The Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarships

2006

University of South Australia

The 2006 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarships

2006

Christine Aerfeldt

Andrew Best

Pia Borg

Claudia Chaseling

Sean Cordeiro

Claire Healy

P

Foreword

ick out any magazine of contemporary visual art and – theories, debates and issues of quality aside – a glance reveals the dominant feature in the art of our times: diversity. Page by page, like the now ubiquitous biennales internationales, the magazines gorge on a polymorphic flood of artistic practices and modes and mediums of expression. Protocols? Art is the zone of unconstrained liberation – anarchist heaven – today this, tomorrow, that.

Stake a claim, find a spin, play! Of course, not all things are so easy as they might first seem.

Triumphal diversity must sooner or later present itself as its parts, individually – from behind the curtain and veils – for closer forensic examination of its essential content. Don’t ever doubt that the doctor is in, or at least nearby!

Collectively, the 2006 Samstag artists celebrated in this publication most certainly exemplify the phenomenon of diversity; they are painters, installationists, sculptors, collaborators, filmmakers and photographers. So? From Samstag’s beginnings in 1992, the only discernible bias in our selection of artists has been an inclination to reward ‘other voices’ and to cherish ‘the thousand flowers’. We saw the potential, arrived early (often first) and feel genuine pleasure at their subsequent success.

Importantly, these six artists have received their close examination and been found to excel at what they do, or are attempting; they are thinking, experimenting artists and their approach to making art is imaginative, skilled and disciplined. As a result, they have been presented an enviable, life-changing opportunity in their personal and professional journey – twelve months of well-funded research and development somewhere overseas, courtesy of Gordon Samstag’s magnificent benefaction.

They are the fourteenth generation of Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship recipients, now one hundred and five scholars in all. We applaud and wish them great success!

Our grateful thanks go to Adelaide-based writer and critic, Wendy Walker, who kindly accepted our invitation to be this year’s Samstag catalogue essayist. A respected and knowledgeable observer of the contemporary visual arts with a growing identity as author, critic and curator, Wendy brings a typically engaged approach to her consideration of the Samstag artists, offering thoughtful insights into their work along with timely reflections on the status of ‘the ephemeral’ in art.

Each year the Samstag selection committee faces a difficult challenge in isolating just the few fortunate individuals from among so many fine and talented applicants and we express appreciation to Megan Walch, John Barbour and Professor Kay Lawrence for their patient dedication in this demanding, though rewarding role.

Ross WolfeDirector, Samstag Progam

Claire HEALY / Sean CORDEIRODeceased Estate 2004collaborative installation of warehouse detritus400 x 500 x 500

1995 Samstag Scholar, Sue Saxon, outside 27 West 10th Street, Manhattan, 1935 home of Anne and Gordon Samstag

photo: Steven Fosbery, 1995

The Samstag Program

he Anne and Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarships were established in 1992 through a remarkable bequest by American artist Gordon Samstag, who taught from 1961 to 1970 at the South Australian School of Art, now a part of the University of South Australia.

Mr Samstag's will provided substantial funds for awarding, annually, a number of scholarships to enable Australian visual artists to "study and develop their artistic capacities, skills and talents outside of Australia".

His unique, in-perpetuity bequest, ranks as the greatest gift made expressly for the development and education of Australian visual artists. Samstag Scholarships – presented through the South Australian School of Art – pay for all the costs of twelve months of overseas study, including provision of an unusually generous stipend, return airfares and institutional study fees.

An American citizen, Gordon Samstag was born in New York City on 21 June 1906, and studied at the New York Art Students League before continuing his studies at the Academie Colarossi in Paris. A 1981 exhibition at the Wichita Art Museum, Kansas, The Neglected Generation of American Realist Painters 1930-1948, confirmed his status as a significant social-realist painter of the ‘American Scene’. His work is represented in the Toledo Museum, Ohio and the Sheldon Swope Gallery, Indiana. There are also public murals painted by Samstag (commissioned by the Roosevelt Administration's Treasury Department Section of Painting and Sculpture) at post offices in Reidsville, North Carolina (1938) and Scarsdale, New York State (1940).

In 1973 the Samstags moved to Cairns, Queensland, before settling finally in Naples on the west coast of Florida, in 1976, where Gordon died three years after Anne, in March 1990, at the age of 83.

Research continues into the lives of Gordon and Anne Samstag.

T

'At times it seems to me, said [Cornelius] de Jong, as if all works of art were coated with a sugar glaze or indeed made completely of sugar, like the model of the battle of Esztergom created by a confectioner to the Viennese court, which Empress Maria Theresia, so it is said, devoured in one of her recurrent bouts of melancholy.'

