MEDIA RELEASE 19 OCTOBER 2017

FLESH, BLOOD AND CYBERSPACE: THE FUTURE OF HYPER REAL OPENS AT THE NGA

The extraordinary artworks of Hyper Real have been unveiled today at the National Gallery of Australia. Visitors can expect to see a frozen sculpture made entirely of the artist’s blood, a transgenic creature giving birth amidst an infinite meadow and a virtual journey through a human skull floating in space amongst the incredible array of ultra-real sculpture and digital art on display.

Hyper Real presents some of the world’s most incredible true-to-life sculpted forms alongside recent kinetic, biological and virtual creations. The exhibition investigates how artists are pushing the boundaries of the genre in their exploration of what constitutes the contemporary hyperreal.

‘Presenting 32 artists and nearly 50 works, Hyper Real focuses on extraordinary talent from around the world,’ said Gerard Vaughan, NGA Director. ‘Most importantly, this exhibition highlights the exceptional contribution of Australian practitioners, including Patricia Piccinini, Sam Jinks, Ron Mueck, Shaun Gladwell, Jan Nelson, Stephen Birch and Ronnie van Hout.’

‘This exhibition not only celebrates the astonishing material and technical feats that have made hyperrealism such a globally popular genre, but also explores the conceptual framework within which these works operate,’ said Jaklyn Babington, NGA Senior Curator of Contemporary Art. ‘Contemporary hyperrealism has pushed beyond static sculpture and into the digital realm. It is a shape-shifting genre, simultaneously traditional and innovative, familiar and provocative.’

From the Renaissance to the present day, artists have long been fascinated with the human form. Hyperrealism momentarily tricks audiences into believing the artworks to be real and, in doing so, encourages viewers to reconsider what it means to be human.

Hyper Real delves into the nuances and complexities of the nude body. From the astonishing precision of replication of Paul McCarthy’s work, to the idealised beauty of John DeAndrea’s sculpted women and the oversized, emotionally exposed figures of Ron Mueck, the nude is central to hyperrealism.

Sam Jink’s technically spectacular oeuvre is exemplified by the NGA’s new commission The deposition 2017, an emotive exploration of the fragility of life and familial roles.

Humour and satire are used to deliver social and political commentary in Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s kinetic sculptures, while Maurizio Cattelan uses a playful juxtaposition to explore how the notions of power and evil are constructed.

Hyper Real pushes the genre beyond today’s understanding of what is natural by encompassing the transgenic beings and fantastic hybrid creatures of Patricia Piccinini.

‘My work deals with ideas of transgenesis—beings that may be part-flower, part-boot, part-human – and looks upon them with compassion, love and acceptance,’ said artist Patricia Piccinini. ‘I question how far science and technology may take us, and what ethical questions arise around beings that are non-conformative and imperfect.’

Our computer-generated world is explored through Cao Fei’s pop culture offering, created in the game of Second Life. Tony Oursler’s digital talking head holds a mirror to the twenty-first century’s social media obsession; with anguish, Oursler’s projection tells the viewer it will die if it is not continually looked at and commented upon.

Creating sculptures that engage with surprising themes, the unbelievable craftsmanship of Tony Matelli’s Josh depicts a young man who appears to both levitate and fall, while Berlinde de Bruckyere’s Elie is presented in a state between agony and death, the human and inhuman.

Sculptures depicting popular figures such as Spider Man, clowns and pin-up girls reveal how culture and the media construct other hyperreal forms, while Ronnie van Hout’s doppelgängers and Marc Quinn’s self-portrait – created with litres of the artist’s frozen blood – provide disconcerting commentary on the infinite replication of humans in the future.

Shaun Gladwell’s virtual reality artwork is an immersive experience, a simulation that tricks us into believing that we are out of our mortal shells, and exploring deep space. VR offers a technological advancement of the human body. As technology is used to enhance our human capabilities we become another kind of hyperreal figure ourselves.

The Russian collective AES+F present a high-definition 360° immersive video work evoking the aesthetic of daytime soap operas, with a provocative twist. In AES+F’s inverted world, the poor overthrow the rich, women torture men, youths punish their elders and animals usurp humans.

Hyper Real explores art, psychology, science, technology and philosophy through the very realness of its subject matter. Welcome to humanity amplified.

