Brad Buckley

Biography

Brad Buckley spent his childhood years in Sydney. His father, Jim Buckley, owned the Newcastle Hotel in Lower George Street. The Newcastle was one of the Push pubs and Buckley Senior presided over this place, which was frequented by artists, poets, underworld figures and philosophers, for almost 20 years. Buckley was deeply influenced by this early exposure to the possibilities of a libertine life.

Buckley was educated at St Martin’s School of Art, London, and the Rhode Island School of Design, where he graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in 1982. He is the editor, with John Conomos, of Republics of Ideas (2001) and Rethinking the Contemporary Art School: The Artist, the PhD, and the Academy (2009). Buckley has also developed and chaired (with Conomos) a number of conference sessions for the College Art Association, including ‘America: The Divine Empire’ (Atlanta 2005), ‘The Contemporary Collaborator in an Interdisciplinary World’ (Dallas 2008) and ‘The Erasure of Contemporary Memory’ (New York 2011).

Buckley has a longstanding interest in curating and has undertaken projects at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design and other institutions. His most recent project, Reading and Writing Rooms, was curated with Blair French. It was a major survey of the work of the Canadian-based artist Bruce Barber, and was held in 2008 at Artspace Visual Arts Centre, Sydney.

Over the past decade he has lectured and written widely on higher degrees and research in the art school context. In 2003 Buckley was invited to be the keynote speaker at the Visual Arts PhD Programs seminar at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. He was also a keynote speaker in 2007 at the International Symposium on Art and Design: University Art Practice and Research Funding at the University of Tsukuba (Japan). With Su Baker, Director of Victorian College of the Arts, the University of Melbourne, Buckley received in 2008–09 a Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) grant to undertake research into the impact of the PhD in creative arts in Australian universities over the past decade.

He has been a visiting professor at the National College of Art and Design (Dublin), at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University and at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In October 2009, Buckley was a Visiting Scholar at Parsons The New School for Design (New York). He also convened with senior faculty ‘Evolution: Art and Design Research and the PhD’, a conference on higher degrees and research in the art and design school context in the USA at The New School in October 2010.

Research

His work, which operates at the intersection of installation, theatre and performance, investigates questions of cultural control, democracy, freedom and social responsibility. While the primary outcome of his research is manifested in exhibitions and the curating of exhibitions, Buckley has at times also pursued more traditional academic contexts, which include the development of conferences, conference papers and anthologies.

The concerns of his research and creative work over the past two decades have been explored through a series of installations or interventions, using text, video, sound, neon and wall paintings, titled The Slaughterhouse Project. The Slaughterhouse Project stands as a suite of works, which interrogate the roles and responsibilities of cultures to consider and address diverse concerns. Over the course of more than a decade, his works have considered a range of apparently diverse thinkers and issues. Yet each work shares a common concern for the freedoms of individuals and the responsibilities of communities, cultures and nations.

His work has been cited in many journals including New Observations (New York), Art + Text (Sydney), Flash Art (Milan) and Artforum International (New York).

Significant Exhibitions

The Slaughterhouse Project: Alignment and Boundaries (L’Origine du monde) and I wonder whether that’s Joanna Hiffernan with a Brazilian (revisited), Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney, 2013

Manifest Destiny?, Plato’s Cave, Brooklyn, New York, USA, 2011

The Cosmopolitan Community, University Gallery and Art Space, University of Tsukuba, Japan, September 2010

Giving Notice: Words on Walls, Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax, Canada, September 2010

Reading and Writing Rooms, a curated project with Dr Blair French, Executive Director of Artspace. It was a major survey of 30 years of the work of New Zealand-born, Canadian-based artist Bruce Barber, and was held in 2008 at Artspace Visual Arts Centre, Sydney. The project was developed in conjunction with Manukau Institute of Technology and Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts in Auckland, where a partner component of the exhibition opened in December of the same year. November 2008

The Slaughterhouse Project: In Medias Res, La Chambre Blanche, Quebec, Canada, March 2005

Every Great Idea Begins as a Heresy, Anna Leonowens Gallery, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University, Halifax, Canada, September 2005

Unthinkable: etiquette, Artspace Visual Arts Centre, Sydney, October 2003

Target, Hood Gallery, Los Angeles, US, May 2003

The Slaughterhouse Project: The Light on the Hill, Visual Arts Gallery, University of Alabama at Birmingham, US, May 2002