W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn

n 1969 Barry le Va concocted a haunting installation of glittering shards of glass, red iron-oxide powder and pools of oil, which occupied an entire floor of the vacated Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, in the final days before its demolition. A membranous, yet spiky (metamorphosing) mass, it was a transitory installation that nonetheless vividly persists in the memory of the former director, Martin Friedman, who earlier this year described it as 'a magical work...a solemn reflection on dematerialization.'(1)

It does seem remarkable that more than three decades later, the ephemeral nature of such works – an abiding aspect of much contemporary art – continues to provoke debate. At the 2004 Artists Week – part of the Adelaide Festival of Arts – Dave Hickey expressed his discontent with the present condition of international culture in the arts. The specific targets of Hickey's rancour were twofold – the ascendancy of neo-medievalism ('a trading of post-modernity for pre-modernity') and the hegemony of 'governmental institutions and their curatorial clerisies.' Holding the latter accountable for the privileging of time-based or ephemeral work over object-based art, Hickey postulated that video and installation art (unlike painting and sculpture) have no lasting impact on the viewer's consciousness – as a consequence of their transience and their disavowal of formal values.

Undoubtedly, mass media images from Abu Ghraib, the Holocaust or the Vietnam War have become seared into the collective memory, but notwithstanding the subjectivity of recollection, the primacy, the equivalent and enduring power of the moving image – however fleetingly glimpsed – cannot be denied; the dance-hall tango scene in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist (1969), the fluttering banners of the massed warriors in Akira Kurosawa's Ran (1985), the plastic bags swept up by a gust of wind at the end of Sam Mendes' American Beauty (1999).

I

The memorable: ephemeral

Wendy Walker

Painters Claudia Chaseling and Christine Aerfeldt aside, four of the six 2006 Samstag alumni – collaborative artists Sean Cordeiro and Claire Healy, filmmaker Pia Borg and multi-disciplinary artist Andrew Best – might be considered to make work that is to a greater or lesser extent, ephemeral. Embodying the nomadism that is now emblematic of Australian contemporary art practice, in the last two years Cordeiro and Healy – whose collaboration echoes (in some respects) that of Christo and Jeanne-Claude – have created installations/architectural interventions in a range of locations that includes Basel, Switzerland, Weil am Rhein, Germany, Kathmandu, Nepal, Taiwan and Martin Place in Sydney. The impermanence of such work raises an allied issue, concerning the (continually evolving) interrelationship between

Sean CORDEIRO / Claire HEALYThe Cordial Home Project 2003collaborative installationentire house600 x 700 x 150

works of art and their photographic documentation. Cordeiro and Healy, who are represented by a commercial gallery, have for example elected to authorise photographic images of their projects. Certainly a more expansive (and permanent) narrative is made available to the practitioner – the peregrinations of Shirley Tse's blue bubble-wrap works are a case in point – through the associated, strategic use of photographic imagery.

Making a virtue of the fleeting quality of his collaborations with Jeanne-Claude, Christo has noted: 'There is a simplicity in these projects – they are temporary, almost nomadic. This impermanence translates into an awareness of the vulnerability of things, of their passing away.(2) It's unlikely that those who witnessed the grand gesture of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's The Gates (2005) – the largest public art work in New York's history – will soon forget the experience. As John Kaldor observes, 'Although The Gates was temporary, it has left an indelible impression on the city,' marking for many visitors, 'a poignant end to the healing process of 9/11.'(3)

Sean Cordeiro and Claire Healy's collaborative art practice evolved out of a period of escalating involvement (from concept to realisation) in each other's individual projects.' Dual authorship' says Healy, 'was necessary and inevitable'.(4) The previously-signalled audacious scale of Cordeiro and Healy's site-specific installations/architectural interventions was confirmed by the Package Tour (2003) work for Sculpture by the Sea, in which an army tank (with an ocean view) was effectively neutered, or at least rendered homely, by an incongruously suburban array of household items that included potted plants, deck chairs, milk crates, a boogie board and a barbeque.

Cordeiro and Healy's fundamental concern with complex notions of home (in both a material and cultural sense) and in particular its impermanency, has been powerfully expressed in three key works from the last two years. Recalling Gordon Matta-Clark's architectural interventions, the award-winning The Cordial Home Project (2003) involved the 'preservation' of a house destined for demolition and its dismantling and onerous reconstruction as a precisely-stratified formalist oblong – from foundation rubble to roof tiles – within Artspace gallery at Woolloomooloo in Sydney. For Healy the work also invokes Hiroshi Teshigahara's existentialist film Woman in the Dunes (1964), in which the protagonist is fated to endlessly shovel sand, in order to preserve her entombed home in the sand dunes.

'Stacking the house and reconstituting the elemental compounds in this way created a layering of absences. In our finished work there was no space to reside.'(5)

Since this chaotic mass of building material was the only 'house' the artists were in a position to purchase, Cordeiro and Healy represent a generation of Australian citizens, for whom an egalitarian dream of home-ownership has dissipated. The Cordial Home Project was therefore a powerfully symbolic work – a house in its most reductive form; distilled, fragmented and ultimately obsolete.

Bound with orange twine, the contents of an abandoned studio in Weil am Rhein in Germany were vertically reconfigured for the project Deceased Estate (2004), in which the less than striking individual components became cumulatively transformed. Cordeiro and Healy's achievement in this massive, free-standing agglomeration of household items was the retention of a confounding quality of spontaneity – unlike the similarly domestic constructions of Adam Dade and Sonya Hanney or Damian Ortega, with which they might conceivably be compared.

In 2005 Cordeiro and Healy lived on-site for a month at Milaby farm at Ballidu in Western Australia – incidentally tending to a flock of sheep – during the construction of the Maintenance project. Suggesting multiple readings (as distress signals, warnings or alternatively as suture) transformative Buddhist-orange, geometric oblongs and circles were applied to the windows and doors – described by Cordeiro as a violation of the membrane, the link between nature and interior space – of a derelict farmhouse. This preoccupation with transitional space was also the impetus for Tollgate (2004) – a revisualisation (with the ingenious use of red lighting) of a disused border post between France, Germany and Switzerland, as a mysterious site of meditation or worship. Cordeiro and Healy were abetted in their cultivation of a sense of ambiguity by the language barrier. 'It was impossible to inform people what it was we were actually doing. Perhaps this was to our advantage.'(6)

Claire HEALY / Sean CORDEIRORaiders of the Lost Ark (detail, exterior view) 2003collaborative installation, Martin Place, Sydneystuffed animals, mannequins, bed, hutvariable dimensions

Physical, immersive, intrepid, but never polemical, Cordeiro and Healy's work nevertheless resonates with socio-political commentary. Preceded by a challenging three-week trek through the Annapurna Mountain Ranges, where dwellings were carved into the cliff-face, the site-specific work When the bulls fight the calves get crushed(7) (2005) was constructed at Siddhartha Gallery, Kathmandu in politically unstable Nepal. Intended to evoke the 'vulnerability of existence in the midst of greater forces,' the project assumed a more fraught aspect, when a state of emergency was declared during the period of installation and the gallery director placed under semi-house arrest.

Claudia CHASELINGSpeed 2005egg tempera and oil on canvas152 x 152

At first glance the urban landscape paintings of Claudia Chaseling suggest aspects of Australian modernism of the 1930s, yet the reality is rather different, for her work denotes an intriguing hybridity of influences. In 1999 as part of an Australian National University exchange program, the German-born and educated(8) Chaseling – now resident in Australia – visited indigenous communities in the Northern Territory and Western Australia before returning temporarily to Berlin in 2000.

The lyricism of the four-panelled work Losing Perspective (2004) clearly quotes from the Romanticism of Caspar David Friedrich, but an intriguing point of difference is Chaseling's trademark deployment of a fine all-over tracery of cross-hatching – a technique more customarily associated with Australian indigenous artists.

'Through the line work and grid structure I develop translucence, depth, the reflecting surface of water and reach formal reductive clarity.'(9)

Although Chaseling's palette is consistently vivid and the pigments unmixed, in the darker, moodier six-panelled motion (2005) the forms have become almost abstracted and in two upper panels a darkly-ominous aeroplane looms, casting its shadow over the composition. Employing a favoured strategy of mutable vantage points, in the aptly-titled change (2005) Chaseling propels the viewer through an almost dizzying succession of perspectives. It is a sensation encapsulated in the deft interweaving of line and colour that generates a rhythmical meshing of arcs and loops in the closely-cropped roller-coaster of Speed (2005).

Making numerous preparatory drawings/watercolours, Chaseling's process is extremely labour intensive, involving not only the meticulous application of multiple layers of pigment, but also the incorporation of multiple (layered) images within the same work. Eschewing the flatness of gridwork that is Modernism's legacy, the perception – conveyed

through permeable grids that expand rather than constrain – is paradoxically one of lightness and depth. Frequently a final transparent film of red paint is applied to the finished canvas, in order to make the work 'come alive.' In such a way, Chaseling merges an investigation of the history and potentialities of her medium with a contemporary preoccupation with memory, transience, change, movement.

Rather than a contemporary realisation of the Romantic sublime, Chaseling's carefully realised vignettes – layered, sequential, blurred, fragmentary – are an analogue for the subjective, imperfect nature of human recall and for multi-faceted ways of viewing.

Exemplifying urban, deadpan cool, Andrew Best's multi-disciplinary practice encompasses sculpture, installation, photo-media and painting. Excavating contemporary culture – fashion, video games, film, nature documentaries and pop – as well as the urban landscape, he displaces 'everyday elements into fantastical scenarios, or into "atoms" of new stories...'(10) These vaguely sinister reconfigurations of the physical and cultural environment contain elements of the fantastic, the occult and the merely strange (Zombie Gang Member 3, Akira Tamura, 2004).

The imposingly large and critically well-received Pauline (2004) – selected for the survey exhibition 2004: Australian Culture Now at the National Gallery of Victoria – was a three-dimensional realisation of the 1980s video game Donkey Kong, from which the obscurantist Best had removed any identifying figures. Given that he cites as a point of reference the writer/filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet – whose nouveaux romans challenged conventional narrative structures, dispensing with plot, character, setting, linear time etc – it is not at all surprising that Best's enigmatic narratives are invariably open-ended.

Alluding to the flawed paradise of Adelaide – a city memorably described by Salman Rushdie as a perfect setting for a Stephen King novel or horror film – in Paradise (2003) he constructed a cryptic crime-scene-like tableau from an illuminated drink container, a pair of photocopy machines, pot plants, a macabre face mask, a scattering of capsules of nitrous oxide and latex weeds that sprouted from cracks in the floor.

'Within my work' says Best, 'I draw specific influence from the narrative strategies of video games, news/fashion photography and film.'(11)

Andrew BESTParadise (detail) 2003bubble tea, polymer, lightsvariable dimensions

Accordingly, the unnamed automaton-like protagonists, temporal discontinuity, and ambiguity of identity and setting of Last Year at Marienbad (1961) – written by Robbe-Grillet and directed by Alan Resnais – may well have supplied Best with a strategic model, wherein the viewer is obliged to complete the narrative.

Death too, takes on the surreal quality of a video game in the photographic series Knox Element (Fall Series) 2004, as inner-city youths, apparently falling 'happily, languidly to their death' are captured in the penultimate frozen moment of the photographic image – another kind of death – before they touch the ground.

Christine AERFELDTBaby owl is caught up in tangles but whispers a soft song 2005oil on canvas165 x 114

Christine Aerfeldt's profoundly personal early paintings integrated nostalgic sepia-coloured paintings of old family photographs from Estonia, with bright and polished depictions of kitsch Hummel-like dolls in traditional and beautifully-detailed European folkloric costumes.

Adroitly manipulating scale and composition and espousing a flatness of surface, Aerfeldt paints her theatrical, brilliantly-coloured (self-described) 'psycho-dramas' – rapidly and with a consuming intensity – from digitally-manipulated images. Having experienced a Tuymans-like epiphany in the Prado Museum, for the Heav’n & Hell series (2004), Aerfeldt appropriated and rearranged old-master allegorical imagery, such as El Greco’s Adoration of the Shepherds (c. 1605). Depicted in reverse in Wanda and Wilhelm get up to childish tricks in the dark (2003), the phlegmatic doll duo colonise the dominant, light-drenched position, occupied by the Christ-child in the original.

Ever-experimental, Aerfeldt's focus has recently shifted to a range of different objects – albeit talismans that possess an enduringly personal or familial connection. In the dramatic work Baby owl is caught up in tangles, but whispers a soft song (2005), Miro-esque motifs surround an unblinking toy owl, perched on the elaborately coiffured head of a woman, whose reciprocal gaze is – tantalisingly – almost conceded, but ultimately denied the viewer.

Artists such as Paula Rego and Destiny Deacon have frequently inserted toys (or animals) into their narratives as a surrogate means of articulating that which may be unsayable. Kitsch items that may nevertheless enshroud memories of childhood or a distant homeland, Aerfeldt's dolls present a tragi-comic duality.

Pia BORG 15281 2003 still frames from colour digibeta animation duration 1 minute, 28 seconds written and directed by Pia Borg; music composer: Rodney Cooper

'Their robotic play is a repertoire of richly superficial theatrical effects, a sort of burlesque of autobiographical sentiment and cultural memory.'(12) Still, the impression lingers that Aerfeldt's creatures and figurines may well be participants in a more veiled and gritty narrative of cultural/geographical displacement.

Pia Borg, whose black and white, six and a half minute animated film Footnote (2003) was nominated for the Palme d'Or in the 2004 official Cinéfondation(13) selection at Cannes, shares with Best a predilection for non-conventional narrative modes. Informed by German Expressionist cinema and utilising traditional animation techniques, each frame is carefully composed from a montage that encompasses old photographs, found objects, human hair, scanned textures, dust, insects and discarded 16mm footage. Shunning the slickness of digitised animation, Borg expresses a preference for a 'dirty, junky aesthetic,' citing as influential the early experimental work of French filmmaker Georges Méliès.

Moody and evocative, her animations are imbued with a European sensibility and Footnote possesses some of the period atmospherics of Terry Gilliam's film Brazil (1985), although Borg's characteristically sooty realisation is more delicate and the handling of issues of social oppression, far lighter and more enigmatic. Musical scores, clocks, a metronome and dress patterns function as signifiers of constraint or control, as a small boy ineptly attempts to play a piano. Upstairs an odd choreography – derived from the robotic movement of the workers on the factory floor in Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1926) – is affectingly enacted by mannequin figures against a backdrop of grinding machinery, dress forms and spinning spools of thread.

The soundtrack is minimal – the monotonous beat of a metronome, the occasional plucking of a piano note, the tap of a fingernail on a keyboard and the climactic moment, at which the mannequin begins to dance to the boy's surprisingly fluid piano rendition of dance notation, achieves a real poignancy.

Topical themes of immigration and mandatory detention propel the very short allegorical film animation 15281 (2003) and Borg's latest project, When Objects Dream, synthesises live action with animation in a commissioned film about the phenomenon of dementia/memory loss.

Wendy Walker is an Adelaide-based art critic and freelance writer for

several Australian and international journals. She is the curator of Australian

Contemporary for Collect 2006 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

In 2004, her monograph Beautiful Games on Deborah Paauwe was published

by Wakefield Press. Throughout 2006, she will be Samstag Writer in Residence

at the South Australian School of Art, undertaking research on the lives and

work of Anne and Gordon Samstag.

1. Martin Friedman, 'Barry le Va's Secret Sculpture' in Art in America, May 2005, p. 141-143

2. Nicholas Baume 'Critical Themes in Christo's Art 1958-'70' from the exhibition catalogue Christo: John Kaldor Art Project 1990, Sydney: Art Gallery of NSW, cited in Charles Green, The third hand: collaborations in art from conceptualism to postmodernism, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001, p.137

3 John Kaldor 'The Gates' in Art & Australia, Sydney NSW, vol. 43, no I, Spring 2005, p. 18.

4-6. All quotes from artists are from communications with Wendy Walker, September 2005.7. The title of the work is derived from an old Nepalese saying, which describes the

plight of the small man caught in the grip of powerful forces beyond his control.8. Claudia Chaseling was an assistant to both Viennese action painter and performance

artist Hermann Nitsch and later to Franz Ackerman in Berlin.9-11. All quotes from artists are from communications with Wendy Walker, September 2005.12. Edward Colless in the exhibition catalogue for Heav'n and Hell, Helen Gory Gallery,

Melbourne, 2004.13. Cinéfondation is a category that presents films of less than sixty minutes

duration from film schools, first films, fiction or animation 'showing talent which deserves encouragement.'

Christine Aerfeldt

Wanda and Wilhelm get up to childish tricks in the dark 2004oil on canvas213 x 137

Andrew Best

Knox Element 1 (Fall series) 2004Lambda print150 x 150

Pia Borg

Footnote 2003 still frames from animation 16mm colour and B&W film duration 6 minutes, 35 seconds

written and directed by Pia Borg music composer: Anthony Pateras sound design: Joel Stern

Claudia Chaseling

Losing perspective 2004egg tempera and oil on canvas140 x 480

Sean Cordeiro / Claire Healy

Maintenance 2004collaborative installationhouse, MDF1200 x 1100 x 600

Claire Healy / Sean Cordeiro

Tollgate (detail, interior view) 2004collaborative installationTollgate, wood, light400 x 500 x 600

Christine Aerfeldt

Born 1958, Adelaide, South Australia

2001 Bachelor of Visual Art (Honours), Adelaide Central School of Art 1980 Bachelor of Education (Art Teaching), Adelaide College of the Arts and Education

Awards 2006 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship 2003 Arts SA, project assistance grant 2000 Adelaide Central School of Art, scholarship for full time studies,

Individual Exhibitions 2004 heav’n & hell, Helen Gory Galerie, Melbourne 1999 A Very Modern Girl, Art Images, Adelaide

Selected Group Exhibitions 2003 Eleven, Cube Contemporary Art, Adelaide SALA, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide White Lies Beneath, Helen Gory Gallerie, Melbourne Hatched, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth Adelaide Contemporary, Eva Breuer Art Dealer, Sydney 2002 Melbourne International Art Fair, Melbourne, (Cube Contemporary Art, Adelaide) Pure, Cube Contemporary Art, Adelaide Synthetic Whispers, Helen Gory Galerie, Melbourne 2001 7UP, Studio 91B, Adelaide Lo-Sheen, Adelaide Central Gallery, Adelaide 2000 Nocturnal Workings, State Library of South Australia, Adelaide

Collections Art Gallery of South Australia F H Faulding

Artists’ Biographies

Andrew Best

Born 1975, Adelaide, South Australia

2004 Master of Visual Art, University of South Australia, Adelaide 2001 Bachelor of Visual Arts – Honours 1st Class, University of South Australia, Adelaide

Awards 2006 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship 2005 Independent Arts Foundation, studio grant Australia Council/Arts SA, emerging curator initiative, 2005 Venice Biennale Arts SA, new work grant NAVA, visual and craft artists’ grant 2004 Adelaide Critics’ Circle, ‘Emerging Visual Artist of the Year’ Australia Council, new work grant Arts SA, new work grant Helpmann Academy, new work grant 2003 Arts SA, new work grant Helpmann Academy, new work grant 2002 Helpmann Academy, new work grant 2001 Australian Postgraduate Award Scholarship

Individual Exhibitions 2004 Flesh Eaters, South Australian School of Art Gallery, Adelaide Andrew Best/ Bridget Currie, 24HR Art, Darwin 2003 Paradise, Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide I’ve Been Busy, Artspace, Adelaide 2000 3 x 0, 220 Hindley Street, Adelaide Gallery Spain, Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, Adelaide

Selected Group Exhibitions 2005 You Must Have Been in Strange Places, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne New Painting Heroes, Downtown Art Space, Adelaide 2004 2004: Australian Culture Now, The Ian Potter Centre: NGV, Melbourne;

and The Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne Project for a Revolution, West Space, Melbourne The Containers Project, Federation Square, Melbourne Breadbox Gallery, Perth 2003 Mirage, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth 2002 Hatched, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth Money Shot, Hindley Street, Adelaide Plans and Disasters, Downtown Art Space, Adelaide 2001 Move 4, Rundle Mall, Adelaide Girls, Top Floor Gallery, Adelaide 1998 HAL Artspace, London

Collections Brett Whiteley Studio; Art Gallery of New South Wales

Pia Borg

Born 1977, Melbourne, Victoria

2003 Post-Graduate Diploma in Animation, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne 1998 Bachelor Of Commerce, University of Melbourne, Melbourne

Awards 2006 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship 2004 Dendy Awards, Best Animation, nomination Inside Film Awards, Best Animation, nomination Australian Film Industry Awards, Best Animation, nomination

Screenings 2003 Scratches Sketches Salt Codec Cinema- Liquid Architecture, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne Melbourne Fringe Festival Electrofringe- New South Wales

2004 Footnote Cannes Film Festival Sydney Film Festival Melbourne Animation Festival Sao Paulo International Film Festival Chicago Film Festival

2004 15281 Anifest, Czech Republic New York Film Festival Brisbane International Film Festival Hiroshima Animation Festival Krok Festival, Russia

Collections Australian Embassy Collection National Museum of Australia – Skylounge

Claudia Chaseling

Born 1973, Munich, Germany

2003 Master of Visual Arts, Australian National University, Canberra 2000 Master of Visual Arts, University for Visual Arts Berlin, Germany 1999 Exchange student, masters program, Australian National University, Canberra, 1993 Academy for Visual Arts, Munich, Germany Summer Academy Salzburg, Austria, Prof. Herman Nitsch Academy for Visual Arts, Vienna, Austria, Prof. Lehmden

Awards 2006 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship 2004 artsACT, emerging artist grant 2003 artsACT, studio residency in Berlin Karl Hofer Society, Berlin, 2 year stipend 2001 DAAD, one year scholarship to Australia 1999 University for Visual Arts Berlin, exchange scholarship to the School of Art, ANU, Canberra 1998 BMW, travel prize to Spartanburg, South Carolina, USA

Individual Exhibitions 2005 losing perspective, Kunstverein Elmshorn, Germany non-fiction, Galerie Anke Zeisler, Berlin, Germany simply there, Galerie Remise Degewo, Berlin, Germany 2004 losing perspective, Stephanie Burns Fine Art, Canberra 2003 the temporaries, New Gallery of the Karl Hofer Society, Berlin 2002 …between the lines, CSA Gallery, Canberra 1997 Weil Kunst uns verbindet, Galerie im Alcatraz, Hallein, Austria

Selected Group Exhibitions 2005 Anachronismen Zeitlos, Torhaus Wellingsbuettel, Hamburg New 7, Brenda May Gallery, Sydney Phillip Cox and friends, Ivy Hill Wapengo, NSW 2004 Neue Stipendiaten, 2003-05, Karl Hofer Society, Haus am Kleistpark, Berlin Melbourne Affordable Art Fair, Stephanie Burns Fine Art Anachronismen Zeitlos, Gerhard-Hauptmann Museum Berlin-Erkner, Germany Country Energy Art Prize for landscape painting, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery;

and Sydney Opera House 2002 John Leslie Art Prize, Gippsland Victoria Art Gallery Fleurieu Art Prize, McLaren Vale, South Australia Salt/Water, Dubbo Regional Gallery, NSW Sound, Art Space G7 Berlin, Germany Klasse Marwan, Galerie tammen & busch, Berlin 2000 Plus, Galerie Pankow, Berlin Klasse Marwan, Condat Galerie, Berlin 1999 Galerie Krevareb Berlin 1998 County Museum of Art, Spartanburg, South Carolina, USA Berlin-Bologna, Sale Museale di Barracano, Bologna, Italy;

and Messe Zentrum Berlin Alexanderplatz Blind Date, Academy for Visual Arts, Munich

Collections BMW, Munich Australian National University, Canberra

Sean Cordeiro

Born 1974, Sydney, New South Wales

2004 Master of Fine Arts, College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales 1997 Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours), College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales

Awards 2006 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship 2005 NAVA, marketing grant Australia Council, Tokyo residency 2004 Australia Council, new work grant Freedman Foundation Travelling Art Award AGNSW Dyason Bequest 2003 Helen Lempriere Travelling Arts Scholarship (with Claire Healy) 2002 Australia Council, new artist grant Australia Council, artist run initiative grant (co-recipient) 2000 Australian Post Graduate Award Sean Cordeiro / Claire Healy 2005 GBK at Span Gallery, Melbourne collaborations Home Invasion, Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Dank Street, Sydney From Space to Place, PICA, Perth The Lake Project, Taipei Artist Village, (TAV) Gallery, Taiwan When the Bulls Fight the Calves Get Crushed, Siddhartha Gallery, Babar Mahal, Kathmandu, Nepal 2004 Deceased Estate, Glasshaus, Weil am Rhein, Germany Tollgate, Kunst Kiosk Kleinhuningen, Basel, Switzerland Cult Classic, Gertrude Street Gallery, Melbourne 2003 Package Tour, Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, Sydney The Cordial Home Project, Artspace, Sydney 2001 Location to Die For, Kudos Gallery, Sydney

Imperial Slacks collaborations 2004 Work, Rest, Play(escape); Imperial Slacks Collective, Artspace Gallery, Sydney 2001 Period, Blau Grau Gallery, Sydney 2000 Scuffstuff, Grey Matter Contemporary Art, Sydney

Group Exhibitions 2004 Asian Traffic, Gallery 4A, Sydney Ticket outta here, Space 3, Sydney 2003 Avoiding Eye Area, Mop Gallery, Sydney Mirage, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth 2002 Sculpture in the City, Martin Place, Sydney Slacking Off, Imperial Slacks, Sydney Childhood Show, First Draft, Sydney Sculpture from the Sea, Hazelhurst Gallery, Sydney; and Campbelltown Bicentennial Gallery, Sydney Helen Lempriere Travelling Arts Scholarship Exhibition, Artspace, Sydney Hatched, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth Positive Overkill, Imperial Slacks, Sydney Helen Lempriere Sculpture Award, Werribee Park, Melbourne 2001 Sculpture in the City, Martin Place, Sydney $hop & $ave, Gallery 4A, Sydney Helen Lempriere Travelling Arts Scholarship Exhibition, Artspace, Sydney Imperial Alliance, Imperial Slacks, Sydney 2000 No Show Show, Cofa Gallery, College of Fine Arts, Sydney Downwardly Mobile, Imperial Slacks, Sydney Eighteen is Enough, Herringbone Gallery, Sydney tRANSFIX, Sydney Fringe Festival, Performance Space, Sydney 1999 Glow Bites, Bondi Pavilion, Sydney Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, Sydney Absorption, Ava Gallery, Himeji, Japan 1998 Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, Sydney 1997 Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, Sydney Helen Lempriere Travelling Arts Scholarship Exhibition, Artspace, Sydney 1993 Young Guts, Lewers Bequest, Emu Plains

Collections Australia Council for the Arts Westmead Children’s Hospital

Claire Healy

Born 1971, Melbourne, Victoria

2004 Master of Fine Arts, College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales 1997 Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours), College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales

Awards 2006 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship 2005 Australia Council, Kuenstlehaus Bethanien Residency, Berlin 2004 Australia Council, new work grant AGNSW Dyason Bequest 2003 Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship, (with Sean Cordeiro) College of Fine Arts Research Faculty Grant 2002 Australia Council, new work grant Australia Council, artist run initiative grant (co-recipient) 2000 Australian Post Graduate Award 1997 Dr Gene Sherman Award 1996 Art Gallery of New South Wales, Muriel and Basil Hooper Scholarship The Union Steel Award Claire Healy / Sean Cordeiro 2005 GBK at Span Gallery, Melbourne collaborations Home Invasion, Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Dank Street, Sydney From Space to Place, PICA, Perth The Lake Project, Taipei Artist Village, (TAV) Gallery, Taiwan When the Bulls Fight the Calves Get Crushed, Siddhartha Gallery, Babar Mahal, Kathmandu, Nepal 2004 Deceased Estate, Glasshaus, Weil am Rhein, Germany Tollgate, Kunst Kiosk Kleinhuningen, Basel, Switzerland Cult Classic, Gertrude Street Gallery, Melbourne 2003 Package Tour, Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, Sydney The Cordial Home Project, Artspace, Sydney 2001 Location to Die For, Kudos Gallery, Sydney

Imperial Slacks collaborations 2004 Work, Rest, Play(escape); Imperial Slacks Collective, Artspace Gallery, Sydney 2001 Period, Blau Grau Gallery, Sydney 2000 Scuffstuff, Grey Matter Contemporary Art, Sydney

