Art Exhibitions

The University of Queensland Art Museum staged a series of art exhibitions throughout the Centenary year at the James and Mary Emelia Mayne Centre on the St Lucia campus. 

Two special Centenary exhibitions drew thousands of visitors to the campus.

100 Years: Highlights from The University of Queensland Art Collection

16 April 2010 to 4 July 2010
Historic and contemporary artworks were juxtaposed in an exhibition that highlighted the depth of collecting by The University of Queensland.  Ranging from the first artwork gifted to the University in 1929 – Mary Christison’s Self Portrait (c.1870) – to contemporary works by artists such as Rosella Namok and Xiao Xian Liu, the exhibition drew on old favourites and little known gems.  The exhibition represented works acquired by gift, bequest and purchase, and included works from The University of Queensland National Collection of Artists’ Self Portraits.  A fully illustrated catalogue included texts discussing the development of the Art Collection and individual works.

Before Time Today: Reinventing Tradition in Aboriginal Art

11 September - 28 November 2010

Over the past decade contemporary art production from the remote Cape York Aboriginal community of Aurukun has flourished. Artists of all ages are producing a wide range of canvas painting, sculpture, weaving and works on paper.  Whilst there is much stylistic and formal innovation in this contemporary art, it derives from a worldview and ethos that has been inherited and maintained from past generations and cultural traditions.  This exhibition placed focus on a continuous tradition in how visual art registers a system or process of interconnectedness between the natural environment of Aurukun and the people who belong there.  The exhibition tracked how the present generation of artists adapt traditional forms and cultural principles and translate them into an art form that addresses life today in Aurukun.
The process of adaptation and translation was facilitated by exhibiting early to mid contact artworks from anthropological collections alongside contemporary art work.  Two significant collections of Aurukun material from the UQ Anthropology Museum and the UQ Art Museum underpinned a selection of artworks loaned from public art and cultural institutions across Australia.  These objects were displayed within a fabric of contextual material including:
  • Archival photography of visual culture in the context of ceremony
  • Photography of artists at work in Aurukun today
  • DVD footage of the people and places that underpin the art
  • Sound recordings of music
  • Educational material that integrates the biodiversity and mythological character of the country

Accompanying the exhibition was a new UQ Press publication which included chapters from leading scholars, including the Curator of the Aboriginal Art Museum in Utrecht, on Aurukun art and culture.

You can take a guided tour of the highlights of this significant exhibition of Queensland art, conducted by the curator and some of the artists themselves.  The footage also includes some of the dances performed by visiting dancers from Cape York at the opening of the exhibition on 11 September 2010.

Other exhibitions held at the UQ Art Museum during the Centenary year were as follows -

The state we're in:  Contemporary Queensland Photography

Fiona Foley: Forbidden

The Behan Legacy: The Stuartholme-Behan Collection of Australian Art

AES+F: THE REVOLUTION STARTS NOW!

Sidney Nolan: The Gallipoli series

Multiplicities: Self portraits from the collection

An exhibition of images of the UQ Ipswich campus was commissioned by the University and added to the UQ Art Museum collection.  It was on display at the Ipswich Art Gallery -

The Presence of Absence: Images of an Institution

On this site

Did you know?