The Shaun Gladwell exhibition, opening at The University of Queensland (UQ) Art Museum on Saturday, May 24 showcases recent works by one of Australia’s most internationally recognised contemporary artists.
Shaun Gladwell’s work was selected by Venice Biennale artistic director Robert Storr for his curated section in the prestigious 2007 Venice Biennale, and he is included in the forthcoming Biennale of Sydney.
"This is a tremendously exciting young artist, whose work in moving and still images mesmerises with its capacity to engage with urban street life at one moment and, at the next, the Australian landscape and pop-culture figures like Mad Max," said the Director of The UQ Art Museum, Nick Mitzevich.
"BMX bikers, skateboarders, capoeiristas and breakdancers break through our expectations of visual poetry – they are contemporary works that can engineer beauty even in a fast-food restaurant, train or petrol station."
"Extraordinarily difficult manoeuvres are made to look effortless, movement is slowed down, and sound is subdued, even abstracted."
Included in the exhibition are the video works Maximus as Narcissus: Broken Fields of Reflection (2007); Busan Triptych (2006); Pataphysical Man (2005); and Woolloomooloo Night (2004).
Among the still images are works from his photographic series of 2007, Apology to roadkill, in which the leather-clad and helmeted bike rider cradles a dead kangaroo on a lonely outback highway.
‘We don’t expect to see a motor-bike rider carrying a dead kangaroo, a BMX trick rider balancing upside down in front of calligraphic scrolls, or a girl performing Capoeira movements between petrol bowsers – but that’s part of what make the work compelling,’ Mr Mitzevich said.
As a featured Museums Alight! event, the Shaun Gladwell Exhibition opening on Saturday, May 24 at 4pm will be preceded by a free artist talk at 3pm.
Rebekah Butler, Executive Director of Museum and Gallery Services, said that The University of Queensland Art Museum would join more than 50 other museums and galleries across Queensland for this year’s Museums Alight!
The International Council of Museums (ICOM) has celebrated International Museum Day since 1977, with approximately 20,000 museums and galleries in more than 70 countries expected to contribute to the 31st International Museum Day on 18 May.
The Shaun Gladwell exhibition will continue at The UQ Art Museum until 13 July.
Media: For interviews and media enquiries, please contact:
UQ Art Museum Director Nick Mitzevich or Operations Manager Peter Liddy
Phone: 07 3365 3046
Email: artmuseum@uq.edu.au
