MCA PRESENTS MIKALA DWYER: MCA COLLECTION – �� Dec ���� – �� Feb ����

The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) is proud to announce an exciting Image: Mikala Dwyer, Square Cloud Compound (detail), 2010, Museum new addition to the MCA Collection with the acquisition of Sydney artist Mikala of Contemporary Art, purchased Dwyer’s installation Square Cloud Compound (2010). with funds provided by the MCA Foundation, 2015, installation view Square Cloud Compound is a mysterious enclosure made from brightly coloured fabric cubes Hamish Morrison Galerie, , 2010, sewn into a huge canopy. This extraordinary structure is held up by painted posts adorned with image courtesy and © the artist lights, bird boxes, ornaments, plants, mirrors, charms and trinkets; and held down by tersely stretched stockings attached to the ceiling and floor. The posts, painted in constructivist-style black, white and red, stand like mythic sentinels.

Square Cloud Compound is presented alongside a gift from the artist to the MCA: a new multi- coloured wall painting, Spell for a Corner, that references a bird, moth, bat or phoenix rising.

MCA Director Elizabeth Ann Macgregor OBE, said: “We are thrilled to enrich the MCA Collection with Square Cloud Compound. This addition will deepen the engagement of those already familiar with Dwyer’s work while introducing it to new audiences visiting the MCA during the summer months.”

“Contemporary artists like Dwyer continually challenge us to think and see the world differently. Her works asks us to question ourselves and our outlook on life and society.”

Dwyer has a long association with the MCA since exhibiting in the inaugural Primavera exhibition in 1992, including a major solo show in 2000 and guest-curating Primavera 2014: Young Australian Artists.

Square Cloud Compound is characteristic of Dwyer’s experimental and experiential architectures, MCA PRESENTS MIKALA DWYER: MCA COLLECTION – �� Dec ���� – �� Feb ���� which play on the permeable and changeable nature of objects and our relationship with them. WHAT’S IN THE APP? The MCA’s all new app features MCA Senior Curator Natasha Bullock, said: “The historical associations and darker undertones an artwork tour and audio from of Dwyer’s enclosure are offset by its exuberant and playful materiality. The installation is made artist Mikala Dwyer and curator from fabric squares that float like the clouds – a square cloud compound.” Natasha Bullock. Since 1989 the MCA Collection has acquired more than 4,000 works by Australian artists.

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia 21 December 2015 to 21 February 2016 FREE entry www.mca.com.au #MikalaDwyer MEDIA CONTACTS ABOUT THE ARTIST Claire Johnson / Myriam Conrie Mikala Dwyer constructs idiosyncratic, personal spaces within the conventional architecture of the Museum of Contemporary Art gallery using materials that have a strong association with the body. Her installations and are Australia experimental and experiential architectures that play with the permeable and changeable nature of objects, [email protected] / materials and our relationship with them. [email protected] +61 (0)2 9245 2417 / 2434 Dwyer’s work was selected for the Museum of Contemporary Art’s inaugural Primavera exhibition in 1992. Her recent solo exhibitions include: the garden of half-life, Art Gallery, Sydney (2014); Goldene Bend’er, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, (2013); Drawing Down the Moon, Institute of Modern Art, (2012); Panto Collapsar, Arts Project, Dublin (2012); Square Cloud Compound, Hamish Morrison Galerie, Berlin(2010) Moon Garden, Aratoi Museum, Masterton, New Zealand (2008); Black Sun Blue Moon, Hamish Morrison Galerie, Berlin (2007); The Addition and Subtractions and The Hanging Garden, Kunstraum, (2007), I Maybe We, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, , New Zealand (2005) and Mikala Dwyer, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2000).

Group exhibitions include: The Hall of Half-Life, Stierischer Herbst Festival, , Austria (2015); Magnetism, Hazelwood, Sligo, Ireland (2015); You Imagine What You Desire, 19th , Cockatoo Island, Sydney (2014); De Rerum Natura, Studio La Città, Verona (2014); The End of the 20th Century. The Best is Yet to Come, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2013); Future Primitive, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne (2013); and a major site-specific installation on Cockatoo Island for The Beauty of Distance: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age, 17th Biennale of Sydney (2010). Among her other group exhibitions are Almanac: The Gift of Ann Lewis AO, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2009); The Ecologies Project, Museum of Art, Melbourne (2008); Lost and Found: An Archaeology of the Present, TarraWarra Biennial, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healesville, (2008); Mystic Truths, Art Gallery, New Zealand (2007); Den Haag Sculptuur: De Overkant/Down Under, The Hague (2007); High Tide, CAC Vilnius and Zacheta National Gallery, Warsaw (2006); Face Up: Contemporary Art from Australia, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2003); Contempora 5, Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne (1999); OrientATION, 4th International Biennale, Istanbul (1995); and Australian Perspecta, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (1993).

PUBLIC PROGRAMS Curator’s Insights, Mikala Dwyer: MCA Collection Hear from Assistant Curator Manya Sellers on the artist and works in the exhibition. Thursday 18 February, 6.30–7pm, FREE.

Artist Talk: Mikala Dwyer Where Myth and Magic Crash: A Conversation with Mikala Dwyer Hear Sydney-based artist Mikala Dwyer discuss her work and practice. Dwyer is interested in the occult and the ability of her work to express ideas of uncertainty and instability. Thursday 28 January, 6.30–7.30pm. MCA Galleries, Level 1. FREE, bookings recommended.