{"id":181256,"date":"2025-12-13T03:12:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T03:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/181256\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T03:12:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T03:12:12","slug":"black-2-family-values-studio-exhibition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/181256\/","title":{"rendered":"Black.2; Family Values; Studio Exhibition"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Titanic sank in 1912, a ship named the Carpathia came to the rescue of the many survivors stranded in lifeboats. Accounts of the mission always detail the treacherous journey taken by this hero vessel, which had to weave its way through countless icebergs with absolute caution lest they meet the same fate as the more cavalier Titanic. In late 2025, the average Melbourne gallery goer might feel a bit like the Carpathia, navigating haphazardly to dodge the icebergs that\u2014bear with me here\u2014are the glut of end of year group exhibitions bobbing around Melbourne\u2019s commercial spaces. Perusing the list on Charles Lai\u2019s famous openings calendar, I\u2019m overwhelmed by the sheer quantity. Certainly, there is an element of pathos attached to the group show. But can we rewire our brains to see these exhibitions as more than \u201cChristmas stocking filler shows,\u201d as one jaded Melbourne artist described them to me? In a bid to break free of my own biases, this weekend past I visited the galleries Void_, FUTURES, and Hayden\u2019s, where each space has a group show based around the work of stable artists or studio artists.<\/p>\n

I begin on Saturday afternoon climbing the narrow stairwell to Void_, a small commercial gallery on Bourke Street housed in the 1929 Godfrey and Spowers-designed former Bank of New South Wales. The building is deco chic, complete with Egyptian style capitals and palm tree engravings as was the Poirot-style of the day. It\u2019s hard to comprehend how this sparsely populated, opulent structure exists in one of the busiest commercial parts of the Melbourne CBD. How exactly the gallery remains financially afloat in this location is also anyone\u2019s guess. But the motivation for the show\u2019s theme and title\u2014Black.2\u2014is obvious when one is greeted by director Paul Handley, who is decked out in black and sports a head of black hair. As its title suggests, this is Handley\u2019s second black-themed show, with the first one taking place in 2023.<\/p>\n

\"<p>Installation<\/p>\n

Installation view of Black.2 at Void_Melbourne. Left to right: Paul Handley, David McBurney, Nick Devlin. Courtesy of the artists & Void_Melbourne. Photo: Andrew Curtis Photography<\/p>\n

Void_ represents largely old-school Melbourne artists, who came up during the nineties and have long since swapped dole bludging (no shame) and heavily subsidised studios for ongoing teaching contracts or institutional roles. These include Nick Devlin, Elvis Richardson, and Sarah Goffman. En masse, one sees the works in Black.2 first and foremost through a formalist lens (and it is true that the show only considers black through an aesthetic lens rather than a socio-political one, i.e. blackness and race). Suzie Idiens\u2019s Untitled #8 (2014) is a square wall-mounted object that has had a deep slit cut through it, completely coated in acrylic gel and pumice. It has the vibe of a post-war German minimalist sculpture, insofar as it combines geometric form with a rough materiality turned refined by its all-over use\u2014I\u2019m thinking of G\u00fcnther Uecker and his nail-studded wall pieces. It also seems to absorb light, which makes me think of the dark abyss of Anish Kapoor\u2019s Vantablack, the blackest of all blacks, which the haughty British sculptor Kapoor patented so that nobody else could use it. The artistic hyper-focus on a single hue\u2014Kapoor is an extreme case\u2014can sometimes tip over into the absurd. I\u2019m reminded of the classic Spinal Tap bit when Nigel approvingly says of the band\u2019s all-black record cover: \u201cHow much more black could this be? None. None more black.\u201d The risk here is that the black theme teeters on a negation of complex interpretations. But I think, in this case, there is a consideration of the way in which the shade has myriad affective qualities. Next to Idiens\u2019s sculpture is Tara Denny\u2019s Rogue Allure (2025), a bronze sculpture with short branches that appears to be growing out of the gallery\u2019s corner\u2014like a possessed spore. In the case of Denny, black is otherworldy or a signifier of contamination, sitting in stark contrast to the cool and rational logic of Idiens\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\"<p>Installation<\/p>\n

Installation view of Black.2 at Void_Melbourne. Left to right: Tara Denny, Suzie Idiens. Courtesy of the artists & Void_Melbourne. Photo: Andrew Curtis Photography<\/p>\n

