media kit too much of me - Monash University
media kit too much of me - Monash University
media kit too much of me - Monash University
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MEDIA KIT<br />
TOO MUCH OF ME:<br />
7 PATHS THROUGH<br />
THE ABSURD, (WITH DETOUR)*<br />
ARTISTS: RONNIE VAN HOUT | KIRSTY HULM | LAITH McGREGOR<br />
STUART RINGHOLT | WORKMANJONES | ERWIN WURM<br />
*(SAMUEL BECKETT AND BUSTER KEATON)<br />
CURATOR: GERALDINE BARLOW<br />
Laith McGregor, Helm <strong>of</strong> the Rambut Pura 2008<br />
Biro on paper, Collection <strong>of</strong> the artist.
MEDIA KIT<br />
TOO MUCH OF ME<br />
7 PATHS THROUGHT THE ABSURD, (WITH DETOUR)*<br />
Above: Stuart Ringholt, Wednesday he wore a<br />
plastic nose, performance 2003, courtesy <strong>of</strong><br />
the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne<br />
and Sydney<br />
Left: Kirsty Hulm, Allegory for a cowboy story<br />
that never ca<strong>me</strong> to be 2008, ink on paper (detail),<br />
courtesy <strong>of</strong> the artist<br />
TOO MUCH OF ME:<br />
7 PATHS THROUGH<br />
THE ABSURD, (WITH DETOUR)*<br />
Exhibition Dates:<br />
<strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong> Museum <strong>of</strong> Art<br />
15 April – 20 June 2009<br />
<strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong> Museum <strong>of</strong> Art<br />
MUMA<br />
Ground Floor, Building 55<br />
<strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong>, Clayton Campus<br />
Wellington Road, Clayton<br />
Postal: <strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong> VIC 3800<br />
Melbourne, Australia<br />
Tuesday to Friday 10am-5pm<br />
Saturday 2-5pm<br />
T: 61 3 9905 4217<br />
E: muma@adm.monash.edu.au<br />
www.monash.edu.au/muma<br />
Free entry
MEDIA KIT<br />
TOO MUCH OF ME:<br />
7 PATHS THROUGH<br />
THE ABSURD, (WITH DETOUR)*<br />
ARTISTS: RONNIE VAN HOUT | KIRSTY HULM<br />
LAITH McGREGOR | STUART RINGHOLT<br />
WORKMANJONES | ERWIN WURM<br />
*(SAMUEL BECKETT AND BUSTER KEATON)<br />
CURATOR: GERALDINE BARLOW<br />
Introduction<br />
… trying to cease and never ceasing, seeking the cause, the cause <strong>of</strong> talking<br />
and never ceasing, finding the cause, losing it again, finding it again, not<br />
finding it again, seeking no longer, seeking again, finding again, losing again,<br />
finding nothing, finding at last, losing again, talking without ceasing, thirstier<br />
than ever, seeking as usual, losing as usual, blathering away, wondering what<br />
it’s all about, seeking what you can be seeking, exclaiming. Ah, yes, sighing.<br />
No no, crying, Enough, ejaculating, Not yet, talking incessantly, any old thing,<br />
seeking once more, any old thing, existing away, you don’t know what for, as<br />
yes, so<strong>me</strong>thing to do, no no, nothing to be done, and now enough <strong>of</strong> that,<br />
unless perhaps, that’s an idea, let’s seek over there …<br />
– Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable<br />
The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.<br />
The absurd is born <strong>of</strong> this confrontation between the human need<br />
and the unreasonable silence <strong>of</strong> the world.<br />
– Albert Camus, The Myth <strong>of</strong> Sisyphus<br />
How do we make sense <strong>of</strong> who we are and our place in the world, a world<br />
ambivalent to our existence? Our thirst for <strong>me</strong>aning fuels our encounters<br />
with the absurd; whether unexpected or deliberately sought out. Too Much<br />
<strong>of</strong> Me creates a number <strong>of</strong> paths through this terrain, encompassing the<br />
philosophical weight <strong>of</strong> the absurd as well as its relationship to play, creation,<br />