ARTISTS

AES+F (Russia) Shaun Gladwell (Australia) Tony Oursler (USA) Zharko Basheski (Macedonia) Robert Gober (USA) Evan Penny (USA) Stephen Birch (Australia) Duane Hanson (USA) Patricia Piccinini (Australia) Maurizio Cattelan (Italy) Sam Jinks (Australia) Marc Quinn (UK) John De Andrea (USA) Allen Jones (UK) Mel Ramos (US) Berlinde de Bruyckere (Belgium) Peter Land (Denmark) Ugo Rondinone (Swiss) Keith Edmier (USA) Tony Matelli (USA) Jamie Salmon (UK) Cao Fei (China) Paul McCarthy (USA) George Segal (USA) Carole A Feuerman (USA) Ron Mueck (Australia) Marc Sijan (Serbia) Daniel Firman (France) Jan Nelson (Australia) Ronnie van Hout

(NZ/Australia) Sun Yuan & Peng Yu (China)

This exhibition is made possible through the support of presenting partner Visit Canberra, major partner Qantas, and supporting partner Maddocks, as well as Exhibition Patrons, Zeke Solomon and the Neilson Foundation.

Hyper Real opens 20 October 2017 until 18 February 2018. Tickets are on sale now through Ticketek.

MEDIA CENTRE: Downloadable hi res images: https://nga.gov.au/aboutus/mediacentre/hyperreal/default.cfm

SOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook: @NationalGalleryof Australia Instagram: @NationalGalleryAus Twitter: @NatGalleryAus Hashtag: #HyperRealNGA

MEDIA ENQUIRIES Megan Reeder Hope Communications Manager, National Gallery of Australia E: megan.reederhope@nga.gov.au T: 02 6240 6700 M: 0435 103 735

HYPER REAL IMAGE LIST

These images are available for high resolution download via our media centre: https://nga.gov.au/aboutus/mediacentre/hyperreal/default.cfm

More images are available upon request, however, some images require artist approvals and suitable time should be allowed for deadline.

Ron Mueck Pregnant woman 2002 mixed media 252 x 78 x 72 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased with the assistance of Tony and Carol Berg, 2003 © Ron Mueck, courtesy the artist, Anthony d’Offay, London and Hauser & Wirth

Patricia Piccinini Eulogy 2011 silicone, fibreglass, human hair, clothing 110 x 65 x 60 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Warwick and Jane Flecknoe Bequest Fund, 2015 Courtesy of the artist, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne and Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco

Patricia Piccinini The Breathing Room 2000 three-channel HD video: computer generated animation, 6:00 minutes, sound, colour Collection of the artist Courtesy of the artist, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne and Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco

Patricia Piccinini The welcome guest 2011 silicone, fibreglass, human hair, clothing, taxidermied peacocks, dimensions variable Collection of the artist Courtesy of the artist, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne and Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco

Patricia Piccinini Bootflower and Meadow 2015 silicone, fibreglass, human hair, polyethylene, thermoplastic polymer, dimensions variable Collection of Detached Cultural Organisation and the artist, Hobart Courtesy of the artist, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne and Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco

Patricia Piccinini Newborn 2010 silicone, Forton, steel, human hair, possum pelt 19 x 24 x 17 cm Collection of Paris Neilson Courtesy of the artist, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne and Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco

Patricia Piccinini The long awaited 2008 silicone, fibreglass, human hair, plywood, leather, clothing 92 x 152 x 80 cm Collection of Detached Cultural Organisation, Hobart Courtesy of the artist, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne and Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco

Patricia Piccinini Prone 2011 silicone, fibreglass, human hair, felt 230 x 60 x 60 cm Collection of the artist Courtesy of the artist, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne and Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco

AES+F Inverso mundus 2015 seven-channel HD video installation: 38:20 minutes, sound, colour Courtesy of the artists, MAMM, Anna Schwartz Gallery and Triumph Gallery

Shaun Gladwell Orbital vanitas 2017 virtual reality: computer-generated animation, 6:00 minutes, sound, colour Produced by BADFAITH, Courtesy the artist, Anna Schwartz Gallery and BADFAITH

Cao Fei Live in RMB City 2009 single-channel video: 24:50 minutes, sound, colour M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong By donation

