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20-20 Hindsight
22 February, 2022 - 5 March, 2022
James Yuncken
20-20 Hindsight
22 February – 5 March 2022
hours:
Tuesday – Friday 11am to 5pm,
Saturday 11am to 3pm
admission: Free
…a Melburnian perspective on social and political climate in 2020…
What does Collins Street look like at 5pm in 2020 lockdown? In Hindsight 20-20: A Melburnian Perspective, James Yuncken explores this question, and the wider ramifications of Melbourne’s extended lockdown. The exhibition consists of just five works.
It is a Melburnian perspective on social and political climate in 2020, both in Australia and with a view to the wider world. Simultaneously, it’s a ‘compare and contrast’ with – some of John Brack’s 1950s paintings.
In Yuncken’s Collins St, we look into the foyer at 356 Collins St, just near where Brack used to meet up after work before going for a drink. There are few people inside. They wear masks: just one passer-by in the street. The foyer windows reflect the view of the street that is much like the one depicted in Brack’s painting. On the November afternoon the plane trees have burst into leaf.
From this, other John Brack paintings suggested themselves for re-visitation.
Gold Standard, referring to Morrison’s swipes at Daniel Andrews by praising NSW, substitutes Gladys Berejiklian and Scott Morrison for Brack’s Jockey and his Wife. The Telephone Box, updated to Social Media, substitutes Donald Trump for the lady with the curlers in her hair. His hypnotic effect on his supporters in the run-up and in the aftermath of the US election persists, but somehow he is the lady with the curlers too. Hat Shop revisits Menswear, two very different interiors and impressions.
Lastly, Press Conferences, the only work without link to John Brack, documents the 120 days that Daniel Andrews stood and answered questions until the journalist had no more. One image from each of those 120 days, it owes its genesis to Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans.
The exhibition will be available to view in the gallery at fortyfivedownstairs, as well as online here, and through the artist’s website, jamesyuncken.com.au. The exhibition will include public programming in the form of an artist’s talk and walkthrough. Details to be confirmed.
James Yuncken is a Melbourne based artist, working from a studio on Smith Street in Fitzroy.
James has exhibited frequently in Melbourne and Canberra since 1989.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2021 20-20 Hindsight, a Melburnian Perspective, fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne
Travels With My Wife: Hong Kong from the Water and Air, fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne
2020 Represented HERE, fortyfivedownstairs Fragments Online Exhibition Series, fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne
2018 Improvisations, St Vincent’s Residency: Drawings from Caritas Christi, St Vincent’s Gallery, Fitzroy
2017 Represented 45 at 45, fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne
2015 The Drawing Room, Prints, Drawings and Bas Relief, fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne
2014 Places Nearby, More Inner Melbourne fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne
2012 Walking to Work, Melbourne, Inner East fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne
2011 Vox Pix, Voices and Images Together Centre for Theology and Ministry, Parkville
2010 Travelling North, Journey to Cape York fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne
2008 Abstraction and Space, fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne
2005 Formal Considerations, 257 Church St, Richmond and On-line
2003 Sense of Place, SPAN Galleries, Melbourne
2001 Presence/Absence, SPAN Galleries, Melbourne
2000 Represented 8 x 8, Roar Studios, Fitzroy
1999 Represented 8 x 8, Roar Studios, Fitzroy
1998 Represented 3rd Annual Summer Show, Galerie helengory, Richmond
1997 First Steps, Galerie helengory, Richmond
1996 Represented A Four Art 19 ninety-six, Westspace
1995 Studio Landscape Exhibition, Smith Street Studio, Fitzroy
1993 Represented Swan Hill Print and Drawing Show
1992 Represented Studio One’s ’92 Pressing Annual Show, Spiral Arm Gallery, Canberra
1990 Represented Sun, Smoke and Steel, Studio One touring exhibition Canberra, Sydney, Newcastle
1989 Images in Different Genres, Dorette’s Bistro, Canberra