Australia Council Announces Winners of Visual Arts Award

On March 6, internationally acclaimed artist Tracey Moffatt and director of Melbourne’s Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) Juliana Engberg were awarded the Australia Council Visual Arts Award.

Now in its 40th year, the Australia Council serves as the government’s arts funding and advisory body, supporting emerging and established artists by delegating over 1,700 grants to artists and arts administrators annually.

Moffatt’s works, which traverse the mediums of film, photography and video, frequently narrate the racial dynamics of contemporary Australia. Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy (1989), which first won the artist international recognition at the Cannes Film Festival, depicts the complex relationship between an aboriginal woman and her dying white foster mother. Last May, a retrospective of Moffatt’s work was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Engberg, during her time as director at ACCA, has organized exhibitions of works by Pipilotti Rist, Joseph Kosuth, Barbara Kruger and Richard Billingham. Most recently, she has been named artistic director of the forthcoming 19th Biennale of Sydney. 

Moffatt and Engberg will be honored at an award ceremony held at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Sydney this evening.