SIM LÜTTIN

 

__

WHERE THE ART IS, 2021

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Co-founder & Curator

VENUE: COLLINGWOOD YARDS
LAUNCH: 2021

​

After a year-long hiatus, the Arts Project gallery is moving from its Northcote location, which continues as a studio, to a freshly remodelled space at Collingwood Yards, a new arts precinct in Melbourne’s inner north. The inaugural exhibition Where the Art Is ruminates on the year that was, while firmly looking forward to a new future, opened to visitors from Saturday, 20 March, until Saturday, 1 May. Where the Art Is showcases collections of thought-provoking new work by ten artists: nostalgic ceramic sculptures by Alan Constable and Lisa Reid, a video installation by Chris O’Brien, Covid-19 lockdown drawings and paintings by Cathy Staughton, Adrian Lazzaro, and Samantha Ashdown, text-based work by Boris Cipusev and Mark Smith, archway paintings by Warren Obrien, and iconic pastel drawings by Julian Martin.

​

__

ART ET AL., 2020

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Co-founder & Curator

VENUE: Virtual AU/UK/EU International collaboration

LAUNCH: 2021

​

Art et al. x 2021 is an AU/UK/EU initiative developed by Arts Project Australia and their curator Sim Luttin in partnership with two key UK stakeholders: Jennifer Gilbert (Jennifer Lauren Gallery) and Lisa Slominski (Slominski Projects). Launching in 2021, an innovative digital curatorial platform Art et al., will be created to place Australian, UK and Europe-based artists with disabilities and their studios at the forefront of contemporary art. This project is supported by a start-up grant from the Australia Council for the Arts and Aesop Foundation and seed funding and support from founding partners. 

​

__

MAPPING OUR OWN FUTURE, 2020

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Curator & Producer

VENUE: Arts Project Australia Online

PRESENTED: 50+ artists

​

When COVID-19 hit in 2020, Arts Project's exhibition program for the year was postponed until 2021. Not wanting to lose momentum and the desire to continue to promote our artists and their work prompted the swift development of a virtual exhibition series titled Mapping our own future. The concept led to a weekly series of solo and group virtual exhibitions curated from Arts Project's stockroom and presented online. An extension of the gallery into a virtual space, the series offers a place to connect with artists while most people are at home.

​

__
OUR LIFE, OUR WORLD, 2019

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Curator

VENUE: Arts Project Australia

REPRESENTED: 18 artists
 

As part of CLIMARTE’s ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2019 festival, Our Life, Our World explored environmental and social issues that we currently face in our local and global environments. The multidisciplinary group exhibition featured Arts Project studio artists, threading expressive painting (such as the tragic foreknowledge of an impending tsunami soon to swamp an entire town), to statements drifting between ironic and hopeful (think ‘Global warming is finally over forever and ever, yes everywhere’ by Chris Mason), as well as impending speculation about the ‘nuclear’ family. The exhibition considered the effect of human development in relation to accelerating climate change.

 

Featured artists included Peter Ben, Michael Camakaris, Samraing Chea, Boris Cipusev, Alan Constable, Cameron Gresswell, Matthew Gove, Paul Hodges, Ruth Howard, Miles Howard-Wilks, Chris Mason, Eden Menta, Chris O’Brien, Steven Perrette, Gavin Porter, Cathy Staughton, Georgia Szmerling and Amani Tia. Our Life, Our World presents a collection of work that reflects common concerns about our changing planet,” said curator Sim Luttin. “Through the telling lens of art, the Arts Project artists directly, indirectly and cynically draw viewers attention to what we have, what we’ve lost, as well as what we stand to lose if we don’t look after our world – it’s our life after all.” The exhibition was opened by Bronwyn Johnson, Executive Director, CLIMARTE.

 

__
POP!, 2018

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Curator

VENUE: Arts Project Australia, AUS

REPRESENTED: 16 artists

​

Popular culture motifs are embraced and celebrated by artists worldwide. Artists have a long history of looking to popular culture for inspiration as they draw on attitudes, ideas, images, and other phenomena presented in mainstream mass media. From Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein to Claus Oldenburg and Jean Dubuffet—popular culture themes, aesthetics and sensibilities inform what artists create and subsequently shape how we reflect on our culture, mirroring our values and culture back to us. Similarly, pop culture themes regularly infuse the work of Arts Project artists, who explore broad-ranging subject matter and often use mass culture—advertising, music, internet images, Hollywood, and celebrity figures—to inform their work.

