seeing through you
Consuelo Cavaniglia
Consuelo Cavaniglia has been commissioned to develop a major contemporary art project to engage with the Museum’s extensive collections and architecture.
Consuelo Cavaniglia’s project represents the first time an artist has been invited to respond directly to the architecture of the Chau Chak Wing Museum. Cavaniglia intensifies the viewer’s experience of the interior spaces as they navigate the building, by colouring the ‘lantern’ skylight, and by intervening onto glass surfaces to create perceptual shifts.
In the Penelope Gallery, she has selected objects from the Chau Chak Wing Museum’s collection, including optical instruments and glass from the ancient world, which are presented alongside her own recent works.
The artist has also selected to display artworks from the collection by Lily Greenham (1924–2001), and Martha Boto (1925–2004). Cavaniglia celebrates these women artists and connects her own practice to theirs in a lineage of engagement with abstraction, colour, light, and perception.
Cavaniglia’s interest in perception extends to the ways that voices are represented within the museum. The artist has invited women and gender-diverse staff members to reflect on their experience of the museum and its collections. Their responses create alternative narratives to the more formal voice of museum wall labels, reframing the experience of the museum and its collections through personal perspectives.
Lily Greenham, 'Study in visual perception', 1965. Installation view, Consuelo Cavaniglia, 'seeing through you', Chau Chak Wing Museum. Photo by Stefanie Zingsheim.
50
automatic
LinkOpen seven days a week
Mon - Fri: 10am - 5pm
Sat - Sun: 12 - 4pm
Please note: we are closed on Public Holidays.
Exhibition closes 23 March 2025
Penelope Gallery, Level 1; throughout the museum
Chau Chak Wing Museum
Free
Header image: Consuelo Cavaniglia: seeing through you, 2024. Hand blown glass, acrylic; scientific instruments from the collection. Courtesy of the artist and STATION. Photo by David James
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.
This project is supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.
Phone: +61 2 93512812
Email: ccwm.info@sydney.edu.au
Chau Chak Wing Museum
University Place
Camperdown NSW 2050