Making of Tony Albert

Join us for a night of story and insight for the second guest in our ‘Making of’ series; prolific local↔international artist Tony Albert. Through this platform we invite celebrated artists to share their early career explorations, as well as the significant opportunities, processes and decisions that've nurtured their growth in the industry. 

WHEN: Thursday 18 July
BAR OPEN: 5:30pm
ARTIST TALK: 6pm
WHERE: Slingshot Space, Judith Wright Arts Centre, 420 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley⁠

We've facilitated a range of diverse artist talks for community over the last few years free of charge, and with such strong community need & support, we want to ensure longevity and sustainability by implementing tiered ticketing on certain events. This means we can still accommodate for varying community capacities while being able to continue our professional development programs. 

Limited capacity + licensed bar ~ please secure your tickets to avoid peering in from Brunswick St. 

—

Tony Albert is one of Australia’s foremost contemporary artists with a longstanding interest in the cultural misrepresentation of Aboriginal people. Drawing on both personal and collective histories, his multidisciplinary practice considers the ways in which optimism might be utilised to overcome adversity. His work poses crucial questions such as how do we remember, give justice to, and rewrite complex and traumatic histories? 

Albert is acknowledged industry wide as a valued ambassador for Indigenous community and culture. He was recently announced as the inaugural Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain First Nations Curatorial Fellow. He is the first Indigenous Trustee for the Art Gallery of New South Wales, a member of the Art Gallery of New South Wales Indigenous advisory, a board member for the City of Sydney's Public Art Panel and member of the Art & Place Board at the Queensland Children's Hospital and in January 2023 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Griffith University for his significant contribution to the arts. 

Albert was recently awarded several prestigious public commissions both within Australia and internationally, including an installation for Public Art Fund’s Global Positioning, which debuted in January 2022 on bus shelters throughout New York City, Chicago, and Boston. He represented Australia with his commission for Constellations: Global Reflections, a first of its kind exhibition curated by world-renowned US based art curator Lance Fung which took place during the 2022 G20 Summit in Bali. Also, in 2022 he was included in Prime: Arts Next Generation (Phaidon) featuring the top 100 most distinctive and innovative young artists from around the world. Most recently, renowned Indigenous collective proppaNOW, of which Tony is a founding member, were awarded the prestigious 2022-24 Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice (USA).

Upcoming commissions within Australia include Inhabitant, a monumental 15-metre-long floating botanical sculpture which will welcome visitors at the entrance of the transformed Queen’s Wharf in Brisbane, and The Big Hose, an iconic outdoor play sculpture for QAGOMA which is being made in collaboration with artist Nell. His collaboration with Angela Tiatia, Murmurations, was launched at Museum of History NSW, Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney in 2023 and Two Worlds Colliding, a culturally informed design and artwork for Allianz Sydney Football Stadium was unveiled in 2022. Other significant national commissions include Healing Land, Remembering Country, NIRIN: the 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020). House of Discards, The National: New Australian Art, Carriageworks, Sydney (2019): I am Visible, The National Gallery of Australia (2019) and Yininmadyemi Thou didst Let Fall, Sydney Hyde Park War Memorial, City of Sydney (2015).

Albert is strongly represented in major national and international collections including Fondation Opal, Switzerland; National Gallery of Australia; National Gallery of Victoria; Australian War Memorial, Canberra; Parliament House New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of New South Wales; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Art Gallery of Western Australia; Art Gallery of South Australia; and Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art.

Image: Tony Albert. Photography by Daniel Boud.