A Constructed World - Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
A Constructed World
Increase Your Uncertainty
Maverick Australian artists Jacqueline Riva + Geoff Lowe (A Constructed World) return home for a major survey exhibition at ACCA – and to reinvigorate the art of ‘happenings’.
Riva + Lowe have been collaborating as A Constructed World since the mid 1990s, and are known internationally for creating ‘happenings’ – ad hoc performances, conversations, dances and sit-ins within (and frequently outside of) the gallery environment – often challenging or involving the audience.
Proponents of the movement pioneered by artists such as Yves Klein, John Cage, Allan Kaprow and others in the 1950s and 1960s, where a performance, event, situation or ‘happening’ became art, A Constructed World have explained contemporary art to live eels in Milan, held sleepovers at Basekamp in Philadelphia, and danced covered in post-it notes in their seminal Italian gallery space More Fools in Town.
They have also produced a body of work that includes drawings, paintings, sculpture and video. Increase Your Uncertainty is a major survey of these works, and will be accompanied by a series of events, performances and collaborations at ACCA and around Melbourne – ecstatic dances, ad hoc performances and forums about, amongst other things, the meaning and state of contemporary art in Australia.
“Increase your Uncertainty will be a major monographic survey of one of Australia’s most enduring and experimental partnerships. ACCA will be active with artistic spontaneity, while also creating an opportunity for reflection about A Constructed World’s evolving body of work,” said Juliana Engberg, ACCA’s Artistic Director.
“A Constructed World work with audiences and other artists to create an untidy, rambunctious practice devoted to emotional response and political positioning. They blur the boundaries between maker and receiver in inclusive, porous performance events. They let it all hang out…” she said.
Riva + Lowe split their time between Melbourne and Turin, where they operate the apartment artspace More Fools in Town with French curator Charlotte Laubard, running a series of exhibitions and events in a responsive, impulsive way.
They have been awarded residencies in New York and Paris, and have had works shown in biennales such as Gwangju (1995), Sao Paulo (1998), Tirana (2003) and the Emergency Biennale (05/06) and in exhibitions including Arte all’Arte San Gimignano (2000) and the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney (1997-2000) as well as commercial galleries in Australia, Italy and New York. They were invited by the Guggenheim Museum New York to participate at the ARCO Forum ‘The Artist and the Public’ (2003) and the Guggenheim Bilbao forum ‘Shared Responsibilities’ (2006). They were inaugural ‘Artists in Residents’ at the Serpentine Gallery London (2002) and were in residence at Cite International des Arts in Paris (2005).
A Constructed World – Increase Your Uncertainty: 2 June – 29 July
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 111 Sturt Street, Southbank.
Gallery hours: Gallery hours: Tuesday-Friday 10am-5pm, Saturday-Sunday 11am-6pm.
Mondays by appointment.
Tel: 03 9697 9999. Admission: Free. www.accaonline.org.au
