My mission is to excite the interests of a broad range of art enthusiasts and new collectors. ARTLIFE + is dedicated to introducing exhibitions and events as they happen across Melbourne and Victoria. We will also be looking at the exciting contemporary art practices happening nationally and internationally.
Artists’ Interviews and profiles related to upcoming or current exhibitions will be included in our posts. International reviews & interviews will also be referenced when AVEC PLEASURE is escorting our highly regarded ART TOURS to BERLIN, NYC, HONG KONG, NEW ZEALAND & AUSTRALIA.
The AVEC PLEASURE team has designed this blog to bring together an eclectic selection of today’s visual artists. We aim to cover highlights of cultural events inspiring theatre and performance art by utilizing links to digital resources and educational online programs.
Anne McGravie-Wright/Director Avec Pleasure Art Consultancy
In this moment of digital grabs and prolific phone generated images surrounding our modern lives; it is refreshing to rediscover an artist whose ‘lens vision’ inspires, but actually takes your breath away.
DetailsBorn in 1967 in Chicago to Jamaican parents, Simone Leigh pursued a BA in Art and Philosophy from Earlham College. Shortly after finishing her studies she shifted to New York City and has lived there for the past 25 years with her daughter. Her studio is in Brooklyn.
DetailsGrant Wood (Feb 1891-Feb1942) was inspired to paint his most famous work American Gothic in 1930 when driving through the Iowa landscape with a fellow artist – when he discovered the classic, ‘Dibble House.’
DetailsI am very excited to announce that a year on from establishing the Art Advocates & Collectors group we continue to accept many new and enthusiastic members to our women only group. I thought I would mark our 1 year on anniversary with a brief over view of our Aims and also a few of our most recent successful events.
DetailsIn my work as an art advisor, I have assisted a wide variety of collectors to find their unique path in the acquisition of Contemporary Art. Over many years of working in the Art field, I have observed a few interesting common denominators about the way people collect Art and what motivates them to become Art Collectors.
DetailsDuring March, ‘Avec Pleasure’ had the delight of organising an enthusiastic group of AA&C members for a truly special visit to ‘Empire’ – an inspiring art installation by talented artist RONE, born Tyrone Wright.
DetailsIn our contemporary world, most cultural tourists approach their visits to the large scaled museums of the world from a time poorperspective.
DetailsLast month, I taught another short 4 week course for the U3A, Melbourne City Campus. This year I offered: Contemporary Sculptors (Australian & International) and Their Art Practices.
DetailsJust a few weeks ago in early August the reinvented MAF was launched into the Melbourne Art scene.
DetailsAvec Pleasure’s November and December ‘Collector’s Club’ walk throughs of Heide Museum of Art’s exhibition, ‘Making Modernism’, have been very well attended and a delight to run.
DetailsContinuing on from our Artlife+ theme posted last month, we have been researching some effective new ways that we can bring back ‘creativity’ into our lives.
Details“Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple awesomely simple, that’s creativity.” Charles Mingus
DetailsLast month, Avec Pleasure went to San Francisco for a week of art research. It was exciting to be there and personally plan and put into place the itinerary for our newest Avec Pleasure Art Tour ‘San Fran and the Bay Area’ to be run in May 2017.
DetailsIt is hard to believe that it has been three years now since the SFMOMA has been closed to allow them to undertake a major new extension and redevelopment. The original SFMOMA opened in 1935, later it built a post-modern building designed by Mario Botta.
DetailsThis poignant photographic exhibition of 65 iconic, vintage Australian prints, taken by Olive Cotton and Max Dupain. it is the first exhibition to look at the professional practice of these talented photographers.
DetailsWhen you join us on an Avec Pleasure Art Tour it’s not just another holiday away to forget your worries… It is the beginning of your own personal journey – the stepping off point of discovering a Creative Life.
DetailsSFMOMA is now one of the largest modern art museums in the world. Following its three-year expansion, the museum has grown to 460,000 square feet. This includes 145,000 feet of interior gallery space, 20,000 feet more than the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the second largest. Previous to its expansion, SFMOMA had approximately 69,000 feet of exhibition space.
DetailsAvec Pleasure took an Art Tour group to the Venice Biennale last September to view Fiona Hall’s exhibition and to see the recently finished Australian Pavillion in Venice’s Giardini.
DetailsInge King (née Ingeborg Viktoria Neufeld) was born in Berlin November 26th, 1915, the youngest of four girls from a wealthy Jewish Berlin family. It is important to consider her early life and art influences to fully appreciate her professional work.
DetailsToday, just as I was finishing the final edit, I read the news of SYLVIA ANDERSON’s death at the age of 88. Sylvia was an intelligent, imaginative woman who had a profound influence on me in my youth and many other inquisitive children. Best known as the voice of Lady Penelope, Sylvia Anderson, along with her late husband Gerry Anderson, was the inspiration behind the much loved, visionary ‘THUNDERBIRDS’.
DetailsWe started offering our VIP Avec Pleasure Art Tours in 2009 as a complimentary service to run alongside our Avec Pleasure Art Consultancy services. Initially, we started small, with only one annual tour to HONG KONG, timed to take part in the exciting Hong Kong Art Fair.
DetailsWith so many exciting art exhibitions in and around Melbourne, it is not possible to cover all in this blog so we will only highlight certain shows that we have been able to visit and choose to highlight by review.
DetailsGuest Review by Ms. Katherine Wilkinson. The genesis of this exhibition was a project instigated by London-based Martino Gamper. Collecting discarded and unused chairs he reassembled one chair per day for 100 days.
