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New Romance | 25 August 2015
September 22 - January 24
New Romance, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul
Commission of the new installation work, Dark Ecology.
Text: Anna Davis
New Romance brings together 12 artists from Australia and Korea whose works encourage us to question what it means to be human today and what it might mean in the future. Drawing inspiration from science fiction, biology, psychology, robotics, consumer technologies and social media, they explore the idea of a posthuman encounter, reimagining our place in the world as one intelligent life-form among many. Some of the artists take on the role of 'curious inventor' or even 'mad scientist' when making their work; experimenting with living organisms, building imaginary creatures and inhabiting artificial worlds. Their creations can pull at our heart strings or raise questions about the difference between: humans and other species, organisms and machines, plants and animals, nature and culture. A number of works investigate the feelings that can arise in our interactions with kinetic objects, while others attempt to see the world from a non-human perspective.
Working across installation, performance, sculpture, video and photography, the artists in New Romance employ a wide array of technologies in their work. These range from the specialised to the everyday, from sophisticated robots to household appliances. Some artists' utilise cinematic special effects, while others use computer-controlled LEDs or industrial fabrication methods, such as 3D printing and computer-aided design (CAD). No matter what processes are employed, the common thread linking their works is an exploration of the new kinds of encounters and relationships that are emerging today, not only amongst technologically-connected humans, but also between 'smart' objects, 'intelligent' machines and all manner of hybrid entities.
MCA Curator Anna Davis & MMCA Curator Houngcheol Choi
Your Death | 2 March 2015
6 March - 21 March
ALASKA STUDIOS
Performance dates/times
Friday 6 March 6-9pm
Thursday 12 March 6-9pm
Saturday 21 March 6-9pm
Hayden Fowler's Your Death is a performance-installation project in which the artist submits his own body in a poignant recollection of New Zealand's lost bird life. Over three sessions during Art Month, his torso will be tattooed with an image of the South Island Kokako - last sighted in 1967 and officially declared extinct in 2004.
Your Death carries on from a project Fowler began in Auckland in 2007, where images of the lost Huia were etched onto his back in a high street shop window. In June 2014 the project was continued in Berlin where the extinct Whekau or Laughing Owl was tattooed in flight across his chest. His imagery has been pieced together from nineteenth century watercolours, fragmented descriptions, early black and white photographs and taxidermy specimens. For Fowler, these representations symbolise the pervasive and tangible absences in the landscape. Hunting, the introduction of mammals and the industrial destruction of vast areas of ancient forests resulted in New Zealand losing a third of all its bird species. Many of those remaining exist as a type of living dead in tiny, isolated colonies on remote offshore islands. The remnant mainland forests are all but silent.
As with any wearing of mourning, Fowler's is an acknowledgement of absence and loss. The destruction of an entire species or whole ecosystem however, is an event of such significance that the mourning can never be fully completed, the empty spaces never filled. In submitting himself to be tattooed, Fowler sacrifices his own body in a ritual of both repentance and resurrection. The white, geometric set-construction in which the tattooing takes place, prophesies a sterile future as increasing numbers of species follow the Huia, Whekau and Kokako into oblivion. In this image of disappeared nature, all that remains is the haunting sound of recorded birdsong and two lone figures etching out memories of what has been lost.
Extinct Extant | 1 March 2015
Friday 6 March - Sunday* 29 March
Join the artists for opening drinks - Saturday 7 March 3-5pm
10 Junction Street Marrickville NSW 2204
Opening Hours: 11.00 - 6.00pm Thursday - Friday and 11.00 - 5.00pm Saturday for the first three weeks of each month
Featuring artists: Sarah Eddowes, Nicole Ellis, Hayden Fowler, Shalini Jardin, Fleur MacDonald, Sarah Newall, Raquel Ormella, Lynne Roberts-Goodwin, Ajay Sharma, Vivian White
As part of MOST Extinct Extant will continue on from Thursday 26 to Sunday* 29 March, 11am-5pm. And join us again for drinks on Friday 27 March 6-8pm to help our neighbours SquarePeg Studios celebrate their 4th birthday. Between 11.00-12.00 Sunday 29 the Order of Perpetual Indulgence will conduct a Blessing of the Animals and Plants so brings your pets along!
The Blake Prize Exhibition | 10 December 2014
UNSW Galleries: 12 December 2014 - 31 January 2015.
