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Memo Review, Cnr Southbank Boulevard and Dodds Street, Southbank (2026)

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Cnr Southbank Boulevard And Dodds Street

11/09/2026

This week, Amy Stuart heads to Christopher LG Hill's new gallery Endless Lonely Planet to review the group exhibition "no borders, no dangerous goods, no matches, no live organisms and animals, no flammable liquids or solids, no aerosols, explosives or corrosive," closing today, Saturday 12 September, 2026.

"Hill frames the group exhibition as a fundamental part of his activities as an artist, citing the emergence of this practice from his 2006 exhibition Omnipresents, held at Gertrude Contemporary, where he built infrastructure to both physically and relationally support artworks made by dozens of his contemporaries. The list of artists was appended by the phrase 'and many, many more…,' a now-characteristic strategy that meant the possibility of more participants remains open even after the exhibition goes up."

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1/, 2/, 6/ Installation view of "no borders, no dangerous goods, no matches, no live organisms and animals, no flammable liquids or solids, no aerosols, explosives or corrosive" at Endless Lonely Planet, 2026. Photo: Christopher LG Hill.

3/ Kate Newby in "no borders, no dangerous goods, no matches, no live organisms and animals, no flammable liquids or solids, no aerosols, explosives or corrosive" at Endless Lonely Planet, 2026. Photo: Christopher LG Hill.

4/ Installation view of Dissecting Table at TCB Art Inc., 2025. Photo: Amy Stuart.

5/ Gabriella D’Costa in "no borders, no dangerous goods, no matches, no live organisms and animals, no flammable liquids or solids, no aerosols, explosives or corrosive" at Endless Lonely Planet, 2026. Photo: Christopher LG Hill.

7/ Virginia Overell in no borders, no dangerous goods, no matches, no live organisms and animals, no flammable liquids or solids, no aerosols, explosives or corrosive at Endless Lonely Planet, 2026. Photo: Christopher LG Hill.

04/09/2026

This week Ella Howells heads to Geelong to review Alchemy: Material Transformations, currently on at Geelong Gallery.

"Alchemy: Material Transformations feels timely because it traces the decorative tendencies of the Victorians all the way through to now, and the circumstances of the 2020s are hauntologically reminiscent of that era’s impulse to control one’s immediate surroundings through cleanliness, exoticised objects and technology when the infection-rife unpredictabilities of the outside world threaten to close in."

1/ John Meade, Silvia, 2014, auto enamel paint on cast aluminium, horsehair, linen thread, bronze, nylon and rubber.

2/ Inge King, Icon, 1964, bronzed steel.

3/ Clive Stephen, Pelican, 1940, stone with wooden base.

4/ Installation view of Nick Mount, Scent bottle, 2006, blown glass with zanfirico decoration.

5/ Bohemian glass beaker with maritime scene, glass with wheel engraving, 17th century.

6/ Lenton Parr, Foyer sculpture maquette, 1969, painted steel.

All photographs: Andrew Curtis, courtesy of Geelong Gallery.

02/09/2026

This month for Memo Architecture, Madeline Lo-Booth reviews the Veneto Club:

"These bas-reliefs are Le Corbusier-esque, offering the closest glimpse of Chandigarh or Marseille one can find in the extents of Manningham council. "

1/ Extensive scaffolding and formwork used to construct the concrete of the Veneto Club. Photograph courtesy of the Veneto Club.

2/ Geometric relief patterns and filleted concrete as part of Smrekar’s 1972–1973 design with more recent additions in the foreground. Photograph by the author.

3/ A filleted corner of the concrete can be seen from the pokies area on the ground floor. Photograph by the author.

4/ Marble feature wall. In the mirror’s reflection, you can see a bronze bust of Pope Pius X. Photograph by the author.

28/08/2026

This week, June Miskell reviews 'Tiyan Baker: Mouth Mnemonica' at Newcastle Art Gallery, asking "What might it mean to shift the locus of mnemonics from the brain to the messy aperture of the mouth?"