Sam Jinks Kneeling woman 2015 silicone, pigment, resin, human hair 30 x 72 x 28 cm Collection of the artist © Sam Jinks. Image courtesy of the artist, Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney and Institute for Cultural Exchange, Tübingen

Sam Jinks Woman and child 2010 silicone, pigment, resin, silk, human hair 145 x 40 x 40 cm Collection of the artist © Sam Jinks. Image courtesy of the artist, Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney and Institute for Cultural Exchange, Tübingen

Maurizio Cattelan Ave Maria 2007 polyurethane, paint, clothing, metal 74 x 13 cm x 65 cm Private collection

Robert Gober Untitled 1992 beeswax, cotton, leather, aluminium, human hair 17.1 x 47 x 9.5 cm D.Daskalopoulos Collection

Carole A Feuerman General’s twin 2009–11 resin, oil paint 61 x 38 x 20.5 cm Galerie Hübner & Hübner © Carole Feuerman. Image courtesy Institute for Cultural Exchange

Daniel Firman Caroline 2014 resin, clothing 162 x 43 x 47 cm Petersen Collection

John DeAndrea Lisa 2016 bronze, oil paint, hair 30.5 x 170.2 x 91.5 cm Collection of John DeAndrea & Lorraine DeAndrea

John DeAndrea Ariel I 2011 bronze, oil paint, hair 182.9 x 91.5 x 45.7 cm Collection of John DeAndrea

Marc Sijan Cornered 2011 polyester resin, oil paint 73.6 x 38.1 x 71.1 cm Collection of the artist © Marc Sijan. Image courtesy of the artist and Institute for Cultural Exchange, Tübingen

Marc Sijan Embrace 2014 polyester resin, oil paint 73.6 x 38.1 x 71.1 cm Collection of the artist © Marc Sijan. Image courtesy of the artist and Institute for Cultural Exchange, Tübingen

Berlinde De Bruyckere Elie 2009 wax, epoxy, cushion 38 x 154 x 115 cm Fundació Sorigué, Lleida, Spain

Evan Penny Self stretch 2012 silicone, pigment, hair, aluminium 122 x 81 x 69 cm Courtesy of the artist

Evan Penny Panagiota: conversation #1, variation 2 2008 silicone, pigment, hair, aluminium 69 x 275 x 15 cm Courtesy of the artist

Mel Ramos Chiquita banana 2007 synthetic resin, paint 170 x 110 x 110 cm Galerie Ernst Hilger, Vienna © Mel Ramos / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017. Image Courtesy of Galerie Ernst Hilger and Institute for Cultural Exchange

Sun Yuan and Peng Yu Old people’s home 2007 fiberglass, silica gel, clothing, accessories, electric wheelchairs, dimensions variable Collection of Mr. Shi Lai Liu

Ronnie van Hout Sitting figure I 2016 polyurethane, fibreglass, polystyrene, paint, clothing, acrylic, stainless steel 106 x 90 x 110 cm Collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 2017 Courtesy of the artist and STATION, Melbourne

Ronnie van Hout Sitting figure II 2016 polyurethane, fibreglass, polystyrene, paint, clothing, acrylic, stainless steel 109 x 90 x 110 cm Private Collection of Raft Studio, Melbourne, Courtesy of the artist and STATION, Melbourne

Allen Jones Refrigerator 2002 mixed media 188 x 84 x 37 cm Private collection

Tony Matelli Josh 2010 silicone, steel, hair, urethane, clothing 77 x 183 x 56 cm Collection of the artist

Paul McCarthy That Girl (TG Awake) 2012–13 silicone, paint, hair, wood, glass, melamine board TG #2: 78.1 x 74.9 x 141.0 cm; TG #3: 75.0 x 77.5 x 146.5 cm; TG #4: 77.5 x 72.4 x 138.4 cm; tables each: 76.2 x 101.6 x 228.6 cm D.Daskalopoulos Collection

Zharko Basheski Ordinary man 2009–10 polyester resin, fiberglass, silicone, hair 220.0 x 180.0 x 85.0 cm Collection of the artist

Peter Land Back to square one 2015 silicone, human hair, fabric, cardboard, leather, dimensions variable Courtesy of Galleri Nicolai Wallner and Peter Land

HYPER REAL ARTISTS

AES+F (Russia) Russian collective AES+F’s confronting digital work, Inverso Mundus 2015, is ‘the world turned upside-down’ in which perceived social hierarchies are subverted and inverted. The poor overthrow the rich and women torture men, youth punish their elders and animals usurp humans in a 360 degree immersive video installation, which appears as a seamless hybrid of high-end advertising, music videos and fashion photography to create a fiction which is more alluring than reality.

