EMBODIED

About

The premise of the exhibition is informed by the 1938 International Surrealist Exhibition in Paris curated by Salvador Dali. Dali gave mannequins to all the exhibiting artists and showed their reworked mannequins together in a corridor, forming a total installation Rue Cerise. Many of the artists took the opportunity to intervene into the social representation of the body, effectively queering it.

We wanted to re-stage the experiment of 1938, expanding its capacity for queer intervention by engaging a much wider diversity of artists who are themselves working in many different mediums. We are also giving the artists the freedom to work with mannequin parts that do not cohere into a whole, coherent body, furthering the possibilities for disruption and critical rupture.

A mannequin as a partly codified body provides an ideal site for artists to explore the social perception and construction of bodies. Through them they can intervene in our perception of others and ourselves.

The exhibition will showcase works by: 

Apolline Bökkerink (@pline_i), Corey Lyu (@soap_dynastea), Dominic Page (@dominic.page), Fikayo Adebajo (@fikayoadebajo), Joanna van Son (@juanita_leschnit), Meitao Qu (@mt_qu), Qingqijg Liu (@weeeekdu) and Shujing Huang (@hshu11_)

The artists have been chosen for their vast array of artistic approaches to the body. They work in mediums ranging from augmented reality to gold gilding.

We are very excited to be hosted by Slash Arts Gallery, an artist-run space for display on a houseboat. It will provide many exciting and unexpected possibilities for the artists as well as introducing important themes such as domesticity and homeliness. 

The exhibition is made possible by the kind and generous donation of mannequins by the Read Collection.