Daniel Mudie Cunningham: Proud Mary

12 Feb 2024 - 14 Apr 2024

Daniel Mudie Cunningham: Proud Mary is a 4-channel video projection that documents Daniel Mudie Cunningham’s performances of this iconic song.  Chosen as his funeral song, Daniel has vowed to perform a lip-syncing rendition of the song every five years until his death. 

Since the original performance in 2007, the routine has been enacted three times – in an abandoned car park in 2012 and then in 2017 in an empty Tasmanian swimming pool. The most recent performance, in a Port Kembla field of concrete tetrahedrons in 2022, will have its first Sydney showing at MAG&M.

In his 2007 artwork, Funeral Songs, the artist asked his friends to name the songs they would each like to have played at their funerals. The selected songs ran the gamut from playful to sombre, together representing an archive of how people wish to be remembered at their last hurrah. Daniel’s choice, Tina Turner’s rendition of the Creedence Clearwater Revival song Proud Mary, is a nod to the impact Turner’s 1991 and 1993 performances in Sydney had on the artist.

This show was part of the official 2024 Mardi Gras program. 

Bleeding Hearts & Morning Glory: Artwork by Guy Fredericks & Chloe Watfern with Studio A

1 Mar - 14 Apr

A collaborative project developed by artist Guy Fredericks, Studio A, Dr Chloe Watfern, and MAG&M, Bleeding Hearts and Morning Glory is a socially engaged exhibition that encourages people with intellectual disabilities to participate in conversations about climate change. The project engages neurodivergent people across the Northern Beaches involved in climate action, caring for country, tending local gardens, and working with community groups focused on climate solutions.

During the initial phase of the project, Guy and Chloe are collaborating with a local organisation, Bushlink, to conduct a series of artmaking workshops in which climate concerns will be discussed and addressed through making art objects. These workshops will form the basis of Guy’s art-making process – culminating in the exhibition at MAG&M.

Studio A is a studio for professional artists with intellectual disability. The organisation aims to assist artists with intellectual disability to overcome the barriers that prevent them from accessing the conventional education and professional development pathways that are needed to be successful and renowned visual artists.

Out Front 2024: Thirty years of Express Yourself

1 Mar - Sun 14

2024 marks the 30th iteration of our Express Yourself exhibition, the annual curated selection of artworks by HSC Visual Arts students, from the 20 secondary schools across the Northern Beaches. 

To mark the occasion we have refreshed the project, following engagement with local schools and the Northern Beaches Youth Advisory Group, to deepen MAG&M’s support of young local creatives. 

As of 2024, the exhibition will be renamed as Out Front – with the 2024 edition titled Out Front 2024: Thirty years of Express Yourself. It will include a pilot mentorship program focused on supporting their transition to emerging professional creative practices. 

The exhibition will feature a broad range of expressive artforms that explore the contemporary themes which are of importance to young people today. 

This exhibition has been a part of MAG&M’s program since 1995. Presented in partnership with the Theo Batten Trust and MAG&M Society, the program has provided Youth Art Awards to aspiring artists for 30 years. The program demonstrates our ongoing commitment to connecting with secondary schools across the region and to supporting visual arts education.

The exhibition celebrates the extraordinary talent and creativity of young emerging artists from our local community and will feature a broad range of expressive artforms, demonstrating the diversity, spirit and artistic strength of our young local artists, as well as showcase the quality of teaching in Northern Beaches secondary schools. 

Theo Batten (1918-2003) was a well-respected local artist and journalist who won a Walkley Award in 1972. He travelled widely and trained at the National Art School. Theo was a member of the Manly Art Gallery & Museum Society and a member of the former Peninsula Art Society. He was a lively character and raconteur, and wanted to leave behind an opportunity for young creative people to continue their studies in the visual arts.

The Theo Batten Youth Art Award is offered to students pursuing studies in the visual arts or a related area (such as architecture, design, art education, music, performing arts, filmmaking, digital media etc) commencing in the year 2024. This Award will provide assistance with expenses in pursuit of their studies.

The Theo Batten Youth Art Award recipients for 2024 are:

• Joint Winner ($2000): Eden Stewart
• Joint Winner ($2000): Henri Tremauville
• Highly Commended ($1000): Sophia Hearty

Collection 100: New

19 Apr 2024 - 9 Jun 2024

2024 marks 100 years of public collecting at MAG&M. To celebrate, we are presenting a series of three special exhibitions throughout the year.

Collection 100: New is the second in the series. This exhibition will include works generously donated over the past few years by contemporary Australian artists connected to this region, or to MAG&M through its recent exhibitions. It will also feature paintings and ceramics given by private donors of artists whose artistic legacies now continues through MAG&M’s collection.

Tom Carment
Adam Cullen
Kate Dorrough 
Blak Douglas 
Fairlie Kingston 
Kathrin Longhurst
Fiona Lowry
Arthur Murch 
Luke Sciberras
Hadyn Wilson
Joshua Yeldham

We will take a deeper dive into the stories behind the gifts and artists to bring you unique insights into the works.

Built through the generosity of philanthropists, artists, donors and member groups including the MAG&M Society, and the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, we make visible the important role they have played in the development of this valuable community asset to the cultural life of our region, city, state and nation.

