Monash University Media Kit The humours 1 / 3 Museum of Art

Exploring how and absurdity can be used to reveal more serious THE concerns about race, work, gender and politics, The humours brings together six HUMOURS international and Australian artists in a challenging and comical exhibition.

Presented in association with the 2017 Festival, the exhibition is Exhibition Dates: curated by Monash University Museum 7 October – 16 December 2017 of Art (MUMA) Senior Curator Hannah Mathews. Opening Function: 7 October 2017, 3–5pm This exhibition of new commissions and To be opened by Sami Shah, multi-award recent works pays particular attention to winning writer and comedian the roles physicality and language play in unsettling preconceptions through Curator: comedy. The humours includes moving Hannah Mathews image, photographic, installation and performance works. It features new Artists: commissions from Australian artists Gabriel Abrantes (PRT) Matthew Griffin and Barbara Cleveland*. Barbara Cleveland (AUS) Matthew Griffin (AUS) Rather than offering a compendium The curator says the rise of Donald long-standing curatorial interests in the Glenn Ligon (USA) of funny art, the show looks at some Trump lends a timeliness to the show. body and performance. In 2014, Mathews Mary Reid Kelley (USA) of the underlying strategies – physical curated Framed Movements at the Mika Rottenberg (ARG) movement, dialogue, exaggerations of “Every day in the newspaper and on Australian Centre of Contemporary Art scale and absurdity – that artists work social media we see how late-night TV (ACCA); also created for the Melbourne with when using humour as a tool for hosts and comedians are dealing with Festival, the exhibition explored the provoking thought. the reality of American politics. They intersection between visual art and provide much-needed political critique dance. “The humours ties in with a long history and commentary but through wit and of comedy and absurdity in art. It delves humour. We might also remember the “The title of the show, The humours, into the ability of these languages to be late John Clarke in our own Australian harks back to the ancient philosophical subversively transgressive in their ways context.” and medical conception of the of dealing with difficult things,” Mathews relationship between humour, the says. For Mathews, The humours extends her body and behaviours. Conceived by Monash University Media Kit The humours 2 / 3 Museum of Art

Hippocrates, it was a diagnostic formula “There is a strong feminist tradition of her interest in the craft of comedy as Australian artist Matthew Griffin has later embraced by Shakespeare and using and absurdity to highlight a highly skilled abstraction of human recently returned from New York City, others seeking to portray contemporary inequality and that’s something we can behaviour. The film follows a small, and in a work co-commissioned by life” Mathews explains. see in works in the exhibition by Mary artificially intelligent hovering robot as MUMA and Melbourne Festival, uses Reid Kelley and Mika Rottenberg.” it tries to grasp the concept of humour. drone camera technology to document “I’m interested in the ability of art Through his narrative, Abrantes manages a performance within the MUMA gallery – especially art combining physicality Mary Reid Kelley combines painting, to combine philosophy, anthropology space. and language with humour – to confront performance and distinctive wordplay- and human emotion in humorous and social problems through these quite rich poetry in graphically stylised insightful ways. “Griffin’s new body of work is complex emotional, physical, behavioural black-and-white videos. Synthesising characterised by his typical irreverence, experiences.” art-historical styles such as Cubism and In a new work commissioned by MUMA, presenting a tongue-in-cheek approach German Expressionism, these present her Australian collective Barbara Cleveland to contemporary art’s need to be For example, the exhibition features a take on the clash between ideology and take their enduring fascination with engaged with the latest technology and large, seven-channel video installation the realities of women’s lives throughout performance comedy in a new direction innovation.” said Mathews. by acclaimed US artist Glenn Ligon, history. For The humours, Reid Kelley’s by writing and enacting a manifesto who in 2011 was honoured with a mid- video The Thong of Dionysus (made with written by their namesake in the 1970s “The humours is a diverse exhibition, career survey exhibition at the Whitney her partner Patrick Kelley) takes us on an that proposes the notion of bad timing as which aims to be more than a collection Museum of American Art. His work Live odyssey back to Ancient Greece. a feminist strategy. of different types of humorous art. What is based on a video recording of the famously outspoken African-American Mika Rottenberg’s video installation comedian Richard Pryor performing Squeeze mixes grinding industrial live on the Sunset Strip. Ligon mutes machinery and claustrophobic Pryor’s voice, and his explicit criticisms architectural constructions in a of , and asks us to pay attention depiction of factory work that probes to the comedian’s body language as the feminisation of globalised labour. specific parts of his body become the Squeeze splices together documentary focal points of the different channels in footage from a rubber plant in India the installation. and a lettuce farm in Arizona with Rottenberg’s own narrative of women “This emphasis on the body in Ligon’s in an absurdist makeup factory. The work invariably raises questions regarding results are “sinister and hilarious”, in the social constructs of race and masculinity. estimation of a New York Times’ reviewer. It also asks us to look beyond Pryor’s famed commentary to consider the Mathews describes filmmaker Gabriel craft involved in the physical delivery of Abrantes’ 30-minute filmThe Artificial comedy itself,” Mathews says. Humours as possibly “the most human” work in the show and one that reflects Monash University Media Kit The humours 3 / 3 Museum of Art

Images: 1. Glenn Ligon, Live 2014, seven channel video, 80 minutes, Installation view Glenn Ligon: We Need to Wake Up Cause That’s What Time It Is, Luhring Augustine Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY (January 16 – April 17, 2016). Photography: Farzad Owrang © Glenn Ligon; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, and Thomas Dane Gallery, London

2. Mary Reid Kelley, still from The Thong of Dionysus 2015. HD video, sound, made with Patrick Kelley, 9 minutes and 27 seconds. Courtesy of the artist and Pilar Corrias Gallery, London the show does is to look at humour, at Media Contact: 3. Gabriel Abrantes, Os Humores Artificiais, (the what comedians do, the skill and the Tess Dolan artificial Humours)2016, video still, produced by craft of that and what that allows us as Account Coordinator Herma Films with the financial support of Fundação the audience to see and engage with: Communications Collective Serralves, Bienal de São Paulo, Colección Inelcom those bigger ideas around identity, E [email protected] and ICA – Instituto do Cinema e Audiovisual, image history and politics,” says Mathews. T +61 3 9988 2300 courtesy of the artist and Herma Films M +61 0439388162 *Barbara Cleveland, formerly Brown Council, is 4. Barbara Cleveland, The one hour laugh 2009, an artist-led collective comprised of four artists: production still, single channel HD video, Frances Barrett (b. 1983), Kate Blackmore (b. 1982), Presented in association with Melbourne Festival. 60mins, courtesy of the artists Kelly Doley (b. 1984), and Diana Baker Smith (b. 1981). The collective met studying at the College of 5. Mika Rottenberg, Squeeze 2010 (video still), Fine Art at the University of New South Wales and single channel video installation, 20 minutes, digital have been working together since 2007. c-print, overall dimensions variable, edition of 6 with 2 Aps © Mika Rottenberg. Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York

6. Matthew Griffin,Clog 2017, digital video still, Photo: Matthew Griffin