ridicule, revolt and freedom.<br />
Too Much <strong>of</strong> Me features the work <strong>of</strong> Ronnie van Hout, Kirsty Hulm,<br />
Laith McGregor, Stuart Ringholt, WorkmanJones and Erwin Wurm, with a<br />
detour from Samuel Beckett and Buster Keaton. The artists in the exhibition<br />
work with aspects <strong>of</strong> personal refection and self-portraiture. If art and self<br />
awareness arise from self reflection, what are the dangers <strong>of</strong> an excess <strong>of</strong> self<br />
reflection – <strong>too</strong> <strong>much</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>me</strong>?<br />
OPENING FUNCTION<br />
Saturday 18 April, 3-5pm<br />
<strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong> Museum <strong>of</strong> Art, Clayton Campus<br />
With opening welco<strong>me</strong> at 3:45pm<br />
PRE-OPENING FLOOR TALK<br />
Saturday 18 April, 2.30pm<br />
Join curator Geraldine Barlow in conversation with exhibiting artists Ronnie<br />
van Hout, Kirsty Hulm, Patrick Jones (WorkmanJones) and Stuart Ringholt.<br />
CATALOGUE<br />
A 64 page colour catalogue will be produced for Too Much <strong>of</strong> Me<br />
featuring texts by exhibition curator Geraldine Barlow,<br />
Justin Cle<strong>me</strong>ns and Jess Johnson<br />
Media Contact<br />
For further information or image requests please contact<br />
Danny Lacy, Program Administrator<br />
03 99051618 or danny.lacy@adm.monash.edu.au<br />
Above: Erwin Wurm, Take your most loved philosophers 2002, pencil on paper,<br />
instructional drawing from the One minute sculpture series, and view <strong>of</strong> the sculpture realised by<br />
the public, courtesy <strong>of</strong> the artist and Gallery Xavier Hufkens, Brussels,<br />
Belgium and Gallery Thaddeus Ropac, Salzburg, Paris
MEDIA KIT<br />
TOO MUCH OF ME<br />
7 PATHS THROUGHT THE ABSURD, (WITH DETOUR)*<br />
Artists’ Biographies<br />
Kirsty Hulm<br />
Kirsty Hulm works with text,<br />
performance and sculpture. Her<br />
narrative drawings employ allegory,<br />
quotation and a typewriter with a<br />
ribbon and keys. She constructs<br />
elaborate scenarios only to pull<br />
them apart, creates perfect<br />
circles as ho<strong>me</strong>s for abstracted<br />
architectures and imagines cloud<br />
studies from liquid paper in shades<br />
<strong>of</strong> cream upon cream.<br />
With her moleskin notebooks, flesh<br />
coloured modelling compounds,<br />
scrapbooks and matchsticks Hulm<br />
embraces the provisional, the<br />
study and the potential for failure.<br />
Her works move between various<br />
emotional registers: wry, romantic,<br />
pedantic, angry, self aware and<br />
self deprecating. She can make<br />
you laugh with a comma.<br />
Hulm was born in 1985 and lives<br />
and works in Melbourne. She<br />
completed a Bachelor <strong>of</strong> Fine Arts<br />
(Honours), <strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong>, in<br />
2008. For Melbourne's 2008 Next<br />
Wave Festival, Hulm presented<br />
Imagine Me & You, I Do, a twopart<br />
installation, on the façade<br />
<strong>of</strong> St Paul’s Cathedral as well as<br />
in-store at Alphaville, Flinders Lane,<br />
Melbourne. Her work also featured<br />
in Next Wave’s Nightclub Project:<br />
Pure Pleasure and Everybody’s<br />
Free, two one night only events<br />
held at The Men’s Gallery and<br />
Billboard Nightclub.<br />
Hulm’s group exhibitions include<br />
Proposition 4 Proposition,<br />
curated by Angela Bletas at<br />
C3 Contemporary Artspace,<br />
Melbourne, 2008; The Craft<br />
Exchange Salon, curated by the<br />
Safari Team at 25a East<strong>me</strong>nt St<br />
