SHAUN GLADWELL – SOLO EXHIBITION, CAMPBELLTOWN ARTS CENTRE
26 Mar 2010
Shaun Gladwell
Interior Linework/Interceptor Intersection
26 March – 16 May 2010
Campbelltown Arts Centre
www.campbelltown.nsw.gov.au
Interior Linework/Interceptor Intersection is a major solo exhibition that brings together a selection of Shaun Gladwell’s work from his Maddestmaximvs project along with significant new work commissions. The Maddestmaximvs project began in 2007 with a series of recorded performances located in the Australian hinterland. It has since developed into a comprehensive body of work comprising video, sculpture, painting, photography and installation and was most recently exhibited in the Australian Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale, 2009.
The exhibition reveals an important development in Gladwell’s oeuvre, with the Maddestmaximvs project connecting formal and conceptual concerns that have underpinned the artist’s practice - contemporary cultural phenomena, the performative body in space, the subcultures of youth, the perpetual flux and appropriation of urban environments, and ideas concerning history and memory – to the Australian outback, a contested site embedded in Australia’s collective imagination, dreams and reality. Through this the exhibition explores ideas of cultural identity, Australian masculinity and the line between popular culture and high art.
Campbelltown Arts Centre has commissioned new works to be presented as part of Interior Linework/ Interceptor Intersection, including a purpose-built replica of the XB GT Ford Falcon Coupe Interceptor car which featured in George Miller’s 1979 cult Australian film Mad Max. The Interceptor vehicle – often promoted as the last of the truly Australian Fords – will be presented alongside a twin model initially shown at the Venice Biennale 2009. For the exhibition, the two black Interceptors form part of a new installation work titled Interceptor Intersection.
In addition to sculptural and installation works, the exhibition encompasses video and print mediums. Planet & Stars Sequence: Barrier Highway is a video recording of a painting performance undertaken by Gladwell near Broken Hill in Western NSW while the major video work Apologies 1-6, depicts an anonymous motorcycle rider encountering ‘road kill’ kangaroos on the side of desert highways in central Australia. The rider stops at the roadside where the dead animals lay, to enact a ritual that is repeated in each of the six sequences of the video.
A fully illustrated hardcover catalogue has been published by Campbelltown Arts Centre in connection with the exhibition and features essays by Nikos Papastergiadis, Sabine Schaschl and Christopher Dean,. [Note: I have changed the name order because this is going out to an international audience and Nikos and Sabine have significant international reputations]
Curator: Tania Doropoulos
Interior Linework/Interceptor Intersection
26 March – 16 May 2010
Campbelltown Arts Centre
www.campbelltown.nsw.gov.au
Interior Linework/Interceptor Intersection is a major solo exhibition that brings together a selection of Shaun Gladwell’s work from his Maddestmaximvs project along with significant new work commissions. The Maddestmaximvs project began in 2007 with a series of recorded performances located in the Australian hinterland. It has since developed into a comprehensive body of work comprising video, sculpture, painting, photography and installation and was most recently exhibited in the Australian Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale, 2009.
The exhibition reveals an important development in Gladwell’s oeuvre, with the Maddestmaximvs project connecting formal and conceptual concerns that have underpinned the artist’s practice - contemporary cultural phenomena, the performative body in space, the subcultures of youth, the perpetual flux and appropriation of urban environments, and ideas concerning history and memory – to the Australian outback, a contested site embedded in Australia’s collective imagination, dreams and reality. Through this the exhibition explores ideas of cultural identity, Australian masculinity and the line between popular culture and high art.
Campbelltown Arts Centre has commissioned new works to be presented as part of Interior Linework/ Interceptor Intersection, including a purpose-built replica of the XB GT Ford Falcon Coupe Interceptor car which featured in George Miller’s 1979 cult Australian film Mad Max. The Interceptor vehicle – often promoted as the last of the truly Australian Fords – will be presented alongside a twin model initially shown at the Venice Biennale 2009. For the exhibition, the two black Interceptors form part of a new installation work titled Interceptor Intersection.
In addition to sculptural and installation works, the exhibition encompasses video and print mediums. Planet & Stars Sequence: Barrier Highway is a video recording of a painting performance undertaken by Gladwell near Broken Hill in Western NSW while the major video work Apologies 1-6, depicts an anonymous motorcycle rider encountering ‘road kill’ kangaroos on the side of desert highways in central Australia. The rider stops at the roadside where the dead animals lay, to enact a ritual that is repeated in each of the six sequences of the video.
A fully illustrated hardcover catalogue has been published by Campbelltown Arts Centre in connection with the exhibition and features essays by Nikos Papastergiadis, Sabine Schaschl and Christopher Dean,. [Note: I have changed the name order because this is going out to an international audience and Nikos and Sabine have significant international reputations]
Curator: Tania Doropoulos
