Tin Sheds

Last updated

The Tin Sheds was the common name of the Sydney University Art Workshop, an Australian art workshop in Sydney, New South Wales, founded in 1969. Its name lives on in the Tin Sheds Gallery at the University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning. Groups such as Optronic Kinetics and the Earthworks Poster Collective operated out of Tin Sheds.

Contents

History

Tin Sheds was founded in 1969 [1] by artists Donald Brook, Marr Grounds and his wife Joan Grounds [2] as an autonomous and informal venue on the grounds of Sydney University. [3] The name was given because the workshop occupied some old CSR sheds in the university grounds. [2] Officially designated as a place for students to study and practise the methods of the old masters, the founding artists and other tutors encouraged students of the arts, architecture, and engineering students (and anyone else) to dream and create all manner of artworks; [3] it was a "nursery for conceptual art. [4] They tried to understand and define the notion of art, and stayed open 24/7. There was a radical element that intimidated some of the other students. [5]

Renowned sculptor Bert Flugelman was coordinator of Tin Sheds from the beginning until 1973. [6] He became a lifelong friend of Brook. [4] [7]

Bernard Smith was involved with the workshop, and wanted to change the name to Fine Arts University Workshop. [2]

Some experimented with computer graphics and other forms, leading to the emergence of Optronic Kinetics [3] in 1970. [8]

The Earthworks Poster Collective was based at Tin Sheds for the whole of its existence, from 1972 to 1979. [9] During this time, Tin Sheds was officially known as the Sydney University Art Workshop. [10]

The School of Architecture, Design and Planning was always a supporter of the workshop, but it was not until 1989 that Tin Sheds officially became part of the university, presenting art workshop classes. In 2004 Tin Sheds moved into new purpose-built workshops and a gallery in the school, at 148 City Road, Darlington. [1]

Optronic Kinetics

A few medical and engineering students began to use their expertise with computer graphics, [5] and to experiment with electronics and movement; Brook encouraged them to push the boundaries, and Flugelman introduced them to sculpture. This experimentation gave rise to the sculpture collective known as Optronic Kinetics [6] in 1970, [8] which used science and technology to experiment with art. [6]

The group's founding members included Julie Ewington (then a fine arts student, later a well-known writer and curator), and electrical engineering students David Smith (b.1945 [11] ) and Jim McDonnell (b.1948 [11] ). Along with Flugelman, the students created "conceptually ambitious and humorous works" such as Cubed tree, Feathered office, and Flashing boob. Other works included Electronic colour organ and Reflector. [6] Feathered office' (1971) was described by Brook thus: "One Monday morning I was delighted to find my own room transformed with chicken feathers... set with their quills in an obsessively regular grid, as if the room had sprouted them, to its own astonishment, out of its own naturally tidy follicles". [12]

A collection of Optronic Kinetics' work was gifted to Flinders University Museum of Art (FUMA) by Brook, as Emeritus Professor at the university. [6]

The Tin Sheds Gallery hosts exhibitions and issues publications relating to national and international architecture, art, design and urbanism. [1]

Legacy

Tin Sheds was the only experimental art workshop at the time; Inhibodress, founded by Mike Parr and Peter Kennedy, grew out of it, and soon other alternative venues proliferated. [2]

People

Others involved with the organisation of Tin Sheds include:

Artists who took courses at Tin Sheds include:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darlington, New South Wales</span> Suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Darlington is a small, inner-city suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Darlington is located about three kilometres south of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney. At the time of its incorporation in 1864, it had the distinction of being the smallest municipality in the Sydney metropolitan area, at a mere 44 acres. Darlington is bordered by City Road, Cleveland Street, Golden Grove Street, Wilson Street and Abercrombie Street.

Chips Mackinolty is an Australian artist. He was involved in the campaigns against the war in Vietnam by producing posters, and was a key figure in the radical poster movement.