Fowler's work New World Order is a finalist in this year's exhibition.
Wild Side: The Animal in Art | 5 December 2014
Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery: 5 December - 1 February 2015.
Wild Side considers humankind's relationship with the greater animal kingdom. Curated by Meryl Ryan (LMAG) and Kent Buchanan (WPCC).artgallery.lakemac.com.au/exhibitions/current
Call of the Wild | June 2014
Michael Reid Gallery, Berlin, June 2014.
The second in a series of performances in which the artist is tattooed with an extinct species of New Zealand bird - adding to a growing diorama on his torso. The work was originally performed in 2007 at the Auckland Festival in New Zealand and a third rendition will be undertaken during Sydney Art Month in March 2015. Follow this link to an essay on this project.
Conquest of Space: Science Fiction & Contemporary Art | May 2014
UNSW Galleries: 22 May to 5 July
Conquest of Space: Science Fiction & Contemporary Art reveals previously unexplored intersections between science fiction (SF) and art. Science fiction and art have long been connected by a set of related interests such as technology and formal expressions. Science fiction in its most popular manifestations, such as literature and cinema, expresses cultural anxieties and desires through a set of concepts, tropes and themes shared with the visual arts.
This exhibition features more than 40 artworks exploring important stories in the history of the science fiction genre, Including Hayden Fowler's Hunger (2007).
This multi-faceted project is presented in partnership with ABC TV, the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the College of Fine Arts, UNSW; and is led by the exhibition curator, documentary host and COFA lecturer, Dr Andrew Frost.
artdesign.unsw.edu.au/unsw-galleries/conquest-space-science-fiction-contemporary-art
Annual Winter Group Show | May 2014
m.contemporary: Photography Exhibition 14 June 2014 - 13 July 2014
Australian artists: Catherine Nelson, Lynne Roberts-Goodwin, Garth Knight and Hayden Fowler
International artists: Barbara Wildenboer, Brent Meistre, Lee Sang Hyun, Melanie Cleary and Slinkachu.
mcontemp.com/events/annual-winter-group-show
Animal Fanfair | January 2014
Pine Rivers Art Gallery, Moreton Bay: 07 January 2014 - 15 February 2014
This exhibition draws attention to humankind's changing relationships with animals which are complex and often contradictory. The artists examine human nature and challenge us to think about how we treat animals, asking us to question the ethics of keeping, killing and engineering new species of animals.
The selected artists Katka Adams, Marian Drew, Hayden Fowler, Kelly Hussey-Smith, Owen Hutchison, Claude Jones, Sam Leach, Emma Lindsay, Rod McRae and Walter Stahl have dedicated much of their arts practice to this challenge. They have tacked the subject in diverse ways, seeing issues from different angles and expressing themselves through a variety of media including photography and moving images, painting, mixed media, print making, installation art, performance art and sculpture.
artguide.com.au/whats-on-page/show/animal-fanfair-2
New Acquisitions in Context | December 2013
MCA Sydney: 12 December 2013 - 23 February 2014
Celebrating the diversity of art making in Australia, New Acquisitions in Context 2013 features a range of media from painting and photography through to installation and the moving image and draws together multiple themes and ideas through a collection of very different artworks.
Investigate dream states, nightmares and the influence of Surrealism with works by Nicholas Folland, Peter Booth and Louise Weaver. Explore landscape in its various forms, real and imagined, sacred and suburban in works by Tracey Moffatt, Judith Wright, Imants Tillers, Simryn Gill, Fiona Lowry and Shaun Gladwell and see works about light by artists Stephen Birch and Emma White.
mca.com.au/exhibition/mca-collection-new-acquisitions-context-2013
New World Order added to the collection of the National Gallery of Australia | November 2013
In 2013 the Fowler's video work, New World Order (2013) was acquired by the National Gallery of Australia.
blog.cofa.unsw.edu.au/?p=19150
New World Order | 6 August 2013
Ilam Gallery, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
6 - 30 August 2013
Artist Talk: 11th August 1.30 - 2.30 pm
New World Order is a solo exhibition of Fowler's recent work of the same title.
Visit the link to be directed to the exhibition essay.
Revealed2: Collector Space | 12 July 2013
Samstag Museum, Adelaide, South Australia.
