TarraWarra Museum of Art today presents the major group exhibition The City Wakes, The City Sleeps, curated by Dr Victoria Lynn and James Lynch. This exhibition draws from the TarraWarra Museum of Art Collection to present a selection of rarely seen artwork treasures, exploring how artists across different eras have captured the architecture and social dynamics of city life, revealing the distinctive character of our urban experience and built environments.
The exhibition opens with a major work by Peta Clancy (Yorta Yorta) titled birrarung ba brungergalk, which depicts the local Birrarung through a First Nations lens. Originally commissioned by the Museum for The Soils Project in 2023, this work explores the confluence where Brungergalk (Watts River) meets the Birrarung (Yarra River) near Healesville on Wurundjeri Country. Brungergalk had been tapped and dammed, without consideration for its vital connection to Country, and its sacred and sustainable value for First Nations communities. Its inclusion in this exhibition signals to visitors the natural and cultural significance of the terrain before the growth of cities.
Australian artists working between 1950 and the 2000s have captured the evolution of modernisation of life. Featuring over 40 artworks by more than 25 of Australia’s most influential artists, the exhibition represents a visual capsule of how cities have been regarded through the eyes of artists. This curated journey through the TarraWarra Museum of Art’s rarely displayed artworks from the collection reveals how artists have always been urban anthropologists, dissecting the architecture of our aspirations and the social choreography that transforms buildings into communities.
The exhibition is divided into eight key ‘scenes’: The Modern City, Suburbia, Rhythms, Thresholds, Interior Lives, The Industrial City, Dreams and Play, and features multiple works by artists such as Howard Arkley, Clarice Beckett, Charles Blackman, John Brack, Rosalie Gascoigne, Louise Hearman, Melinda Harper, Dale Hickey, Robert Jacks, Inge King, Joanna Lamb, Sidney Nolan, Je]rey Smart and Edwin Tanner.
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Images: All artworks are from the TarraWarra Museum of Art Collection | Jeffrey Smart, The Construction Fence 1978. Gift of Eva Besen AO and Marc Besen AO 2001. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program © The Estate of Jeffrey Smart | Howard Arkley, The Bay Window 1988. Gift of Eva Besen AO and Marc Besen AO 2008. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program © The Estate of Howard Arkley and courtesy of Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art | Dale Hickey, Foyer (Bercy Theatre) 1978. Gift of Eva Besen AO and Marc Besen AO 2001. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program © Dale Hickey, courtesy of the artist and Niagara Galleries, Melbourne | Clarice Beckett, Beach Road, Beaumaris c.1927–29. Gift of Eva Besen AO and Marc Besen AO 2009. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program. Public Domain | John Brack, Subdivision 1954. Purchased 2004 © Helen Brack.
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