Portfolio

AUS AUSTRALIEN

1988

EB57

Canvas cassette with 5 prints each by Richard Dunn, John Lethbridge, John Nixon, Mike Parr, Vivienne Shark-LeWitt, Peter Tyndall, Ken Unsworth and Jenny Watson
A total of 40 prints
Each 100 x 70 cm

Edition of 40 + 12 AP, all prints signed and numbered

9.000 Euro

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Cover page of the print portfolio Aus Australien with a black and white photo of the participating artists walking across a street. Below the names of the artists: John Lethbridge John Nixon Jenny Watson John Loane Richard Dunn Ken Unsworth Peter Tyndall Mike Parr Vivienne Shark LeWitt

Cover page 2 of the print portfolio Aus Australien. A small photo in the center: The group of 8 artists is photographically mounted in a landscape with piled rubble in front of a wire mesh fence.

During his first trip to Australia in 1978, René Block got to know and appreciate the artists Peter Tyndall and Ken Unsworth while visiting the Mildura Triennial. On his second trip, just one year later to set up the work Ausfegen by Joseph Beuys for the 4th Sydney Biennale, he met the artists again and became friends with Mike Parr and Richard Dunn. The friendship deepened on the occasion of the following Sydney Biennales, in which Block was able to actively participate as coordinator of the German contributions. In 1985, he invited the Australian artist friends, who were joined by John Lethbridge, to Berlin for the exhibition Fünf vom Fünften (Five of the Fifth) at the daadgalerie – a project that received no further attention in Berlin, but made waves in Australia and was shown in various museums. This led to the plan to give the Australian scene, still unknown outside Australia, a further forum in an edition of prints. In addition to Richard Dunn, John Lethbridge, Mike Parr, Peter Tyndall and Ken Unsworth, John Nixon alongside the artists Vivienne Shark-LeWitt and Jenny Watson were invited to participate in the portfolio.
All participants conceived a series of five sheets each, which were printed in the classical techniques of etching, aquatint, lithography, linocut, woodblock and screenprint by John Loane of Viridian Press in Melbourne – with the exception of Ken Unsworth’s contribution, who printed his lithographs himself during his stay in Berlin as part of a DAAD scholarship.
The portfolio is a unique document of Australian printmaking and represents a generation of artists who were instrumental in the major developments of Australian art in the 1970s and 80s. When it was published, the extensive portfolio caused a sensation in Australia and was integrated into several print collections there. Instead of a foreword, the portfolio contains two offset prints based on photographs by the publisher, portraying the two female artists and the six male artists.
Text: Katrin Seemann

Works in portfolio
AUS AUSTRALIEN