Finding signs of life in decades of art school history
The retrospective exhibition Training Ground highlights alumni and current students of the South Australian School of Art, gravitating to the latter decades of its long history.
The SA School of Art Gallery’s journey from the 1960s to the present day weaves it way through Jenny Aland’s recently published history South Australian School of Art: 170 Years shaping South Australian Arts and Culture, Wakefield Press). The ground floor gallery space at Stanley Street in the late 60s to 70s was a hub of activity and space for multiple changing exhibitions showcasing graduate work as well as touring exhibitions. Into the 1990s the University of South Australia Art Museum (formerly the College Gallery), under the directorship of Erica Green, elbowed its way into prominence with a series of significant thematic and other exhibitions.
The purpose-built SASA Gallery began operating in the Kaurna Building in the early 2000s. Under the directorship of Mary Knights in 2006, this space operated with a focus on innovation, experimentation and performance. Its charter to showcase South Australian artists and designers associated with the SA School of Art, as well as publish scholarly publications was complemented by end of year exhibitions of graduate and postgraduate students’ work.
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The current exhibition Training Ground maintains this tradition. Gallery Manager Anna Zagala has selected 34 artists from mid last century to the present day, to offer a snapshot of the diversity of talents and ideas which characterise the SA Art School’ s journey over the distance. While it is a ‘captain’s choice’ selection, attention has been paid to gender, concept and media representation. It’s appeal I suspect will be primarily to those who have been on the journey from late last century and distinctly remember works and the body of ideas that seemed so important at the time. As such it is a pulse test to see if these works still show signs of life.
Decide for yourself. If born into the 2000s many of these works will be unfamiliar. Get to know artists like Aldo Iacobelli, Michelle Nikou, Trevor Nickolls, Aleks Danko, Nicholas Folland, Louise Haselton, Deborah Paauwe, and others. They have much to offer in terms of how they work in partnership with their respective mediums to get a result.
This exhibition is a reminder, if one is needed, that Adelaide has a wealth of artistic talent and an appetite for innovation, that should be front and centre in the central narrative of South Australia as the creative state. The challenge is to give this narrative a coherent structure such as developing a regular programme which showcases generations of South Australian artists. Components of this narrative are to hand such as the Wakefield Press SALA publication series, recent scholarship and publications, thematic and survey exhibitions presented by the Art Gallery of South Australia, JamFactory, Samstag Art Gallery, other agencies and initiatives. Somehow all these magnificent spicks and specks need to be drawn into an overarching, unfolding story that we all can feel a part of.
Training Ground: Past and present students of the South Australian School of Art continues at SASA Gallery until November 7