Sir Roy Burman Grounds was an Australian architect. His early work included buildings influenced by the Moderne movement of the 1930s, and his later buildings of the 1950s and 1960s, such as the National Gallery of Victoria and the adjacent Victorian Arts Centre, cemented his legacy as a leader in Australian architecture.

Herbert Flugelman, usually known as Bert, was a prominent Australian visual artist, primarily a sculptor, who had many of his works publicly displayed. He is known for his stainless steel geometric public sculptures. Among his best-known works are the "Mall's Balls" in Adelaide, and "the Silver Shish Kebab" in Sydney.

William Ramsay was a Scottish-born Australian shoe polish manufacturer. In 1906, Ramsay developed "Kiwi" brand shoe polish, today one of the most famous shoe polish brands in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernard Smith (art historian)</span> Australian art historian, critic and academic (1916–2011)

Bernard William Smith was an Australian art historian, art critic and academic, considered the founding father of Australian art history, and one of the country's most important thinkers. His book Place, Taste and Tradition: a Study of Australian Art Since 1788 is a key text in Australian art history, and influence on Robert Hughes. Smith was associated with the Communist Party of Australia, and after leaving the party remained a prominent left-wing intellectual and Marxist thinker. Following the death of his wife in 1989, he sold much of their art collection to establish the Kate Challis RAKA, one of the first prizes in the country for Indigenous artists and writers.

Mike Parr is an Australian performance artist and printmaker. Parr's works have been exhibited in Australia and internationally, including in Brazil, Cuba, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the United States.

The Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning, also known as The University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning, formerly the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, is a constituent body of the University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The school was established in 1920.

Flinders University Museum of Art (FUMA), sometimes referred to as Flinders Art Museum, is an art museum in Adelaide, South Australia, that preserves and develops Flinders University's historical and contemporary art collections.

The Earthworks Poster Collective was an Australian artist collective that operated out of the Sydney University Art Workshop, more commonly known as the Tin Sheds, in the 1970s. The collective, based in Sydney, New South Wales, was active from 1972 to 1979.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ACE Open</span> Contemporary art gallery in Lion Arts Centre, Adelaide

ACE Open is a contemporary visual art organisation based in Adelaide, South Australia, established in 2017 after the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia and the Australian Experimental Art Foundation (AEAF) were merged, creating a new organisation.

Frances Phoenix (1950–2017) was an Australian feminist artist known for needlework and poster designs. Phoenix contributed to the Women's Art Movement groups in both Sydney and Adelaide, as well as multiple community art projects.

Wendy Murray, is a visual artist and arts educator, formerly known as Mini Graff. Under her former persona, Murray worked as an urban street-poster artist between 2003 and 2010, working in and around Sydney's urban fringe. Since 2014, Murray's art expanded into traditional forms of drawing and artist book design, whilst still engaging with social and political issues through poster-making. Murray's use of letraset transfers, accompanied with vibrant colours and fluorescent inks, references the work of studios from the 1960s through to the 1980s, including the community-based Earthworks Poster Collective and Redback Graphix. A 2018 collaboration with The Urban Crew, a 17-person collective of socially engaged geographers, planners, political scientists and sociologists, resulted in the Sydney – We Need to Talk! artist book, addressing issues of development, transport congestion, housing affordability and commercialisation of public space.

Toni Robertson is a visual artist, art historian and printmaker from Sydney, Australia. She is known for her poster making and involvement in the Earthworks Poster Collective, which operated out of the "Tin Shed" art workshops at the University of Sydney.

Marie Elizabeth Rita McMahon is an Australian artist, known for her paintings, prints, posters, drawings, and design work. Born in Melbourne, she has worked in various communities of Australian Aboriginal people and as of 2020 works in Sydney. Her work has focused on social, political, and environmental issues. Her posters about Aboriginal rights and Aboriginal life appear in major gallery collections in Australia.

Joan Grounds is an American-born artist. She has been exhibiting in Australia and internationally from 1967. Her solo and collaborative art work is held in the National Gallery of Australia (ceramics), the National Gallery of Victoria and in the Powerhouse Museum of Arts and Applied Sciences (ceramics). Her hybrid practice incorporated ceramics, sculpture, sound art, film and performance art.