18 July - 20 September 2013
Building on the success of Revealed ¹: inside the private collections of South Australia, the Samstag Museum of Art is delighted to present the second exhibition in the Revealed series.
Revealed ²: CollectorSpace seeks to reveal something of the forces that motivate the contemporary art collector. Through their passion and imaginative appreciation for the contemporary visual arts, collectors also provide crucial support to some of our most exciting and intriguing artists: it is a distinguished and historic patronage.
The exhibition features a range of works by Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin in collaboration, Thomas Hirschhorn, Olaf Breuning, Arlo Mountford, Anastasia Klose, Rick Amor, Bill Henson, Brook Andrew, Peter Liversidge, Nedko Solakov, Charles Avery, Bo Yun (Li Yongcun), Julie Blyfield, Jessica Loughlin, Helen Fuller, Tony Garifalakis, Fiona Lowry, Les Blakebrough, Ryoji Koie, Sera Waters, Chris De Rosa, Julie Dowling, and Samstag scholars Hayden Fowler and Deborah Paauwe.
w3.unisa.edu.au/samstagmuseum/exhibitions/default.asp
Among the Machines | 13 June 2013
Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand
6 July - 3 November 2013
Curated by Dr Su Ballard and Aaron Kreisler
Among The Machines features works by 13 Australian and New Zealand artists who interrogate relationships between utopia, technology, nature and place. Situating the long term concerns of ecology alongside the hopefulness of utopian thought, and with a focus on the South Island of New Zealand, the works in the exhibition offer a speculative map for the future histories of media, machines and humans. For this, the second instalment in a series of collaborative curatorial projects with visiting scholars, the Gallery will be working with Dr Susan Ballard, a New Zealand academic based at the University of Wollongong, Australia.
Artists represented in Among The Machines are: Douglas Bagnall, Aaron and Hannah Beehre, Stella Brennan, Ruth Buchanan, Daniel Crooks, Hayden Fowler, Jae Hoon Lee, Susan Norrie, Fiona Pardington, Nathan Pohio, Ann Shelton, Bronwyn Holloway-Smith, Ronnie van Hout.
Intra-action: Multispecies becomings in the Anthropocene | 13 June 2013
MOP Projects, Sydney
Opening 11 July, 6-8pm, 2013
Curated by Eben Kirksey & Madeleine Boyd
An exhibition of artists from Australia and the USA engaging multispecies entanglements and conceptual diffraction within new materialism. Presented as part of the Australian Animal Studies Group Conference at the University of Sydney, July 8-10, 2013 Artists: Janet Laurence, Nigel Helyer (Dr Sonique), Marnia Johnston, Deanna Pindell, Craig Campbell Kathy High, Karin Bolender, Maria Fernanda Cardoso, Patricia Adams, Jason Christopher, Louise Fowler-Smith, Hayden Fowler, Andre Brodyk, Yvette Watt, Elaine Gan, Tarsh Bates, Erna Lilje Beatriz da Costa.
The Wandering: Moving images from the MCA Collection | 6 March 2013
14 March 2013-31 December 2014
Touring exhibition, The Wandering: Moving images from the MCA Collection takes us on a unique journey through contemporary Australian art. The immediacy of moving image provides opportunities for art to engage with audiences in ways that are different to static, more traditional mediums, such as painting and sculpture. The exhibition presents artworks recently acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia by 15 leading artists, Vernon Ah Kee, Peter Alwast, Lauren Brincat, Daniel Crooks, Hayden Fowler, Shaun Gladwell, Richard Lewer, Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano, Todd McMillan, Tracey Moffatt, Patricia Piccinini, Grant Stevens, Daniel von Sturmer and Christian Thompson. It embraces a diversity of voices and styles, including works made using animation, celluloid and domestic video, and ideas from social politics and representation, through to genetic engineering and virtual environments.
Tour Itinerary
Ararat Regional Gallery: 14 March - 14 April 2013
Cairns Regional Gallery: 26 April - 23 June 2013
Glasshouse Port Macquarie: 4 July - 25 August 2013
Artspace Mackay: 1 September - 19 October 2013
Devonport Regional Art Gallery: 1 November - 8 December 2013
Rockhampton Art Gallery: 7 February - 24 March 2014
Emerge Media Space, James Cook University: 21 April - 12 May 2014
ANU Drill Hall Gallery: 22 May - 29 June 2014
Wollongong City Gallery: 11 July - 31 August 2014
mca.com.au/touring-exhibition/videotour mca.com.au/apps/mca-publications/the-wandering
MCA Young Ambassadors - Studio visit | 20 April 2013
The MCA Young Ambassadors enjoy a dynamic, year-long schedule of privileged, behind-the-scenes art-based events at the MCA and other arts venues across Sydney and Australia. On the 18th of April they visited Hayden Fowler's studio accompanied by Megan Robson, Curatorial Assistant at the MCA.