 

POP! is a group exhibition that provides a snapshot of the bold, colourful and astute work of Arts Project artists who celebrate popular culture in myriad ways. Whether it’s text or image-based, POP! focuses on artists whose artwork embodies a pop aesthetic and uses aspects of popular culture to inform their work. From Patrick Francis’ pop icons like Nicki Minaj and Simon Paredes's interpretations of soft drink cans and primas, Arts Project artists reflect what they observe daily and playfully pay homage to their favourite artists and popular culture images they see presented through digital media.

 

__
MELBOURNE ART FAIR STAND, 2018

ROLE: Curator, Exhibition Design and Project Manager

ARTISTS: Alan Constable, Julian Martin, Samraing Chea and Fulli Andrinopoulos

MANAGED: 3 staff and volunteers 

NATURE OF EVENT: Stand at a 4-day international art fair

 

Located on the grounds of ACCA, the Arts Project Australia Art Fair stand featured the work of 4 key artists from Arts Project Australia in individualised installations. We selected over 100 artworks that were installed for the four-day Art Fair event. Many artists, collectors, galleries and general public visited our unique and highly anticipated stand.

 

__
SPRING 1883, 2017

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Co-curator, Exhibition Design + Project Manager

VENUE: The Establishment Hotel, Sydney, AUS

REPRESENTED: 22 artists

MANAGED: 5 staff and volunteers

 

Sydney Arts Project Australia partnered with DUTTON Gallery from New York. The Establishment Hotel, Located at Twenty two artists from Arts Project was featured in curated installations throughout the Penthouse suite. Over 200 artworks were selected that rotated throughout the space during the four-day event. Many artists, collectors, curators, galleries and general public visited our unique and highly anticipated art space.

 

__
LEO CUSSEN: GOLDEN YEARS, 2017

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Curator, Publication Editor + Project Manager

VENUE: Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, AUS

MANAGED: 8 staff and volunteers

 

By any measure, Leo Cussen was a talented Melbourne-born visual artist who worked tirelessly at his practice for nearly 20 years. Over that time, he almost exclusively created works in pastels on paper and developed a distinctive style as he amassed a collection of drawings that revealed his love of film and popular culture. His work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and is held in numerous public and private collections. Leo Cussen: Golden Years explored three key themes--Hollywood, Text and Popular Culture, and was complimented by a homage of portraits of Leo drawn and painted by his fellow studio artists, along with a screening of a video about his work and, specifically, his 2005 exhibition at Australian Galleries. Leo Cussen: Golden Years was supported by a full-colour Leonard Joel Series catalogue featuring Kirsty Grant's essay.

 

__
DISPARATE LANDS, 2017

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Co-curator, Project Manager

VENUE: Assembly Point, The Guild, Melbourne, AUS

MANAGED: 5 artists

 

As part of CLIMARTE’s ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2017 Festival, Arts Project Australia presented Disparate Lands. At Creative Space’s The Guild, Disparate Lands considers various aspects and responses surrounding climate change. Featuring the work of Arts Project Australia artists, including Michael Camakaris, Paul Hodges, Miles Howard-Wilks, Chris Mason and Cathy Staughton, the exhibition juxtaposed idyllic landscapes with works of unsettling and contaminated lands. Displaying large-scale works on canvas, the paintings depicted the promise of hope and the stark reality of the environmental challenges facing our global community today. Presented by Arts Project Australia in partnership with CLIMARTE. Curated by Sim Luttin and James McDonald. The exhibition ran27 April until 1 July 2017. CLIMARTE is an arts organisation dedicated to harnessing the creative power of the arts to inform, engage and inspire action on climate change.

 

__
TERRY WILLIAMS: RHYTHMS OF THE HANDMADE, 2016

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Co-curator, Publication Editor + Project Manager

VENUE: Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, AUS

MANAGED: 8 staff and volunteers

 

Terry Williams: Rhythms of the Handmade was the first survey exhibition of Williams’ work over a twenty-seven-year career that spanned drawing, painting, printmaking, ceramics and sculpture. Although Williams is known most for his lively soft sculptures, this exhibition presented diverse work. It began with collections of artist books, paintings, drawings and animations of real and imagined figurative subjects. We then travelled through his miniature domestic and utilitarian ceramic objects and ‘pillow-like’ sculptures and finished with his most-recent large-scale soft sculptures, including people, insects, domestic appliances and alien spaceships. This exhibition celebrated Williams’ tactile and process-driven approach to making handcrafted art from ordinary materials. Terry Williams: Rhythms of the Handmade was supported by a full-colour Leonard Joel Series catalogue featuring Ricky Swallow's essay.