PLACED

19 Apr - 9 Jun

PLACED is an exhibition that probes how traditional and contemporary ceramics are instrumental in fostering a sense of place, belonging, and connection. Clay is true to place. Dug from the ground where running water has combined with the residues of flora and fauna and minerals to create a unique documentation of its origins, clay is intrinsically connected to place. For tens of thousands of years, this humble material has remained ubiquitous in our lives, while bearing sophisticated cultural traditions of making, function, form, and aesthetics.

Many of the objects in MAG&M’s ceramic collection reveal stories about Australia’s unique connections with place – Indigenous relationships to Country, waves of migrant stories, connection to landscape and nature, and contemporary relationships across the Asia-Pacific.

PLACED includes objects from the MAG&M ceramic collection and loaned works from three focus artists who bring a unique perspective to the theme, Mechelle Bounpraseuth, Ara Dolatian, and Rona Panangka Rubuntja. This exhibition provokes new inquiry into the narrative potential of our nationally significant ceramics collection.

Mechelle Bounpraseuth 
Mechelle Bounpraseuth (b.1985) uses her work as a way to understand and process the loss of cultural heritage, inherited trauma, and childhood memories. It is a way to navigate her own identity as the child of Laotian parents. Primarily working with clay, Bounpraseuth has also created zines, video, and drawings that explore these themes. Using humour, playing with scale, and by skillfully manipulating materials, she creates ambiguous objects, rooted in her own experience that connect with audiences in dynamic ways.

Ara Dolatian
Ara Dolatian’s interdisciplinary practice explores the relationship between cultural landscapes and the natural ecosystem. His ceramic works are hybrid ecosystem models of utopian cities and sculptural experiments. Dolatian’s work is also imbibed with numerous ideas centred upon conceptions of ‘the studio’ and the conceptual domain of socio-environmental politics. His latest exhibition, Mythos of the Island featured sculptural ceramic work inspired by archaeological relics. It examined cultural ecologies associated with lost and stolen artefacts within the Al-Jazira region, the area between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers also known as Mesopotamia. The works became tangible visual memories of sculptural deities, architectural forms and vessels, inspired by archaeological figures and decayed architectural sites.

Rona Panangka Rubuntja 
Rona Panangka Rubuntja (b.1970) joined the Hermannsburg Potters in 1998 and has established herself as one of the most prominent senior artists of the group, participating in over forty group exhibitions in Australia and internationally. Rona’s joyous style is distinctive, humorous, and imaginative, and her storytelling ability comes across most strongly in her figurative work. She remains inspired by contemporary life in Ntaria, and her work often includes depictions of cattle and brumbies roaming country, heading out to the outstation in a Toyota, and collecting bush tucker with her extended family.

TABLED

19 Apr - 9 Jun

In collaboration with chefs, cooks and artisan food producers, TABLED presents tableware designed and made by thirteen potters in this partnership exhibition with MAG&M and The Australian Ceramics Association (TACA).

The exhibition uses the terrain of the tabletop as the platform to discuss the age-old relationship between food and pots. 

This presentation of ceramic tableware will show the breadth of artists working with clay and with food. The collaborations between potter and chef will highlight their shared connections and shared respect for their crafts. Simultaneously, these creations will explore the narratives behind the function of tableware; community and culture.

MAG&M and TACA are pleased to announce the ceramicists and their collaborators who will develop work to feature in the TABLED exhibition:

• Kris Coad with Rhett D’Costa
• Kirsty Collins with Nathan Quinell and Craig Shanahan
• Paul Davis with Ito-en and Minako Asai of MinnieSweets 
• Janet DeBoos with The Wee Jasper Distillery
• Claire Ellis with Simone Jude of Seasonal Simone
• Malcolm Greenwood with Lennox Hastie of Firedoor and Gildas
• Georgina Yen Qin Lee with Raymond Tan of Raya
• Vanessa Lucas and Emma Jimson with Annie Smithers of du Fermier
• Jeremy Simons (Slip Ceramics) with Emma Knowles
• Leia Sherblom (GRIT Ceramics) with Ben Devlin and Yen Trinh of PIPIT
• Timna Taylor with Palisa Anderson
• Clare Unger with Anu Haran of Flour Shop

A special thank you to chef Peter Gilmore for his knowledge and expertise is helping select the finalists.

HELD

19 Apr - 9 Jun

Accompanying the TABLED exhibition in the adjacent gallery space, HELD deepens the exploration into what nourishes us. Presented on one continuous shelf around the central Rubbo Gallery, HELD features 90 small artworks by members of The Australian Ceramics Association (TACA). 

The works are utilitarian and sculptural objects that lend themselves functionally or narratively to the exhibition title, HELD. The depth and width of each piece is up to 15 x 15cm, and 40cm tall.

HELD; carry, bear, clasp, embrace, hold on to

As both a verb and a past tense HELD may refer to the experience of physically holding an object, the way in which the object holds or is a carrier, or the way in which a memory is manifested. This duality invites both functional and experimental works to be exhibited. 

This exhibition showcases the diversity and excellence of contemporary Australian ceramics, providing 90 TACA members with an opportunity to exhibit, promote and sell their recent works.