Power to the People
Power to the People
Contemporary Conceptualism and the Object in Art
22 October – 20 November 2011
Presented by Melbourne International Arts Festival and the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
During the late 1960s, following events such as the Vietnam war and popular up-risings in Paris and elsewhere, a new artistic movement, focused on political and social activism, began to emerge. Artists began to move away from creating precious, discrete art objects to instigating dynamic situations, installations, happenings and interactive audience projects.
Power to the People, created by the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art for the Melbourne International Arts Festival, presents works from over 15 Australian and international artists who have revisited, revised and revitalized these art-making strategies. Works shown by artists including Dora Garcia, Fiona Macdonald, Jonathan Monk and Mario Garcia Torres, demonstrate a move away from the art ‘object’, into more performative, documentative, research and participatory modes of art making.
The exhibition also celebrates the role the audience plays within this expanded field of art making, often becoming part of the work itself.
Curated by ACCA Associate Curator Hannah Mathews, Power to the People considers current artistic practices in light of the strategies employed by the pioneers of Conceptual Art in the 1960s and 70s, and contemplates their contemporary adaptation, expansion and legitimacy
in the 21st century.
A series of talks, screenings and performances will accompany the exhibition: highlights include the screening of Headless at Regus (2010), a documentary about Swedish artists Goldin + Senneby’s Headless project (2007) that tracks the artists’ research into offshore financing and the activities of a fictional company called Headless; each Friday evening Agatha Gothe Snape will perform Every Artist Remembered in which she collaborates with invited artists from various generations to verbally and visually ‘map’ their combined memories of art history through a web of artists’ names; daily during the exhibition Slovenian artist Roman Ondak’s Teaching to Walk will also be performed at ACCA, with young
toddlers taking their first steps within ACCA’s galleries.
Artists: Peter Friedl, Olaf Nicolai, Dora García, Roman Ondák, Fiona Macdonald, Jonathon Monk, Kirsten Pieroth, Stuart Ringholt, Ján Mančuška, Nathasha Johns-Messenger, Seth Price, Mario Garcia Torres, Goldin + Senneby, Lucas Ihlein & Ian Milliss, Derek Sullivan and the Post project, Agatha Gothe-Snape, Matthew Shannon
Performances:
Agatha Gothe-Snape
Every Artist Remembered performance
Fridays, 5.30-7.30pm, ACCA
Roman Ondák
Teaching to Walk performance
daily, ACCA
Artist talks:
Olaf Nicolai illustrated artist talk
6pm, Friday 7 October, Goethe Institut, 448 St Kilda Road, Melbourne
Lucas Ihlein & Ian Milliss, artist talk
3pm, Saturday 8 October, ACCA
Angus Cameron, artist floortalk
6pm, Wednesday 12 October, ACCA
Angus Cameron off-site talk
3pm Saturday 15 October, Regus Rialto Tower South, Lv 27/525 Collins Street, Melbourne
Peter Friedl artist in conversation
6pm, 19 October, ACCA
Screenings (limited to 12 seats per screening):
Goldin+Senneby’s Headless at Regus (2010) screening
6pm, 26 October & 16 November, Regus Rialto Tower South, Level 27/525 Collins Street, Melbourne.
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA)
6 October – 20 November, 2011
Duration: 10am-8pm daily until Saturday 22 Oct, then from Tues-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat – Sun & Public Holidays 11am – 6pm, Mon by appt, until 20 November.
Tickets: FREE
Bookings: booking information on www.accaonline.org.au.
Press Contact: Katrina Hall: kathall@ozemail.com.au or mobile 0421 153 046
Presented by Melbourne International Arts Festival and ACCA