as part <strong>of</strong> the 2008 Melbourne<br />
Fringe Festival; an installation<br />
for Penthouse Mouse, a 2008<br />
L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion<br />
Festival initiative curated by Kate<br />
Hannaford; I’m Not Looking<br />
Forward to the Future Very Much:<br />
An Exploration <strong>of</strong> Pessimism in Art,<br />
curated by Carl Scrase at Runt<br />
Gallery, <strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong>, and<br />
Project Fluoro, curated by Emma<br />
Davis at Dante’s, Fitzroy, 2004.<br />
Ronnie van Hout<br />
Ronnie van Hout’s work explores<br />
the self in its many different guises,<br />
as well as the artist’s own personal<br />
history and <strong>me</strong>mories. Van Hout<br />
has created nu<strong>me</strong>rous versions <strong>of</strong><br />
himself: with wild grey hair holding<br />
a pair <strong>of</strong> small birds, as a painter/<br />
monkey and a dog/sculptor. We<br />
were <strong>of</strong>fered the opportunity to<br />
step into a room in van Hout’s<br />
<strong>me</strong>mory in Sleepless 2008, a 2/3<br />
replica <strong>of</strong> the bedroom he shared<br />
with his brother as a child. For Too<br />
Much <strong>of</strong> Me, this duplication <strong>of</strong> the<br />
artist is extended in the new work,<br />
Doom and gloom 2009, with a pair<br />
<strong>of</strong> pyjama-clad van Hout figures,<br />
as well as three small c<strong>of</strong>fined<br />
doppelgangers from the End Doll<br />
series <strong>of</strong> 2008.<br />
Van Hout was born in 1962 in<br />
Christchurch, New Zealand and<br />
lives and works in Melbourne. He<br />
attended the School <strong>of</strong> Fine Arts at<br />
Canterbury <strong>University</strong> between 1980<br />
and 1982, where he majored in<br />
film. In 1999 he received a Masters<br />
<strong>of</strong> Fine Arts from RMIT <strong>University</strong>,<br />
Melbourne. Since the mid 1980s,<br />
van Hout has exhibited extensively<br />
in Australasia and beyond. In 2005,<br />
van Hout was awarded Laureate<br />
Artist by the Arts Foundation <strong>of</strong> New<br />
Zealand.<br />
In 2008, van Hout presented<br />
solo projects Bed/Sit, Artspace,<br />
Sydney, Australia; A Loss, Again,<br />
Te Papa Tongarewa Museum <strong>of</strong><br />
New Zealand, Wellington, and<br />
the outdoor sculptural project<br />
R.U.R., at the Melbourne Art Fair,<br />
Melbourne, Australia. Other recent<br />
solo exhibitions include Ersatz,<br />
Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; I’ve<br />
Abandoned Me: a Ronnie van Hout<br />
Survey, initiated by the Dunedin<br />
Public Art Gallery, Dunedin, which<br />
toured to venues in New Zealand<br />
and Australia from 2003-5 and Only<br />
the Only, Art Gallery <strong>of</strong> New South<br />
Wales, Sydney, 2001.<br />
Ronnie van Hout is represented<br />
by Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney,<br />
Hamish MacKay Gallery, Wellington,<br />
Ivan Anthony Gallery, Auckland and<br />
Uplands Gallery, Melbourne.<br />
Laith McGregor<br />
Laith McGregor’s works are<br />
exacting and exaggerated. He<br />
draws from photographs and<br />
the familiar, capturing the finest<br />
details <strong>of</strong> faces which include his<br />
own, his father’s and other family<br />
<strong>me</strong>mbers. McGregor draws on<br />
expanses <strong>of</strong> fine rag paper with<br />
cheap disposable biros. A blurry<br />
fuzz <strong>of</strong> blue biro delicately describes<br />
an engorged and pendulous beard<br />
extending from his father’s chin.<br />
Hair, a great marker <strong>of</strong> masculine<br />
virility, when found in the ‘right’<br />
