Director’s Foreword

Lisa Byrne

The examination of artistic expression through time is a rewarding and thought-provoking endeavour. The exhibition A thousand different angles provides just that opportunity, pairing the two significant Australian modernist sculptors, Norma Redpath and Inge King, with eleven contemporary artists all engaging with renewed vigour, in their respective ways, with the legacy of modernism in sculptural practice.

The 50th Anniversary year of McClelland in 2021 provides a concurrent opportunity to think through the history and practice of sculpture as it was defined through McClelland, as the home of Australian sculpture. Our program over the year (despite the impacts of COVID-19) took as its foundation the question, ‘what does sculpture mean in the 21st Century?’ Post-object and object-based exhibition projects over the course of the year interrogated this question, and this exhibition provides an obvious focus to some of the many female artists working in Australia in the medium of sculpture. It is by no means, nor was it meant to be, an exhaustive list.

In its scope the exhibition foregrounds abstraction in sculpture, through planes, surfaces and forms, evoking fragility and strength, at times formal deceptions or conundrums of shapes and colours and of materiality, all addressing themselves to the ways in which objects or their absence affect space and our perceptions of it. Our hope is that this exhibition brings to light new discourse, and spurs on future generations of spatial investigators, to look back and forth through time when considering how to interpret the physical world, and to extrapolate artworks that provide us with much to contemplate in our consideration of spatial relationships in the world.

This exhibition is made possible by the generous support of numerous people and organisations. Our sincere thanks to the Australian Government through the Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund; the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria; The Besen Family Foundation; Susie Nathan, Sally Baillieu, Robyn Beddison OAM, Sarah Brockhoff, Susie Brookes, Sue Clifford, Marilyn Cookes, Andrea Dudley, Marianne Hay, Lou Heffernan, Kylie Heine, Titania Henderson, Jane Kiel, Simone Neal, Caecilia Potter, Lousje Skala, Melissa Smith, Deb Thomas, and Lorna Wallace; and Bruce Parncutt AO. We could not achieve what we do without your generosity and interest.

Thanks to all gallerists, and private lenders, for your generous efforts and loans of works, which have contributed greatly to this exhibition, A thousand different angles.