Renee So : Provenance

Renee So’s idiosyncratic practice in ceramics and textiles, and occasionally furniture and glass, is inspired by art history, collections in museums and gendered symbolism. Her work is distinguished by its embrace of craft methods and cross-cultural thinking, an underlying sense of the comedic and a persistent feminist worldview.

Produced to accompany a major 2023 survey exhibition at Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, Renee So: Provenance showcases more than a decade of the artist’s work alongside new commissioned essays by writers Hélène Maloigne and Chus Martínez and a conversation between So and exhibition curator Charlotte Day. Designed by London studio A Practice for Everyday Life, it features illustrations of the diverse art historical influences that inspire So’s works – from the earliest known ceramics to objects looted from Yuanmingyuan (the Qing Dynasty Old Summer Palace) by the British and French in the mid nineteenth century.

Charlotte Day is Associate Director, Art Museums at the University of Melbourne. She has extensive curatorial and arts management experience having worked in contemporary art organisations including the Monash University Museum of Art, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP) and Gertrude Contemporary (all Melbourne), and as guest curator for the The Anne Landa Award (2013), Adelaide Biennial (2010), TarraWarra Biennial (2008) and Australian Pavilion for Venice Biennale (2005 and 2007).

Melissa Ratliff is Curator Research at Monash University Museum of Art. She has worked independently and institutionally on exhibition, public programming, publication and editorial projects, including at the Biennale of Sydney (2015–18), Manifesta 10 in St Petersburg (2013–14), dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel (2010–12) and the 16th and 17th Biennale of Sydney (2007–10).

Charlotte Day is the director of Monash University Museum of Art. She has extensive curatorial and arts management experience, having worked at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP) and Gertrude Contemporary (all Melbourne), and as guest curator for the The Anne Landa Award (2013), Adelaide Biennial (2010), TarraWarra Biennial (2008) and Australian Pavilion for Venice Biennale (2005 and 2007).

Dr Hélène Maloigne is a historian of archaeology, science and popular culture. Their research explores the history and practice of archaeology in the Middle East in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with a focus on the interconnection between the creation of archaeology as a discipline, imperialism, gender performativity, friendship and popular culture. Maloigne is Finds Registrar of the Tell Atchana Excavations Project and Assistant Editor for the Bulletin of the History of Archaeology.

Chus Martínez is head of the Institute Art Gender Nature FHNW Academy of Arts and Design in Basel. She was the expedition leader of The Current (2018–20) and is the artistic director of Ocean Space, Venice (since 2021), both projects initiated by TBA21–Academy. At the Institute Art Gender Nature she is currently leading the research project The Womxn’s Factor, on the role of education in enhancing women’s equality in the arts. Martínez lectures and writes regularly, including numerous catalogue texts and critical essays, and is a regular contributor to Artforum, among other international journals.

Renee So is an artist whose idiosyncratic practice in ceramics and textiles, and occasionally furniture and glass, is inspired by art history, collections in museums and gendered symbolism. Her work is distinguished by its embrace of craft methods and cross-cultural thinking, an underlying sense of the comedic and a persistent feminist worldview. Born in Hong Kong and raised in Melbourne, So relocated to London in 2005, and exhibits regularly in solo and group exhibitions in the UK and internationally. Renee So: Provenance is the artist’s first major museum exhibition.