Presented by MONASH UNIVERSITY MUSEUM OF ART
BORDERS, BARRIERS, WALLS: MEDIA KIT
BORDERS, BARRIERS, WALLS
Curated by francis E. Parker
EXHIBITION DATES
30 April – 2 July 2016
ARTISTS
Lawrence Abu Hamdan (LBN), Allora & Calzadilla (USA & CUB), Karen Black
(AUS), Gunter Christmann (AUS), Jin Chul Kyu (KOR), Shilpa Gupta (IND),
Guan Wei (CHN), Khaled Hourani (PSE), Raafat Ishak (AUS), Isaac Julien
(UK), Sonia Leber & David Chesworth (AUS), Kai Löffelbein (DEU), Ricky
Maynard (AUS), Carlos Motta (USA), Tony Schwensen (AUS), Amy Spiers &
Catherine Ryan (AUS), Danae Stratou (GRC), Judy Watson (AUS)
CATALOGUE
The exhibition catalogue features commissioned essays by Professor Gillian
Triggs, President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, and Yanis
Varoufakis, founding member of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025
and former Greek finance minister, along with a curatorial overview.
INTRoduction
Borders, barriers and walls delineate this group exhibition of Australian
and international artists. It reflects on how these contested and complex
forms shape the world, producing situations of separation, isolation
or thwarted passage across the globe. Whether they be physical
constructions, psychological constructs or natural defences, the
exhibition considers the forces by which these divides are either upheld
or breached.
Borders, Barriers, Walls features more than twenty-five artworks covering
video installation, painting, photography and sculpture. The exhibition
includes a new commission by local artists Amy Spiers and Catherine
Ryan.
Ground Floor, Building F
Monash University, Caulfield Campus
900 Dandenong Road
Caulfield East VIC 3145 Australia
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Director Charlotte Day: “This is a timely exhibition that continues MUMA’s
commitment to contemporary art that engages critically with the social,
political and cultural issues of our times.”
Curator Francis E. Parker: “The exhibition takes place against the
backdrop of the global refugee crisis and seeks to add to the voices
speaking out against the inhumane treatment of asylum seekers by the
Australian Government through offshore detention.”
Almost fifteen years after the September 11 attacks, many of the works
in Borders, Barriers, Walls address the subsequent shift in geopolitics
and political unrest that has resulted in the displacement of peoples and
the dramatic increase of refugees world-wide. While the exhibition is
focused on recent and contemporary events, history informs several of
the works that detail government policies of restricted movement and
exile in relation to both Indigenous Australians and people all over the
world.
The exhibiting artists share a concern with the geographies that delineate
nation states: oceans, air space, land, as well as the modes of transport
that enable passage between them. A number of video and immersive
soundscape works foreground narrative and emphasise documentary
form as a mechanism for personal and cultural reflection.
Through lyricism, humour, satire, essay and documentary forms, the
artists in Borders, Barriers, Walls seek to disrupt systems of control –
political, militaristic, bureaucratic – as well as reflect on past injustices,
sites of trauma and the importance of bearing witness.
MEDIA
For all media enquiries please contact Kelly Fliedner
[email protected] | +61 418 308 059
www.monash.edu.au/muma
Telephone +61 3 9905 4217
[email protected]
Tony Schwensen, Border Protection Assistance
Proposed Monument for the Torres Strait (Am I
ever going to see your face again?) 2002, road
barriers, buckets, Floaties, water. Courtesy of the
artist and Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney.
Presented by MONASH UNIVERSITY MUSEUM OF ART
BORDERS, BARRIERS, WALLS: SELECTED ARTIST PROFILES
Isaac Julien
Isaac Julien (b. 1960, London, United Kingdom) is an installation artist
and filmmaker. Julien has held major solo exhibitions at the Tate Modern,
London, 2015; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2013; Tate Liverpool,
2010; Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2005; and the Irish Museum of Modern Art,
Dublin, 2005. Julien was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2001 for his films
The Long Road to Mazatlán (1999), made in collaboration with Javier de
Frutos, and Vagabondia (2000), also choreographed by de Frutos. Isaac
Julien is represented by Roslyn Oxley9, Sydney.