Zharko Basheski (Macedonia)

By portraying people in extreme situations, Zharko Basheski explores the challenges of existence. Playing with size heightens the emotional impact of his representations; though his enormous sculptures appear physically unassailable, they evoke vulnerability, hesitation and doubt. His Ordinary man bursts through the floor at the entrance to the exhibition, giving visitors a glimpse of what lies beyond.

Stephen Birch (Australia)

In Stephen Birch’s Untitled 2005 a life-size model of Marvel’s Spider-Man confronts a warped head emerging from the wall. Instead of fighting crime, the pop icon appears less then ‘amazing’, slouched and out of shape, in contrast with the seemingly wise figure who stares down upon him. The immediate sense of tension seems to dissipate into humour the longer we observe this strange interaction.

Maurizio Cattelan (Italy)

Maurizio Cattelan often uses humour to examine power relations, particularly the imagery and symbols of power and how these are utilised and interpreted. In Ave Maria three arms emerge from the wall, outstretched and slightly raised. Their pose references the ‘Roman salute’, a gesture which was adopted by the Italian fascists and the German Nazi party in World War II. Combined with the work’s religious title, Cattelan comments upon the similar nature of politics and religion as sources of repression and sites of power.

John DeAndrea (USA)

Referencing the poses and themes of classical sculpture through to Renaissance painting, John DeAndrea explores the concept of beauty through highly-detailed life casts of female figures. Against established criticism of this historical representation and its exclusively male gaze, DeAndrea produces his sculptures as idealised objects which conform to the conventions of the female nude in Western art.

Berlinde de Bruyckere (Belgium)

Produced from several casts of various body parts, Berlinde de Bruyckere’s figures oscillate between conflicting states of existence. Formed from layers of millimetre thin wax, Elie’s pallid skin evokes death, while the sculpture’s agonized pose suggests enduring trauma. By constructing monstrous – although not inhuman – forms through the genre of hyperrealism, de Bruyckere draws attention to the artificiality of the image-making process.

Keith Edmier (USA)

Keith Edmier’s sculptural practice explores the real and imagined relationship between society and popular culture. Drawing on experiences from his own childhood and young adulthood, Edmier conflates his personal history with collective cultural memory to deliberately confuse truth and fiction.

Cao Fei (China)

Chinese artist Cao Fei’s extensive project RMB City is a work of art rendered entirely in digital code. Co-opting the online virtual world Second Life, Cao constructed an alternative online identity, her avatar China Tracy, and new city in which to live and interact. In the user-generated space, Cao is able to reimagine her physical form and fashion a new subjectivity, providing for the possibility of her digital rebirth.

Carole A Feuerman (USA)

Carole Feuerman has worked in the genre of hyperrealist sculpture since the 1970s. Although her complete body of work includes intimate scenes and the occasional man, her main subject has consistently been the female figure, often in the act of bathing or swimming. Since childhood, Feuerman has been fascinated with the endless patterns that water makes on skin. This visual idea has progressed into a deeper investigation of its effect on the human psyche.

Daniel Firman (France)

Daniel Firman’s work displays an intense interest in the body and space, and how these elements relate to one and other. Although Firman’s hyperrealist sculptures avoid the genre’s obsessive emphasis on the reproduction of facial features or skin, they nevertheless evoke the concept of the double by focussing upon the physical presence of the body in space.

Shaun Gladwell (Australia)

Australian artist Shaun Gladwell taps into digital disembodiment in his immersive 3D virtual-reality experience, Orbital vanitas 2017. Putting on a virtual-reality headset and headphones, we are taken on a journey through deep space before entering and exploring the barren landscapes, caves and crevices of a floating human skull. The sequence disorients our sensory perception, allowing us to experience a new out-of-body sensation –leaving an intellect without physical form.

Robert Gober (USA)

Robert Gober’s art practice deals with objects of the everyday, although an everyday defined by fragmented or damaged elements. Protruding from gallery walls, his strangely realistic wax effigies of men’s legs examine the defectiveness and fragility of the human body. Referencing a disturbing childhood memory and queer desire, his cast legs present an unsettling form of realism, one which is simultaneously, associated with trauma, fantasy and pleasure.

