On the Ashes of the Stars… Stéphane Mallarmé: A Celebration

About the exhibition
On the Ashes of the Stars… Stéphane Mallarmé was a group exhibition celebrating the enduring influence of French poet Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898) on the visual arts over the past century. A central figure in French Symbolism and a radical innovator of verse, Mallarmé’s work anticipated and inspired key avant-garde movements of the early twentieth century, including Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism and Surrealism.

Bringing together works from across periods and contexts, the exhibition featured artists who knew Mallarmé personally—such as Édouard Manet and Odilon Redon—alongside contemporary practitioners influenced by his writings, including Bea Maddock, Yasuhito Nagahara and Susan Norrie.

A focal point of the exhibition was Mallarmé’s seminal poem Un Coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard (A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance), whose typographic innovations and references to numerical sequence and chance have continued to inspire artists across disciplines. Contemporary responses to this enigmatic text were represented in works by Michael Graeve and Imants Tillers.

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^{Image: Gary Wilson, Earth 1995, acrylic flocking, cardboard, plastic, metal, 45 x 35 x 30 cm (irregular). Courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne}