Home AS IF: Public Art Walks - with Rosa Tato Women's Art Register
Women's Art Register
AS IF: Public Art Walks - with Rosa Tato
Sunday 18th October 11am-1pm
Start at: University College, University Crescent, Parkville
BYO – MYKI (some walks will involve tram travel) and umbrella etc. if rain is forecast.
Rosa Tato begins her walk at a work rarely seen by the public – a 1958 mural by the co-founder of the Women's Art Register, Erica McGilchrist. The mural Legend of Being is located at University College, University of Melbourne, and the College has generously given the Women's Art Register special access to the mural to acknowledge the work of Erica. In 1958 Erica McGilchrist won the Helena Rubenstein Mural Prize and took six months to create a 36-foot mural which was installed in the dining room at what was known as the University Women's College. Legend of Being remains in the College dining room today and it is here that Rosa Tato will begin her walk.
Rosa Tato, Embracing Distance, 2012, laser cut steel installation, 35metres, base of North Melbourne Public Housing Tower. Commissioned by City of Melbourne. Photo: Joe Vittorio
Rosa will then take the group to view and discuss her work Embracing Distance, a large-scale 35-metre public art commission, created in 2012, situated at the base of the North Melbourne Housing Towers. Embracing Distance was a semi-finalist for the 2014 International Award for Public Art (IAPA).
AS IF: Artist led Public Art Walks (commissioned by WAR)
Kathleen Shillam (AO) Artist with two piece figure, n.d., fibreglass
The City of Melbourne is an open-air gallery with many striking public art works to attract the attention of those walking past. When the Women's Art Register began in 1975, there were few public art works by women in the Melbourne streetscape. In 1897 controversy erupted in the NSW parliament around Theodora Cowan being commissioned to create a public artwork – a bust of Eccleston Du Faur. Women artists were rarely entrusted with completing large art works in the public domain and the statues, monuments, architectural works, drinking fountains and water features of Melbourne were also overwhelmingly created by and depicted men. Despite significant public works by artists such as Inge King and Ola Cohn, it wasn't until the later part of the 20th century that the pendulum began to swing against this dearth of women's public art commissions and in the last two decades there has been a swathe of women's art punctuating the streets. The Women's Art Register has commissioned four Melbourne-based artists to explore a selection of these works by leading public art walks across inner Melbourne and relaying the background to some of their own works or other favourite works created by women.
For all media and general enquiries Contact: AS IF Festival Producer - Sally Northfield sally.northfield@gmail.com - 0408 141 332
top image: Erica McGilchrist, Mandala for a mathematician, 1967, acrylic on canvas, 121x90cm.
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