A Street Art Exhibition
Boxcopy’s group exhibition, A Street Art Exhibition, might not be quite what you’d expect. There won’t be graffiti, and it won’t include stencils or stickers. We’re adamant that it’s Street Art, although after visiting you may need to reconsider what Street Art actually is. Opening on 26 September at 6pm, this group exhibition will present a range of negotiations taking place between contemporary artists, their work, and the street. The artists engage with footpaths, rubbish, roads, highways, freeways, expressways and motorways, identifying the street as a complex social site as well as a stretch of grey tarmac for cars to drive along. Renovating a term increasingly defined through accepted representations of graffiti culture, A Street Art Exhibition shows evidence of artists continuing to re-evaluate an engagement between art and the street in a manner separated from the popular vernacular. Chris Bennie is a Brisbane artist, recently included in the Biennale of Sydney: Revolutions – Forms That Turn online venue (2008). He has held a number of solo exhibitions at ARI’s and University spaces, including Our Communication Recorded, Blindside, Melbourne (2006); New Video: made in China, Queensland College of Art Gallery, Brisbane (2006); and Slower, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2003). Bennie also initiated and is project director of the Moreton Street Spare Room project (MSSR). Körner Union is a Swiss collective featuring artists Sami Benhadj, Tarik Haywar and Guy Meldem. Represented by Fette’s Gallery in Los Angeles, Körner Union have exhibited at Art Basel and the Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland, as well as exhibitions in Tokyo, Austria and France. This will be their first exhibition in Australia. Melanie Upton is an emerging installation artist who graduated from the Victorian College of Arts in 2006 with a bachelor of fine arts (Sculpture). Selected group shows include Things In a Room (2007, Kings ARI), Nonchalantly Unimpressed (2007, Victoria Park Gallery) and Proud (2006, VCA Gallery). Upton also recently exhibited as part of the 2008 Next Wave festival ‘Closer Together’. Shaun O’Connor is a Brisbane artist currently undertaking a masters Visual Arts research degree at the Queensland University of Technology. O’Connor’s process-driven practice is an investigation into the poetry and politics of mark-making and subsequent relationships to public space, sign systems and popular culture. O’Connor currently has work in Neo Goth at the University of Queensland Art Museum, and has exhibited both nationally and internationally.
A Street Art Exhibition
Chris Bennie (Brisbane), Körner Union (Switzerland), Melanie Upton (Melbourne), Shaun O’Connor (Brisbane)
Friday 26 September – Friday 24 October