Australian poster collectives were artist collectives established in the late 1960s, 70s and 80s in the capital cities of Australia, largely led by women and focused on various forms of political activism.

The Women's Domestic Needlework Group was established in 1976 by Australian feminist artists Marie McMahon and Frances Phoenix, members of the Sydney branch of the Women's Art Movement, with an interest in reclaiming and focusing attention on the undervalued field of women's traditional craft work. The other members of the collective were Joan Grounds, Bernadette Krone, Kathy Letray, Patricia McDonald, Noela Taylor and Loretta Vieceli.

Marr Grounds was an American/Australian artist, known for his sculpture and environmental art, as an educational innovator in his career as lecturer in architecture, and as the co-founder of the Tin Sheds art workshop in Sydney.

Watters Gallery (1964–2018) was a private art gallery in Riley Street Sydney, Australia, run by Frank Watters with his business partners and friends Geoffrey and Alex Legge. It was influential and well-known, hosting exhibitions and works by some of the most prominent non-mainstream artists in Australia of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Tony Tuckson, James Gleeson, Richard Larter, Robert Klippel, and Garry Shead.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Grounds, Marr (30 March 2015). "Interview with Marr Grounds" (transcript) (Interview). Art Gallery of New South Wales Archive: Balnaves Foundation Australian Sculpture Archive Project. Interviewed by Edwards, Deborah. Balnaves Foundation. Art Gallery of NSW. This is an edited transcript of a recorded interview.
  2. 1 2 Mendelssohn, Joanna (2018). "Donald Brook b. 8 January 1927". Design & Art Australia Online .
  3. 1 2 Allam, Lorena (24 June 2007). "The Hothouse: art and politics at the Tin Sheds" (audio (55 mins) + text). ABC Radio National . Hindsight. Guests include Donald Brook, Bert Flugelman, Guy Warren, Joan Grounds, Michael Callaghan, Chips Mackinolty, Marie McMahon, Jan Fieldsend, Roger Butler. Australian Broadcasting Corporation . Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "Take 5: Optronic Kinetics - FUMA". Flinders University. Retrieved 29 January 2023.
  5. ↑ "Herbert Flugelman". Art Gallery of NSW . Retrieved 19 January 2023.
  6. 1 2 "Optronic Kinetics Collective". Australian Prints + Printmaking. Retrieved 29 January 2023.
  7. ↑ "Earthworks Poster Collective". Australian Prints + Printmaking. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  8. 1 2 "Chips Mackinolty - 1978 Sydney University art workshop". National Gallery of Australia . Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  9. 1 2 Australian National Gallery (1980). Annual report. p. 72 – via National Library of Australia.
  10. ↑ Green, Charles; Barker, Heather (2009). "Flight from the Object: Donald Brook and the Emergence of Post-Studio Art in Early 1970s Sydney". Index Journal (4): 8. doi: 10.38030/emaj.2009.4.2 .
  11. ↑ Peckham, Penny (2011). "Vivienne Binns :: biography". Design and Art Australia Online . Retrieved 20 January 2023.
  12. ↑ "Marie McMahon". MCA Australia. 26 February 2021. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  13. 1 2 Therese., Kenyon (1995). Under a hot tin roof : art, passion, and politics at the Tin Sheds Art Workshop. Sydney: State Library of New South Wales Press. ISBN   9780730589334. OCLC   36180987.
  14. ↑ Brine, Judith (11 December 2012). "David Arthur Lewis Saunders". Australian Dictionary of Biography . Retrieved 28 January 2023. This article was published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 18, (Melbourne University Press), 2012.
  15. ↑ "Andrew Frost". The Guardian . Retrieved 1 April 2020.
  16. ↑ Jones, Jonathan (2014). "Michael Riley". Art Gallery of NSW . Original: Jonathan Jones in 'Tradition today: Indigenous art in Australia’, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2014. Retrieved 8 August 2022.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.