1. Detail of Tiyan Baker, 'To tangle together like coursing water (mnemonic device)', 2026, resin cast teeth, lyocell twill, nylon thread, glass beads, vinyl stickers. Tiyan Baker: Mouth Mnemonica, 2026, Newcastle Art Gallery. Photo: Edwina Richards.
2. Installation view of Tiyan Baker, 'Dental camera study with Toba', 2026, single channel video, 1:43 minutes. Tiyan Baker: Mouth Mnemonica, 2026, Newcastle Art Gallery. Photo: Edwina Richards.
3. Installation view of Tiyan Baker, nyatu’ maanǔn mungut bigabu, 2021, digital autostereogram prints on cotton rag paper. Tiyan Baker: Mouth Mnemonica, 2026, Newcastle Art Gallery. Photo: Edwina Richards.
4. Installation view of Tiyan Baker, My mother’s tongue, 2022, foam, epoxy resin, fibreglass mat, sand, water-based epoxy, paint, mica pigment, green food dye, titanium dioxide, water, miniature water pump, duckweed, digital video. Tiyan Baker: Mouth Mnemonica, 2026, Newcastle Art Gallery. Photo: Edwina Richards.
5. Installation view of To tangle together like coursing water, 2026, three channel video, 20:51 minutes, Newcastle Art Gallery. Photo: Edwina Richards.

21/08/2026

This week, Audrey Schmidt reviews “Ferrite Core Dreams” by Ken Reinhard at Conners Conners and considers circuitry beyond representation, AI factories, and “prompt engineers” among polkadots of mould and oxidisation.

“The structure of memory has given way to the structure of dreams.”

1/ Ken Reinhard, ARTCOMP (Artificial Computer) Mk 1, 1968, kinetic construction, 186 x 188 x 46 cm + lightbox 62 x 64.5 x 32 cm, Conners Conners Gallery. Photo: Ella Skuza.

2/ Ken Reinhard, 707B, 1972, mixed media with assemblage elements, 79 x 79 cm, Conners Conners Gallery. Photo: Ella Skuza.

3/ Installation view of Ferrite Core Dreams at Conners Conners, 2026. Photo: Ella Skuza.

4/ Detail of Ken Reinhard, ARTCOMP (Artificial Computer) Mk 1, 1968, kinetic construction, 186 x 188 x 46 cm + lightbox 62 x 64.5 x 32 cm, Conners Conners Gallery. Photo: Audrey Schmidt.

14/08/2026

This week, Peter McNeil reviews CARTIER — a survey of the French jewellery house since the early twentieth century — currently on at the National Gallery of Victoria | NGV International.

"In 2009, Guy Trebay published a story in The New York Times, ‘When Cartier was just for the likes of Liz’, Liz being of course Elizabeth Taylor, and the reference being to the jeweller Cartier resetting the famous sixteenth-century pearl, La Peregrina..." "Trebay charts the shifts from a metropolitan-based luxury purveyor such as Cartier to global retailer selling more modest items: pens, leather-goods, key rings, and wedding bands. But the “high jewellery” for which they are justly famous is now available for all to see, via a massive exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria."

1, 2, 3/ Installation view of CARTIER, NGV International, Melbourne. Photo: Felix Forest.

4/ Installation view of CARTIER, NGV International, Melbourne. Photo: Sean Fennessy.

07/08/2026

This week, Hugh Magnus visits Inside the Mirage at TarraWarra Museum of Art, a group exhibition that centres on the work of Ian Fairweather (1891–1974) and John Young Zerunge (b. 1956):

"Transcultural collaboration sometimes works well. Other times, it fails extraordinarily."
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1/ Johnny Bulunbulun, Laurie Maarbuduc and Zhou Xiaoping, Dragon, 2010-2011, Natural pigments on Eucalypt bark, 33 x 87 cm.

2/ Ian Fairweather, Composition I, 1962, synthetic polymer paint and gouache on cardboard on hardboard, 67.6 x 83.5cm. Photo: Craate Creative for TarraWarra Museum of Art.

