Anne Brennan

Art-Theory
Anne.Brennan@anu.edu.au
Location: Art Theory Office
Anne Brennan is an artist and writer. She is the head of the Art Theory Workshop and the School of Art undergraduate convenor. Anne’s research interests focus on history, memory and commemoration; she is especially interested in the way in which these are configured in public artifacts and institutions such as the museum and the memorial.
Full Biography
Anne Brennan is an artist and writer. She is the head of the Art Theory Workshop and the School of Art undergraduate convenor. Anne’s research interests focus on history, memory and commemoration; she is especially interested in the way in which these are configured in public artifacts and institutions such as the museum and the memorial. She has undertaken several important artistic projects in museums, including Secure the Shadow at the Hyde Park Barracks Museum with Sydney artist Anne Ferran in 1994 and Is It Real at the Australian War Memorial, part of the Archives and the Everyday project in 1997. In 2004, she worked with Anne Ferran on a commissioned work, Twice Removed, for the Maitland Regional Gallery as part of the HunterArt1: Art Tourist project. Her work is held in major national collections.
Anne has written and published extensively on issues in contemporary visual arts, craft and design. Her interest in memory and history has found expression in chapters for Jill Bennett and Rosanne Kennedy (eds) World Memory: Personal Trajectories in Global Time Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, 2003 and Rosamund Dalziell (ed) Selves Crossing Cultures: Autobiography and Globalisation, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2002. In 2010 she presented conference papers on this material at major international conferences in Vienna and Wellington.
Exhibitions
One Person
2004 Twice Removed in collaboration with Anne Ferran at Maitland Regional Gallery, part of Hunterart.1: art tourist
1995 Secure the Shadow Greenway Gallery, Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney
1994 . . . Another Country, Strathnairn Homestead Gallery, ACT
Memoir/Memory, Galerie Constantinople, Queanbeyan, NSW
Un/Familiar, Galerie Constantinople, Queanbeyan, NSW
1988 Zero at the Bone, Canberra Contemporary Art Space
1987 Contemporary Jewellery Gallery, Sydney
1984 Thoughts Into Flesh, Jam Factory Bullring, Adelaide (for Adelaide Festival of Arts)
Thoughts Into Flesh, Blackwood Street Gallery, Melbourne
1981 Case History, Jam Factory Gallery, Adelaide
Group
2008 The Stuff of History Plimsoll Gallery, University of Tasmania, Hobart
2000 Fifteen Years Gray Street Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
1999 Letter To Picasso, Postmaster Gallery, Melbourne
Telling Tales Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz, Austria
1998 Haimish, Jewish Museum, Melbourne
Telling Tales, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney
1997 Is It Real? - sound work for Archives and the Everyday, a Canberra Contemporary Art Space project linking artists and collecting institutions
The Somatic Object Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney, NSW Touring exhibition to National History Museum, Taiwan (1997) and Ludwigsforum fur Internationalische Kunst, Aachen (1999)
1996 A Matter of Making Canberra School of Art Gallery, Canberra, ACT
1995 Multiples Constantinople Galerie Constantinople, Queanbeyan, NSW
Catechism Canberra National Sculpture Forum (as part of Politique, collaborative project with Catherine Brennan, Tanya Eccleston, Anne Ferran and Tess Horwitz
Intersections Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Canberra
(curated by Trevor Smith as part of celebrations to commemorate twentieth anniversary of International Women's Day)
1993 Decor - Installation by ten artists, old Peppers Bistro, Canberra
21600 each 24 Hrs Canberra Rex Hotel
1992 Fourteen Nautical Miles, Galerie Constantinople, Queanbeyan
1991 Transit Zone, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney
1990 Once in a Blue Moon, Galerie Constantinople, Queanbeyan
1989 Perth International Craft Triennial, Perth
1988 Art Object/Anti Object, Contemporary Art Centre, Adelaide
Contemporary Jewellery, the Australian Experience, Contemporary Jewellery Gallery, Sydney
Schmuckszene, Munich
Contemporary Craft in South Australia, Adelaide Festival Centre
1987 Makers Choice, Jam Factory Gallery, Adelaide
1986 Ce Mal de L'Infini, Contemporary Art Centre, Adelaide
Other Art-related Activities
2005 - 2008 Contributing writer to 1001 Nightscast, durational performance by Barbara Campbell
2000 Tick/Tock limited edition spirit duplicator book project, Multiples Constantinople, Queanbeyan
1998-99 Russia In Canberra postcard/postal project
Qualifications
1994 MA (Visual Arts)
(ANU Institute of the Arts, Canberra School of Art)
1973 - 76 Craft Diploma (Jewellery)
(Jacob Kramer College, Leeds UK)
CURATORIAL EXPERIENCE
2000 Curated 31@20, work of past and present students of Gold and Silversmithing Workshop, Canberra School of Art, ANU ITA, to tour to Goldschmiedehaus, Hanau in Germany and to various locations in Taiwan.
