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Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Announces Primavera 2011

For the first time in this highly anticipated exhibition’s 20 year history, Primavera will be presented entirely outside the MCA, in various sites around Sydney’s historic Rocks precinct, located just behind the Museum. Curated by MCA Curator, Anna Davis, the exhibition, open 8 SEPTEMBER – 13 NOVEMBER 2011, will highlight work by young Australian artists from across the country with a diverse range of works including drawing, sculpture, photography, installation and video, presented in unexpected and surprising locations. In response to this unique setting, selected artists will also create new site-specific, participatory, ephemeral and performance-based works in locations throughout The Rocks.

Primavera 2011 focuses on artists whose practices stretch beyond the confines of the gallery, intervening in public and private spaces; and interacting with the natural environment, local communities, architecture and passers-by. The exhibition explores how artists can enliven the everyday and provide unique experiences in the city by re-imagining histories, stories and myths connected to particular sites.

There are several themes running through the exhibition. A number of artists share an interest in emotion, how it is experienced and displayed, and the difference between public and private selves. There is also a common concern for ‘the role of the artist’ in contemporary society; every day issues such as the cost of living, as well as the anxiety and joy of creating a new work and putting it on public display. Underlying many of the works is the notion of time and its passing; how time is experienced at bodily level; historical and archaeological processes; and how reimagining the past can allow us see the future. Finally, many of the works incorporate a dark humour, some balance on the threshold between comedy and tragedy; others invoke the notion of the carnival, brief moments in time when outrageous behaviour is momentarily sanctioned through costume and disguise.

The Primavera 2011 artists are: Rebecca Baumann (Western Australia), Eric Bridgeman (Queensland), Brown Council – Kelly Doley, Frances Barrett, Diana Smith, Kate Blackmore (New South Wales), Tom O’Hern (Tasmania), Jess Olivieri and Hayley Forward with the Parachutes for Ladies (New South Wales), Keg de Souza (New South Wales), Hiromi Tango (Queensland), and Tessa Zettel & Karl Khoe (New South Wales).

www.mca.com.au

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