This link contains images from the event and excepts of the conversation between Megan and Hayden.
MCA Young Ambassadors - Studio visit | 20 April 2013
Inside the Silos
Delmar Gallery, 144 Victoria St, Ashfield
April 6 - 28
Curated by Catherine Benz, Inside The Silos brings together the work of a collection of artists working Mungo Studios, and investigates the traces and influences the space has had on the work. Ryan Leech's Medres, is a mixed media work that speaks directly of a collision between materials and industry, while Mark Brown's sound installation is derived from sound recordings that, when played back in the gallery, create the same resonant frequency as the Allied Mills silos. More tangentially related perhaps is Louis Pratt's sculpture, and an array of work shown elsewhere including work by Aaron Anderson, Sally Gibbs, Ryan Leech, Todd McMillan, Freya Zinovieff, Jamie North, Sophie Clague, Clare Nicholson, Jari Kutasi and Daniel Wallace.
arterealgalleryblog.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/hayden-fowler-inside-silos.html
altmedia.net.au/inside-the-silos/73672
New Romantic | 1 March 2013
Artereal Gallery, Sydney
As part of Art Month Sydney
6 - 30 March (Monday - Saturday, 10am - 5pm)
Opening Night: Wednesday 06 March, 6-8pm
Artist talk: Saturday 16 March, 2pm
New Romantic is a solo exhibition incorporating three new bodies of work, produced since 2010 and developed in Berlin, Sydney and New Zealand. Utilizing photography, video and sculpture the work reveals the persistence of a reflective Romantic discourse situated in beautiful but unsettled, indeterminate but futuristic imagery.
artereal.com.au/home/hayden-fowler
theartlife.com.au/2013/new-romantic
When I grow up I want to be a video artist | 1 February 2013
Plimsoll Gallery, Centre for the Arts, Hunter Street, Hobart
5 October until 4 November, 2012
When I grow up I want to be a video artist is a selection of ten video and new media artworks by leading Australian contemporary artists selected from the Artbank collection.
Diverse approaches to the medium are evident through works that incorporate digital animation, portraiture, choreography and music. Two of the works incorporate eye-catching sculptural elements. All the selected artists started making video and new media art in the last decade, during which time access to digital technologies have broadened the appeal of this medium for artists and audiences alike.
The exhibition proves the growing relevance and importance of video and new media art for collectors and collections. Artbank's video art collection dates back to 2007 with the acquisition of Sam Smith's Video Lens [HJ11x4.7B]. Some of the works selected for this exhibition have previously been included in important curated exhibitions and the recipients of prestigious art awards, securing the artists' reputations for innovation and excellence in the realm of video. The artists selected are stars of the video and new media vanguard in Australia and their influence is undoubtedly evident on an even younger generation of artists coming through art schools today.
Artists: Daniel Crooks, Hayden Fowler, Tarryn Gill and Pilar Mata Dupont, Robin Hungerford, Jess MacNeil, Ms&Mr, James Newitt, Elvis Richardson, Joan Ross, Sam Smith.
Image credit: Elvis Richardson
facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151259268645132.521480.335970405131&type=3
Blake Prize for Religious Art 2011 | November 2011
Fowler's work The Long Forgetting (2010), a 3 channel video work, was highly commended in this years Blake Prize.
The Blake Prize for Religious Art is an annual art prize in Australia. The prize was established in 1949 as an incentive to raise the standard of religious art. Founded by R. Morley, the Reverend Michael Scott SJ, Rector of Newman College, University of Melbourne, and lawyer M. Tenison, it was named after the artist and poet William Blake. The first Blake Prize was won by Justin O'Brien in 1951. The Blake Prize earns both criticism and acclaim for it's open invitation for individual responses to the interpretation of religious art.
