Shaun Gladwell / MATRIX 162
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford
June 2 - September 18, 2011
Artist Shaun Gladwell, who represented Australia in the 2009 Venice Biennale, have his first solo museum exhibition in the United States at the Wadsworth Atheneum. The exhibition features five of Shaun Gladwell’s recent video works, which use pop cultural references—from action movies to extreme sports and street performance—as their point of departure. His slow-motion videos feature characters—usually the artist himself—who perform extraordinary physical feats with skateboards, BMX bikes, surf boards, or even their own bodies, in settings such as the Australian outback or city streets. The exhibitio is part of the Wadsworth’s ongoing MATRIX contemporary art series.
“Shaun is inspired by the power of the human body. By using instantly recognizable imagery to set the scene and slowing down the film, he draws the viewers’ focus to the figures and their movement, creating a hypnotic and meditative effect,” said Patricia Hickson, the museum’s Emily Hall Tremaine Curator of Contemporary Art. “This exhibition will bring together five video works with distinct and wide-ranging connections to art history and contemporary culture, introducing Shaun’s works to an American audience for the first time in a museum setting.”
Shaun Gladwell is one of several recent MATRIX artists who draws on art history and pop culture in their work. Within the past year, MATRIX has featured artists Justin Lowe, whose site-specific installation for the Wadsworth was inspired by Surrealism and the New York punk rock scene, and Rashaad Newsome, whose works are constructed from hip-hop imagery and traditional coats of arms.
Shaun Gladwell’s videos take pop cultural references and transform them into compelling works of art. A highlight of the exhibition is Interceptor Surf Sequence (2009), which was recently acquired by the museum. From Gladwell’s “MADDESTMAXIMVS” series, which makes reference to the Australian postapocalyptic action film series Mad Max, the work features a mysterious figure standing on top of a car that endlessly crawls along a dusty road in the outback. Also on view are Pacific Undertow Sequence (Bondi) (2010), Apologies 1 – 6 (2007-09), Yokohama Linework (2005), and Centered Pataphysical Suite (Prosthetic Group) (2009-11).
SHAUN GLADWELL was born in 1972 in Sydney, Australia. He earned his BFA in 1996 from Sydney College of the Arts and an MFA in 2001 at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, in Sydney. He subsequently studied at Goldsmiths College in London. Shaun Gladwell has shown widely in Australia and Europe. The artist was selected as the featured artist in the Australian Pavilion at the 53rd International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2009. Shaun Gladwell / MATRIX 162 is this Australian artist’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States.
WADSWORTH ATHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART
600 Main Street, Hartford, CT 06103
www.wadsworthatheneum.org
