curatorial statement The annual ARTEXPRESS exhibition, one of the Art Gallery of New South Wales' most popular, turns 25 this year. The Gallery “pioneered” the display of school student works, presenting them as a curatorially designed exhibition that has become a benchmark for Galleries throughout Australia. At the time this was a controversial move. Hard to believe today, with the exhibition, one of the highlights of the Gallery’s exhibition calendar, being viewed by over 120,000 people each year, 22,000 of those students and teachers, with a further 36,000 visiting it online via the Gallery’s InsideARTEXPRESS website. The concept has since been taken up by other Sydney metropolitan venues that make up the holistic ARTEXPRESS exhibition experience. There have been many diverse locations over the years, which currently include David Jones Windows in the Sydney CBD, The College of Fine Arts, Paddington, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery in the Southerland Shire and The Armory at Sydney Olympic park, Western Sydney. Each venue brings their own character to the presentation of the artworks and a greater diversity of voice from the nearly 9000 students who currently sit the HSC Visual Arts. The Regional Tour of New South Wales amplifies this voice further with a focus on outstanding artworks created by students from the region in which they are shown. However the influence of ARTEXPRESS has also gone much further afield, with other Australian State Galleries all presenting an annual student exhibition. As well, ARTEXPRESS has been presented overseas to great acclaim in New York (twice), Brooklyn, San Francisco, Washington DC, and Nagoya, Japan. The Royal Academy in London, a keen observer of the success and innovation of the exhibition, commenced an online student exhibition in 2007, with a view to present a full exhibition in their hallowed halls in 2008-09. A quarter of century on ARTEXPRESS has come a long way! It is obvious that ARTEXPRESS is hugely important as a teaching tool for art education; this is the premise on which it started, and this is still at its core. It provides the best and most vivid experience of art making at HSC level, making the desired syllabus outcomes, which may seem for many students and teachers quite abstract and difficult to visualise very concrete and exciting. There is a ‘WOW’ factor to the show. It may be challenging for future students, perhaps even some teachers, but it is also inspirational. The status of Visual Arts in many schools has been elevated by the recognition of ARTEXPRESS. However the effect of the exhibition has not been exclusive to Visual Arts Education, its students and teachers. ARTEXPRESS has had an influence on the Gallery’s practice as well. The exhibition has been very important in bringing the Gallery, museum education practices and school education into closer alignment for the benefit of all. It has helped elevate the status of student activities and art education within the Gallery tremendously. It has encouraged a greater understanding and respect for the excellence of student art making and the practice of art teachers. The artworks stand up remarkably well against the rest of the Gallery’s collection, with their display each year striving to meet the high standards set by the institution, with considerable success. The inception of ARTEXPRESS at the Gallery has stimulated the development of innovative education programs and resources. Lecturers by exhibiting students for fellow students, public talks between ARTEXPRESS artists and the contemporary artists that have inspired them, Teacher Programs investigating classroom practice and exhibition design, documentary films and the most recent innovation, the InsideARTEXPRESS website. This online extension enables students and teachers across the whole of the state and beyond an ongoing experience through a virtual exhibition tour, curator’s podcast, downloadable Visual Art Process Diaries, connections to the Gallery’s collection and exhibiting artist information and images. Many of these innovations have subsequently been used to support the Gallery’s other major exhibitions. ARTEXPRESS has always encouraged risk taking and experimentation within the professional practice of the Gallery that might not be so readily encouraged with other exhibitions. The exhibition has also reinforced the importance of not just school audiences but also young people as a valid and valued group with which the Gallery wishes to work. For the Gallery’s Public Programs Department, who selects and curates ARTEXPRESS on its behalf, it is an extremely valuable annual event. It spotlights the department, its educational activities and its work developing new audiences, like no other exhibition, both within and outside of the Gallery.
Of course of all of these outcomes do not just happen over night. It has been a focused and sustained development, driven by visions and ambitions for the exhibition that each person charged with it has contributed. The exhibition has benefited greatly from the ongoing partnership between the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the NSW Department of Education and Training and the NSW Board of Studies. This enduring and robust relationship has seen the exhibition prosper and so with it the standard of Visual Art education in New South Wales. Along with the many outstanding professionals who have managed the ARTEXPRESS enterprise on behalf of the NSW Department of Education and Training, ARTEXPRESS at the Gallery has grown up, into the significant, sophisticated and challenging exhibition that it is because of the commitment of the key staff that have steered it over the years. These people include Robyn Norling, Linda Slutzkin, Brain Ladd, Liz Gibson, Jonathan Cooper, Jo Foster and Bronwyn Clarke-Coolee. The ARTEXPRESS 08 exhibition is the some total of the passion, creativity and determination of these important members of the Gallery’s Public Programs Department. So in 2008 it is with pride that the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Principle Venue, presents its 25th ARTEXPRESS exhibition. This year’s exhibition was selected by a curatorial team comprising of the Coordinator of Secondary and Asian Education Programs, the Coordinator of K-6 and Family Programs and the Senior Coordinator of Education Programs, from the Public Programs Department. On the occasion of this anniversary we hope this collaborative, team approach, will offer the audience an exciting and diverse exhibition with fresh perspectives on what contemporary art produced by young people can be. The ARTEXPRESS 08, as with its predecessors, provides insights into students’ creativity and the issues and ideas that are of importance to them. It presents the independent voice of young people to a large and diverse audience and exemplifies not just their exceptional talent but the expertise of the Visual Arts teachers that guide them through their studies. This year’s exhibition highlights the ever growing sophistication and complexity of 21st century students and endorses the expression of their dialogue with the world around them. The exhibition also explores the many themes and concepts that are closely linked to the students’ direct experiences. Some bodies of work bring with them an element of pleasant surprise; a whimsical take on life. Others explore more serious concerns regarding social issues and how they impact on the life of the teenager. Identity is still a strong running theme throughout the exhibition; for anyone who knows a teenager, this is no surprise! Of course this is also one of the great themes of Western Art history and contemporary art practice. As such the impact of contemporary and historical artists a student has researched filters through and informs, inspires and motivates. Understanding of museum practice are also apparent with considerations of how an artwork can be configured and displayed in different contexts, including a gallery space, the power and politics of such decisions and the awareness of how such decisions may inform, dismay or even provoke the audience. The result is an exhibition that reflects the flux and dynamism of contemporary Australia. There is an undercurrent of the unsettled, the raw and the edgy. There is a sense that things are trying to be worked out and understood and that there is an attempt to channel this thought process into the artworks. And so while this year’s selection marks the 25th exhibition at the Gallery, an anniversary which reinforces an ever developing sense of history, the artworks on display present an informed, critical and at times edgy sense of the here and now, along with a realisation that our students are not only informed by contemporary art, but can contribute to a greater discussion about it. We hope the ARTEXPRESS 08 exhibition; on the occasion of it 25th anniversary is an inspirational and exciting experience for all who visit it. We welcome you to encounter the great talents of our New South Wales Visual Arts students. Leeanne Carr, Coordinator of Secondary and Asian Education Programs
Victoria Collings, Coordinator K-6 and family Programs
Tristan Sharp, Senior Coordinator of Education Programs ARTEXPRESS 08 Curatorial Team
Public Programs Department
Art Gallery of New South Wales
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