The Blake Exhibition will now tour around Australia for the next twelve months, visiting various major cities and provincial galleries.
blakeprize.com.au/galleries/blake-prize
The Long Forgetting | 12 April 2011
Dubbo Regional Gallery, 30 April – 26 June 2011
Opening and Artist Talk: April 30, 2pm
The Long Forgetting is Fowler's new 3-channel video work, researched and produced during his Samstag Scholarship, where he undertook one year's study in Berlin, Germany. Interested in the tribal origins of European culture, Fowler under went genetic tests to identify his own Paleolithic culture of origin and visited a number of relevant cave sites across Spain, France and Germany. With a particular interest in the art and symbolism of this period, indicating an integrated spiritual relationship with ritual and the natural world, Fowler taps into a deeper and historical spirituality surrounding Western humanities original place in nature, expanding the ongoing theme of his practice.
More Information: Download (pdf)
Awfully Wonderful: Science Fiction in Contemporary Art | 10 April 2011
Performance Space, Sydney.
15 April – 14 May (Monday – Saturday, 10am – 5pm)
Opening Night: Thusday 14 April, 6pm
Artist and curator guided tour: Friday 15 April, 5pm
Awfully Wonderful explores a spectrum of seductive, terrifying and fantastic potential futures. The exhibition presents new and existing work by eleven Australian artists including time machines, handmade robots, meteorological instruments, interplanetary communication devices, a mars gravity simulator, wearable technologies and apocalyptic visions.
Fowler has been commissioned to a produce an ambitious new installation work, anthropocene, within which he will be performing over the course of the exhibition.
More information: www.performancespace.com.au/?p=7171
Invite: Download (pdf)
MCA Collection: New Acquisitions in Context 2011 | 1 March 2010
9 December 2010 – 19 June 2011
This exhibition celebrates five years of the Museum of Contemporary Art's successful New Acquisitions series of exhibitions. It is presented throughout the Museum's Level 4 galleries and showcases recent acquisitions alongside selected works from the existing MCA and JW Power Collections.
Fowler's works Goat Odyssey (2006) and White Australia (2005) have been recently acquired by the museum and are both included in this exhibition.
More Information and to listen to the Artist Talk: www.mca.com.au/default.asp?page_id=10&content_id=7635
Afterglow: performance art and photography| 1 January 2011
28 January 2011 to 3 April 2011
Afterglow examines the different ways that performance artists have used photography to document their temporal activities and extend the audience for their performances beyond the event itself. Drawing largely on MGA's own collection of performance photography, Afterglow looks at the central role played by photography in the work of Australian performance artists over the last thirty years.
Afterglow includes important examples by a range of artists: Gordon Bennett, Juan Davila, Cherine Fahd, Bert Flugelman, Hayden Fowler, Tim Johnson, Ash Keating, Ben Morieson, Jill Orr, Mike Parr, Robert Rooney, Linda Sproul, Slave Pianos, Stelarc, David M Thomas, Peter Tyndall, Justene Williams
Performance documentation of Fowler's Call of the Wild are included in this exhibition.
Afterglow room brochure: Download (pdf)
After Glow texts: Download (pdf)
Wild Creations Residency | 26 April 2010
Hayden has just begun a six-week residency in the Hakatere Conservation Park in the foothills of New Zealand's Southern Alpine region. The residency is a partnership between the Department of Conservation and Creative New Zealand and is open to practising artists in any artform or cultural tradition. Three New Zealand artists are chosen per year and have the choice of 20 significant conservation sites throughout New Zealand in which to work.
Hayden's project in based upon the absence particular to the New Zealand environment where the local or total extinction of indigenous bird life, including the giant moa and the kakapo and man-eating Haast's Eagle, have left the landscape tangibly empty.
Understory – Devonport Regional Gallery | 25 April 2010
June 26 to July 25 (opening Fri June 25, 6pm). Curated by Dr Troy Ruffels, University of Tasmania.
Hayden's video work Second Nature (2008) is featured in this exhibition.
Artspace residency | 5 February 2010
Hayden has recently returned to Australia after undertaking a Samstag International Arts Scholarship with a year of study at the Universitat der Kunst in Berlin, Germany.
He is currently undertaking a three-month studio residency at Artspace in Sydney, completing his new body of work that was created in Berlin with the support of a New Work Grant from the Australia Council.
www.unisa.edu.au/samstag
www.artspace.org.au/residency/residency_artists.php
ww.udk-berlin.de/sites/content/topics/university