2014 Exhibition
29. Broken Dance (Beatboxed)
Shaun Gladwell is renowned for his mesmerising studies of the body in motion, set against the backdrop of gritty urban environments or remote landscapes. The dual-channel video installation Broken Dance (Beatboxed) continues his engagement with the nexus between embodied expression and urban sub-cultures. One channel of the video depicts the vocal percussions of a beat-boxer; the other focuses on gesture, tracing the ‘freestyle’ motions of
dancers who merge the genres of break-dancing, krumping and whacking.
Although the performances occurred at different times and locations, Gladwell’s synchronizing of the two video channels constructs a dialogue between them, as though the sound in one is catalyzing the movement in the other. While this aspect of Broken Dance (Beatboxed) highlights the artifice of video installation, the action unusually plays out in ‘real-time’. In contrast to many of Gladwell’s earlier videos, which are slowed to distort the effects of speed and gravity, here the emphasis is on the unmediated virtuosity of the
performers and the powerful unconscious effect of sound on the body.
The contexts for the performances are also significant. The dancers execute their moves against the backdrop of graffiti covered urban spaces, invoking the notion of sub-cultural activity as a mode of resistance and reclamation within public zones where behavior is now obsessively surveyed and over prescribed. On the other hand, the vocalists are situated in a studio context, perhaps a signal toward how such cultures of resistance are eventually commodified and ‘mainstreamed’ by the relentless thrust of consumerism.
Artist talk Saturday, 5 pm at MOCAD 4454 Woodward, Detroit, MI 48201
Sponsored by Quicken Loans
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Artist Information
Shaun Gladwell
Shaun Gladwell (born 1972, lives and works in Sydney) critically and poetically links personal experience with contemporary culture and historical references through performance, video, painting, photography and sculpture. His works engage these concerns through forms of urban expression such as skateboarding, hip-hop, graffiti, BMX bike riding, break-dancing and most recently, extreme sports.
Gladwell completed Associate Research at Goldsmiths College, University of London, in 2001 and has since undertaken international residencies and commissions in Europe, North and South America, and the Asia Pacific Region. In September 2006 he was the recipient of the Australia Council for the Arts’ prestigious Visual Arts Fellowship.
Selected solo exhibitions include Interior Linework/Interceptor Intersection, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney, Australia, 2010; Seven Year Linework, Spacex, Exeter, UK, 2009; MADDESTMAXIMVS: Planet & Stars Sequence, Australian Pavilion, 53rd Venice Biennale, Italy, 2009; Shaun Gladwell, University Art Gallery, University of California, San Diego, USA, 2008; In a Station of the Metro, Artspace, Sydney, Australia, 2008; Various Roles, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia, 2005; Recent Projects, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France, 2001; and Kickflipping Flâneur, Artspace, Sydney, Australia 2000.
Street and Studio. From Basquiat to Séripop, Kunsthalle Wien, Austria, 2010; Adaptation, Power Plant, Toronto, Canada, 2010; ABBARACADABRA, The First Mardin Biennial, Turkey, 2010; The Thrill of the Heights, OK Centre, Linz, Austria, 2009; RISING TIDE: Film and Video Works from the MCA Collection, Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, USA, 2009; CODE SHARE: 5 continents, 10 biennales, 20 artists, Contemporary Art Centre Vilnius, Lithuania, 2009; Revolutions – Forms That Turn, 16th Biennale of Sydney, Australia, 2008; Taipei Biennial, Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taiwan, 2008; Space for Your Future, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan, 2007; Think with the senses, feel with the mind – art in the present tense, 52nd International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale, Italy, 2007; How to Live Together, 27th São Paulo Biennial, Brazil, 2006; Everywhere, Busan Biennale, South Korea, 2006; Art Circus (Jumping from the Ordinary), Yokohama 2005 Triennale of Contemporary Art, Japan, 2005; Space Invaders, Kunsthaus Baselland, Switzerland, 2005; and The Mind is a Horse, Bloomberg Space, London, UK, 2001.
www.annaschwartzgallery.com