Duane Hanson (USA)

Duane Hanson’s sculptures caused uproar within the American art scene when they first appeared in the 1960s. Realism had never before been approached in this way: cast from live models Hanson’s figures were rendered in minute detail, and finally outfitted with clothing and accessories. Perhaps most shocking was his

subject matter, unidealised reflections of the American lower and middle classes. So astonishingly lifelike are Duane Hanson’s sculptures, that visitors often mistake them for their fellow gallery attendants.

Sam Jinks (Australia)

Sam Jinks’ hyperrealistic representations of the body, produced with clay casts and poured silicone, are renowned for their unsettling naturalism. Jinks creates touching compositions which explore the cycle of life wit its fragility and its transience. His latest piece, The deposition 2017, was commissioned by the National Gallery of Australia for Hyper Real.

Allen Jones (UK)

In 1961, Allen Jones was expelled from London’s Royal College of Arts for refusing to engage in compulsory life-drawing classes, arguing the practice was redundant in the era of the newly emerging style of Pop Art. He became renowned for his controversial figurative works which depicted women as festishitic sculptural furniture, an apparent comment on female objectification. Refrigerator 2002 presents a young woman with her torso encased in a sleek wooden-clad fridge. Her piercing gaze and dominant presence, however, seem to defy the artist’s intention.

Peter Land (Denmark)

Peter Land’s art practice encompasses a wide variety of media: performance and video, printmaking, painting and sculpture. Endless cycles of falling and failure recur in Land’s work as motifs to explore the difficulties of contemporary existence. While initially conceived in response to the pervasive atmosphere of fear generated by the global financial crisis, Back to square one 2015 also gives expression to Land’s personal and artistic misgivings. Homelessness here becomes emblematic of a broader sense of loss, not only physical but also existential.

Tony Matelli (USA)

Tony Matelli’s works seemingly defy the laws of physics, encouraging us to reorient our perspective on human existence. The technical perfection of his sculptures and their placement in surreal situations leads to a sense of overwhelming uncertainty and ambiguity. Josh 2010 appears to be both falling and levitating.

Paul McCarthy (USA)

Paul McCarthy is famed for his disturbing yet unforgettable work. That Girl (T.G. Awake) 2012-13 is an installation of three sculptures, each a body cast of McCarthy’s muse, the actress Elyse Poppers. Contradicting the notion of ideal beauty where bodily functions are minimised, That Girl is an example of a grotesque body which exaggerates body parts that either protrude or can be entered. Although she is presented with her legs splayed and her vagina exposed, That Girl is not intentionally sexualised by the artist. By interrupting the contours of the body and exposing its interiors, That Girl interrogates the symbolic significance of the female form.

Ron Mueck (Australia/UK)

Ron Mueck began working as an independent artist in the mid-1990s after a twenty-year career as a model builder and special effects person in the film industry. Created using life models and clay maquettes, Mueck’s sculptures often explore the life cycle, from birth through to death. Much greater or smaller, than life-size Mucek’s sculptures are extraordinary experiments in scale and perception.

Jan Nelson (Australia)

Jan Nelson based her highly lifelike sculpture, Strange Days, on a young woman glimpsed at a political rally organised by the Occupy movement, protesting against social and economic inequality. Strange Days reflects the artist’s career-long commitment to exploring the shifting relationship between vulnerability and defiance.

Tony Oursler (USA)

Tony Oursler’s disembodied face lies on the floor, projected onto an ovular form cast in fibreglass. Playing on a looped soundtrack he pleads pitifully, begging the audience not to abandon him in the darkness. Incubator 2003 is a visual and auditory manifestation of the ‘social’ interactions which occur within the digital landscape. Created a year prior to the release of the ubiquitous social media platform Facebook, Oursler prefigures the unsettling way we can become defined by our virtual existence.

Evan Penny (Canada)

Evan Penny’s ‘stretch projects’ blur the distinction between two and three dimensions. After distorting the human body via two-dimensional image manipulation, he then reproduces the image in sculptural form. In doing so, Penny highlights that representation is never fixed nor stable, alerting viewers to artificiality of imagery in era of digital media.