3/ John Young Zerunge, Fairweather Transformations The Chinese Room, 2022, oil on linen, 80.0 x 120.0 cm. Photo: Craate Creative for TarraWarra Museum of Art.

4/ John Young Zerunge, Transculture, Colourful Beast, 2003, digital print and oil on linen, 3 panels, 300 x 445.5 cm overall. Photo: Craate Creative for TarraWarra Museum of Art.

5/ Installation view of William Yang, My Uncle’s Murder series, 2003. Photo: Craate Creative for TarraWarra Museum of Art.

6/ Installation view of Inside the Mirage. Photo: Craate Creative for TarraWarra Museum of Art.

05/08/2026

This month for Memo Architecture, Anna Tonkin reviews the 2026 Eames Pavilion System and the original 1949 Eames House:

"If you can still buy and fill your home and workplace with Eames-designed furniture and objects, why not buy and live in Eames-designed architecture? In a way, this replica also re-centres Eameses' architecture in their legacy. With the claim that few people know the Eameses designed a series of homes and had hoped to develop an architectural system, the Eames Office is arguing that architecture was never the backdrop to their more recognised output (furniture, toys, photography, film), but its foundation."

1/ Eames House. Photo: Anna Tonkin

2/ Eames House. Photo: Anna Tonkin

3/ Eames House. Photo: Anna Tonkin

31/07/2026

"History cannot be domesticated and packaged into discontinuous sets of time. Especially when history keeps repeating itself. As spectators, we are eyewitnesses to the lack of change in the settler-state."
- This week, Victoria Gillespie writes on Ray Jackson at Numbers Gallery, Kings Cross

1. Jackson’s cap and an Aboriginal Passport, Penrith Miers Archive, "Doing Time," Numbers Gallery, Potts Point, 2026. Photo: Numbers Gallery.
2-3. Installation view of Penrith Miers Archive, "Doing Time," Numbers Gallery, Potts Point, 2026. Photo: Numbers Gallery.

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21/07/2026

Marc Kokopeli’s Eric-Cartman-as-artist sits uneasily on the cover of the fifth issue of Memo. Half cartoon mascot, half artist surrogate, the figure boxed inside a screen, brings into view a world where, as George Egerton-Warburton writes, critique and the critiqued collapse into "compression-addled content production." Still, even in a world like this, the superstition that beneath the contrived, the conspiratorial, the styled, and the generated, lies an honest original remains intact.

Memo Issue 5 begins from that uneasy premise, tracing the circuits between art, media, consumer culture, and belief, where every revelation promises authenticity only to produce another layer of mediation.

🔴 Eleanor Ivory Weber on Cecilia Bjartmar Hylta’s impossible city beneath the surface
🔴 Audrey Pfister and Joshua Citarella’s speak on conspiracy
🔴 Aodhan Madden on Ella Baxter’s Woo Woo and the Australian art-world fantasy
🔴 Eleanor Ivory Weber on Cecilia Bjartmar Hylta’s impossible city beneath the surface
🔴 Audrey Pfister and Joshua Citarella on conspiracy, memes and the collapse of shared reality
🔴 Aodhan Madden on Ella Baxter’s Woo Woo and the Australian art-world fantasy
🔴 Alenka Zupančič on writing as necessity
🔴 Chelsea Hopper in conversation with Wayne Koestenbaum on desire and repetition
🔴 Anna Greenspan on AI, robots, and the mimetic powers of nature
🔴 Wes Hill on Jon Rafman’s hallucinatory visions of online hell
🔴 Sarah McCauley on CC Hennix and the infinity of Soliton(e) Star
🔴 Helen Hughes on Elizabeth Newman, doubt and the structural logic of art
+ much more

Texts on: .koestenbaum .claire .magazine

Cover: Marc Kokopeli, Literature & Painting Playset, 2025, LCD cabinet, LED Screen, resin, fabric, mixed media, video, sound, 93 × 154 × 80 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin.

Memo Review

11/09/2026

04/09/2026

02/09/2026

28/08/2026

21/08/2026

14/08/2026

07/08/2026

05/08/2026

31/07/2026

21/07/2026

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