1996 Curated Made to Matter for Craft ACT
1995 Co-curated (with Merryn Gates) Strate'gens, an exhibition dealing with the strategic use of materials and process in contemporary visual practice for Canberra School of Art Gallery
1990 Curated First Adelaide Jewellery Biennial for The Jam Factory Workshops, Adelaide, 1991
CONFERENCES AND SEMINARS CONVENED
2000 Co-convened one-day seminar Zero Craft:Craft 00 with the NGA to coincide with Technocraft, Susan Cohn’s retrospective exhibition at the NGA.
1998 Convened Making New Ground, an interdisciplinary conference on narratives of settlement to mark the opening of Turn the Soil at CSA Gallery in May 1998.
Publications
Refereed Papers
Conversations in the Past Tense: Artists, Objects and Museums 2008
http://www.acuads.com.au/publishing/
(Click on Port Arthur Project)
Chapters for Anthologies
Blanche’s Glass Chain Blanche Tilden: True, SFA Press, 2010
Ataman Struk Has His Photograph Taken: Testimony and Portraiture in the Russian Civil War Period in Johannes Schlegel and Brita Hansen (eds) Time. Society and Changing Concepts of the Meaning of Evil Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford UK 2010 pp 141 – 147. ISBN 978-1-84888-026-9
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/ebooks/challenging-evil
Multiple Meanings: The Allusive Objects of Susan Cohn for Brought to Light 2: Contemporary Australian Art 1966-2006 Queensland Art Gallery 2007
Times and Places: the Recent Work of Valerie Kirk Valerie Kirk, Telos Press London 2003
Re-Collecting Proskurov in Jill Bennett and Rosanne Kennedy (eds) World Memory: Personal Trajectories in Global Time Palgrave Macmillan, London and New York, 2003, pp 59 - 68
Conversing with Viktor Ivanovich in Rosamund Dalziell (ed) Selves Crossing Cultures: Autobiography and Globalisation Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne 2002, pp 196 - 205
Life, Still: Secateur in Barbara Campbell and Laura Ginters (eds) Flesh Winnow: Barbara Campbell Six Performances 1997 – 2001 Power Publications 2002, pp 21 - 27
Frank Bauer, entry for Australian Art In the National Gallery of Australia, NGA Publications, 2002
Gray Street Workshop: A Mutable Chemistry for Gray Street Workshop: Celebrating Fifteen Years, Gray Street Workshop & Object Contemporary Australian Craft and Design 2000, pp 4 - 8
Running Stitch and Running Writing: Thinking About Process: in S. Rowley (ed) Craft and Contemporary Theory, Allen & Unwin, Sydney 1997, pp 85 - 97
A Philosophical Approach to Design: Gerhard Herbst and Fritz Janeba in R Butler (ed) The Europeans: Emigre Artists in Australia 1930-1960 NGA Canberra, 1997
Major Journal Articles
Starting a New Sentence in Australian Design, Object No 52, April 2007
Social and Sociable:The Vessels of Janet DeBoos in Ceramics Art and Perception Issue 2 2001
Twenty Five Reasons on the work of Rox De Luca and Jo Darbyshire for Eyeline 1997
Worn and Worn: The Textiles of Liz Williams in Craft Arts International, No 39 1997
Valerie Kirk - Fiberarts, vol 23, No 1 Summer 1996
The Body In Question - Crafts NSW Winter 1991
Adelaide Jewellery Biennial - Interview with Janene Pellarin Broadsheet, Oct 1991
Redefining the Object: Martin Corbin’s Furniture Craft Arts 22, 1991
Altered Perspectives: Illusions in Clay by Yasuo Hayashi Ceramics: Art and Perception Issue 3, 1991
Chronicle/Epitaph Craft Realities Issue on Meaning.
