Exhibitions / Magic Object, Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, 2016

27.02.2016 to 15.05.2016

Titled Magic Object, the 2016 Adelaide Biennial of Australia Art takes inspiration from the Wunderkammer, delving into a world of wonder and enchantment through the eyes of Australian contemporary artists.

Magic Object will offer a space where free associations and insights are made possible by artists and audiences, where artists’ interests in the talismanic, in cultural rituals and material riddles enchant the viewer. This enchantment however, is not without caution – the Wunderkammer offers itself up as tool with which to not only view the world, but to critique it.

Inviting us into their own ‘cabinets of curiosity’ through photography, painting, performance, sculpture, installation and the moving image, will be artists Abdul-Rahman Abdullah (WA), Glenn Barkley (NSW), Chris Bond (VIC), Pepai Carroll (SA), Tarryn Gill (WA), Louise Haselton (SA), Juz Kitson (NSW), Loongkoonan (WA), Fiona McMonagle (VIC), Danie Mellor (NSW), Clare Milledge (NSW), Tom Moore (SA), Nell (NSW), Ramesh Mario-Nithiyendran (NSW), Bluey Roberts (SA), Gareth Sansom (VIC), Robyn Stacey (NSW), Garry Stewart & Australian Dance Theatre (SA), Jacqui Stockdale (VIC), Heather B Swann (ACT), Hiromi Tango (NSW), Roy Wiggan (WA), Tiger Yaltangi (SA) and Michael Zavros (QLD).

Presented by the Art Gallery of South Australia and curated by Lisa Slade, Assistant Director, Artistic Programs at the Art Gallery, Magic Object runs from 27 February to 15 May 2016 as part of the Adelaide Festival of Arts.

Chris Bond has made a new sequence of paintings and documents under the guise of his muse and master Tor Rasmussen. Five painted library books, each authored by Rasmussen, feature titles and imagery that Bond has created while in character. They contain invented publishers, ISBN and call numbers, and have apparently been borrowed from the collection of the Le Vitt College Library. These five painted books appear to be embedded into the wall. An email from Rasmussen to Bond is also included, in which he chastises Bond for his fictions. A burnt book from the ruins of the Le Vitt library is sent by Rasmussen in the mail as a reminder of the power of the real. Three painted books offer narrative support: charting the burning and rebuilding of the Le Vitt library, referencing the power of the invented call number seen on the embedded library books, and romanticising the perversity of the process under which the works were made.

Bond's works will be on display at the Samstag Museum, 55 North Terrace, Adelaide, for the duration of the exhibition.

704.949133 2016

oil on canvas, fabric, paper, card

25 x 21 x 4 cm