The Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) has been hosting one of those landmark exhibitions that shifts how you see. Monet to Matisse: Defying Tradition runs until the 8th of November. If you are in Adelaide and haven’t seen it yet, you should go now. Only 4 weeks left!
I was invited to the media preview back in July, a day before it opened to the public. The exhibition had already received its expected wave of buzz, so I did what I often do when a major event launches: I posted an update on Instagram and delayed the blog feature. Most press happens in a rush around the preview dates. I wanted to wait. Now, with just a few weeks left, I’m revisiting the images I made and framing my experience. The urgency to see it before it is gone often creates a different, more focused state of attention than when something has months to run.
First Impressions and the Photographer’s Eye
Walking into the gallery during the preview, my immediate impression was one of meticulous control. The exhibition design is beautiful. Major exhibitions of this nature often risk feeling cramped or chaotic. Here, however, the curator, Tansy Curtin, has crafted an open and deliberate spatial flow. The walls are not standard gallery white; they use specific, muted tones that make the paintings’ colors pulse. The lighting, feels considered, tailored to the paintings’ surfaces rather than being a blanket wash.
As a photographer and an artist, I always observe how a painting holds its place on a wall. In this space, you can stand back and see a diagonal dialogue between works, or you can step close to analyze the complex layered texture of paint. The gallery experience feels quiet and composed, which is a rare feat for a blockbuster show of this scale.
Claude Monet’s work has been part of my own art journey at several points, so naturally, Water Lilies was one of the works I was looking forward to seeing. I have seen paintings from the Water Lilies series before, including at MoMA in San Francisco. The Monet at AGSA is another painting from the series, Water Lilies, from around 1922. It is a large painting, a little over two metres wide, and it was one of those works where I found myself watching the people looking at it as much as I was looking at the painting itself.
The painting has been installed with a curved, almost hemispherical wall behind it and a bench in front. People were sitting there, taking photographs and spending time with the work. There was something lovely about watching people absorb a painting in person. Not rushing past it, not just looking at it on a screen, but sitting in front of it for a while.
That is probably what I came away from the exhibition wanting to do more of myself. I wanted to come back and spend longer looking.
There are 57 works from the Toledo Museum of Art in this exhibition, being shown in Australia for the first time, alongside selected works from AGSA’s collection. The exhibition moves through a period in which artists challenged the established ways of making and looking at art, moving from Impressionism through Cubism and Surrealism towards Abstract Expressionism.
You can see that progression as you move through the galleries. The earlier works feel rooted in recognisable subjects and the world around them, while the later works become increasingly abstract, geometric and removed from straightforward representation. For someone who makes abstract paintings, I found that progression particularly interesting.
We tend to have an idea of older paintings as being somewhat restrained in their palettes, while bright colour, geometric shapes and highly saturated abstraction can feel like something belonging to contemporary art. There are works here that completely disrupt that assumption. Some of the Impressionist paintings are extraordinarily vibrant. Looking at them in person, the colour can feel surprisingly immediate and alive.
Monet to Matisse: Defying Tradition is showing at the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), Adelaide, until November 8th. I strongly recommend booking timed-entry tickets in advance to ensure the best viewing experience, especially as closing week approaches.
All images have been photographed on the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL.
View more art-related photo-stories on this blog.
View previous features on AGSA.
Email Naina on [email protected] or Text/Whatsapp +61429048917 to discuss features for your art spaces and exhibitions.
