The Curatorial Team

JUDITH BLACKALL
Head of Artistic Programs

Judith is responsible for the MCA’s exhibitions program, the curatorial, collections, registration departments and off-site projects, including C3West, an innovative project involving contemporary artists, businesses and communities in Western Sydney.

Judith joined the Museum in July 1997 and prior to this lived and worked in Italy for 15 years. She has worked on a range of contemporary art exhibitions including touring exhibitions internationally, and outreach projects for the MCA.

Exhibitions Judith has presented at the MCA include Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Recorders (2011-12); Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s Life 1995-2005 (2010-11), which broke previous MCA attendance records; the major survey exhibition of the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, developed in collaboration with the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, YAYOI KUSAMA: Mirrored Years (2009); Las Horas / The Hours: Visual Arts of Contemporary Latin America, an exhibition featuring 136 works by 30 artists drawn from the Daros-Latinamerica Collection shown at the MCA in 2008; Arte Povera: Art from Italy 1967-2002, a major exhibition presented in 2002 organised in association with the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Rivoli, Italy; and Kienholz, the MCA’s summer exhibition 2005-06, organised in partnership with The Baltic, Gateshead, UK.

RACHEL KENT
Senior Curator

Rachel Kent is the Senior Curator at the MCA, having joined in 2000 in the role of Curator. From 1995 she held the position of Curator at The University of Melbourne Museum of Art, working across the university’s extensive collections, temporary exhibitions and artistic residency program.

Rachel has presented exhibitions in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the USA and Canada. She speaks and publishes widely on contemporary art and curatorial practice. Rachel has worked with leading international and Australian artists including Kutlug Altaman, Lee Bul, Olafur Eliasson, Tim Hawkinson, Mike Parr and Shahzia Sikander. She curated a major survey by Ed Ruscha at the MCA in 2004 and her key international thematic exhibitions include Liquid Sea (2003) and Masquerade: Representation and the self in contemporary art (2006).

In 2008 she curated the survey exhibition Yinka Shonibare MBE for the MCA which travelled to the Brooklyn Museum, New York and the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC in 2009-10. She edited a monograph by Prestel Publishing and the MCA to accompany the exhibition. In 2011 she collaborated with the Musee d’art contemporain de Montreal, Canada on a solo exhibition and new film commission by Runa Islam. She is the curator of Marking Time, a major thematic exhibition which celebrates the reopening of the MCA in March 2012.

GLENN BARKLEY
Curator

Glenn joined the MCA as Curator in 2008 where he has led major curatorial projects including Almanac: The Gift of Ann Lewis AO (2009-10), Making it New: Focus on Contemporary Australian Art (2009) and avoiding myth & message: Australian artists and the literary world (2009).

Previously curator of the University of Wollongong Art Collection from 1996 to 2007, Glenn was also founding co-Director with Lisa Havilah and Nathan Clark of Project Contemporary Artspace, Wollongong, a not-for-profit gallery space run for artists. In 2007-08 he was Director of the Ergas Collection based in Sydney and Canberra.

In 2011 he curated a survey of Berlin-based New Zealand artist Michael Stevenson and a major exchange exhibition Tell Me Tell Me: Australian and Korean Contemporary Art 1976-2011, a collaboration between the MCA and the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea. This year, Glenn curated the first exhibition of the MCA Collection for the MCA’s new building, Volume One: MCA Collection, and co-curated with Lesley Harding, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne a retrospective of the Australian artist Ken Whisson, Ken Whisson: As If, scheduled for March (Heide) and September (MCA) 2012.

ANNA DAVIS
Curator

Anna Davis joined the MCA as Curator in 2009 and since then has worked with numerous Australian and international artists on a range of exhibitions, off-site projects, commissions and special events. In 2011 she curated Primavera 2011: Young Australian Artists, which focussed on site-specific practices and was held outside of the MCA galleries for the first time in the exhibition’s twenty year history.

Other major curatorial projects include MCA Collection: New Acquisitions in Context (2010) and In the Balance: Art for a Changing World (2010) (Co-curator). Most recently she has worked with Australian artist Hany Armanious on his commission for the new MCA Sculpture Series, and is currently developing Primavera 2012 and an upcoming exhibition by Australian collaborative artists Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro, both scheduled for October 2012.

Anna has worked in a variety of roles in the arts since 1999 including Acting Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of NSW (2008-09) and Project Assistant / Project Manager at dLux media arts (2000 – 06). Anna has a PhD in Media Arts (2010) from the University of NSW’s College of Fine Arts and has exhibited her art work nationally and internationally, most recently as part of a collaborative duo with Jason Gee. With a focus on audio-visual sampling, the duo’s practice involves scavenging the debris of popular culture to create works that explore disturbing patterns and humour underlying the media environment.

ANNE LOXLEY
Curator, C3West

Anne joined the MCA as C3West Curator in 2011. In this role she develops innovative ways for artists to work with non-arts organisations to address strategic issues and engage with communities. In 2011 she was responsible for the C3West Hurstville City Council collaboration, The Begin-Again. This night art walk was Australian artist Angelica Mesiti’s response to community concerns expressed in the research for Council’s Community Strategic Plan. Anne also managed the delivery of the symposium The Future of Penrith/Penrith of the Future, the vision for the public spaces and facilities of Penrith by the international art and design collective Campement Urbain.

Current C3West projects include a partnership with Campbelltown City Council to engage Airds community about the health of the Upper Georges River, and a collaboration with Hurstville Council and Westfield Hurstville to engage with local youth. At the MCA she has worked with Australian artist Brook Andrew on Warrang, the building commission about the heritage significance of the MCA site.

A former Sydney Morning Herald art critic, Anne’s essays appear regularly in numerous publications. As a curator Anne works with contemporary artists both inside and outside of gallery contexts, in communities and in public spaces. Recent projects include the exhibition Case Study: Gemma Smith considers the work of Margo Lewers, Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest (2011-12), and with Jennifer Turpin and Michaelie Crawford, Artists In Residence, a public art project on the heritage brewery buildings in Sydney’s Broadway.