Julien’s multi-channel video installation Western Union: Small Boats (2007),
was made in response to the loss of life in clandestine crossings of the
Mediterranean from North Africa to Sicily. It meditates on migration and the
hope for a better life, juxtaposing the baroque splendour of the Palazzo
Gangi – the location for Visconti’s film The Leopard – with the deadly
voyage.
Khaled Hourani
Khaled Hourani (b.1965, Hebron, Palestine) is an artist, designer and critic
based in the Palestinian West Bank city of Ramallah. He has exhibited at
Documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany, 2012; Seeing is Believing, KW Institute
for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2011; and a retrospective of his work was
held at both the Center for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow and Gallery One,
Ramallah in 2014. Hourani worked as the Artistic Director (2007-10),
then the Director (2010-13) of the International Academy of Art Palestine,
an organisation known for its innovative contemporary art program and
institutional model. He was the curator of the Palestinian Pavilion for the
São Paulo Art Biennial, Brazil, in 1996 and 2002, and the 21st Alexandria
Biennale, Egypt, in 2001. Recently he was awarded Creative Time's Leonore
Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change in New York City.
Hourani’s video documentation Picasso in Palestine (2012) follows the
bureaucratic negotiations and border crossings of a cubist portrait by
Picasso on its journey from the Van Abbemuseum in the Netherlands for
exhibition at the International Academy of Art Palestine in 2011.
Danae Stratou
Danae Stratou (b. 1964, Athens, Greece) makes large-scale installations and
tactile audio-visual environments. In 2010 she co-founded the non-profit
organisation Vital Space, a global, interdisciplinary, cross-media art platform
addressing the pressing issues of our time. She is one of the three members
of the D.A.ST. Arteam collective who created Desert Breath in 1997, one of
the largest Land Art projects on the planet, covering 100,000 square metres
in the eastern Egyptian Sahara bordering the Red Sea.
Stratou's work has been exhibited widely, including in the 48th Venice
Biennale, Italy, 1999; the 1st Valencia Biennale, Spain, 2001; the
Bienal International del Deporte en el Arte, Seville, Spain, 2005; the
5th International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Gyumri, Armênia, 2006;
the 1st Thessaloniki Biennale, Greece, 2007; La Verrière, Fondation
d’Enterprise Hermès, Belgium, 2010; Istanbul – Culture Capital of Europe
2010 International Program, Turkey, 2010; Restless, Adelaide International
Festival, 2012; and the annual international exhibition Icastica, Arezzo, Italy,
2015.
Stratou’s video installation The Globalising Wall (2012) is based on a text
by Yani Varoufakis and bears witness to the spread of seperation walls in
places such as Cyprus, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Ethiopia, the West Bank,
Kashmir and Mexico.
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(from top)
Isaac Julien, Western Union: Small Boats (The
Leopard) 2007 (still), single screen projection,
super 16mm film transferred to DVD/HD, 5.1
surround sound. Courtesy of the artist.
(central two images)
Khaled Hourani, Picasso in Palestine 2011
First photo: Khaled Jarar. Second photo: Sander
Buyck.
(bottom image)
Danae Stratou, The Globalising Wall 2012 (video
still). Courtesy of the artist.
Presented by MONASH UNIVERSITY MUSEUM OF ART
BORDERS, BARRIERS, WALLS: SELECTED ARTIST PROFILES
Tony Schwensen
Tony Schwensen (b. 1970, Sydney) lives and works in Boston, USA.
