George Street Studios, funded by Adelaide Fringe. Porcaro, whose work has been collected by AGSA, the College of Fine Art in NSW and private collections, uses everyday objects and materials to create restrained and poetic pieces investigating notions of recollection, uncertainty and the fluidity of language, representation and meaning.
Running February 17–25. Free.
