LOWBROW
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LOWBROW •
Round 2 of the RMIT grad shows left a lot to be desired. For whatever reason, most works felt like I had seen them before, not in the sense that they felt warmly familiar, but that I was being shown the same exhibition time and again. I’ll also admit I had higher expectations for this post-graduate exhibition. I generally liked most of the work, but not much of it jumped out to me as favourites. Lots of it blended into each other. This could be due to grad show fatigue of sorts? Seeing so much graduating student work in such a short amount of time, it’s impossible to not compare it all to each other.
The thing that stuck out to me about the 2025 VCA grad showwas theswathes of space each artist had. Some had whole walls, others had whole rooms. It definitely seemed like each grad had probably about four times the amount of room that each of the RMIT students had in their recent grad show install. I heard through the grapevine (gossiping with other ex-students I ran into) that the painting department only had 20 graduating students this year, in comparison to 35 last year. Considering the starting cohort sits around 40 students, this is a huge drop out rate. This is a trend across all departments (although painting definitely has the biggest difference in numbers), which makes me wonder why exactly the drop out rate was so high for the class of 2025.
I went into the MADA Grad Show with no expectations. The campus is foreign to me, I don’t know any of the grads, and the people I know who go to Monash are in the music department. I was blown away. Given all the artists are BFAs or Honours, and my somewhat chaotic experience of the RMIT show, I expected a similar experience- in fact I skipped out on opening night in the hopes of avoiding chaos. I regret that, and will not be making the same mistake again. The show feels almost airy. Each artist has space to breathe, the building is gorgeous, with ample light and wooden floors. With limited exceptions, each artist felt like they had taken full advantage of their time at art school, producing works that felt like the full culmination of an undergrad.
The opening night of the RMIT grad show was sticky, heaving, and a good reminder that my clubbing days are behind me. Bec and I trekked to Swanston street twice to view it, once in all its opening night chaos, and then the next morning for a more relaxed, albeit agenda driven visit.
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In lieu of a review this week, I’m looking back at some of the art that stuck with me this year. I won’t lie to you and say these are all strictly things covered for Lowbrow or Lowbrow-esque (the AGNSW was my first gallery of the year), but they are my picks, and I am inherently lowbrow. Please enjoy my top 11 picks from 2025 in chronological order (of course I couldn’t whittle it down to just 10).
January 3: Just like drops in time, nothing by Ernesto Neto at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The installation of this 2002 work overtook my senses. For the first time in my life, I smelled an artwork before seeing it. The stockings, filled with spices poured onto the floor, overtaking the space with their smell and colour. Having just been in San Francisco at the SFMoMA days before, I was immediately reminded of Ruth Asawa’s sculptures in the shape and feel of Neto’s installation.