 

__
LANDMARKS, 2016

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Co-curator

VENUE: Counihan Gallery in Brunswick, AUS

REPRESENTED: 8 artists

 

Presented in partnership with Arts Project Australia, Landmarks showcased the work of a group of artists that together revealed the ways in which we simultaneously navigate and inscribe our urban environment simply by living in it. A landscape covered with structures, signs and symbols, emblazoned billboards and competing texts, our habitat is characterised by the traces of human presence and behaviour. In Landmarks the constructed environment was associated with memory and meaning as human markers accumulate, overlap and disintegrate. It is where shared spaces are transformed into personal maps of association and experience, where we might describe the world as one which can be read. Landmarks featured artwork by artists Peter Atkins, Jessica Ebert, Kirrily Hammond, Janelle Low, Chris O'Brien and Steven Perrette. They were opened by Samantha Ratnam, Mayor of Moreland, with special remarks from Kelly Gellatly, Director Ian Potter Museum of Art. Curated by Victor Griss and Sim Luttin.

 

__
COLLINS PLACE POP-UP GALLERY, 2016

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Curator, Exhibition Design + Project Manager

VENUE: Collins Place, Melbourne, AUS

REPRESENTED: 34 artists

MANAGED: 10 staff and volunteers

 

Located at Collins Place Melbourne, the Arts Project Collins Place Pop-up Gallery (supported by NKN Gallery) featured the work of 34 emerging, mid-career. It established artists from Arts Project Australia in individualised and thematic installations throughout the commercially presented gallery space. We selected over 400 artworks, which we rotated throughout the space during the month-long installation. Many artists, collectors, galleries and the general public visited our unique and highly anticipated CBD gallery space. The pop-up coincided with FLAIR Art Fair (www.flairmelbourne.com), for which Arts Project Australia was a partner venue and Sim designed and managed the FLAIR website and social media accounts.

 

__
WILD LANDS, 2016

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Co-curator + Project Manager

VENUE: Linden New Art, AUS

REPRESENTED: 6 artists

 

Wild Lands was a group exhibition of work on paper and ceramics featuring wild and exotic animals worldwide. The dynamic exhibition features recent work by emerging and mid-career artists that work in the Arts Project studio. Participating artists include Dionne Canzano, Michael Camakaris, Matthew Gove, Bronwyn Hack, Ruth Howard and Chris Mason. Curated by Sim Luttin and Melissa Petty.

 

__
SIGNATURE STYLE, 2016

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Curator

VENUE: Arts Project Australia, AUS

REPRESENTED: 13 artists

 

Signature Style was a group exhibition that presented large-scale paintings by artists at Arts Project Australia whose work readily identified them as the creator. Thirteen artists were asked to paint a single artwork or a diptych on large, primed door panels created specifically for this exhibition. In response, artists explored typical motifs that they investigate in their work, resulting in a collection of new and seemingly disparate artworks that reveal distant landscapes, portraits of unknown/mythical/ghoulish/popular culture figures, as well as abstract paintings inspired by the imagination and everyday influences.

 

__
IT'S ALWAYS DARKEST JUST BEFORE DAWN, 2015

SOLO EXHIBITION

ROLE: Artist & Curator

VENUE: Gray Street Workshop, SA & The Snug Space, VIC

 

IT’S ALWAYS DARKEST JUST BEFORE DAWN was a solo exhibition based on the third instalment of piece-a-day projects, which Sim began in 2008. This project was a contemporary multi-disciplinary project and exhibition that explored the significance of handmade objects at a time when people are engrossed in digital culture and mass-produced products. IT’S ALWAYS DARKEST JUST BEFORE DAWN pursued the creation of authentic representations, starting with digital images, photos and video documentation of her surroundings, which informed the creation of new contemporary art jewellery. 