Patricia Piccinini (Australia)

Patricia Piccinini’s surreal and uncanny creations are defined by a pervading empathy for the outsider and the outcast. Her hybrid sculptures ask us to reconsider our understanding of beauty and ugliness by recreating, merging and mutating animal and human forms into new realities. These works evoke the possibilities offered by biotechnology and transgenic processes, forcing us to address the contemporary sociopolitical issues governing the body. Hyper Real features seven works by Piccinini, including an immersive site-specific Bootflower surrounded by Meadow, an infinite field of part ovarian, part avian flowers.

Marc Quinn (UK)

Every five years since 1991, Marc Quinn has produced a sculptural self-portrait from his frozen blood. Contained within a sealed chamber and plugged into a refrigeration unit, Self 2011 resembles a scientific specimen. Formed from his own biological matter, Quinn’s Self exemplifies Hyper Real’s radical approach to the body. Each of Quinn’s effigies exist concurrently within the past, present and future. They are relics embalming part of the artist but also, paradoxically, they are things of potential, preserving part of the artist’s DNA for future regeneration.

Mel Ramos (US)

Pop Art pioneer Mel Ramos experienced his artistic breakthrough when he exhibited alongside Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and James Rosenquist in the famous Pop! Goes the Easel exhibition of 1963. Along with his contemporaries, Ramos began to engage critically with the advertising industry and its imagery, particularly its depiction of the female figure. Playful and crude, Ramos’ Chiquita banana reflects the aesthetic ideal of a bygone era. Her presence reminds us that the ‘beauty queen’ still lives in mass culture today.

Ugo Rondinone (Swiss)

Ugo Rondinone’s lethargic and apathetic clown operates as the artist’s alter ego and one of his most potent devices. If there were anywhere but desert. Wednesday 2000, inverts our expectations of what ‘the clown’ should be. Instead of capturing a circus performer’s energy, this clown lies on the floor – passive and depressed. Rondinone’s clown is comment on contemporary existence which, for the artist, is a state of perpetual waiting and individual isolation.

Jamie Salmon (UK)

Laborious and meticulously detailed, Jamie Salmon’s sculptures provide the viewer with the illusion of a living body. Simultaneously, however, Salmon’s approach seeks to disrupt our perception of reality. Larger-than-life, Lily 2013 exists only as a fragment, the back of her head and right shoulder oddly absent. By exposing Lily’s hollow interior, Salmon highlights contemporary society’s focus upon outward appearance.

George Segal (USA)

The discovery of the direct-casting method was a breakthrough for George Segal, who began capturing the human form in 1961 by wrapping live models in bandages dipped in plaster. Although this method allowed him to capture the intimate details of his individual models, Segal deliberately concealed their identifying features, using the texture of the plaster and his monochrome colour palettes to render the figures anonymous. By positioning his subjects within urban and domestic scenes, Segal examined gesture and body language in relation to themes of social interaction and urban alienation.

Marc Sijan (Serbia)

Marc Sijan’s method is both onerous and distinctive. Working from a live model to produce a mould in plaster, he then sculpts minute details under magnification before casting the complete sculpture in resin. A technique he developed are working alongside hyperrealist pioneer Duane Hanson. Sijan attempts to foster a sense of emotional realism in his sculptures, often depicting his subjects in moments of exposure or vulnerability.

Ronnie van Hout (NZ/Australia)

Ronnie van Hout has established an artistic practice around the doppelganger or ‘double walker’. His figures often feature the artist’s own face, awkwardly morphed with a smaller body to produce a ‘manchild’. Conforming to this format, Sitting Figure I and II explore the division between the public and private worlds of a stand-up comedian. Usually presented in the spotlight performing for laughs, often at their own expense, these comedians garner laughs at the state of their psychological despair. Like a bad joke told twice, Sitting figure I and II invite us to witness the existential crisis of a stand-up comedian.

Sun Yuan and Peng Yu (China)

Chinese duo Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s Old people’s home 2007 critiques the stereotypical male figures occupying powerful positions on the political world stage. Thirteen decrepit old men sit slumped in battery-powered wheelchairs, seemingly hanging on to their positions of power by a single breath. Amongst them we might identify Yasser Arafat, Josef Stalin or Mikhail Gorbachev. Ensconced and manipulated by their mechanised chairs, these men are beholden to the space and audience.