Kaldor Public Art Project 08: An Australian Accent 1984

An Australian Accent:
Mike Parr, Imants Tillers, Ken Unsworth

15 April – 10 June 1984

P.S.1, New York

30 June – 26 August 1984

Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC

22 September – 11 November 1984

Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth

1 December 1984 – 31 January 1985

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

In 1984 the art industry was at the beginning of a new internationalism. John Kaldor took the opportunity provided by the wave of interest in Australian film and literature to curate an exhibition of Australian art in New York as Project 8, titled An Australian Accent. Three of the most celebrated Australian artists of their generation – Mike Parr, Imants Tillers and Ken Unsworth – presented 52 drawings and paintings for the project, generating laudatory and extensive reviews. New York Times critic John Russell praised the exhibition’s ‘exceptional expressive power’. After opening in the New York contemporary art centre P.S.1 Gallery, the exhibition travelled to Washington’s Corcoran Gallery of Art and then returned to tour museums in Australia.