Group exhibitions 2004 Ticket Outta Here, Space 3, Sydney 2003 Master Major and (e)merging, Martin Place, Sydney Avoiding Eye Area, Mop Gallery, Sydney Mirage, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth 2002 Slacking off, Imperial Slacks Childhood, First Draft, Sydney Progress Report, Cofa Galleries, Sydney Positive Overkill, Imperial Slacks Gallery, Sydney 1x1, Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney 2001 Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, Sydney The Helen Lempriere Travelling Arts Scholarship Exhibition, Artspace, Sydney Temporary Fixtures, Artspace, Sydney Imperial Alliance, Imperial Slacks Gallery, Sydney The Helen Lempriere Sculpture Award, Werribee, Victoria 2000 Downwardly Mobile, Imperial Slacks Gallery, Sydney Eighteen is Enough, Herringbone Gallery, Sydney Unfinished Business, COFA Gallery, College of Fine Arts, Sydney One Last Show, Herringbone Gallery, Sydney The Helen Lempriere Travelling Arts Scholarship Exhibition, Artspace, Sydney 1999 Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, Sydney Factory Sell-out, Herringbone Gallery, Sydney Absorbtion, Ava Galleries, Hymeji, Japan 1998 The Helen Lempriere Travelling Arts Scholarship Exhibition, Artspace, Sydney 1997 The Helen Lempriere Travelling Arts Scholarship Exhibition, Artspace, Sydney Vascular Papilla, Artspace, Sydney

Collections Australia Council for the Arts

2006 Christine Aerfeldt; Andrew Best; Pia Borg; Claudia Chaseling; Sean Cordeiro; Claire Healy

2005 Mikala Dwyer; Michael Graeve; Michael Kutschbach; Viveka Marksjo; Edward Wright; Jemima Wyman

2004 Guy Benfield; Louisa Bufardeci; Julie Henderson; TV Moore; Simone Slee; Tim Sterling

2003 Rebecca Ann Hobbs; Anke Kindle; Maria Kontis; John Meade; Callum Morton; Simon Pericich; Samantha Small

2002 Renato Colangelo; Sarah Elson; Matthieu Gallois; Annie Hogan; Timothy Horn; Astra Howard; Darren Siwes; Daniel Von Sturmer

2001 Christine Collins; Shaun Gladwell; Glenys Hodgeman; Anne Kay; Fassih Keiso; Linda Marrinon; Archie Moore; Rea; John Spiteri; Paul White

2000 John Harris; Karoly Keseru; Marco Masci; David Ralph; Elvis Richardson; Sally-Ann Rowland; Troy Ruffels; Paula Wong

1999 Peter Alwast; Stephen Bram; Kristian Burford; Nicholas Folland; Paul Hoban; Hanh Ngo; Deborah Paauwe; Matthew Warren

1998 Craige Andrae; John Derrick; Christopher Howlett; Shaun Kirby; Anne Walton

1997 Zhong Chen; Rozalind Drummond; Julie Gough; Steven Holland; Lyndal Jefferies

1996 John Kelly; John R. Neeson; Nike Savvas; Kathy Temin; Angela Valamanesh

1995 Mehmet Adil; Marika Borlase; Catherine Brennan; Kate Daw; Ruth Fazakerley; Susan Fereday; Matthÿs Gerber; Marcia Lochhead; Sue Saxon; Lucy Turner; Megan Walch

1994 Lynne Barwick; Michele Beevors; Matthew Calvert; ADS Donaldson; Sarah Lindner; Anne Ooms; Robyn Stacey; Carl Sutherland; Paul Uhlmann; Anne Wallace

1993 Shane Carn; Robert Cleworth; Sally Cox; Mark Hislop; Jacqueline Hocking; Nigel Jamieson; Ruth McDougall; Sally Mannall; Ruth Marshall; Roger Noakes

Samstag Scholars

Samstag: The 2006 Anne & Gordon SamstagInternational Visual Arts Scholarships

The memorable: ephemeral, by Wendy Walker

Published by:Samstag ProgramUniversity of South AustraliaGPO Box 2471AdelaideSouth Australia 5001

Telephone: (08) 8302 0865Facsimile: (08) 8302 0866International: +(618)

Samstag@unisa.edu.auwww.unisa.edu.au/samstag/

Director: Ross WolfeAdministrative Assistant: Jane Wicks

Copyright © Samstag Program, the artists and Wendy Walker, 2005All rights reserved. This publication is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission

ISBN 1 920927 38 7

Graphic design by fusion.com.auReprographics and printing by Finsbury PrintingScanning by The BureauEdition of 1,000

All measurements are given in centimetres: height x width x depth

Selection committee for the 2006 Samstag Scholarships:Kay Lawrence, John Barbour, Megan Walch

The Samstag Program is grateful for the support of Bank of America Private Bank, Florida, USA, trustee of the estate of Gordon Samstag.

The Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarships

2006