16 June 2025
Two striking exhibitions, both featuring new works, will be showcased at the University of South Australia’s Samstag Museum of Art in June.
Open to the public from 20 June to 26 September, the Kudlila season program (Kudlila meaning winter in Kaurna culture) will premiere designer, jeweller, silversmith and artist Frank Bauer’s major exhibition of metal and light works that consider movement, longevity, repetition and change.
German-born and Adelaide-based Bauer has a career spanning 45 years and his works are held in major museums around the world including London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, Berlin’s Bauhaus Archive, the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of South Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria and the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.
Focussing on the sculptural nature of his practice, the exhibition celebrates Bauer’s continued innovation by premiering new large-scale works in metal and light.
'On the second level of the Samstag gallery, independent curator Jasmin Stephens presents the familiar yet lesser-known aspects of Adelaide’s cultural boulevard, North Terrace, in a thought-provoking group exhibition: North Terrace: worlds in relief.
Adelaide’s North Terrace – now home to colonial institutions such as the art gallery, museum, library and other state buildings – holds deep significance for the Kaurna people as it represents a location of dispossession and resilience.
The North Terrace exhibition begins with Narungga poet/activist Natalie Harkin’s poem Cultural Precinct*, a powerful exploration of Aboriginal resistance and colonialism which laments how “red-kangaroo stories” have been “ripped from the ground”.
Artists from Adelaide, NSW and Singapore cast a critical eye over the boulevard, invoking histories through sculpture, moving image and design. The exhibition also draws on the collection of UniSA’s Architecture Museum.
The artists featured in North Terrace: worlds in relief include, Andrew Burrell (Sydney), Allison Chorn (Adelaide), Louise Haselton (Adelaide) and the ArtHitects (Bathurst, NSW, and Singapore).
A season launch event will be held on Thursday 19 June, 5pm to 7pm, with opening remarks delivered by renowned architect Karl Fender OAM, Co-founder AFK Studios. Associate Professor Carolyn Barnes from Swinburne University of Technology will be writing a catalogue essay for Frank Bauer’s artwork that will be available online.
The Samstag Museum of Art is located at UniSA’s City West campus, an easy 15-minute walk from the city centre. Free city trams operate daily. Samstag is open Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 5pm. Visit the website for more information.
Editors note: Read Natalie Harkin’s poem Cultural Precinct (2014) in fineprint, Issue 9, November 2016.
*After its inclusion in Natalie Harkin’s PhD (Flinders University) in 2014, the poem was also published in Unbound Collective’s 2015 exhibition catalogue Bound and Unbound: Sovereign Acts II; in Cordite Poetry Review in 2016; and in Best Australian Poems in 2016. It also appears in the first of Harkin’s three-part publication Colonial Archive (2019).
The University of South Australia and the University of Adelaide are joining forces to become Australia’s new major university – Adelaide University. Building on the strengths, legacies and resources of two leading universities, Adelaide University will deliver globally relevant research at scale, innovative, industry-informed teaching and an outstanding student experience. Adelaide University will open its doors in January 2026. Find out more on the Adelaide University website.
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Media contact: Erica Green, Director Samstag Museum of Art M: +438 821 239 E: erica.green@unisa.edu.au