places, is an orna<strong>me</strong>nt <strong>of</strong> absurd<br />
puffery in McGregor’s work, as<br />
well as a form <strong>of</strong> protective veil.<br />
McGregor employs strategies <strong>of</strong><br />
caricature, he makes us smile, but<br />
his portraits are more searching in<br />
what they reveal with this excess<br />
<strong>of</strong> hair.<br />
McGregor has recently returned to<br />
Melbourne after a period living in<br />
Brisbane. He completed a Bachelor<br />
<strong>of</strong> Fine Art (Honours), Victorian<br />
College <strong>of</strong> the Arts in 2007. He has<br />
held solo exhibitions at the Institute<br />
<strong>of</strong> Modern Art, Brisbane, 2008; TCB<br />
Art Inc., Melbourne, 2008; Helen<br />
Gory Galerie, Melbourne 2006 and<br />
forthcoming in 2009; and Alliance<br />
Française, Melbourne 2005.<br />
McGregor’s work features in I Walk<br />
the line: New Australian Drawing,<br />
Museum <strong>of</strong> Contemporary Art,<br />
Sydney and was also included<br />
in the Keith & Elizabeth Murdoch<br />
Travelling Fellowship exhibition,<br />
Margaret Lawrence Gallery, VCA,<br />
Melbourne, 2009. In 2008 Laith<br />
McGregor was the winner <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Robert Jacks Drawing Prize at<br />
the Bendigo Art Gallery. Other<br />
group exhibitions in 2008 were at<br />
Westspace, Helen Gory Galerie,<br />
all in Melbourne, and Sullivan and<br />
Strumpf Gallery, Sydney.<br />
Laith McGregor is represented by<br />
Helen Gory Galerie, Melbourne<br />
and Sullivan and Strumpf Gallery,<br />
Sydney.
MEDIA KIT<br />
TOO MUCH OF ME<br />
7 PATHS THROUGHT THE ABSURD, (WITH DETOUR)*<br />
Stuart Ringholt<br />
Stuart Ringholt has a fine sense<br />
<strong>of</strong> the dead-pan. For Too Much<br />
<strong>of</strong> Me he has devised a waiting<br />
room installation <strong>of</strong> chairs<br />
made from cut-<strong>of</strong>f bath tubs.<br />
At first glance they have the<br />
appearance <strong>of</strong> mass-produced<br />
generic modernist furniture, but in<br />
shades <strong>of</strong> green, pink and white<br />
they are recognisable as the<br />
retreats <strong>of</strong> once-soaking bodies,<br />
repurposed for the tedium <strong>of</strong><br />
a generic waiting room. In his<br />
performance works and writing,<br />
Ringholt has <strong>of</strong>ten focussed on<br />
emotional states such as anger<br />
and embarrass<strong>me</strong>nt, as well as<br />
the incidence <strong>of</strong> psychological<br />
trauma more broadly. In his<br />
photocollages, Ringholt makes<br />
subtle a<strong>me</strong>nd<strong>me</strong>nts to existing<br />
books that <strong>of</strong>ten render the self<br />
as uncanny, double, displaced or<br />
unseeing.<br />
Ringholt was born in Perth,<br />
Australia, in 1971 and currently<br />
lives and works in Melbourne.<br />
Recent solo exhibitions include<br />
Low Sculpture, Anna Schwartz<br />
Gallery, 2008; ACCA at Tolarno,<br />
Melbourne, 2007; Studio 12,<br />
Gertrude Contemporary Art<br />
Spaces, 2006; and Backfence<br />
Jokes, Display, Prague, 2005.<br />
Ringholt’s work has been<br />
presented in a number <strong>of</strong> curatorial<br />
projects and group exhibitions<br />
including Revolutions – Forms that<br />
Turn, Biennale <strong>of</strong> Sydney, 2008;<br />
Lost and Found: An Archaeology<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Present, Tarrawara<br />
Biennial, 2008; Zonal Marx, VCA<br />
Gallery, Melbourne, 2007; and<br />
New 05, Australian Centre for<br />
Contemporary Art, Melbourne,<br />
2005.<br />
His recent performance projects<br />
include: Anger Workshops, Art<br />
Gallery <strong>of</strong> New South Wales,<br />
