A distinctly Australian exhibition bringing together a decade of artwork exploring sport and sporting culture will open on 24 November at UQ Art Museum.
Play On: The art of sport celebrates 10 years of the Basil Sellers Art Prize, a prestigious biennial exhibition that examines the personal and collective significance of sport and sporting culture.
The exhibition features works by leading Australian artists from five instalments of the Prize, and includes painting, sculpture, video, drawing and mixed-media installations.
The artworks respond to an equally extensive range of sporting genres, including community footy, women’s boxing, ground-keeping, gymnastics and AFL.
According to exhibition curators Jacqueline Doughty, Samantha Comte and Alyce Neal, Play On: The art of sport portrays the sports arena as a powerful theatre of emotion – where hope, fear, adversity, triumph, glory and defeat are writ large.
“Sport is used as a lens through which to contemplate a number of society’s most cogent issues: from mechanisms of cultural belonging and marginalisation, gender and race relations, to technology’s impact on our physical limits,” Jacqueline Doughty said.
UQ Art Museum Associate Director Dr Holly Arden said Play On: The art of sportoffered audiences fresh and sometimes challenging perspectives on a national obsession.
“This exhibition asks complex questions about the intersection of sport with culture, politics and human rights so it’s not just sports lovers who’ll find the ideas and artworks presented intriguing,” Dr Arden said.
The free exhibition runs from 24 November until 9 February at UQ Art Museum.
Play On: The art of sport 10 years of the Basil Sellers Art Prize is a NETS Victoria and Ian Potter Museum of Art, the University of Melbourne touring exhibition.
Artists: Daniel Crooks , Dinni Kunoth Kemarre , Fiona McMonagle , Gabrielle de Vietri , Gerry Wedd , Jon Campbell , Josie Kunoth Petyarre , Kerrie Poliness , Khaled Sabsabi , Lauren Brincat , Richard Bell , Richard Lewer , Shaun Gladwell , Tarryn Gill and Pilar Mata Dupont and Tony Albert
Above image: Shaun Gladwell, The archer (after Chuang Tzu) 2014, single-channel HD video, 16:9 ratio, colour, sound, 10:47 minutes, courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery.
For more information please visit the website – here.
