Art has inspired cinema and cinema has inspired art. Since Warhol established a kind of minimal cinematic gaze, artists have recognized the frisson between these two compatible mediums while also being aware of the potential deconstructions that can be created by cross-pollinating the unique artistic paradigms operating in art and film.
Cinema Paradiso featured Andy Warhol’s 1964 film Empire, photographs by celebrated New York artist Cindy Sherman and the film collage works by Tracey Moffatt. From John Massey’s take on the classic road movie to Italian artist Monica Bonvicini’s images of fractured femme fatales, Cinema Paradiso celebrated the magic of celluloid – how artists have represented film in their work and the myriad ways they themselves have been portrayed on film. The exhibition brought together works from some of the world’s leading contemporary artists including Hiroshi Sugimoto’s luminous images of picture house interiors, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s miniaturised private cinema, The Muriel Lake Incident (1999) and Ugo Rondinone’s rear windows.
Exhibiting Artists: Monica Bonvicini (Italy), Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller (Canada), Nicholas Jasmin (France), John Massey (Canada), Tracey Moffat (Aust), Callum Morton (Aust), Andy Warhol (US), Cindy Sherman (US), João Penalva (Portugal), Ugo Rondinone (Switzerland), Edward Ruscha (US), Hiroshi Sugimoto (Japan)
Curator: Juliana Engberg
Publication
Cinema Paradiso
In the Press
13 October, The Age, Popcorn goes the easel
13 October, The Australian, Building an epic
15 October, At the Movies, Cinema Paradiso
31 October, MCV website, Cinema Paradiso
November, Where Magazine, Melbourne’s marvellous exhibitions
