Melinda Rackham - #REMAKEMISTRESSES: Remaking Contemporary Australian Women Artists 2020
#remakemistresses responds directly to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent shutdown of the arts industry in Australia and Internationally. Museums around the world asked their now at home public to engage in the century’s old pastime of recreating famous paintings or tableau vivants for Instagram (#museumchallenge and #tussenkunstenquarantaine). This call to create shared cultural moments from art collections primarily composed of “old masters” is ripe for intervention as women artists are severely underrepresented in museums – a mere 25% at our National Gallery. Both parody and femmage, these remakes of contemporary Australian women artists or “modern mistresses” are shot on an iPad using only materials at hand, and posted (mostly without image manipulation) to Instagram and Facebook under the #remakemistresses hashtag. Here are the first 21, with more mistresses being remade throughout 2020.
Photography: Lizzie Graham | Alessandro Silano
Video: Henry Wolff
#remakemistresses is supported by the Copyright Agency
Video: Henry Wolff
#remakemistresses is supported by the Copyright Agency