Naming Names: Negotiating Identity and the Invisible Language of Craft Broadsheet 19/2 June 1990
American Figurative Ceramics Broadsheet 19/1 March 1990
Redrawing the Margins: Looking for meaning in the crafts Broadsheet 18/3 Sept-Dec 1989
From Craft History - Broadsheet 18/2 June 1989
Terra Incognita - Another View - Craft West No 2 1989
From the Heart - A Wordless Text - Jewellery : Australia Now, Craft Australia Publication, 1989 (Crafts Council of Australia)
Semantics versus Survival - report on the World Crafts Council Conference - Broadsheet 17/2 June 1988
Ignoring the Noun, Running with the Verb - the changing face of craft in South Australia - Broadsheet 17/4 Nov 1988
So What Is the Future for Modern Jewellery? - Broadsheet 17/1 March 1988
Looking Beyond Borders - A Critique of the 'Experimental’ in Contemporary Jewellery Broadsheet 16/3 Sept 1987
Catalogue Essays
Three Walks in Unknown Cities in Gathering Loss, catalogue for an exhibition by Irmina Van Niele, University of South Australia School of Art Gallery (part of the School of Art’s External Scholars Program), April 2007
Hybrid on the work of Carlier Makigawa, Galerie Funaki, 2005
What Are We Looking At? on the work of Mascha Moje, 2001
Unpicking Time for Fragments on the work of Julie Blyfield, Jam Factory Gallery, 2001
Everyday Lives on the work of Gerry Wedd, Jam Factory Gallery 1999
The Convict and the Jew on the work of Tess Horwitz and Sue Pedley, The Convict and the Jew, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, 1999
Embodying and Spilling on the work of Kay Lawrence for Threefold: An Exhibition in Three Parts, CSA Gallery 1998
Sixty Words for Snow: The Glass Work of Helen Aitken-Kuhnen for Pyramids of Light, Jam Factory Craft and Design Centre, Adelaide and Canberra Museum and Gallery, Canberra, 1998
Brief Lives on the commissioned work of Barbara Heath, for Patron Maker and Jewel, Brisbane City Gallery, Brisbane, 1997
Essays on Kelly Thompson and Mascha Moje for A Matter of Making, CSA Gallery, Canberra, 1996
Travellers' Tales on the work of Kelly Thompson, Bishop Suter Gallery, Nelson, New Zealand 1996
Defrosting Familiar Tales on the work of Bev Hogg and Jo Crawford for Defrosting Familiar Tales, Jam Factory Craft and Design Centre, Adelaide, SA, 1995
Valerie Kirk for Capital Works Canberra School of Art Heads of Workshop exhibition, Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra, and touring to SE Asia, 1995
Going Out or Forth for UK Wit and Excess, Australian touring exhibition of nine British women artists (Contemporary Art Centre, Adelaide; Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney; Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Feb-Dec 1995)
Land/scape on the work of Valerie Kirk, and Life Histories on the work of Diana Wood Conroy for Textiles From the Edge Jam Factory Craft and Design Centre, Adelaide 1995
The Tatt, on the work of Neil Roberts, for The Plait, the Tatt and Baudelaire's Rope, University of South Australia Art Museum, Adelaide, 1993
If You Have Five Seconds to Spare, I'll Tell You the Story of My Life on the work of Gerry Wedd, for Scratch, Jam Factory Craft and Design Centre, Adelaide, 1993
Five Details on the work of Catherine Truman, for Lifeboat, Jam Factory Craft and Design Centre, Adelaide, 1992
The Image Focussed on the work of Susan Cohn, for Cosmetic Manipulations, Melbourne 1992
Sieglinde Karl on the work of Sieglinde Karl for Unfamiliar Territory Adelaide Biennial 1992
A Few Jumps on the work of Bronwyn Platten, for Independent Vocabularies: a 1992 Adelaide Festival Visual Arts Programme Project
Love: An Appropriate Myth on the work of Gerry Wedd, for The Myth Appropriated Gerry Wedd and Mark Kimber, Adelaide Festival Centre 1991
Edges, Shifts and Chances: Contemporary Australian Jewellery in 1991
for First Contemporary Jewellery Biennial, Adelaide 1991
Gossip for Gossip, Prospect City Art Gallery, Adelaide 1991
Robert Foster on the work of Robert Foster for Robert Foster, The Australian Jewellery Designers Gallery, Sydney 1991
Archetypal Strategies for Archetypal Strategies touring exhibition, SA, NSW, ACT, QLD, 1990
Questions About the Nature of Collaboration for Quilted Visions touring exhibition, SA 1989
Melanie Howard on the work of Melanie Howard for Australian Perspecta 1989
Exhibition Reviews
Willow, in Object #1 06