Das Schlachthaus Projeckt: Dieser Kreislauf des Begehrens, Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany, May 1997

The Slaughterhouse Project: On the Edge, Franklin Furance, New York, USA, March 1997

Significant Publications

‘A New Horizon: what is on offer for the artist with a PhD?’ in the sessions PhD for Artists: Sense or Nonsense?, conference paper, 100th College Art Association Conference, Los Angeles, US, 2012

Co-Chaired with John Conomos two sessions of The Erasure of Contemporary Memory, Parts One and Two, 99th College Art Association (CAA) conference in New York, US, 2011

Rethinking the Contemporary Art School: the Artist, the PhD, and the Academy, (B. Buckley and J. Conomos, eds), NSCAD University Press, Canada, 2009, ISBN: 978 0 919616 49 3

Creative Arts PhD: Future-Proofing the Creative Arts in Higher Education, Scoping for Quality in Tertiary Creative Arts Learning, Teaching, and Research Training (S. Baker and B. Buckley, eds), Australian Learning and Teaching Council, 2009, ISBN: 978 0 9758360 5 7

Co-Chaired with John Conomos two sessions of The Contemporary Collaborator in an Interdisciplinary World, Parts One and Two, 96th College Art Association (CAA) conference in Dallas, Texas, US, 2008, pp. 35–37

Delivered one of three keynote addresses (other keynote speakers included Professor Bruce Yonemoto, UC, Irvine) at the University Art Practice and Research Funding conference, University of Tsukuba, Japan, 2007, pp. 29–42, ISBN: 978 4 924843 53 0

Co-chaired, with John Conomos, America: The Divine Empire, 93rd College Art Association (CAA) conference in Atlanta, US, 2005, pp. 27–28

Why a Ceiling? The visual arts should embrace the PhD, conference paper, 90th College Art Association Conference, Philadelphia, US, 2001

Republics of Ideas (B. Buckley and J. Conomos, eds), Pluto Press Australia, Sydney, 2001, ISBN: 186403 185 9

Co-convened, with John Conomos, the conference Republics of Ideas, Artspace Visual Arts Centre, Sydney, 1999

Awards and Grants

Research grant from the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, Creative Arts PhD: Future-Proofing the Creative Arts in Higher Education, Scoping for Quality in Tertiary Creative Arts Learning, Teaching, and Research Training, 2008–09

La Chambre Blanche, Quebec (funded by the Canadian Council for the Arts and Culture and Communications), The Slaughterhouse Project: In Medias Res, 2005

Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University, Halifax, Canada, Every Great Idea Begins as a Heresy, 2005

Awarded the first College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHASS) Award for Excellence in Research, Higher Degree Supervision at the University of Sydney, 2004

Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University, Halifax, Canada, Visiting professor and artist, 2004

New Work Grant from the Visual Art/Craft Fund of the Australia Council, New work, 2000

Research Grant, SCA, The University of Sydney, Hotel of Fire, Kelowna Art Gallery, Canada, 1997

Research Grant, SCA, The University of Sydney, Co-existence: The 5th
Construction in Process. The Artists' Museum, Mitzpe Ramon, Israel, 1995

Fellowship Residency, Institute for Contemporary Art, PS1/MoMA, New York, from the Visual Arts/Craft Board of the Australia Council, Fellowship residency, 1990 -1991

Standard grant from the Visual Arts/Craft Board of the Australia Council, New Work, 1987

Standard Grant from the Visual Arts/Craft Board of the Australia Council, New Work, 1985

Research Supervision

Hayley French, Future Abstraction: Relationships between Aboriginal and non-Indigenous art in Australia, PhD

David Haines, Towards a methodology of Aroma Art, PhD

Biljana Jancic, Unsettled Spaces of Contemporary Art, PhD

Richard Kean, The Night of Time and the Time of Light, PhD

R. O, Delirious play: Disarray in contemporary figurative translation of parrhesia, PhD

Paul Greedy, Induction, transduction, synthesis - Liminal Forms in Contemporary Art Practice, MFA

Professional Membership

Artspace Visual Arts Centre
College Art Association (US)

All material is copyright of the author, and written permission must be obtained for any reproduction in whole or in part.
For more information see the University of Sydney copyright disclaimer.