Sydney, 2008; Untitled, <strong>Monash</strong><br />
<strong>University</strong> Museum <strong>of</strong> Art,<br />
Melbourne, 2005; Rubbish Bin,<br />
Holsevice Street, Prague, 2005<br />
and Funny Fear Workshops,<br />
Studio 5, Gertrude Contemporary<br />
Art Spaces, Melbourne, 2004.<br />
Stuart Ringholt is represented by<br />
Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne<br />
and Sydney.<br />
WorkmanJones<br />
Jason Workman and Patrick<br />
Jones have collaborated as<br />
WorkmanJones since 2004.<br />
Workman lives in Brooklyn, New<br />
York and Jones in Daylesford,<br />
Victoria. Their practice is<br />
ephe<strong>me</strong>ral, performative, and<br />
mostly occurs in public. Lowbudget,<br />
or no-budget, their works<br />
are understated, so<strong>me</strong>ti<strong>me</strong>s comic<br />
and gently, but seriously, anarchic.<br />
WorkmanJones find creative<br />
potential in our shared social<br />
spaces, where art and the<br />
business <strong>of</strong> life are able to<br />
converge. Their performances<br />
<strong>of</strong>fer mo<strong>me</strong>nts <strong>of</strong> respite,<br />
lightness and humour, as well as<br />
challenging our expectations <strong>of</strong><br />
public behaviour. In the city, they<br />
adopt the suit as a uniform, only<br />
to behave curiously, subversively,<br />
amidst their many near clones:<br />
they sit and lie despondently<br />
on the ground; they set up their<br />
own laneway café with flasks<br />
<strong>of</strong> c<strong>of</strong>fee, milk-crate s<strong>too</strong>ls and<br />
a gas stove; they dance in the<br />
street and perch on fire hydrants<br />
like bored, oversized crows. In<br />
wo<strong>me</strong>n’s suits and stockings<br />
they hang from tram-stops;<br />
cartwheel down laneways and<br />
undertake sequences <strong>of</strong> slowfrozen<br />
move<strong>me</strong>nts: ‘freedragging’<br />
as they call it. In their daily jeans<br />
and t-shirts they move through a<br />
series <strong>of</strong> impromptu move<strong>me</strong>nts<br />
figured against the local industrial<br />
architecture. Through the way they<br />
inhabit space WorkmanJones aim<br />
to re-contextualise the everyday<br />
and expand our sense <strong>of</strong> what is<br />
possible.<br />
Jason Workman was born in<br />
1970 in New Zealand. He has<br />
a Bachelor <strong>of</strong> Arts in Visual Arts<br />
from RMIT <strong>University</strong> as well as a<br />
nursing degree from AIT, Auckland<br />
Patrick Jones was born in 1970<br />
and has his Masters <strong>of</strong> Fine Arts<br />
from the College <strong>of</strong> Fine Arts,<br />
<strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> New South Wales.<br />
WorkmanJones recently exhibited<br />
in New Social Com<strong>me</strong>ntaries,<br />
F.J Foundation Acquisitive prize,<br />
Warrnambool Art Gallery, their<br />
works have been screened at the<br />
Center for Maine Contemporary<br />
Art, Rockport, Maine, 2008;<br />
Elsewhere Artist Collaborative,<br />
Greensboro, North Carolina, 2008;<br />
Infradig ii Daylesford, Victoria,<br />
2007; Contention or Consensus,<br />
Gasworks, Melbourne, 2006;<br />
and 45, Poetry readings /<br />
Filmscreening, Trentham, 2006.<br />
Erwin Wurm<br />
The work <strong>of</strong> Erwin Wurm combines<br />
philosophy, art, politics, spirituality<br />
and everyday life with a keen sense<br />
<strong>of</strong> the absurd. In the photographic<br />
series Instructions for idleness we<br />
witness the artist following his own<br />
directions: sleep for 2 months, think<br />
about the void, be indifferent about<br />
everything, stay in your pyjamas<br />
all day. Too Much <strong>of</strong> Me will also<br />
