primavera 2013: Young Australian artists
Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, 12 September to 17 November 2013
Curator: Robert Cook
Assistant Curator: Ivan Muñiz Reed
Installation view, Primavera 2013: Young Australian Artists, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Image courtesy and © the artists. Photograph: Alex Davies
about the exhibition:
Primavera is an annual exhibition showcasing the work of Australian artists aged 35 and under. Primavera 2013 showcased the work of eight artists from around the country who demonstrated incredible energy, ambition and commitment to their work and a willingness to push it in compelling directions.
Presented in one gallery space, Primavera 2013 brought together Jacqueline Ball’s large-scale photographic portals into alternative worlds; Jackson Eaton’s series of photos staging and re-staging intimate relationships; Heath Franco’s performative video works; Brendan Huntley’s sculptural and painted heads; Thomas Jeppe’s paintings, sculptures and installation; Jess Johnson’s detailed marker drawings set in a high-key domestic interior; Juz Kitson’s cascading porcelain forms; and Kusum Normoyle’s video works and performances that release the powerful sound of the artist’s voice into the built world. Together, they activated the gallery space, drawing attention to its specific structure and its function as a platform to transport the viewer to new, imaginary dimensions.
Primavera 2013 was curated by Robert Cook, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Photography and Design at the Art Gallery of Western Australia. About the selection of artists, Cook wrote: “Part of me wishes I could claim that this group of artists faithfully replicates young Australian art now. They don’t. They are 'simply’ really amazing thinker-makers whose work has all the good stuff: humour, anger, off-kilter sarcasm, art-historical shuffling, the will-to-impossible-transcendence and the creepily perverse!”
Primavera 2013 was the 22nd edition of the MCA’s annual exhibition of Australian artists aged 35 years and under. The Primavera exhibition series was founded in 1991 through the generous benefaction of Dr Edward Jackson AM and Mrs Cynthia Jackson AM and their family in memory of their daughter and sister Belinda.