LOWBROW
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LOWBROW •
Hillvale’s Photo Trophy is one of the great equalizing opportunities for artists, in this case photographers, that exist in Melbourne. Bec covered it last year, and in our good tradition of swapping coverage on prizes, I’ve taken it on for its 4th edition. My favourite work, for reasons that also resulted in me dragging my whole family to Roswell, New Mexico, was Nora Merralls’ (0538) alien, standing out against a bubblegum carnival ride background. It’s the type of image I’m endlessly collecting vintage postcards in the hope of finding.
I’ve been a fan of Aretha Brown’s work for years, but was going to give this exhibition a miss due to the $19 ticket price at entry. The aversion to the ticket price comes from two directions; feeling guilty spending my money on anything at the moment, and not wanting to write about a ticketed show. You may have noticed that we’ve consistently avoided writing on Lowbrow about exhibitions which are ticketed (the only exception being art fairs, but they’re their own thing). We want the art we write about to have as few barriers to entry as possible and be as widely accessible as possible. We want to bring art to people not in the arts, and platform the people who don’t have other places to be seen. I’ve made the exception for Aretha Brown though, and I’m glad I did.
Welcome back to Bottom Shelf, Lowbrow’s very own art book club! After a month off, we’re back and in video! Though the written component of Bottom Shelf will always be central to what I want to do with it, the main reason I started Bottom Shelf (and conceptualised it years ago) was to connect with people about art over books. I’ve started off by inviting Molly Stephenson on to talk about her pick, Symbionts. I met Molly a few months ago when we were introduced by Bec at an opening and bonded over our shared love of annotating art books. I first came to know of Molly in 2024 when I bought one of her works from No Vacancy.
Three Instagram messages, two trams, and one elevator ride were the price to pay for admittance to Melbourne’s newest gallery. The brainchild of Oliver Wood, Amelia Yilan Wilson, and Valeriy Taouk and located in the photography department of VCA, the project takes over a storage nook. The show changes weekly (time permitting) and makes me truly excited for what the kids these days (talented undergrads) are doing. Ostensibly appointment only (open to anyone with a VCA swipe card) the space is genuinely fun, not at all the dank, ominous room its original use would suggest.
I’m writing this feeling a little bit dusty after our first Lowbrow happy hour last night; a lovely evening meeting irl with some of the people we’ve written about and connected with online. You’ll be seeing more in person events from us moving forward (anyone keen for crit 24th October??) The night before our happy hour however, we were invited to ACCA’s NEW26 opening. Which feels like a big deal - recognition of our work and what we’re doing, the niche we’re filling with our writing and how it ties to ACCA’s newest show.
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