Various studies of movements, situations, and body states in motion through the skate culture and street subculture, using slow motion, meditative scenes, and temporal counterpoints – these are the central features of Shaun Gladwell’s videos. In his works, movements that originated in sports often appear choreographed. The program opens with the Storm Sequence video, with which Gladwell “exploded” on the art scene. It shows a slow motion of a skateboard performance during a storm on a sea shore; motion appears to dissolve in time. It was among the most visible works in the 2007 Venice Biennial, within the central exhibition by Robert Storr. It is followed by Tangara, another scene of a body “in weightlessness”; Apologies, the half-hour series with which Gladwell represented Australia in the 2009 Venice Biennial, will conclude the program. In the Australian Pavilion, he showed this series of videos and installations, based on the specific Australian landscape, its mythology, and Mad Max as an icon of Australian cinema and popular culture. The selection also includes several new works, Pacific Undertow and Midnight Traceur, as well as a video that was recorded in Afghanistan. The selected works are assembled in two groups, presenting two characteristic categories of space – urban spaces, and desert. The scenes often show the protagonist (usually the artist himself) isolated and lost in a landscape.
Shaun Gladwell is one of the most promising Australian artists of younger generation. His main medium is video. He graduated from Sydney University’s Sydney College of the Arts, and graduated with a Masters degree from the University of New South Wales’ College of Fine Arts, and from Goldsmiths in London. At the 53rdVenice Biennale in 2009, he represented Australia. His works were shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Sydney, in Istanbul, at festivals such as Experimenta (Bangkok) and Videobrasil (Sao Paolo). Last year, the ACMI (Australian Center for the Moving Image) in Melbourne organized his big monographic exhibition. He is currently based in London.
The artist will be present at the projection, and take part in the conversation afterwards. Shaun Gladwell will talk about the art of moving pictures and their showing in the gallery and cinema context, as well as about his recent work in film direction.
PROGRAM
Storm Sequence, 2000 (8 min)
Tangara, 2003 (segment, 3 min)
Afghanistan, (8 min)
Pacific Undertow Sequence, 2010 (segment, 3 min)
Midnight traceur(segment, 5 min)
Interceptor Surf Sequence(segment, single-channel, 4 min)
Apologies, 1-6 (27 min)
ARTISTS’ CINEMA is a new program activity of the MSU, aimed at introducing contemporary artists and their cinematic works, created at the meeting point of contemporary art and cinema, of film and visual arts. The program will present recent film/video works outside the context of social production of entertainment and spectacle. It will complete the programmatic conception of the MSU and complement the presentation of this hybrid form. We will intensify the dialog and exchange on the cultural scene of the city, connecting artists, curators, and critics with the public; in this way we will contribute to an active internationalization of the art scene engaged in the media of moving pictures.
Project manager: Tihomir Milovac
Curator: Branka Benčić