 

__
LISA REID: THE DEVIL'S IN THE DETAIL, 2015

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Curator, Publication Editor + Project Manager

VENUE: Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, AUS

MANAGED: 10 staff and volunteers

 

Lisa Reid’s dedicated approach to her practice and genuine curiosity for subjects from all walks of life make her a consummate artist. Her intention is clear, and her process and methods are bold. Over the past fifteen years, Reid has honed a distinctive style and has developed a keen eye for detail, which allowed her to create slightly abstracted, playful artworks that are free from the restrictions of purely representational forms. Lisa Reid: The Devil’s in the Detail was supported by a full-colour Leonard Joel Series catalogue and featured an essay by writer Dylan Rainforth.

 

__

PROVOCATIONS: INIMITABLE VOICES, THE BODY & PROGRESSIVE THINKING, 2015

GRAY STREET WORKSHOP

ROLE: Curator & Film Programmer

VENUE: Gray Street Workshop, SA

 

A film program curated as part of Gray Street Workshop's 30th Anniversary in 2015. The program was aimed at provoking questions about art and craft practice, the body, its boundaries and innovative ways of thinking. Two programs were conceptualised and designed with particular points of difference in mind. PROGRAM 1: INIMITABLE VOICES presented a selection of short films and a feature film that explored artists' and craftspeople's diverse voices, practices and experiences on various paths of creative innovation. PROGRAM 2: THE BODY & PROGRESSIVE THINKING presented a selection of short films that investigated the body as the subject for observation, reinterpretation and political/social/ethical/technological commentary and looked particularly at the body as a performative site. Follow this link to view the full program.

 

__
ALTERED VISTAS, 2015

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Co-curator with Brad Rusbridge + Project Manager

VENUE: Arts Project Australia, AUS

REPRESENTED: 8 artists

 

Altered Vistas was a group exhibition by eight artists who created artworks representing various landscapes. These collections, depicting various natural and built environments, provoked the viewer to consider the impact of environmental interventions in an age of urban sprawl, consumption and global climate change.

 

__
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE, 2015

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Curator & Project Manager

VENUE: Arts Project Australia, AUS

REPRESENTED: 10 artists

 

Down The Rabbit Hole was a group exhibition that featured collections of work by eleven artists who created series' of work that took the viewer on an adventure into the unknown. The origin of the title is from the rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, in which Alice falls, experiencing many strange creatures and adventures in a place called 'Wonderland'. In one interpretation, “down the rabbit hole” refers to the idea that a person sets off on a particular path, along which they encounter various events or circumstances that prompt different experiences, leading them to Wonderland. In other words, the person ends somewhere unexpected, activating serendipitous discoveries and revelations. Another interpretation refers to a slang phrase used to describe a psychedelic experience. In the context of this exhibition, Down The Rabbit Hole is a metaphor for the places particular artists come to explore and revealed in their work, places that are undeniably vibrant, idiosyncratic and, in some cases, fanciful. With this framework in mind, Down The Rabbit Hole presented compilations of work that aimed to transport the viewer into reinterpreted and/or imagined worlds. These worlds were illuminating and, at times, presented abstract interpretations of either lived, fictional or invented places. 

 

__
MELBOURNE ART FAIR, 2014

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Co-curator, Exhibition Design and Project Manager

VENUE: Exhibition Building, Melbourne, AUS

REPRESENTED: Over 40 artists

MANAGED: 10 staff and volunteers

 

Located at the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, the Arts Project Australia Art Fair stand featured the work of 12 key artists from Arts Project Australia in individualised installations. It showcased another 25+ artists in a beautiful custom-designed installation. We have selected over 400 artworks that will rotate throughout the space during the four-day Art Fair event. Many artists, collectors, galleries and the general public will visit our unique and highly anticipated stand.

 

__
6° OF SEPARATION, 2014

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Curator and Project Manager

VENUE: Arts Project Australia, AUS

MANAGED: 5 staff and volunteers

 

explored how far we can take Arts Project Australia’s connections to popular culture and create an exhibition of portraits that can be linked back to our community of artists and staff. The resulting portraits revealed the uniqueness of the sitter and more importantly, highlighted the commonalities we all share. Those invited to sit were 6° OF SEPARATION  focused on connecting with personalities in popular culture, who are of interest to our studio artists. The main aim of the project was to bring a range of new people into the studio context, to literally connect our artists to the person, rather than having them paint or represent people sourced from publications. 6° OF SEPARATIONasked asked to invite another popular personality or prominent figure they know to sit for us, and the invitations continued until that particular thread stopped. 