feature works from the ongoing<br />
series <strong>of</strong> One minute sculptures,<br />
where visitors to the gallery<br />
are invited to follow the artist’s<br />
instructional drawings, for instance,<br />
to pose in the indicated stance<br />
with a series <strong>of</strong> books Take your<br />
most loved philosophers. Wurm’s<br />
instructional works invite us to take<br />
action, but also to find mo<strong>me</strong>nts <strong>of</strong><br />
stillness, reflection and silliness.<br />
Wurm was born in 1954 and lives<br />
and works in Vienna, Austria. Wurm<br />
graduated from the Academy <strong>of</strong><br />
Applied Arts and Academy <strong>of</strong> Fine<br />
Arts in Vienna in 1982, and the<br />
Mozarteum in Salzburg, in 1979.<br />
Wurm has exhibited extensively<br />
internationally since 1981. He has<br />
presented exhibitions at the Peggy<br />
Guggenheim Collection, Venice;<br />
Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Galerie de<br />
l’Uquam, Montreal; and the Centre<br />
National de la Photographie, Paris,<br />
as well as nu<strong>me</strong>rous other venues.<br />
Recent solo exhibitions include<br />
The Artist Who Swallowed the<br />
World, Kunstmuseum St Gallen,<br />
Switzerland, and Deichtorhallen<br />
Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany,<br />
2007-8. Initiated by the Yerba<br />
Buena Centre for the Arts in San<br />
Francisco, the survey exhibition<br />
I Love My Ti<strong>me</strong>, I Don’t Like My<br />
Ti<strong>me</strong>: Recent Works by Erwin<br />
Wurm toured venues in the USA<br />
from 2004-7. In Australia, Erwin<br />
Wurm: Glue your Brain, featured at<br />
the Museum <strong>of</strong> Contemporary Art,<br />
Sydney in 2005-6 and, in 2003,<br />
Wurm’s One minute sculptures<br />
were exhibited in Melbourne as<br />
part <strong>of</strong> the visual arts program <strong>of</strong><br />
the Melbourne International Arts<br />
Festival.<br />
Erwin Wurm’s representatives<br />
include Gallery Xavier Hufkens,<br />
Brussels, Belguim and Gallery<br />
Thaddeus Ropac, Salzburg and<br />
Paris.<br />
Samuel Beckett & Buster Keaton<br />
FILM 1965<br />
21 minutes<br />
Writer: Samuel Beckett<br />
O: Buster Keaton<br />
Director: Alan Schneider<br />
Samuel Beckett’s FILM will screen<br />
in the circular vestibule entry to the<br />
gallery. Silent except for a single<br />
‘Shhhh!’, this black and white<br />
short film features Buster Keaton<br />
as O, a man who tries to evade an<br />
all-seeing eye: E.<br />
Based around Bishop Berkeley's<br />
principle 'to be is to be perceived’,<br />
Keaton's very existence conspires<br />
against his efforts. FILM was<br />
directed by Alan Schneider and<br />
screens courtesy <strong>of</strong> Evergreen<br />
Review and Barney Rosset.<br />
Samuel Beckett, FILM 1965,<br />
Black and white, 35mm, 22 minutes<br />
Directed by Alan Schneider<br />
Starring Buster Keaton<br />
Courtesy <strong>of</strong> Barney Rosset and Evergreen Review
MEDIA KIT<br />
TOO MUCH OF ME<br />
7 PATHS THROUGHT THE ABSURD, (WITH DETOUR)*<br />
Above: WorkmanJones, Three songs 2007, DVD stills (top two<br />
rows); WorkmanJones, Mashed 2009, DVD stills (third row),<br />
courtesy <strong>of</strong> the artists<br />
Below: Ronnie van Hout End dolls 2008, painted fibreglass,<br />
clothing, baby wigs, cloth and synthetic stuffing, courtesy <strong>of</strong> The<br />
Physics Room, Christchurch, New Zealand.<br />
Too Much <strong>of</strong> Me: 7 paths<br />
through the absurd, with detour<br />
Exhibition Dates:<br />
<strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong> Museum <strong>of</strong> Art,<br />
15 April – 20 June 2009<br />
<strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong> Museum <strong>of</strong> Art<br />
MUMA<br />
Ground Floor, Building 55<br />
<strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong>, Clayton Campus<br />
Wellington Road, Clayton<br />
Postal: <strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong> VIC 3800<br />
Melbourne, Australia<br />
Tuesday to Friday 10am-5pm<br />
Saturday 2-5pm<br />
T: 61 3 9905 4217<br />
E: muma@adm.monash.edu.au<br />
www.monash.edu.au/muma<br />
Free entry
MONASH UNIVERSITY MUSEUM OF ART<br />
EDUCATION AND PUBLIC PROGRAMS<br />
DANCING WITH MYSELF<br />
ADRIAN MARTIN<br />
THURSDAY 21 MAY 2009 4:30PM<br />
An illustrated lecture featuring dance in film with absurd resonances:<br />
When the postman Jacques Tati stops <strong>of</strong>f at a local dance hall-café at midday and his body<br />
spontaneously reacts, in the short L’Ecole des Facteurs (1947) ...<br />
When a German teenager dances alone – or <strong>me</strong>rely imagines it? – amidst the disco party lights in<br />
Be My Star (2001) ...<br />
When all the strippers and showgirls and ‘novelty dancers’ in all the tawdry bars <strong>of</strong> the world<br />
gyrate for horrible <strong>me</strong>n, yet so<strong>me</strong>how dance in their own world, only for themselves ...<br />
When Chris Penn cuts loose, all combustion and rage, in a Prohibition-era speakeasy in Abel<br />
Ferrara’s The Funeral (1996) ...<br />
When Tracey Ullman, intoxicated with sex addiction, ‘does the Hokey-Pokey’ in the centre <strong>of</strong> a<br />
circle at the old folks’ ho<strong>me</strong> (A Dirty Sha<strong>me</strong>, 2004) ...<br />
When the ‘full-flash, strutting performance’ <strong>of</strong> Tom Cruise in The Color <strong>of</strong> Money (1986) ‘flaunt[s]<br />
his unchecked energy’ and ‘Scorsese and cinematographer Michael Ballhaus construct fluid<br />
moving-ca<strong>me</strong>ra fra<strong>me</strong>s for his cue-stick-twirling prances around pool tables’, which critic Rick<br />
Thomspon calls ‘the best dancing in a pool room since Anna Karina in Jean-Luc Godard’s Vivre<br />
sa vie (1962)’, a lonely rock-swing wanting so<strong>me</strong> attention and so<strong>me</strong> distraction in a shady world<br />
<strong>of</strong> <strong>me</strong>n ...<br />
And when Tati again – now an old, elegant man in his final feature film, shot on video for Swedish<br />
television (Parade, 1974) – reprises one <strong>of</strong> his ancient stage routines, 'No Age For Dancing',<br />
where his body subtly discombobulates to each new rhythm <strong>of</strong> each new age ...<br />
No one really dances with themselves in cinema. If there is not a crowd, a community, a society watching,<br />
there is a ca<strong>me</strong>ra, a crew, and finally us, the audience. The paradox <strong>of</strong> dancing with oneself in film, and all it<br />
allows, all it explores: states <strong>of</strong> solitude, <strong>of</strong> energy, <strong>of</strong> abandon and rapture, <strong>of</strong> nuttiness and automatism, <strong>of</strong><br />
elegance and dagginess …<br />
– Adrian Martin, March 2009<br />
Bookings required.<br />
Phone MUMA on 03 9905 4217 or email muma@adm.monash.edu.au for venue details and bookings<br />
For additional Education and Public Programs during Too Much <strong>of</strong> Me including MUMA podcasts<br />
featuring participating artists see MUMA website:<br />
www.monash.edu.au/muma/education<br />
TOO MUCH OF ME:<br />
7 PATHS THROUGH<br />
THE ABSURD, (WITH DETOUR)*<br />
Exhibition Dates:<br />
<strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong> Museum <strong>of</strong> Art<br />
15 April – 20 June 2009<br />
<strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong> Museum <strong>of</strong> Art<br />
MUMA<br />
Ground Floor, Building 55<br />
<strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong>, Clayton Campus<br />
Wellington Road, Clayton<br />
Postal: <strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong> VIC 3800<br />
Melbourne, Australia<br />
Tuesday to Friday 10am-5pm<br />
Saturday 2-5pm<br />
T: 61 3 9905 4217<br />
E: muma@adm.monash.edu.au<br />
www.monash.edu.au/muma<br />
Free entry<br />
Adrian Martin<br />
Since 1979, Dr. Adrian Martin has<br />
combined work as a pr<strong>of</strong>essional<br />
writer and film critic with a<br />
university career. He was film<br />
reviewer for The Age between<br />
1995 and 2006. For his nu<strong>me</strong>rous<br />
books, essays and public lectures<br />
he has won the Byron Kennedy<br />
Award (Australian Film Institute)<br />
and the Pascall Prize for Critical<br />
Writing, and his PhD on film style<br />
won the Mollie Holman Award. He<br />
is the author <strong>of</strong> four books and<br />
hundreds <strong>of</strong> essays on film, art,<br />
television, literature, music, popular<br />
and avant-garde culture.<br />
Left: Erwin Wurm Stay in your pyjamas all day 2001, from the series<br />
Instructions for idleness 2001, type C photograph, courtesy <strong>of</strong> the artist<br />
Right: Stuart Ringholt Untitled (waiting room) 2009, ena<strong>me</strong>l steel, steel,<br />
courtesy the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne and Sydney
TOO MUCH OF ME<br />
7 PATHS THROUGH THE ABSURD, (WITH DETOUR)*<br />
RONNIE VAN HOUT | KIRSTY HULM | LAITH McGREGOR | STUART RINGHOLT<br />
WORKMANJONES | ERWIN WURM *(SAMUEL BECKETT AND BUSTER KEATON)<br />
Pr<strong>of</strong>essor John Redmond, Chair,<br />
and Max Delany, Director, MUMA,<br />
cordially invite you to the opening <strong>of</strong><br />
Too Much <strong>of</strong> Me: 7 paths through<br />
the absurd, (with detour)*<br />
Curator: Geraldine Barlow<br />
PRE-OPENING ARTISTS’ TALK<br />
Saturday 18 April at 2.30pm<br />
Geraldine Barlow in conversation<br />
with participating artists Kirsty Hulm,<br />
Patrick Jones (WorkmanJones),<br />
Ronnie van Hout, Laith McGregor<br />
& Stuart Ringholt.<br />
OPENING FUNCTION<br />
Saturday 18 April at 3.00pm<br />
<strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong> Museum <strong>of</strong> Art<br />
Clayton Campus<br />
With opening remarks at 3:45pm<br />
Exhibition Dates<br />
15 April – 20 June 2009<br />
<strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong> Museum <strong>of</strong> Art<br />
Clayton Campus<br />
Education & Public Program<br />
Thursday 21 May 2009 4.30pm<br />
<strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong> Museum <strong>of</strong> Art<br />
Clayton Campus<br />
DANCING WITH MYSELF<br />
Adrian Martin<br />
An illustrated lecture featuring dance<br />
in film with absurd resonances.<br />
Bookings required<br />
Phone 9905 4360 or email<br />
muma@adm.monash.edu.au<br />
<strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong> Museum <strong>of</strong> Art<br />
MUMA<br />
Ground Floor, Building 55<br />
<strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong>, Clayton Campus<br />
Wellington Road, Clayton<br />
Postal: <strong>Monash</strong> <strong>University</strong> VIC 3800<br />
Melbourne, Australia<br />
Tuesday to Friday 10am-5pm<br />
Saturday 2-5pm<br />
T: 61 3 9905 4217<br />
E: muma@adm.monash.edu.au<br />
www.monash.edu.au/muma<br />
Free entry<br />
Erwin Wurm, Carrying a bomb 2003<br />
pen on paper, courtesy <strong>of</strong> the artist and<br />
Gallery Xavier Hufkens, Brussels, Belgium and<br />
Gallery Thaddeus Ropac, Salzburg, Paris