Cart 0
9781923042544

If You Don't Fight … You Lose

Politics, posters and PAM

Catherine Speck, Jude Adams, Julie Ewington, Suzanne Close

Adelaide's Progressive Art Movement (PAM), born out of Flinders University and spearheaded by radical thinkers Brian Medlin and Ann Newmarch, united artists, writers, poets, filmmakers, actors and musicians determined to cultivate a politically progressive culture rooted in local issues, while vehemently opposing US imperialism.

Five decades on, Catherine Speck and Jude Adams tell PAM's little remembered story. They unearth powerful posters and prints by artists including Ann Newmarch, Mandy Martin, Robert Boynes and others, whose work spread messages of community action, resistance and solidarity.

If You Don't Fight … You Lose: Politics, posters and PAM celebrates the enduring power of political printmaking: a timely theme for our tumultuous twenty-first century.

$39.95

In stock

Catherine Speck is an art historian, writer, critic and curator. She is Professor Emerita of Art History and Curatorship at the University of Adelaide, and a Fellow of the Academy of Humanities of Australia. She convened and taught postgraduate programs in Art History and Curatorial and Museum Studies with the Art Gallery of South Australia from 2002 to 2020. She is a member of the Fay Gale Centre for Research into Gender, the J.M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice, the Adelaide Critics Circle (Visual Arts), and regular exhibition reviewer for The Conversation. Recent essays include: 'The 1970s: Progressive, Passionate and Provocative' (with Jude Adams) in Margot Osborne (ed.), The Adelaide Art Scene 1939–2000 (2023); 'The Total War and the Role of Women', in Timothy Benson, The Great War and Global Media, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2023); and 'On working as an Aboriginal Museum Director and Curator of the Berndt Museum', in Sarah Scott, Helen McDonald and Caroline Jordan (eds), Crosscurrents in Australian First Nations and Non Indigenous Art (2023).

Find out more

Jude Adams has a decades-spanning career in the visual arts covering a range of practices. She is a former lecturer in Art History and Theory at the South Australian School of Art (University of South Australia) and worked in community arts initiating a range of projects, including the groundbreaking exhibition The Lovely Motherhood Show (1981).

Continuing an interest in large, collaborative exhibitions and events, she co-coordinated FRANFEST (2017), a month-long, statewide, multi-venue festival celebrating the work of South Australian women artists, past and present. Jude was an active member of the Women's Art Movements in Sydney and Adelaide and a board member of the Experimental Arts Foundation, Community Arts Network (South Australia) and the Art Gallery of South Australia. Most recently she held a solo exhibition Narratives from the Family Album (2018) at Artroom5, Adelaide, and was the keynote speaker for the symposium 'Stories and Solidarity' in association with the exhibition Paper Cut (2021) of works from The Cruthers Collection of Women's Art, Lawrence Wilson Gallery, University of Western Australia. Recent essays include: 'Ann Newmarch: Artist, activist, feminist', in Margot Osborne (ed.), The Adelaide Art Scene 1939–2000 (2023).

Find out more

Julie Ewington is a curator and writer based in Sydney, Australia. After an academic career at Flinders University (Adelaide), University of Sydney, and Canberra School of Art (now Australian National University), she worked for three decades as a curator. Between 2001 and 2014 Julie led Australian Art at Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art, contributing to the Asia-Pacific Triennial (1996-2012). Recent projects include The Housing Question: Helen Grace, Narelle Jubelin and Sherre DeLys (Penrith Regional Gallery, 2019) and Juanita McLauchlan: gii mara-bula/Heart Hand-also, (Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, 2023). Her writing includes the monographs Fiona Hall (2005) and Del Kathryn Barton (2014) and numerous essays; she edits publications for Australian and Singapore art museums; and publishes in journals including Art Monthly and Australian Book Review. Julie is Chair, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney, and a board member at Samstag Museum of Art, Adelaide. In 2014 she received the Australia Council's Emeritus Medal (Visual Arts Board).

Find out more

Suzanne Close is an arts educator and curator. Recent curatorial projects include Unravelling Encounters in 2023, and Counting Days with Frank Grauso at the Barossa Regional Gallery (South Australia) and The Adelaide Festival Centre in 2022-2023. Suzanne was the 2022 Adelaide City Library Emerging Curator and in 2021 she curated Adelaide X, which examined local collaborative practices. She was the 2020 recipient of the AHCAN & Floating Goose Early Career Curator program and the 2020 SALA (South Australian Living Artists) winner of the City of Onkaparinga Contemporary Curator Award. Suzanne holds a Master of Art in Curatorial and Museum Studies, as well as degrees in Visual Arts and Education. She is currently the Public Programs Coordinator at Adelaide Central School of Art, has published reviews, and developed educational resources. Her diverse experience in education and the arts continues to inform her curatorial practice.

Find out more

ISBN   9781923042544
CATEGORIES: ,
DIMENSIONS   280 x 210 mm