Friday Talk with artist Jude Adams

Friday 5 March, 1pm-2pm

'Between January 1968 and May 1969 – the nature of art changed. Artists came as close as they could to accomplishing a clean, total break with art of the past' (Christopher Heathcote, The Quiet Revolution.)

In rejecting traditional norms, many young artists of the late 60s and the 1970s turned to alternative media and subject matter that focused on social and cultural change. Within this context, silkscreen, printing and collage techniques were favoured as the most appropriate media for communicating political statements and issues. Collage, often identified with modernism's revolutionary art movements has also been allied with feminist art – so much so, that Lucy Lippard has claimed it as a predominant feminist aesthetic.

Keeping the above in mind Jude Adams will discuss selected works from Paper Cut in relationship to the politics of the time, the themes and ideas the artists were exploring and, where possible, subsequent commentary from the artists themselves.

About Jude Adams

Jude Adams has a decades-spanning career in the visual arts covering a range of practices and disciplines. The thread linking her work, whether visual, text-based or performative, is a commitment to feminist strategies and the significance of women's material practice.

In the 1970s, Adams became an active member of the Women's Art Movement (Sydney 1974-76) (Adelaide 1978-85) and coordinated the Lovely Motherhood Show (1981), a collective-based exhibition that, like other 'memory cycle' projects, sought to give voice to women's experience.

More recently, Adams has participated in the resurgence of women-only collectives, such as Feminist Renewal Art Network (FRAN) (2015) and co-coordination of FRANFEST (2017), a month-long, multi-venue event that included exhibitions, talks and symposia..

Paper Cut

Paper Cut is an exhibition of works on paper from UWA's Cruthers Collection of Women's Art. The 'cut' in the exhibition's title refers to both the technique and to the incisive cut of much of the subject-matter. It is a mass showing that reveals the particular strengths of the collection and the remarkable breadth of content, featuring many works on public display for the first time. 

A Paper Cut residency program complements the collection display, showcasing print media and paper forms currently being produced by four local groups in dialogue with the themes, materials, strategies and processes of the exhibition.

Content advisory:
Paper Cut contains images of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Some works in the exhibition refer to adult themes.

Please note: due to Covid-19 safety precautions, registration is essential for this event and space is limited.

Image: Jude Adams, [It couldn't happen here] (detail), c 1977, collage on brown card, 57.8 x 46.2 cm, Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, The University of Western Australia. (c) and courtesy of the artist..