Shaun Gladwell:
Interior Linework/
Interceptor Intersection
26 March – 16 May 2010
Curator: Tania Doropoulos
Cnr Camden & Appin Roads
Campbelltown NSW 2560, Australia
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.
Campbelltown Arts Centre:
Campbelltown Arts Centre is a multidisciplinary contemporary arts centre located in Western Sydney. Since opening in 2005 the Centre has pioneered a contemporary arts program that engages with critical issues of our times. The Centre supports the research, development and production of new work and creates platforms for multidisciplinary arts practice.
Artist:
Shaun Gladwell
Australian artist Shaun Gladwell (b. 1972) has exhibited extensively world wide in major exhibitions including the Australian Pavilion, 53rd Venice Biennale, Italy, 2009; Space for Your Future, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 2008; Think with the senses, feel with the mind – art in the present tense, 52nd Venice Biennale, Italy, 2007; How to Live Together, 27th Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil, 2006; Art Circus (Jumping from the Ordinary), Yokohama 2005 International Triennale of Contemporary Art, Japan, 2005. His work critically and poetically links personal experience with contemporary culture and historical references through performance, video, painting, photography and sculpture. His works engage these concerns through forms of urban expression such as skateboarding, hip-hop, graffiti, BMX bike riding, break-dancing and other extreme sports. Shaun Gladwell is represented by Anna Schwartz Gallery.
