The National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition Bare: Degrees of undress, celebrates the candid, contrived, natural, sexy, ironic, beautiful, and the fascinating in Australian portraiture that shows a bit of skin.
Media are invited to attend an official launch of the exhibition at 11.00 am on Thursday 13 August 2015 at the Portrait Gallery.
Including over 90 portraits from the Gallery’s collection, Bare investigates elements of nakedness, with personalities including Dame Edna Everage, Germaine Greer, Megan Gale and Billy Slater.
Curator of the exhibition, Penelope Grist, was fascinated to discover that almost all the Gallery’s portrait sitters in varying degrees of undress are Australia’s foremost creative achievers or elite sportspeople, the majority being men with their shirts off!
“Bareness is not as extreme as nakedness and not as refined as nudity. Bareness emphasises something about a subject’s identity as well as reflecting society. The decision to uncover part, or all, of the body in a portrait is at least as significant as a choice of clothing. Visitors to Bare will see these portraits in a completely new way,” said Penelope.
The Gallery has also created The Bare Game which visitors will be able to play online and in the gallery to discover their very own nude alter-ego from art history. Its release will coincide with the exhibition.
Bare is open to the public from 14 August until 15 November 2015 and entry is free.
