Conversations with Curators: Anna Davis on collaboration and experimentation

07/24/19 • 29 min

When Anna Davis discusses being a curator, she talks about collaboration, conversation and experimentation: “It’s about working with artists and working with ideas.” It’s also about the relationships: “The exhibition really starts to take shape in a real sense once the artists are really talking. I think when you get the chance to work with someone like Jenny Watson or Louise Hearman and it’s over a number of years, which is fantastic, you get to develop this relationship with them and hopefully a level of trust comes through that.” Having held the position of Curator at Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) for the past decade, Davis has curated a vast array of contemporary exhibitions, which she discusses in the first episode of Art Guide’s four-part series ‘Conversations with Curators’. Anna discusses how she came to curating, what her past life as a “lapsed artist” offers her curatorial practice, the experience of curating major solo shows and the ethical implications of her work. See more at Art Guide Australia online: www.artguide.com.au Podcast produced by Tiarney Miekus. Engineered by Mino Peric. Music by Jesse Warren.

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Podcast: Gemma Smith on the persuasion of colour

Colour is simultaneously the most apparent and most complex part of Gemma Smith’s practice. The artist, who has a penchant for abstraction, creates paintings that capture dialogues and interactions between colours. Smith doesn’t paint with colour; she persuades colour.

In this podcast she discusses her explorations into colour and form, her process in the studio, her penchant towards abstraction, and what she has learnt about painting from almost two decades of explorations into colour, space and form.

See more at Art Guide online: https://artguide.com.au/podcast-gemma-smith-on-the-persuasion-of-colour

Podcast produced by Tiarney Miekus. Engineered by Mino Peric. Music by Jesse Warren.

Next Episode

Conversations with Curators: Nici Cumpston on relationships and conversations

“Each curator is unique like every artist is unique, I believe,” says Nici Cumpston, who holds the dual positions of Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia and artistic director of TARNATHI. Not to mention that Cumpston, a Barkindji woman of Afghan and European descent, is also an artist, educator and writer. In this podcast, the second of four episodes which focus on contemporary curating, Cumpston discusses how for her curating is a mixture of aesthetic, cultural, political and educative roles, at the centre of which lie community, relationships and conversation. “For me I need to have a good understanding of the artists work,” she says. “I need to build a relationship with the artist that I’m working with and I like togive them the opportunity to excel themselves.” Cumpston further talks through her pre-art life, how she eventually found herself at AGSA, the larger aspirations behind curating, and the changes she’s noticed in the arts as an Indigenous curator during the last decade. See more at Art Guide Australia online: www.artguide.com.au Podcast produced by Tiarney Miekus. Engineered by Mino Peric. Music by Jesse Warren.