Recent solo exhibitions and performances include: SCABLAND –
48HR Incident, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney, 2015;
Performalism, Station Gallery, Melbourne, 2014; Monument, Waterloo
Center for the Arts, Iowa, 2010; Regret, Remorse, Repent, Le Lieu,
Quebec City, Canada, 2010; and Post Colonial Cluster Fuck (with Trace
Collective), Artspace, Sydney, 2009. Recent group exhibitions include:
support material, soft furnishings, RMIT Project Space, Melbourne,
2016; Art as a Verb, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne,
2014; Perform! Cooperate! Now!, Burgtheater, University of Hildesheim,
Germany, 2014; and Indicating Boundaries, 4th International Live Art
Conference, University of the Arts, Helsinki, 2013. Tony Schwensen is
represented by Station Gallery, Melbourne, and Sarah Cottier Gallery,
Sydney.
Schwensen’s Border Protection Assistance Proposed Monument for the
Torres Strait (Am I ever going to see your face again?) (2002) satirised
the Howard Government’s tightening of Australia’s border security.
Allora & Calzadilla
Jennifer Allora (b. 1974, Philidelphia, USA) and Guillermo Calzadilla
(b.1971, Havana, Cuba), based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, have a longstanding collaboration as installation artists. Recent solo exhibitions
include: Apotome, REDCAT, Los Angeles, 2014; Fault Lines, Gladstone
Gallery, New York, 2014; Intervals, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2014;
Vidéo et Après, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2013; Stop, Repair, Prepare,
Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2011; and RETHINK Relations,
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, 2009. Allora & Calzadilla’s
works have been included in major international surveys such as
Documenta 13, Kassel, 2012; the 54th Venice Biennale, United States of
America Pavilion, 2011; and the 29th São Paulo Biennial, Brazil, 2010.
Allora & Calzadilla are represented by Gladstone Gallery, New York, and
Lisson Gallery, London.
Allora & Calzadilla’s Under Discussion (2005) was made following the
departure of the US military from its Naval Training Range on the Puerto
Rican island of Vieques in 2003.
Judy Watson
Judy Watson (b. 1959, Mundubbera, Queensland) is a Brisbane-based
artist whose work takes inspiration from the land and traditions of Waanyi
culture. Recent major solo exhibitions include The Scarifier, TarraWarra
Museum of Art, 2016; sacred ground beating heart / experimental beds
/ heron island suite, Noosa Regional Gallery, Queensland, 2013; and
heron island suit, which toured regional galleries in Western Australia,
New South Wales and Queensland in 2010. In 2005, The University of
Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane presented a survey of her work Judy
Watson: Selected works 1990-2005. Recent group exhibitions include:
Everywhen: The Eternal Present in Indigenous Art from Australia, Harvard
Art Museum, USA, 2015; Artists and Empire: Facing Britain’s Imperial
Past, TATE Britain, London, 2015; Contemporary Indigenous Art from
Australia, Musée de la civilisation, Quebec, Canada, 2015; Daughters,
Mothers (part of Future Feminist Archive), SCA Galleries, Sydney College
of the Arts, 2015; Salt Water Country, Gold Coast Art Centre, 2014;
Conflict: Contemporary responses to war, The University of Queensland
Art Museum, Brisbane, 2014; Theatre of the World, La Maison Rouge,
Paris, 2013; and My Country: I Still Call Australia Home, Queensland
Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2013. Judy Watson is
represented by Milani Gallery, Brisbane.
Watson’s painting From Dusk Till Dawn: Five Brisbane Shields (2003)
addresses the imposition of curfews on Indigenous people in cities like
Brisbane up until the 1940s that saw them driven outside the ‘boundary
streets’ at dusk.
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(top image)
Tony Schwensen, Border Protection Assistance
Proposed Monument for the Torres Strait (Am I
ever going to see your face again?) 2002, road
barriers, buckets, Floaties, water. Courtesy of the
artist and Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney.
(middle two images)
Allora & Calzadilla, Under Discussion 2005
(video stills). © Allora & Calzadilla.