Technocraft Susan Cohn 1980 – 1990 Like Art Magazine, No 13 Summer 2000
Form Follows Formula (Gilbert Riedelbauch) ANCA Gallery, Dickson for Art Monthly 2000
From Russia With Love: Costumes for the Ballets Russes 1909-1933 in
Object #3 1999
Klaus Moje : A Retrospective GLASS No 62, Spring 1996
Being With Objects Object No 1 1996
Symmetry : Crafts meet Allied Trades and Professions Object Summer 1995
Interstices Works by Margaret West from 1981-1992 , Object Spring 1992
South Australian Women Photographers, Artlink 9/1 Mar - May 1989
Moet and Chandon touring Exhibition, Artlink 9/2 Winter 1989
Personal Effects : The Gold of Oplontis, Adelaide Review No 58,
Dec 1988
Julie Blyfield, Leslie Matthews, Isobel Kindley at the Bullring, Adelaide Review,
No 59, Nov 1988
Commodified Media - Right Here, Right Now", Artlink 8/2 June - Aug 1988
Conversing in Italian - Self Memory and Desire - Artlink 8/2 June Aug 1988
Australian Imaginary Figurations - Nikolaus Lang, Adelaide Review, No 53, July 1988
Recent Paintings by Melanie Howard, Adelaide Review No 54,Aug 1988
Monuments : Metaphors for Memory , Adelaide Review No 50,April 1988
Helge Larsen and Darani Lewers Retrospective, Adelaide Review, No 48, Festival 1988
Book and Film Reviews
Stephanie Radok and Dick Richards, Julie Blyfield, Wakefield Press, 2007, in Art Monthly, May? 2008
Grace Cochrane, Patrick Hall, Tasmanian Monograph Series, Craftsman House, 2004 in Art Monthly May 2005
Russian Ark in Vital Signs #5, December 2003
Geoffrey Edwards, Art of Glass: Glass in the Collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Victoria/ Macmillan Publishers Australia 1998 in Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art vol 2, No 1, 2001
CONFERENCE PAPERS
Ataman Struk has his photograph taken: Testimony, Performance and Photography in the Russian Civil War at 11th Global Conference on Evil and Human Wickedness, Salzburg, Austria, March 2010
‘Protecting Country’: The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander War Memorial and the Politics of War Commemoration in Australia Anzac Weekend, Imperial War Museum, London 2008
Conversations in the Past Tense: Artists, Objects and Museums for Revelations conference on installation and heritage sites at University of Tasmania, March 2007
The Poetics of Memory: Artists in the Archive for Memories in Place symposium on art and heritage CraftACT and Namadgi National Park Nov 2005
Masquerades of Violence: Pogroms, Photography and the Ukrainian Civil War for Art and Commemoration Symposium, Humanities Research Centre, ANU, 2005
Conversing With Viktor Ivanovich for Selves Crossing Cultures: Autobiography and Globalisation, Centre for Cross Cultural Research, ANU Canberra 2001
Meditations On a Boltring: Memory and Time in the Work of Susan Cohn for Zero Craft: Craft 00 , National Gallery of Australia (convened to mark Technocraft, the Susan Cohn retrospective), 2000
Return to a New World: A Story in Three Parts at Close Ties, University of Queensland, March 1999
Re-Collecting Proskurov at conference on Trauma and Memory, May 1998
Transitional Objects: On Collecting and Re-collecting at Craft Objects and Writing Conference, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 1997
Postgraduate seminar, College of Fine Art, University of NSW, 1996
A Day at the Museum of Sydney, seminar organised by the Museum of Contemporary Art on artists in the museum, 1994
The Image Focussed paper presented at Interventions Conference on craft theory, School of Creative Arts, University of Wollongong, July 1992
The Body in Question II paper presented at plenary session on the body at Dissonance Conference, Sydney September 1991
The Body in Question: Some Thoughts in Progress - Keynote address presented at The Body In Question , symposium of jewellers at University of Tasmania, Launceston, July 1991
Meeting Angels: Reconciling Craft Practice and Theory - Presented at Ausglass Conference, Sydney, Jan 1991
Manual Skills in a Technological Age - Presented at Artists' Week, March 1990
So What Is the Future of Modern Jewellery? - Presented at Jewellers and Metalsmiths Conference, Qld, Jan 1988
Collections
WORK HELD IN PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
National Gallery of Australia
Art Gallery of Western Australia
Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney
Canberra Museum and Gallery