 

__
THESE MOMENTS EXISTED 2012 - 2013

SOLO EXHIBITION

ROLE: Artist & Curator

VENUE: Grunwald Gallery of Art, Indiana University, USA

 

In October 2013, Sim created a new body of work for a solo exhibition at the Grunwald Gallery of Art at Indiana University in the USA. The collection of photographs and wooden jewellery pieces questions the relevance of one's everyday experience and why we choose to document these moments and hand-make these small objects. What importance does capturing these moments have? What does it say about my place in contemporary society and culture? Does the world really need to know what I ate/did/saw/made today?

 

MELBOURNE ART FAIR, 2012

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Curator, Exhibition Design and Project Manager

VENUE: Exhibition Building, Melbourne, AUS

REPRESENTED: Over 40 artists

MANAGED: 10 staff and volunteers

 

Located at the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, the Arts Project Australia Art Fair stand featured the work of 12 key artists from Arts Project Australia in individualised installations. It showcased another 25+ artists in a beautiful salon hang installation. We selected over 400 artworks that rotated throughout the space during the four-day Art Fair event. Many artists, collectors, galleries and general public visited our unique and highly anticipated stand.

__
ALAN CONSTABLE: VIEWFINDER, 2011

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Assistant Curator, Co-editor + Project Manager

VENUE: Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne, AUS

MANAGED: 10 staff and volunteers

 

, suggests the artist’s process and methodology as well as his work's composition and subject matter. In Constable’s two-dimensional works this can be traced from very early self-portraits (1992), through to carefully observed depictions of birds and animals, the series based on silhouettes framed in industrial or stormy landscapes, a fascination with light and energy and, more recently with colourful interpretations of political and cultural figures, all of which are sourced from photographic images carefully and sometimes painstakingly selected by the artist. His three-dimensional works, most notably the cameras, also sit well within this theme; Of course, the fact the Alan Constable is legally blind and has ViewfinderThe title of the Alan Constable survey exhibition, very limited vision, is also obliquely referenced. Showcasing more than 60 works selected from a body spanning more than 20 years, Viewfinder offers new and rich insights into the unique art of Alan Constable." Dr Cheryl Daye, Curator, 2011

 

__
HUMAN NATURE, 2009

ARTS PROJECT AUSTRALIA

ROLE: Co-Curator + Project Manager

VENUE: Warrnambool Art Gallery, AUS

 

“It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity - they must have action, and they will make it if they cannot find it.” Charlotte Bronte, from Jane Eyre. Human Nature was an exhibition of figurative and abstract artwork by fourteen artists from Arts Project Australia, Melbourne, that explored particular characteristics of what it is to be human; our unique ways of thinking, feeling, acting and creating were celebrated and explored in this lively collection of work. Curated by Sim Luttin and Penelope Hunt.

 

__
THE TEMPORARY NATURE OF THINGS, 2008 - 2009

 

SOLO EXHIBITION

ROLE: Artist & curator

EXHIBITION: Masters solo exhibition.

VENUES: Grunwald Gallery of Art, Indiana, USA; Pieces of Eight, Melbourne, AUS; and Metalab Gallery, Sydney, AUS

 

considered notions of beauty, nostalgia, impermanence, and passing time. Motivated by the deterioration of memory and how it is represented nostalgically through miniature objects, the exploration comprised an installation of The Temporary Nature of Things jewellery and objects, made once a day over the course of one year. The collection began on 27 March 2007 and ended 26 March 2008, each piece embodies a reflection on the nature of that day; be it a response to literal organic forms found in the environment or the introspective contemplation of aspects of the human condition

 

__

FIELD OF VISION: INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY JEWELLERY EXHIBITION, 2007

INDIANA UNIVERSITY FINE ARTS METALSMITHING DEPARTMENT

ROLE: Co-curator with Prof. Randy Long & Dr Nicole Jacquard

EXHIBITION: International artists
VENUE: SoFA Gallery, Indiana, USA

 

was a significant international exhibition of contemporary Field of Vision jewellery and hollowware. The exhibition featured works by North American and international artists Robert Baines, Jamie Bennett, Julie Blyfield, Helen Britton, Sharon Church, Marilyn da Silva, Arline Fisch, Mirjam Hiller, Bruce Metcalf, Tom Muir, Joan Parcher, Jacqueline Ryan, Helen Shirk, Vera Siemund, Kiff Slemmons, Christina Smith, Billie Jean Theide. The exhibition included a fundraising auction, symposium and workshop.