(bottom image)
Judy Watson, From dusk till dawn: five Brisbane
shields 2003, ink, chinagraph pencil and acrylic
on canvas. © Judy Watson/Licensed by Viscopy,
2016. Photo: Carl Warner.
Presented by MONASH UNIVERSITY MUSEUM OF ART
BORDERS, BARRIERS, WALLS: SELECTED ARTIST PROFILES
Amy Spiers & Catherine Ryan
Amy Spiers (b. 1982, Sydney) and Catherine Ryan (b. 1983, Melbourne)
are Melbourne-based artists and writers. Their collaborative work has
been presented in exhibitions in Australia and internationally, including:
Sorry You Missed Me, Royal College of Art, London, 2016; Während
der Ausstellung ist das Museum geschlossen, Museum für Neue Kunst,
Freiburg, Germany, 2016; MONA FOMA Festival, Salamanca Art Centre,
Hobart, 2016; Performing Public Art Festival, Vienna Biennale, Austria,
2015; MAF Edge: Social Capital program curated by Jacqueline Doughty,
Melbourne Art Fair, 2014; Festival of Live Art, Arts House, Melbourne,
2014; Site Dedicated to the Active Effacement and Complete Disregard
of History, Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, Berlin, 2013; and Ibrahim
the Algorithm, Mathematics of Small Numbers group exhibition curated
by Anusha Kenny, Footscray Community Art Centre, Melbourne, 2012.
Their 2014 work, Nothing to See Here (Dispersal), was nominated for
a Green Room Award for Outstanding Contemporary and Experimental
Performance. In 2013 they were finalists in the Substation Contemporary
Art Prize.
Amy Spiers and Catherine Ryan will devise a new performative work for
Borders, Barriers, Walls.
Jin Chul Kyu
Chul Kyu Jin (b. 1988, Seoul) has presented works in numerous
exhibitions in South Korea and internationally. Recent exhibitions include:
Portfolio for Future, Art Center White Block, South Korea, 2015; REAL
DMZ PROJECT 2015, Art Sonje Center, Seoul, 2015; Dongbang Yogoi_
Triangle Art Festival, Space K, Gwangju, 2013; VIDEO RELAY TAANSAN,
Insa Art Space, Seoul, 2013; and Mentor & Mentee, Hanwon Museum,
Seoul, 2012.
Chul Kyu’s video, Kite-flying in Cheorwon D.M.Z. (2015) is a poetic
reimagining of the kites flown over the Demilitarised Zone between North
and South Korea to drop propaganda.
Sonia Leber & David Chesworth
Sonia Leber (b. 1959, Melbourne) and David Chesworth (b.1958 StokeOn-Trent, United Kingdom) create large-scale sound and multimedia
installations for public spaces and art institutions. Their work has been
included in major survey exhibitions such as: All the World’s Futures, the
56th Venice Biennale, Venice, 2015; Moscow Biennale of Contemporary
Art, Russia, 2014; You Imagine What You Desire, 19th Biennale of
Sydney, Sydney, 2014; and Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria,
Melbourne 2013. They performed their Richter/Meinhof-Opera at the
Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney in 2012 and at the Australian
Centre for Contemporary Art in Melbourne in 2010.
For Borders, Barriers, Walls Leber and Chesworth reprise their sound
installation from the 2014 Biennale of Sydney, This Is Before We
Disappear From View, which responsed to Australia's mandatory
detention of so-called ‘illegal’ asylum seekers, a policy that stages
deterrence in offshore prisons of hopelessness and dread.
(top image)
Amy Spiers and Catherine Ryan, Closed to the
Public (protecting space) 2016, performance,
Freiburg, Germany. Photo: Marc Doradzillo.
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(central two images)
Jin Chul Kyu, Kite-flying in Cheorwon D.M.Z.
2015 (video still). Courtesy of the artist.
(bottom image)
Sonia Leber and David Chesworth, This Is Before
We Disappear From View 2014, 4-16 channel
audio. Installation view, 19th Biennale of Sydney.
Courtesy of the artists.