Primavera 2012

There’ll be nuts, mutts and sitting on one’s butt in MCA’s annual exhibition of art by artists under 35

First published on 23 Nov 2011. Updated on 3 Dec 2012.

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For this year's Primavera, its exhibition of art by artists under 35, the Museum of Contemporary Art brings together dogs, dancing, a dot matrix and much more. Here's Time Out's rundown of what to expect from this showcase of the whippersnappers of Australian art.

Benjamin Forster: Drawing Machine (Output = Plotter) and Discourse

A computer can play chess – but can it ‘doodle’? In ‘Drawing Machine’, a computer scrawls and scribbles in a seemingly impulsive and distinctly human way. ‘Discourse’ is an endless imagined dialogue between economists Karl Marx and Adam Smith, generated by a complex computer algorithm and printed onto ever-accumulating receipt paper.

Anastasia Klose: The Re-living Room

An awkwardness-inducing art installation that typifies Klose’s “aesthetic of the pathetic”, ‘The Re-living Room’ sees the artist enacting a long period of unemployment. She’ll be in the gallery during opening hours for the entire two-month exhibition, watching TV, eating junk food, dancing and presumably fielding calls from Centrelink.

Todd McMillan: Albatross

With a tip of the hat to Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Todd McMillan’s 16mm film documents his voyage over the painted ocean off the coast of Tasmania to track down and observe (and hopefully not shoot from the sky) the ‘near-threatened’ Shy Albatross.

Dion Beasley

A young, deaf Aboriginal artist with muscular dystrophy, Dion Beasley does cheeky drawings of the ‘cheeky dogs’ that frequent, and are much loved by, the indigenous communities at Tennant Creek. Beasley’s sketches can now also be seen on T-shirts and other assorted merch.

Teho Ropeyarn

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island design principles are combined with Western-style oil painting techniques in the work of Injinoo-born artist Teho Ropeyarn, depicting totemic animals and landscapes.

Justine Varga: Empty Studio and Still Life

Justine Varga’s works are studies in quietude. Interested in the point at which her photography intersects with the compositional techniques of painting, she takes minimalist pictures of her near-bare Double Bay studio and everyday environment.

Kate Mitchell: My Life in Nuts

Sydney artist Kate Mitchell was recently recognised by GoMa, who featured her earlier in 2012 swinging with hilarious abandon from a grand chandelier. She continues her preoccupation with artistic nuttiness more literally than ever in ‘My Life in Nuts’, an artwork in which she represents every day of her life up to the opening of the exhibition with a mound of 11,109 unshelled peanuts. (And yes, we’re aware that the peanut is a legume.)

Primavera 2012, curated by Anna Davis, is presented in the Level 1 South Gallery. The accompanying publication, Primavera 2012, is available at the MCA Store.

More: The MCA's Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro exhibition, one of the Museum's 2012 highlights, is also currently on show until Dec 2.

Words by Darryn King |

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