Acquisitions and Alternatives: Sculpture

About the exhibition
‘By the nature of the medium, especially by its bulk and weight, the sculptor has suffered more than the painter in having his work shown or acquired by public galleries’ . Responding to these introductory remarks made on the occasion of a 1959 exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, Acquisitions and Alternatives: Sculpture was a showing of works collected by Monash University since 1961. The selection of works departed from the University’s early sculpture collecting efforts that strongly favoured metal works and included pieces made with found and organic materials, ceramics, and even performance, demonstrating enquiries related to both material processes and ‘social metaphors’.  This exhibition, curated by Jenepher Duncan, was less a diagnosis of trends in Australian sculpture than a careful, and notably self-implicating, audit of Monash’s collecting goals and patterns related to the medium.

Acknowledgements
This exhibition was given generous financial assistance by the Vera Moore Fund of Monash University.

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^{Image: Exhibition poster}