This weekend, PROPHETIC INITATIVES [DAVID CAPRA & LEAHLANI JOHNSON] are bringing their performance ‘Ushering in New Heights’ to FREE FALL in the Glass Cube at Oxford Art Factory.
2011 is ‘The Year of Double Portions’ for PROPHETIC INITIATIVES [DAVID CAPRA & LEAHLANI JOHNSON] who will be bringing to the cube the latest in their absurd and divine performances. Prophetic Initiatives (P.I.) is a multifaceted collaboration between Capra and Johnson, developed in 2009 as a ‘ministry’ to the art world.
“My performance of ‘Shekhinah’ for Free Fall deals with the intersection of the divine and the profane, partially inspired by the location of the Glass Cube within the Oxford Art Factory.
The ‘Shekhinah’ is a Hebrew concept for the divine presence or dwelling of God. The Shekhinah is manifested in a number of ways throughout the scriptures, most notably leading the Israelites through the desert and then later residing within the Holy of Holies. Being in the presence of God so transformed Moses that the skin of his face shone with light.
Through this performance I will attempt to experience, and possibly reflect, some aspect of the divine as it can be achieved within art.”
- Tom Isaacs
BEN TERAKES feeds himself tubes of paint and presses his lips against a surface, leaving behind him a stain that stands testimony to his presence and his performance.
The Glass Cube will offer a surface with another side, turning this practice into an interaction.
“Terakes feeds himself tubes of paint and presses his lips against cloth. He presses himself against his ornamental handkerchiefs. He does not breathe. He does not spit. He does not puke primary colours ala Mike Parr. Terakes is not the ochre spitting caveman. He does not project himself. He does not become the painting. He does not become the all talking, all eating, all shitting and all fucking orifice.
He just presses himself against it. He is a painted lipped caveman pressing his face against a cave wall. A sad clown failing to force his body through stone, leaving only an imprint of an orifice that won’t be entered. Leaving only a stain…
Terakes may press his lips up against walls but he still presses his lips against lips. Rendering his orifice mute.”
- ANDREW NEWMAN ‘The mute arsehole: Dum Dum by Ben Terakes’
This weekend, DARA GILL brings his performance ‘Wax On, Wax Off’ to the Glass Cube at Oxford Art Factory.
Gill will be pursuing a cyclical narrative of sullying and cleaning the glass confines of the cube, creating an endurance work that will explore the futility and aesthetic of the repetitive action.
Dara Gill is an emerging artist working with a diverse range of mediums within the visual arts including video, sculpture, painting, sound and installation. Graduating in Visual Arts at the University of Wollongong in 2007 and Honours in Fine Arts (Sculpture) at the UNSW’s College of Fine Arts in 2009, his current work investigates the nature of anxiety through situational based research. Gill has exhibited
at COFA Space, Kudos Gallery, Gallery 4a, Black and Blue Gallery, Firstdraft Gallery, The PaperMill, Plump Gallery, Frasiers Studios, DB Projects and GBK and Rearview Gallery.
Gill was also featured in Hatched ʻ08, the national graduate exhibition at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. In 2009 Dara was the recipient of the Gallery Barry Keldoulis Grant for Emerging Artists as well as the COFA Emerging Artist Award for his video To Roll. Gill was also the recipient of runner up prize in the 2010 Art Month Speed Dating program and later that year the ArtStart Grant for Emerging Artists from the Australia Council. Gill was featured in arts writer Andrew Frost’s 10 Next Big Things: Visual Art list compiled for The Sydney Morning Herald and recently the cover artist
for Australian Art Collector magazine Undiscovered special.
In 2011 Gill will take part in JUMP Mentorship, a national mentorship program with MCA curator, Glenn Barkley working towards a solo show in december at MOP Projects, Sydney. Dara is also a Next Wave Kickstart artist with the collective, Team MESS.
Gill is a currently a director at Firstdraft Gallery, Sydney.
“All the world most needs today, is combined in the most seductive manner in his art- the three great stimulants
of exhausted people: brutality, artificiality and innocence (idiocy)…”
- Friedrich Nietzsche ‘The Case of Wagner’
Zoe Robertson will use the cube as a platform from which she will project her work ‘SUBTERRANEAN ILLUMINATIONS’ with
it’s message of “purpose-built brutality, artificiality and idiocy”. Robertson will be projecting subtitles to accompany her actions within the cube, presenting a “muted opera of ruin”. Her critique promises to be contentious, shocking, and a reminder that degeneration can be regeneration.