DetailsHope that you will take a moment to listen to my recent radio interview with Alex McCulloch on ‘The Arts Show.’ In this interview, I share the highlights of our recent Avec Pleasure art tours to The Frieze NYC art Fair May 2015, the Venice Biennale September 2015, and our two new Art Tours.
DetailsWhen we are truly looking out at the life and art practice of an artist, what are we really doing? The answer to that depends so much on personal factors such as… who you are and how you are oriented towards the creative process.
DetailsThe HOWARD ARKLEY (and friends…) Art Exhibition has been brilliantly curated by the director of the TarraWarra Museum of Art. Victoria Lynn and TWMA curator Anthony Fitzpatrick. It is currently showing at TWMA which is located one hour’s drive from central Melbourne in the beautiful wine-growing area of the Yarra Valley.
DetailsMy recent visit to the HOWARD ARKLEY (and friends…) exhibition did not disappoint. It was so interesting that I managed to go out for a second look and to be there for their Public Forum: The work of Howard Arkley. The forum included personal observations and life stories by fellow Artists, students and friends of Arkley, as well as curatorial comments by TWMA director Victoria Lynn and Curator of the show Anthony Fitzpatrick .
DetailsThe play Coranderrk: We Will Show The Country will be performed on the site of the former Aboriginal mission, an hour’s drive from Melbourne, for the first time on February 21. The unique theatrical performance is supported by Melbourne’s La Mama Theatre.
DetailsAvec Pleasure delivers a VIP experience which is planned around attending major Art Biennales, Art Fairs and International Art Symposiums. Join us on one of our upcoming Art Tours and discover why we have been so successful at designing ‘trips of a lifetime’ that will enrich you culturally and inspire a deeper understanding of Art practice.
DetailsAvec Pleasure has chosen to highlight German artist, Wim Wenders on our website this month as we have admired his work as a cinematographer your years but have only recently come to appreciate his significant work as a photographer. We hope that over the holiday period you will take a moment to listen to the interview clip we have added and consider the premise from which he creates his art and enjoy…
DetailsDue to high demand in First term, the Lauriston Arts Association asked Christine Honan to organise another one of her very popular Art Walks. Christine tailored the event to suit this busy time of year by holding the lunch, talk and gallery tour at the chic local Italian eatery and gallery Sagra. A group of Fine Art enthusiast parents were treated to a tour of Sagra’s gallery by one of the curators and then a fabulous antipasto lunch in a private dining room. We then enjoyed a very informative presentation on ‘Collecting & Investing in Art’ by Director of Avec Pleasure Art Consultancy, Ms. Anne McGravie Wright.
DetailsI recently spoke with Alex McCulloch from The Arts Show about the next season of Avec Pleasure Art tours.
DetailsAi Weiwei is a Chinese artist who is Beijing-based. He is defined as both artist and activist and his work encompasses sculpture, installation, photography, film, architecture, curation, and social criticism. His works are collected Internationally and have been featured in major solo exhibitions including Ai Weiwei at Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, UK, 2014; Evidence at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, 2014; and Ai Weiwei: According to What? This show was organized by the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2009.
DetailsExplore the process of conserving Matisse’s The Swimming Pool, one of the artist’s most beloved cut-out masterpieces and a centerpiece of the Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs exhibition at MoMA.
Avec Pleasure is getting excited about our Art Tour to NYC in May 2015. We will be spending time at FRIEZE Art Fair & a private tour of MOMA’s Conservation Department.
DetailsAdrian Doyle has helped shape the culture of Melbourne contemporary art through his prolific and prize winning work. Doyle’s artwork is featured in prominent publications and national and international collections. Houses are a major influence on my aesthetics and imagery. Most of the important events in my early life were focused around our quarter acre block in the heart of suburbia. We had an outback toilet, complete with its own dunny man that came every week to change the bucket. We went through numerous above ground pools and sadly, many pets. My house was not really different than any other suburban house. Yet it was my world for many years, a curated world, in which I learnt social skills and perceived normality from my parents.
DetailsGosia Wlodarczak is an Australian artist of Polish origin who has lived and worked in both Perth, WA and now Melbourne. Her artwork examines and documents ‘the phenomenon of existence’ as a tangible body of lines, shapes and colour.
The artists experiences, perceptions and actions are channeled into her intensive work sessions as she… ‘maps out collages of overlapping segments of the present’. Her art practice has been described as: cross-disciplinary drawing, with drawing being used as a basis for exploration into performance, interactive situations, installation, sound and film. Wlodarczak’s recent solo exhibitions include: Between Wander & Settlement (Western Washington University, Bellingham USA 2012) and (Shepparton Art Museum, Shepparton 2012).
DetailsIn some cases such as that of the controversial street Artist, Jean-Michel Basquait, who died tragically in NYC in 1988; in such cases when an Artist has a prolific output of works within a compact, time-frame and further, they created these works outside of the established market and Art Galleries… suddenly they die, the issue of provenance or proof of originality becomes a huge issue and impacts on values of their art work. Basquiat was a graffiti artist who originally signed his work as SAMO in the ’70s.
DetailsWhile it may be hard to classify emergent movements at the beginning of the process, Contemporary ART Practice has developed with a more socially conscious philosophy than many previous Art periods.
In general, Contemporary Art produced within the last 30 years has been directly connected to issues such as:
Climate Art, the AIDS Movement, the Peace Movement, Feminism, Multiculturalism and Globalization.
Avec Pleasure will help you to examine these areas of concern and begin to understand more about the focal points of many visual works produced by our Contemporary Artists.
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