Green Room: Moving on, good buys, all Akimbo
SA arts & culture news in brief: Another leadership change in SA’s arts sector, State Theatre makes the first announcement of its 2025 season, a stockroom art sale at GAGPROJECTS, happy hour meets the symphony, winning artworks celebrate beauty, and a valuable new youth arts resource.
New chapter for Guildhouse CEO
Guildhouse CEO Sarah Feijen is leaving the peak body for SA visual artists, designers and craftspeople to take up a new role as director of Artlab Australia.
Feijen has led Guildhouse for the past 18 months after taking over the reins from Emma Fey, who is now acting director of the Art Gallery of South Australia.
“Sarah has done an excellent job of leading our Guildhouse team through a time of significant change,” said Guildhouse chair Katie Sarah in announcing the news this week. “She will be missed, but leaves a legacy of a dedicated team that is passionate about the work they do for the Guildhouse community and well placed to continue that work into the future.”
Feijen will depart in mid-October to join Adelaide-based Artlab, which provides a range of services related to the conservation and management of cultural collections. She says she will remain a “proud and active champion” of Guildhouse, adding “I know it will continue to respond positively to the needs of the visual art, craft and design community”.
Guildhouse marketing and development manager Merinda Edwards will be acting CEO, with recruitment for the role to begin in the coming weeks.
All Akimbo
State Theatre Company SA has made the first show announcement for its 2025 season: a multiple-Tony-Award-winning Broadway musical described as “equal parts teen comedy, heist caper and unlikely love story”.
Kimberly Akimbo will play at Her Majesty’s Theatre in July 2025.
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Kimberly Akimbo was written by American David Lindsay-Abaire (whose nursing-home comedy Ripcord was presented by the company in 2020). The new co-production with Melbourne Theatre Company will star Australian performer Marina Prior in the title role alongside a cast including Casey Donovan, Christie Whelan Browne, Nathan O’Keefe and Alana Iannace.
The play is set in New Jersey in 1999, where almost-16-year-old Kimberly has moved to a new town with her family and faces more than the usual amount of teenage angst due to the fact that she has a rare genetic condition which means she ages four times faster than everyone else.
The Australian premiere, to be directed by State Theatre’s outgoing artistic director Mitchell Butel, will be presented at Her Majesty’s Theatre from July 8-19 and then head to Melbourne for a season.
“This is one of the most hilarious, surprising, unique and touching musicals ever written and I’m thrilled to be directing its Australian premiere with the perfect cast for my final show as artistic director,” says Butel.
State Theatre’s full season will be unveiled on October 31.
GAGPROJECTS’ goodbye sale
As InReview reported last month, Paul Greenaway’s GAGPROJECTS gallery hosted its final exhibitions over the SALA Festival – and that means its stockroom is “hemorrhaging with works” that now need to find new homes.
“The gallery has been hung with over 130 artworks and now people will have the opportunity to pick up an artwork at a significantly reduced price,” says Greenaway, who is reinventing himself as an art advisor through GAG Art Advisory.
The stockroom sale will take place from September 14-22 (11am-5pm daily) at GAGPROJECTS at 39 Rundle Street in Kent Town, with inquiries invited via the website.
Let’s get classical
“Happy hour meets the symphony” is how the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra is pitching one of several new shows added to its program for the remainder of the 2024 season.
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Dubbed Symphony Hour, the 60-minute concert will take place at the Town Hall on October 24 in the “post-work” timeslot of 6pm and feature a performance of Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique, which conveys the composer’s experience of unrequited love and was described by Leonard Bernstein as “the first psychedelic symphony in history”.
“For some, this concert could be their first encounter with the orchestra or symphonic music, for others it’s a chance to experience well-known music in a new light,” says ASO CEO Colin Cornish.
Also added to the ASO season are two special events: a performance with cabaret and opera singer Ali McGregor on December 13, and another the following night with singer-songwriter and guitarist Dan Sultan (details here).
Beauty is ageless
Artist Amaya Iturri’s portrait of an elderly woman clad in vibrant resort wear and basking in the sunlight has won the 2024 Kennedy Art Prize.
The Beauty of Now, by Amaya Iturri.
Iturri, who is based in Melbourne, says The Beauty of Now seeks to challenge stereotypes associated with ageism: “The painting emphasises the value of this life stage and encouraging embracing the present, honouring the past, and looking forward with optimism…”
The judges of the $25,000 prize said the artist had “juxtaposed realistic portraiture and abstract elements to create a thought-provoking and dynamic composition”, noting that the subject’s appearance “might reflect the reality behind a holiday in the tropics – sometimes they’re not as relaxing as they seem”.
The Kennedy Art Prize, celebrating its tenth year, is Adelaide-based and open to artists across Australia who are invited to respond to the theme of “beauty”. Running alongside it is the $5000 Nyland Prize, which this year was won by Victorian photographer Alan Moyle for his portrait of Australian cabaret artist Reuben Kaye.
The work of 79 finalists across both exhibitions is on display at the Royal South Australian Society of the Arts at the State Library until September 22.
Tutti Pom Pom
A free resource launched this month in South Australia aims to make art more accessible for young people who are learning disabled or neurodivergent.
Tutti Pom Pom – a collaboration between Tutti Arts and Carclew – covers topics such as understanding disability, understanding neurodiversity, the role of play, positive interactions with young people, communication, and how to put these ideas into action. It is described as “a guide to best practice for delivering inclusive arts programs for young people”.
The resource, available to download here, is aimed at youth arts workers and draws on workshops, materials written by experts across various sectors, learnings from Carclew’s drop-in art space Pom Pom, and Tutti’s extensive experience in creating arts programs for people who are learning disabled or neurodivergent.
Green Room is a regular column for InReview, providing quick news for people interested, or involved, in South Australian arts and culture. Get in touch by emailing us at [email protected]