Justin Shoulder will be giving birth to and developing the latest in his ‘Fantastic Creatures’- an amalgamation of two identities, wild in appearance and primal in nature. Over the course of four evenings, ‘Pinky’ will begin the slow metamorphosis into its other – ‘OO’. Pinky & OO cannot exist without each other. These performances will begin opening the door for Pinky into OO’s universe.
“Justin Shoulder is interested in creating urban Mythologies. These stories are inspired by his interests in ecology, decay, consumption, human & animal relationships, masquerade, glitter and dance music amongst many other things! Drawing from the universal lineage of mythical creatures: dragons, chimeras, vampire demons, serpents, monkey gods and others manifest in endless profusion, Shoulder creates his own ‘fantastic creatures’. Using costume and its transformative powers Shoulder tells the creature’s stories through live performance.
His urban mythologies echo in photography, sculpture, music and installation. These works often pursue the re-imaginings of waste into urban ritual objects. Shoulder also produces work with performance collective The Glitter Militia: a Sydney gang of cabaret, drag, mime, clowning, circus and strip-show artists. Established in 2004, THE GLITTER MILITIA produce bent performance work, parties, films, exhibitions and immersive theatrical experiences in warehouses, nightclubs, at festivals and in theatre spaces throughout Sydney.”
- AMELIA GROOM ‘Justin Shoulder: Under this mask, Another Mask’
Published in Runway: Issue 18
March 2011
Julie Vulcan will explore the idea of a rift, a breach. A room inside a room. The audience will follow her journey over three and half hours. She is watching and waiting. You observe her and she observes you. Through the cracks and fissures there is intrigue and questions. There will be some communication. There may be an invitation…
Julie Vulcan is a Sydney based performer and interdisciplinary artist. A UNSW College of Fine
Arts graduate, her practice spans performance, installation, durational and site specific
work. She has toured nationally and internationally with various ensembles and was most
recently a core member of Unreasonable Adults, touring ‘End of Romance’, ‘Gift/Back’ and ‘The
Last to see them Alive’.
In 2007 she performed in Pacitti Company’s (UK) ‘Grande Finale’, presented at Spill Fest
London 2007 and Liveworks, Sydney 2008. Since 2003 Julie has been developing and performing
a series of short works and durational live art events. She has an on-going research based
practice that includes projects driven by contributions from audience/public and one to one
encounters.
Recent activities include: the Power of Constraint trilogy Trawl Harbour Wend (2007-9) an
SMS audience response driven work; Un/Disclosed (2008-9) a two-year micro-performance
project for one witness; I Stand in (2011) an 8 hour durational performance with 32 consecutive participants and the site specific work Spotlight Bunny at Underbelly Arts Festival on
Cockatoo Island, 2011.
James Kerr launches FREE FALL III with his endurance performance ‘FEELING ARRANGER’, during which Kerr will examine human relationships and social interaction. Through the creation of sculptural forms of twigs, stones, soil and leaves Kerr will interpret the words of Neil Young;
“He’s a perfect stranger,
like a cross
of himself and a fox.
He’s a feeling arranger
and a changer of the ways he talks,
He’s the unforeseen danger
the keeper of
the key to the locks.
Know when you see him,
nothing can free him.
Step aside,
open wide,
it’s the loner.”
This mesmerising performance culminates in Kerr’s stoic sweeping away of the methodically laid out natural ephemera,
leaving no trace of the performance and the process that will have been endured.
“This performance aims to explore the idea of social interaction and specifically the theories connected to the work of sociologist and writer Erving Goffman that attempted to compare human interaction to the role of actor in a performance. This theory known as dramaturgical perspective offers an understanding of the individual within the social setting as tailoring his/her personality in order to make some kind of an impression. The idea of personality is influential in the conceptual framework of the piece as the arrangements created during the performance will be representative of personal relationships. The piece is not however an attempt to present social interaction as dishonest but more so a study of how individuals manage their personalities in order to affect the resulting impressions they create.”
-JAMES KERR
James Kerr is an emerging artist who lives and works in Sydney, Australia. Kerr focuses on exploring a range of different conceptual frameworks through mediums including; sculpture, collage, performance, and installation. His work attempts to explore and question contexts of socialization, while endeavouring to apply consideration of the relationship between the natural landscape and the synthetic.
Join us this friday for the return of Jodie Whalen in our closing party for this season of Free Fall.
Jodie Whalen explores the relationship between an art practice and ‘real life’, breaking down these entities until they are essential the one and the same. Her current work explores performance as ritual within routine physical exercise. Jodie is currently completing a Masters of Fine Art of research at COFA (UNSW).
We will return in september 2011 with a new look and a new curator: Chalk Horse gallery curator Kat Sapera. She has some exciting ideas for program 3 and beyond so stay tuned for the new launch.
