From a personal perspective, the theatrical aspects of curatorial and visual arts practice, and the visual aspects of theatre, have always held particular interest, and came under scrutiny in the original 1997 project, Staged Works. By engaging the stately domestic architecture of Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery’s former premises, Awaba House, the exhibition presented five ‘staged’ contemporary installations with a discrete display of theatre arts.
Like its prequel, Re:staged works celebrates an affinity with theatre, but one that is less reliant on the landscape and pacing of assembly, than the theatrical or cinematic references evidenced within the works. The artists mine film genres, popular culture, art history and theatre conventions for iconography and inspiration: and all acknowledge lessons of the stage by exploiting the dramatic potential of light, sound, movement, scale and/or costume to construct new realities, distil narrative and implicate audience.
Image above: TV Moore, Old Love in Song: in Death, 2004. DV/DVD duration 8:30 minutes edition of 10
Image below: David Lawrey & Jaki Middleton, For ever and ever and ever, 2006.
Museum of Art and Culture Lake Macquarie, 1A First Street, Booragul 2284 View in Google Maps
1A First Street , Booragul 2284