Goulburn Regional Art Gallery are their region’s hub for presenting, exhibiting and collecting contemporary art. Their program is big, bold and full of ideas that will provoke conversation and connection to the work of the artists we work with.
Tour – Barbara Cleveland | Thinking Business
Thinking Business is an exhibition by Barbara Cleveland that explores forms of female friendship, collaboration and artistic labour. The project takes its title from Hannah Arendt’s description of her friendship with Mary McCarthy. As Arendt wrote, “it’s not that we think so much alike, but that we do this thinking-business for and with each other.” This idea of an intellectual and creative connection between women is at the centre of this project, which focuses on the 15-year-long working relationship between the members of Barbara Cleveland.
Presenting five video works spanning ten years of the collaborative’s prolific career, each work contributes to a fascinating study of humour, absurdity and feminist practices. Thinking Business highlights the performative aspect of Barbara Cleveland’s work which brings endurance, labour and time to the exhibition, with great impact. The exhibition will be presented as a theatrical installation and has been designed in collaboration with architect Luke Pigliacampo.
With the rise of neoliberalism and the acceleration towards individualism and precarity, this project turns towards the collective and the collaborative to consider alternative support structures and other ways of thinking and working together.
Thinking Business is a carefully curated survey of Barbara Cleveland’s work and its presentation at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery was their inaugural solo exhibition at a public gallery in Australia.
Barbara Cleveland Thinking Business
Barbara Cleveland, This is a stained glass window Single Channel HD Video, 2019, 13’28” (Still). © and courtesy of the artists.
Barbara Cleveland
Performance Art (15 Actions for the Face) (still) Two Channel HD Video, 2014, 15’34”
Barbara Cleveland
Performance Art (15 Actions for the Face) (still). Two Channel HD Video, 2014, 15’34”
TOURING PARTNER
Goulburn Regional Art Gallery is a cultural facility of Goulburn Mulwaree Council, and is open six days a week with exhibitions that present what is happening now in Australian contemporary art across two gallery spaces. Their exhibitions inspire their education and outreach initiatives which engage everyone from littlies under five years old to senior members of their community. They run programs everyday both at the Gallery and on the road. They actively acquire works for our permanent collection and commission new work for their public art program.
CURATOR
Gina Mobayed is a curator and consultant specialising in contemporary art. She works across exhibitions, collections and commissions. Previously she was the Director at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, delivering an arts program that included touring exhibitions, major commissions, publications and learning initiatives as well as building and dispersing a nationally significant collection.
Mobayed has specialist skills in the development and delivery of bold creative outcomes for organisations and artists alike. Prior, Gina worked at the federal government agency, Artbank and was a Codirector on the 2015 – 2016 board at Firstdraft. She has also worked at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia and Grantpirrie Gallery, Sydney.
INSTALLATION DESIGNER
Luke Pigliacampo is an award-winning architect who works across residential and public building design and installation design. He has worked as a project architect at Peter Stutchbury Architecture, Sydney, and Níall McLaughlin Architects, London, and is currently employed at Archer Office, Sydney.
VENUES & ITINERARY
| Penrith Regional Gallery, Home of the Lewers Bequest, NSW
27 September – 17 October 2021 |
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| Redland Art Gallery, QLD
12 December 2021 – 23 January 2022 |
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| Pine Rivers Art Gallery, QLD
4 March – 30 April 2022 |
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| Gosford Regional Gallery, NSW
11 June – 7 August 2022 |
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| The Condensery | Somerset Regional Art Gallery, QLD
18 February – 30 April 2023 |
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| Goldfields Arts Centre, WA
26 July – 1 September 2023 |
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| Barbara Cleveland Archive Project
8 September 2023 – 27 March 2024 |
READ MORE
Thinking Business at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery
Explore Barbara Cleveland | Thinking Business
A Goulburn Regional Art Gallery and Museums & Galleries of NSW touring exhibition. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body. Supported by the Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund – an Australian Government initiative.
