THE BIGGEST ABORIGINAL ARTWORK IN MELBOURNE METRO: Steven Rhall
22 July 2023 - 19 November 2023
Curator: Jenna Lee
Artist(s): Steven Rhall
Location: Billboard
Is it THE BIGGEST ABORIGINAL ARTWORK IN MELBOURNE METRO? Here, our subject is never revealed beyond the means of it’s announcement. Once drawn into this space, the viewer can never leave via this ‘works’ indeterminability.
This work also questions the idea of 'contemporary Indigenous art practice' and it’s relationship to an Art canonista – the gallery, curator, museum, consumer and market. Extending this notion is the idea of an ‘Indigenous art’ canon. From palatable, economically-viable stereotypes, to forming part of an institution's strategy for survival, how are both the ‘Indigenous art’ canon and value determined with respect to 'Indigenous Art?’
- Steven Rhall, 2014.
Presented as part of Alt/Text curated by Jenna Lee.
Steven Rhall is a post-conceptual artist operating from a First Nation, white-passing, genderqueer, positionality. Rhall's interdisciplinary practice responds to the intersectionality of First Nation art practice and the Western art canon. He interrogates modes of representation, classification and hierarchy using installation, performance, process lead methodologies, 'curatorial' projects, sculpture, and via public & private interventions. Rhall exhibits internationally, lectures at the Victorian College of the Arts, is a PhD candidate at Monash University on Birrarung-ga land (Melbourne, Australia).
Steven is represented by MARS Gallery and is currently a studio artist at Gertrude Contemporary.