[view larger version of exhibition flyer here]

Lucas Ihlein: Diagrammatic
Works by Lucas Ihlein and collaborators

Curated by Jasmin Stephens, April-May 2018


A survey exhibition featuring Ihlein’s print and graphics produced with multiple collaborators. 


Media Release about the exhibition: 

Printmaking stimulates visualisation and exchange in the activities of Lucas Ihlein.

Across his work in socially engaged art, agriculture and environmental management, he expresses an affinity with print. This exhibition surveys his printmaking – focussing on artist-led contexts including SquatSpace and Big Fag Press. 

The exhibition presents editioned and intervention/performance-related work highlighting Ihlein’s promotional flair, appreciation for the economies of print and commitment to grassroots change.

Works included are by Lucas Ihlein, collaborators, and associates and friends of Big Fag Press, including: Lucas Ihlein, Ian Milliss, Big Fag Press, Louise Kate Anderson, Diego Bonetto and Mirra Whale, SquatSpace, Justin Hewitson, Kim Williams, Brogan Bunt, Nat Thomas, Kylie Wilkinson, Tom Nicholson, Trent Walter, Teo Treloar, Fiona MacDonald, Vernon Ah Kee, Marcus Westbury, John Demos, and Artist as Family

A Deakin graduate, Ihlein is currently ARC DECRA Research Fellow at University of Wollongong while facilitating the multi-year project Sugar vs the Reef? In 2015 he was awarded an Australia Council for the Arts Fellowship for Emerging and Experimental Arts.

This project is one of an ongoing series of annual exhibitions at Deakin University Art Gallery which surveys the practices of established Australian artists. The purpose is to provide a comprehensive understanding of an artist’s work - to examine their practice in-depth and over time and through an exhibition and a scholarly publication.

Lucas Ihlein completed his PhD which focussed on blogging as an art practice in 2010 at Deakin. Ihlein’s PhD topic reflects his approach to working with art in its most expanded form as cultural influence and change.

Drawing on a broad range of artmaking methodologies he generates interdisciplinary enquiries that create new ways of understanding environmental and social relations.

Jasmin Stephens, the exhibition curator, has contributed to programming conducted by institutions and led by artists in Australia, Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan. She has worked at MCA Australia in Sydney and at Fremantle Arts Centre in Western Australia. She teaches in the Master of Curating and Cultural Leadership at UNSW Art and Design in Sydney.



More info about Diagrammatic:

View a short video walk-through of the exhibition here.

Anna Dunnill & Danni McGrath discuss Lucas Ihlein: Diagrammatic, curated by Jasmin Stephens, Deakin University Gallery, Melbourne, 11 April—18 May 2018.

Diagrammatic Exhibition Catalogue with writing by James Lynch, Jasmin Stephens, and Lucas Ihlein. Read it online here.



This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.