Georgia Boe, David C. Collins, Tayla Jay, Danica Knezevic, Blake Lawrence, Pamela Pirovic and Yiorgo Yiannopoulos
Critical bodies
Curated by Julie Rrap & Cherine Fahd
5 July - 11 August, 2018

Sculpture of an upside down wooden coffe table with many boulders and rocks on top. Resting on top of the table legs is a monitor, displaying a video of a performer lying prone on the floor with a coffee table with many objects on their back. — Danica Knezevic, *It’s Hard To Keep Your Head Above The Coffee Table*, endurance performance documentation, 2014, installation 2018. Photography by Document Photography.

Installation view, left to right. Black framed horizontal photograph of a figure in darkness. Vertical photograph of a figure in a black tank top sitting back in an armchair with 2 fried eggs on their chest. — *Critical bodies*, installation view, dimensions variable, 2018. Photography by Document Photography.

Curatorial Statement

Critical Bodies is an exhibition co-curated by artists Julie Rrap and Cherine Fahd. It presents the practices of seven early career artists: Georgia Boe, David C. Collins, Tayla Jay, Danica Knezevic, Blake Lawrence, Pamela Pirovic, and Yiorgo Yiannopoulos. The exhibition focuses on contemporary photographic and video work along with performance and objects that place the body at the centre of investigation.

Projected video on a free standing wall, picturing a figure swinging something on a rocky shoreline. The horizon of ocean and sky behind them. — Blake Lawrence, *A Cathartic Action*, single channel video, 14:54, 2016. Photography by Document Photography.

The body has been a vehicle for experimentation into all realms of human experience, including emotion, violent action, religious expression, political engagement, gender questions, and medical intervention. Many of the artists in Critical Bodies perform the body in ways that defy inscribed norms of femininity and masculinity, they also present the public body as a site of queer practice, and a site of voyeurism and violence. Corporeal connections between bodies are also important. For many of the artists, connections between young and old, between the strong and the weak, between human and animal, are made explicit.

Installation view of the gallery space with a diagonal wall cutting through the middle. On the left are two photographs of figures, on the right 2 video monitors with headphones. — *Critical bodies*, installation view, dimensions variable, 2018. Photography by Document Photography.

“Critical Bodies” binds the work of these artists together for the first time, to demonstrate how ‘the body’ continues to provide a rich source of exploration for younger generations of artists.