Meditation on a BoneAlbert Tucker Beyond the Modern

For this exhibition, artist and curator Glenn Barkley has mined Albert Tucker’s library and archive to explore how Tucker’s fascination with art of the past and other cultures informed his painting over the decades.

The exhibition title cites a poem by A.D. Hope that Barkley found bookmarked in the library, a text reflecting on the way a handcrafted object links two people across several centuries. Central to Meditation on Bone is the motif of the mask, another culturally loaded device that can have meaning in both the past and the present. The display includes books, photographs and archival material from Tucker’s personal collection, together with works by a range of artists who use the mask literally and conceptually as a way to obscure meaning, invite nostalgia, and connect histories.

Exhibiting Artists: Laurence Aberhart, Tony Albert, Glenn Barkley, Dorothy Berry, Karla Dickens, Lynda Draper, Scott Duncan, Ruki Famé, Caroline Garcia, Simon Gende, Tarryn Gill, Raven Halfmoon, Glenda Havilah, John Havilah, Adrian Lazzaro, Louise Meuwissen, Ramesh Nitheyendran, Jason Phu, Tom Polo