HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION RESOURCE 1 ABOUT THIS EDUCATION RESOURCE This resource is designed for high school students and their teachers, for use before and after visiting the exhibition. The content aims to provide a range of reference material to inform and extend students’ engagement, structured around selected series of works within the exhibition. The kit includes visual reproductions and personal quotations, as well as discussion topics through to research-based and practical tasks. Produced by Campbelltown Arts Centre to accompany the DAVID GRIGGS: BETWEEN NATURE & SIN exhibition presented in 2017. CONTENT WARNING: A number of works included in this exhibition contain graphic content, scenes of violence, nudity and/or coarse language. Cover image: ZOMBIE KISS, 2009. Courtesy of Hayman Collection. CONTENTS About the exhibition 4 About the artist 6 About Campbelltown Arts Centre 8 About Museums & Galleries of NSW 9 Selected series Exchanging Culture for Flesh (2005) 10 The Bleeding Hearts Club (2006) 12 NEW YORK LONDON PARIS ROME 14 MANILA CITY JAIL (2009) ZOMBIE KISS (2009) 16 Frat of the Obese (2011) 18 Magic is Mentally Ill (2014) 20 Feature film COWBOY COUNTRY (2016) 22 Extended responses 24 Further information 25 3 DAVID GRIGGS BETWEEN NATURE & SIN ABOUT THE EXHIBITION BETWEEN NATURE AND SIN is a solo Philippines film royalty Soliman Cruz, the late exhibition of exceptional works by acclaimed Dante Perez and Melanie Tejano. Australian artist David Griggs who currently Manila has challenged, broken and rebuilt resides in Manila, the Philippines. Famous for Griggs in countless ways, as have his his bold approach, Griggs takes the everyday collaborations. The succession of this and flips it to expose the cracks, exhuming experience is revealed in the works the raw undercurrent of a society. presented in BETWEEN NATURE AND SIN. Borrowed popular references and street Twelve years in the making, this exhibition stories become Griggs’ visual vocabulary will take you on a journey along the back which he uses to construct sophisticated streets of society that echoes many localities compositions, often portraits, stripped but at its core is Manila. back and charged with emotion. Drawing from political imagery, underground media Developed by Campbelltown Arts Centre, and protest, local histories and personal BETWEEN NATURE AND SIN will tour experience Griggs manifests a narrative to nationally between 2018-19 through capture daily life. He documents intimate Museums & Galleries of NSW. National chance moments and the deliberate actions venues include Glasshouse Regional of his friends, and strangers, within an Gallery, Northern Centre for Contemporary unidentifiable Manila. Art, Redlands Art Gallery, Cairns Regional Gallery, Lismore Regional Gallery, Griffith BETWEEN NATURE AND SIN features over Regional Art Gallery, Maitland Regional a decade of past paintings, photographs Art Gallery, Orange Regional Gallery and and videos including Exchanging Culture for Burrinja Cultural Centre. This exhibition is Flesh, ZOMBIE KISS, Bleeding Hearts Club part of the Bayanihan Philippine Art Project, and the premiere of COWBOY COUNTRY. a collaboration between the Art Gallery of A film inspired by realities and twisted with New South Wales, Blacktown Arts Centre, rumours, COWBOY COUNTRY follows the Campbelltown Arts Centre, Mosman Art imminent fate of a Filipino American teenager Gallery and Peacock Gallery (Auburn) in who is kidnapped and held for ransom. Set in association with Museums & Galleries of a fishing village and produced collaboratively New South Wales. with the community, this epic film features 4 Zoloft Nation (self portrait), 2009, acrylic on canvas, 282 x 232cm. Germanos Collection, Sydney. Image courtesy of the artist. 5 DAVID GRIGGS ABOUT THE ARTIST David Griggs was born in Sydney in 1975 on advertising billboards—if something is and grew up in the suburbs of Western broken you paint over it; and then I realised Sydney. During adolescence, he turned that the modernist ideas that we were to skateboarding and his art practice as a taught could not be all there was, we have way to escape the drug and alcohol abuse to look at the world and what’s happening that surrounded him. At the age of 18 when we are talking about the application Griggs began working for an underground of paint. What University did give me was newspaper, photographing poverty in North the freedom to explore ideas… I was just India and Nepal. In 1996, while travelling using it as a free studio and it had the most internationally, Griggs had a near death killer sculpture workshop where I was able experience and has since devoted his life to to experiment. producing paintings that explore the darker David Griggs sides of humanity. Cited in Dagostino