Supported by the NSW Government, through it tourism and major events agency, Destination NSW, the Sydney International Art Series brings the world’s most outstanding exhibitions to the State each year.
Close – who will be bringing a major show of his work to Australia for the first time – has won world acclaim by creating large-scale, photo-realist portraits that creatively blur the distinction between photography and painting.
“Since the Sydney International Art Series began, more than $80 million has been generated for NSW and over one million visitors attracted across its two world class galleries – the MCA and Art Gallery of New South Wales – with about 100,000 interstate and overseas visitors coming specifically to Sydney to see the exhibitions,” Minister Souris said.
Chuck Close’s large-scale, photo-based portrait paintings have attracted audiences around the world. His painting ‘Bob’, hanging in the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, is one of the Gallery’s most popular. Renowned for his highly inventive techniques used to portray the human face, Close has had more than 200 solo exhibitions in more than 20 countries, including major retrospective exhibitions at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, and most recently at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.
In his Sydney International Art Series exhibition at the MCA, audiences will encounter the artist’s extraordinary range of invention in etching, aquatint, lithography, handmade paper, direct gravure, silkscreen, traditional Japanese woodcut, and reduction linocut, among others. The exhibition will feature images ranging from early mezzotints to monumental later works, as well as water colour pigment prints and a new series of Jacquard tapestries.
MCA Director Elizabeth Ann Macgregor OBE said: “The MCA is thrilled to be working with this artist to bring his work to Australia as part of the Sydney International Art Series. Chuck Close’s portraits demonstrate a boldness and inventiveness that, I believe, will excite and engage audiences from across Australia and overseas.”
Photo: Chuck Close Self-Portrait (Yellow Raincoat) 2013, archival watercolour pigment print (90º) on Hahnemühle rag paper, 190.5 x 152.4 cm, edition of 10. Image courtesy the artist and Pace Gallery © the artist in association with Magnolia Editions, Oakland, California.
No comments:
Post a Comment