The Heide Museum of Modern Art Presents "The Futile City"

Written by Callum Foster Friday, 20 April 2012 20:55

Melbourne, AU - The Heide Museum of Modern Art is pleased to present "The Futile City", on view from June 25th through October 9th. Taking its inspiration from Albert Tucker's 1940 painting of the same title, "The Futile City" examines the rise of the city from the modern era to the present day. The exhibition juxtaposes several images of the city painted by Tucker over the course of his lifetime with those by contemporary artists for whom the city and its structures provide rich visual and thematic source material.

Taking its cue from  T.S. Eliot’s poem ‘The Waste Land’ (1922),Tucker's painting "The Futile City" reflects a mood of personal despair and anxiety in the face of the social crisis of World War II. Albert Tucker recognised in T. S. Eliot a ‘twin soul’, who painted with words images of horror, futility and prophecies of doom, to all of which Tucker had a heightened sensitivity. Works by six contemporary artists also feature in the exhibition, including Jeffery Smart, Robert Boynes, Susan Norrie, Louise Forthun, David Jolly and Richard Giblett. Just as the city and its rhetoric were primary sources of inspiration for Tucker, so it has been for these artists. The selected works articulate aspects of the human condition and the rituals of urban existence, as well as the place of the individual within the physical, political and social structures of the city. "The Futile City" is the eleventh in an ongoing series of exhibitions based on the Tucker Gift to Heide Museum of Modern Art. This series alternates between exhibitions which investigate Tucker’s oeuvre in detail, and those which place him in an art historical, theoretical or contemporary context, as this exhibition does.


The Heide Museum of Modern Art is a unique space – a synthesis of indoor and outdoor environments, a place of modern and contemporary art and design, with a rich and colourful art heritage and social history. The Heide site comprises 16 acres of buildings, gardens and sculpture park presenting a dramatic combination of indoor and outdoor spaces. There’s much to explore including: the recently redeveloped Heide III building featuring the Central Galleries, Albert & Barbara Tucker Gallery and Kerry Gardner & Andrew Myer Project Gallery; the iconic McGlashan and Everist designed modernist building, Heide II; the heritage-listed, Victorian farmhouse, Heide I; and Heide’s gardens, with the much-loved Kitchen Garden, Sculpture Park, heritage-listed Osage Orange groves and Yarra frontage extending to the famous Heidelberg Artists’ Trail and nearby bicycle paths. Located just 15 minutes from Melbourne’s central business district, Heide is one of Australia’s leading public art museums and offers a tranquil, surprising and always stimulating place to visit. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.heide.com.au

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