John Nixon

Born Syd­ney, Aus­tralia 1949
Died Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia 2020

John Nixon was a sem­i­nal fig­ure in con­tem­po­rary Aus­tralian abstrac­tion. From 1968, his work was ded­i­cat­ed to the on-going exper­i­men­ta­tion, analy­sis and devel­op­ment of rad­i­cal mod­ernism, min­i­mal­ism, the mono­chrome, con­struc­tivism, non-objec­tive art and the ready­made; which were key ref­er­ence points in his work. Exper­i­men­tal Paint­ing Work­shop (EPW), which the artist named in 1990, but which cov­ers works dat­ing back to 1968, formed the basis of Nixon’s rig­or­ous and long-stand­ing intel­lec­tu­al inves­ti­ga­tion into the mak­ing of art, which over time expand­ed to encom­pass not only paint­ing, but col­lage, pho­tog­ra­phy, video, dance and exper­i­men­tal music per­for­mance.

Nixon exhib­it­ed reg­u­lar­ly and wide­ly through­out his career. He held more than 70 solo exhi­bi­tions since 2001, includ­ing the Muse­um Gegen­stands­freier Kun­st Ottern­dorf, Ottern­dorf and the Auck­land Art Gallery, Auck­land. He rep­re­sent­ed Aus­tralia at Doc­u­men­ta 7, Kas­sel, Ger­many in 1982.

Nixon’s works are held in every major state muse­um col­lec­tion in Aus­tralia, and select­ed inter­na­tion­al pub­lic col­lec­tions include: Solomon R. Guggen­heim Muse­um, New York; Muse­um Sztu­ki, Lodz; Foire Nation­al d’Art Con­tem­po­rain, Paris; Stiftung fur Konkrete Kun­st, Reut­lin­gen; The Artists Muse­um, Lodz; Hern­ing Kun­st­mu­se­umm, Den­mark; Daim­ler Chrysler Col­lec­tion, Berlin; Kun­st­mu­se­um Esberg, Den­mark; Espace d’Art Con­tem­po­rain, Demigny; and Nation­al Gallery of Con­tem­po­rary Art, Seoul.

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Bib­li­og­ra­phy