New modern art gallery to stage Australia's first Warhol survey 2006-07

Australia's first major survey exhibition of works by international art icon Andy Warhol will be part of the year-long program of exhibitions celebrating the opening of the Gallery of Modern Art in 2006-07.

Minister for the Arts, Anna Bligh, said the 'Warhol' exhibition represented a significant coup for Queensland.

'Developed by a Queensland Art Gallery curatorial team, in partnership with international Warhol experts, the exhibition will be the first in Australia to present the extraordinary scope of Andy Warhol's work', Ms Bligh said.

'Warhol has had an incredible influence on the visual arts in Australia, as elsewhere, for the past 50 years, yet audiences here have never seen his most important works in a single exhibition.'

'Warhol' presents the artist's work across all media ― painting, printmaking, drawing, film, video, installation, and performance.

'With an extraordinary career spanning from the 1950s until his death in 1987, he is a key generational figure in the Gallery of Modern Art's focus on modern and contemporary art,' she said.

Ms Bligh announced the exhibition during the visit to Brisbane of Vincent Fremont, one of the founding directors of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and a former film and video collaborator with the artist.

'"Warhol" represents a great opportunity to profile Andy's film, video, and cable television programs produced in the 1980s ― Andy Warhol's TV in 1982 and Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes made for MTV in 1986,' Mr Fremont said.

Gallery Director Doug Hall said, 'The new Gallery of Modern Art's facilities and its cinémathèque will uniquely position us to represent Warhol's incredibly diverse work'.

Mr Hall said the Gallery planned to recreate key Warhol events and installations, and to present a substantial program of Warhol films.

'His practice moved fluidly from performance to painting to film and audio, and had a profound impact on the development of visual art and culture in Australia, as elsewhere,' he said.

Mr Hall recently travelled to the United States to meet with the Director of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

Contact: Amelia Gundelach

Phone: +61 (0) 7 3840 7162