Do collectors buy from these group shows? By all accounts, art sales are at a record low, not only in Australia but also abroad. Don\u2019t let the recent record-breaking result for Klimt\u2019s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer fool you. While some tycoon coughed up $US236m for the Klimt, everyone else is tightening their belts and gearing up for recession. Sales figures from Sydney Contemporary have been steadily decreasing for the past few years. Many local gallerists I have spoken with are stressing about the forthcoming Melbourne Art Fair. A kind of damned if you do, damned if you don\u2019t event. Damned if you do because it is a prohibitively expensive exercise, and damned if you don\u2019t because if you\u2019re not at the fair you might as well not exist. Over at FUTURES in Collingwood, gallerist Zara Sigglekow warns me that the success of a show is rarely known until months after the fact, when collectors have had time to mull things over. Void_, FUTURES, and Hayden\u2019s all have a combination of younger and more established artists in their cohorts. The sense I get is that many Australian buyers are less interested in a bargain than an artist\u2019s consistent track record. Which honestly takes a lot of the fun out the game, which should be speculating on young artists early and gloating that you \u201cdiscovered\u201d them later on.<\/p>\n

The premise for Family Values is simple. Each of the gallery\u2019s eight stable artists has selected another artist to show alongside their work. For example, Matilda Davis has chosen Rumer Elisabetta Guario, Nathan Beard has chosen Tarik Ahlip, and Sam Martin has chosen Merryn Lloyd. It helps to know the relationship behind some of the pairings. Chunxiao Qu\u2019s chosen exhibition companion, Stuart Ringholt, was her teacher at Monash, and Qu has repeatedly stated how important Ringholt\u2019s support was to her as she came up. The installation combines Qu\u2019s neon YOU FEED ME WITH YOUR LOVE AND I FEED YOU WITH MY JIZZ (2021) with one of Ringholt\u2019s classic Nudes collages from 2013. It\u2019s quite funny to consider this pairing of sexually charged works\u2014with Qu\u2019s words literally reflecting off Ringholt\u2019s porn star hero\u2014while also contemplating the warm and supportive mentor\/mentee dynamic of Qu and Ringholt\u2019s real-life relationship. Hootan Heydari has chosen Elyas Alavi as his buddy. Heydari has a wisened cool uncle vibe about him, and he is a friend to the younger generation of Iranian artists coming up in Melbourne (Alavi was born in Afghanistan, but fled to Iran in his youth and spent many years there). I once witnessed an amazing scene where Heydari arrived late to one of Alavi\u2019s openings, only to be cheered by a crowd of adoring fans and friends. Alavi is a pretty chill dude and didn\u2019t mind sharing.<\/p>\n

\"<p><em>Family<\/p>\n

Family Values, group show, FUTURES, 2025. Left to right: Tyrone Te Waa, Hannah Ireland, Elyas Alavi, Hootan Heydari, Nathan Beard, Tarik Ahlip. Photo courtesy of the artists and FUTURES, Melbourne.<\/p>\n

\"<p><em>Family<\/p>\n

Family Values, group show, FUTURES, 2025. Left: Stuart Ringholt, Nudes, 2013. Centre: Chunxiao Qu, YOU FEED ME WITH YOUR LOVE AND I FEED YOU WITH YOUR JIZZ, 2019; right: Merryn Lloyd, Soft Painting, 2025.\u00a0Photo courtesy of the artists and FUTURES, Melbourne.<\/p>\n

The new FUTURES, opened in the middle of 2025, sits in the same complex as its first space. Where the earlier iteration was a quirky (read, pokey) make-do site, this gallery is chicly fitted out and signals a stepped-up level of seriousness from the young gallery. Wall works reign supreme and look good in the new fit-out. This emphasis upon two-dimensional pieces is one I have seen not only in the commercial scene but generally amongst young artists, who don\u2019t have the space to store big sculpture. Admittedly, collectors also tend to gravitate towards two-dimensional pieces. Yet it is Rumer Elisabetta Guario\u2019s papier mach\u00e9 Apple (2024), which you might have seen in Jemi Gale\u2019s Every Painting has a Friend at Mary Cherry in 2024, that is my pick of the litter.<\/p>\n