et al. 2017 page 1 In 2005 Griggs undertook an Asialink Visual Education Art Residency in Manila, the Philippines. On Bachelor of Visual Arts in Painting from route to Manila, he contracted a mystery Sydney College of the Arts (1999) illness forcing him to be admitted into Masters of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the hospital where he spent his first ten days University of New South Wales (2007) in the city. This experience allowed him to Select Group and Solo Exhibitions peer past the tourist gaze and see Manila as Future Primitive, Heidi Museum of Modern locals see and experience it. Further inspired Art, Melbourne (2013) by local artists and the intense, contradictory nature of the city, he continuously returned Bastards of Misrepresentation (doing time to Manila and eventually relocated in 2009. on Filipino time), Freies Museum, Berlin (2010) … I was travelling to different parts of Asia David Griggs at IMA@TCB, Institute of and different parts of the world, including Modern Art, Brisbane (2008) South America, as a backpacker. I’m always fascinated by the naivety in paint, particularly Blood on the Streets, Artspace, Sydney in these poorer countries, where people (2007) just communicate in paint. They use paint 6 Exchanging Culture for Flesh, Art Gallery of Rose Vickers, Interview | David Griggs New South Wales, Sydney (2006) | Vibewire 2008 https://vickersvoogel. The Buko Police, Green Papaya Art Projects, wordpress.com/2008/06/25/interview-david- Manila (2005) griggs-vibewire/ Awards Themes Archibald Prize (finalist), Art Gallery of New Portraiture South Wales (2013) Filipino mural art Primavera Artist Prize, Museum of Tattoos, graffiti, street culture Contemporary Art (2007) Relationship between painting, photography, Freedman Foundation Travelling Art video and film Scholarship for emerging artists (2003) Vibrant colour, form and composition Sir William Dobell Scholarship, Sydney Storytelling College of the Arts (1997) Case studies Recommended Resources Manuel Ocampo Michael Dagostino, Megan Monte, David Louie Cordero Griggs, Jarrod Rawlins and Sidd Perez, Jean Michel Basquiat David Griggs: BETWEEN NATURE AND Diego Rivera SIN, Campbelltown Art Centre 2017 Juan Davila (exhibition catalogue) Guy Maestri Shaun Gladwell Kon Gouriotis, David Griggs | Horror Adam Cullen Business, Artist Profile 2016 http://www.artistprofile.com.au/david- These artists are recommended to study griggs/ alongside David Griggs. They range from Anni Turnbull, the art of skating – David collaborators and peers; some have inspired Griggs, Museum of Applied Arts & Griggs’ work; others are part of Australian or Sciences 2014 https://maas.museum/inside- international movements in which Griggs’ the-collection/2014/01/13/the-art-of-skating- practice can be situated. david-griggs/ 7 CAMPBELLTOWN ARTS CENTRE ABOUT C-A-C Located on the edge of Sydney, that invite collaboration, partnership, local/ Campbelltown Arts Centre (C-A-C) is in national/international dialogue, the collision a unique position to forge collaborative of emerging and traditional techniques, exchanges between artists, disciplines and cross-disciplinary approaches. This is and communities. These opportunities achieved by placing contemporary artists at allow for new curatorial situations to occur the forefront of our programming, through and challenging streams of practice to an open process of consultation with be realised. C-A-C is a national leader in our communities in south-west Sydney the delivery of an expanding high quality and beyond, the continuation of our key community engaged contemporary artistic strategic priority areas, and diversification program. C-A-C is located on Tharawal land, of our resource base to deliver a program with strong ties with Aboriginal Elders and that profiles contemporary visual arts, community and is owned and managed by performance, dance, music, live art and Campbelltown City Council. emergent practices. Using the edge as a starting point, Photo: Installation view, Campbelltown Arts C-A-C creates a secure platform for Centre, 2017. Photograph by Document communities and artists to take risks, Photography. challenge perceptions, confront issues, ask questions and create experiences through the commissioning of new works 8 MUSEUMS & GALLERIES OF NSW ABOUT M&G NSW Museums & Galleries of NSW (M&G NSW) Our exhibitions and associated programs helps museums, galleries and Aboriginal balance the programming needs of regional cultural centres of NSW create exciting and galleries and support their staff, facilitate inspiring experiences for visitors and strong, skill sharing and professional development, thriving local communities. We develop foster collaboration and build connections, their skills, connect them with others in capacity and networks