The 2026 Schaeffer Library interns present a student-led exhibition drawn from the Sherman Galleries Archive. Exploring 32 artist folders, the exhibition highlights how archival materials—letters, press, photographs and project files—shape artistic identity, public reception and the lasting legacy of contemporary art.
Cataloguing and value construction in practice by Fanxi Liui
The exhibition is organised into three cases exploring distinct dimensions of artistic practice: institutional communication in public art, the shaping of artworks through gallery and media discourse, and the extension of artistic identity into public commissions. Together, these materials reveal how artistic practice operates within broader social and institutional frameworks. The first case, Art Across Borders, focuses on Toshiaki Izumi. Letters between the artist, Sherman Galleries and cultural institutions, alongside exhibition photographs, document the negotiations behind international exhibitions. These records highlight the logistical coordination, cultural diplomacy and collaboration required to realise public sculpture, demonstrating how artistic production is shaped through cross-institutional exchange. See more...
Exhibition Concept: This exhibition explores letters, invitations and press clippings as key archival traces of artistic production. It reveals how ideas move across institutions and media, shaping the path from concept to public presentation.
Highlights: Exhibition curated from across seven artist folders capturing metadata for more than 400+ archive records.
Guan Wei: In-Between 關偉：在此之間 by Fengnan Wang (Maple)
“I am gentle and quiet. My small warm nest offers me a place to paint. The greatest pleasures in my life are browsing in bookstores, reading out-of-the-way books, meeting friends, playing Chinese chess. My greatest aspiration is that people appreciate and understand my work” — Guan Wei
Between China and Australia, past and present, Guan Wei’s work drifts across worlds.
Guan Wei: In-Between / 關偉：在此之間 traces his journey through sketches, brochures, interviews, and press clippings, revealing not only his artistic practice but also the cultural labels, “Chinese,” “Chinese-Australian,” “cross-cultural” that have shaped how he is understood. The exhibition invites you to linger in the spaces “in-between,” showing how artistic practice exists between cultural context and interpretation, where identities, influences, and meanings meet, overlap, and transform. See more...
Exhibition Concept: The exhibition unfolds from top to bottom, tracing Guan Wei’s journey from his artistic practice to the cultural and public narratives that surround him. Each section hints at a story, but you are free to explore, pause and follow your own path
Highlights: Exhibition curated from across ten artist folders capturing metadata for more than 600+ archive records.
Rewind What You Can’t Play: The Material Life of Gladwell’s oeuvre by Fiona Nguyen
This exhibition explores the relationship between Shaun Gladwell’s video practice and the archival ephemera—correspondence, press releases and photographs—held in the Sherman Galleries Archive. By reframing these materials as central rather than peripheral, it reveals how documentation shapes the creation, circulation and memory of time-based art, highlighting the tension between fluid performance and the stabilizing structures of the archive. See more...
Exhibition Concept: This exhibition explores Shaun Gladwell’s video practice through archival materials—letters, press releases, and photographs—that document its creation and reception. It highlights how these ephemera shape the collective memory and understanding of his fluid, cinematic works.
Highlights: Exhibition curated from across four artist folders capturing metadata for more than 350+ archive records.
Yuki Kihara: Memory, Media and the Ethnographic Archive by Jun Kwoun
The exhibition Yuki Kihara: Memory, Media and the Ethnographic Archive presents archival materials tracing the early career of interdisciplinary artist Yuki Kihara at Sherman Galleries. Focusing on her exhibition Fa’afafine: In a Manner of a Woman, it highlights how Kihara restaged ethnographic photographs to challenge binary gender concepts and reveal the presence of Samoan fa’afafine in archival collections. Early press clippings show competing narratives around her evolving persona, reflecting tensions between sensationalised reporting and faithful artistic exploration. The exhibition demonstrates how Kihara’s work, employing humour, camp, and parody, reclaims histories once marginalized in the archive and contests colonial legacies.
Exhibition Concept: Artist Identity, Media and Art Criticism, Photography and Archival Collections. Includes: Sherman Gallery exhibition catalogues, assorted exhibition notices from other galleries, art criticism, news clippings, photocopies of news clippings and two published books related to the artist.
Highlights: Exhibition curated from across seven artist folders capturing metadata for more than 400+ archive records.