This mini tour ends at Hayden\u2019s in Brunswick East. While Hayden\u2019s is technically a commercial gallery, the current exhibition represents artists who reside in the surrounding complex\u2019s studios, which gallery owner Hayden Stuart built himself in 2017. Since then, Stuart has expanded his modest empire, taking over the studios in the complex across the road. This year, he also opened a new gallery in Richmond, where he recently staged an exhibition of represented artists. He acknowledges that end-of-year group exhibitions operate as a \u201cmall\u201d for some last-minute Christmas collector-shoppers. But to my mind the commercial logic of a gallery and its artistic integrity do not have to cancel one another out. These are, after all, commercial galleries. And trust Stuart to produce an exhibition of formal rigour from such a broad range of practices. Slick, symmetrical forms from the likes of Natasha Johns-Messenger, Rohan Schwartz, and Stephen Bram look hot (many of his stable artists were influenced by Australian post-modernist modernist John Nixon).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an older work from Masato Takasaka that interests me. Untitled 4B.T (2007-2008), a work of pencil and watercolour, is something of a schematic for Takasaka\u2019s famous hard-edged abstractions, which he famously replicates over and over. This work at Hayden\u2019s is like a tender side-note to these cool paintings. In the small gallery next to the office, Stuart has done a hang of three works by Dane Lovett, Mira Oosterweghel, and Jessie Smith that is so schmick. Oosterweghel surprises the most. Boneless horn (2025), a sculpture made from horsehair, adds dimension to the artist\u2019s mostly performance-based practice. There is a real sense of\u2014and I cringe typing this overused word\u2014\u201ccommunity\u201d in this show, where Stuart has given artists at all career stages in the complex the opportunity to be shown with tight curation. And the fact that artists were not expected to make new art tells me that Stuart is an artist\u2019s curator, aware of the pressures placed on them to produce.<\/p>\n

\"<p>Installation<\/p>\n

Installation view of Studios Exhibition at Hayden\u2019s Melbourne. Left to right: Dane Lovett, Mira Oosterweghel, Jessie Smith. Courtesy of Hayden\u2019s, Melbourne.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the takeaway? At FUTURES, Perth-based curator Annika Kristensen was also visiting the gallery. She said that end-of-year group shows offer an ideal opportunity to view a gallery\u2019s artist cohort at once. A gallerist\u2019s stable, while certainly composed of who the gallerist believes to be commercially viable, also points to their personal tastes. Lest we forget that Sigglekow signed Matthew Harris to FUTURES long before he was a known quantity\u2014before he showed in the Yokohama Triennale, was collected by the NGV, or was signed by The Commercial in Sydney. Indeed, much of the behind-the-scenes work for these achievements is done by the gallerist. Black2, Family Values, and Hayden\u2019s Studio Exhibition are distinct statements of the gallerists\u2019 styles. What\u2019s more, it is an opportunity to see the artists\u2019 sense of self\u2014be that through their choice of partner at FUTURES, or through the choice of work they display at Hayden\u2019s. And, because it\u2019s the end of the year and I have very few fucks left to give, allow me to finish by revisiting my initial metaphor. The end of year group exhibition is like the iceberg. Not because it should be avoided at all costs. But because there is, you guessed it, more than meets the eye. You\u2019re welcome.<\/p>\n

Artists: Suzie Idiens, Tara Denny, Nick Devlin, Sarah Goffman, Elvis Richardson, Matilda Davis, Rumer Elisabetta Guario, Nathan Beard, Tarik Ahlip, Sam Martin, Merryn Lloyd, Chunxiao Qu, Stuart Ringholt, Elyas Alavi, Hootan Heydari, Natasha Johns-Messenger, Rohan Schwartz, Stephen Bram, Masato Takasaka, Dane Lovett, Mira Oosterweghel, Jessie Smith, Matthew Harris<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Titanic sank in 1912, a ship named the Carpathia came to the rescue of the many…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[115205,9007,442,498,499,500,85,115193,115201,501,115186,115195,156,3427,21978,115181,115196,115203,115200,115187,115204,123,87518,115192,115202,87519,115197,115189,111,139,115184,69,763,115198,115188,115191,115185,115199,115194,115182,1734,115183,115190,115180],"class_list":{"0":"post-181256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-amelia-winata","9":"tag-art-criticism","10":"tag-arts","11":"tag-arts-and-design","12":"tag-artsanddesign","13":"tag-artsdesign","14":"tag-australia","15":"tag-chunxiao-qu","16":"tag-dane-lovett","17":"tag-design","18":"tag-elvis-richardson","19":"tag-elyas-alavi","20":"tag-entertainment","21":"tag-exhibitions","22":"tag-futures","23":"tag-haydens","24":"tag-hootan-heydari","25":"tag-jessie-smith","26":"tag-masato-takasaka","27":"tag-matilda-davis","28":"tag-matthew-harris","29":"tag-melbourne","30":"tag-memo-review","31":"tag-merryn-lloyd","32":"tag-mira-oosterweghel","33":"tag-naarm","34":"tag-natasha-johns-messenger","35":"tag-nathan-beard","36":"tag-new-zealand","37":"tag-newzealand","38":"tag-nick-devlin","39":"tag-nz","40":"tag-reviews","41":"tag-rohan-schwartz","42":"tag-rumer-elisabetta-guario","43":"tag-sam-martin","44":"tag-sarah-goffman","45":"tag-stephen-bram","46":"tag-stuart-ringholt","47":"tag-suzie-idiens","48":"tag-sydney","49":"tag-tara-denny","50":"tag-tarik-ahlip","51":"tag-void_melbourne"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}