Mike Parr

Last updated

Parr Mike Parr
Education National Art School, Australia
Known forPerformance
Website www.daao.org.au/bio/mike-parr/biography/

Mike Parr is an Australian performance artist and printmaker and Painter. Parr's works have been exhibited in Australia and internationally, including in Brazil, Cuba, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the United States.

Contents

In the 1970s, he co-founded the artist cooperative Inhibodress with Peter Kennedy and Tim Johnson.

Early life and education

Parr spent his childhood in rural Queensland. He is the brother of installation/photography artist, Julie Rrap (formerly Julie Brown-Rrap). He was born with a misshapen arm, and this physical characteristic has featured within his art work.

Parr commenced an arts/law degree at the University of Queensland in 1965, but discontinued his studies the following year. He moved to Sydney and, in 1968, briefly enrolled at the National Art School to study painting.

Career

In 1970, with Peter Kennedy (born 1945 [1] ) and Tim Johnson, [2] Parr established "Inhibodress", an artist cooperative and alternative space for conceptual art, performance art and video art, after the Tin Sheds had paved the way for such spaces. [3] It was an important space for artists from 1971 to 1972. [2]

Parr's performances explore physical limits, memory and subjectivity. They often depict self-mutilation or extreme physical feats (as in the case of 100 Breaths [4] ). The performances are documented photographically and on video.

Parr has been represented by the Anna Schwartz Gallery (owned by the wife of publisher Morry Schwartz) since around 1987, but she terminated the relationship from after the close of his exhibition Sunset Claws, [5] on 16 December 2023. [6] His contract was terminated in an email on the morning following a performance called "Going Home" on Saturday 2 December, in which he referenced the Israel-Hamas war. The four-and-a-half-hour performance involved Parr painting words on the gallery walls with his eyes shut. His painted text was drawn from the London Review of Books , Guardian Australia , as well as various unattributed quotes. Schwartz, who is Jewish, issued a statement later saying "Sadly I ended the association between Anna Schwartz Gallery and Mike Parr due to a serious breach of trust and difference of values". The action has led to a wider debate about censoring artists. [7] Speaking on RN Breakfast , Schwarz said that she thought Parr was "the greatest artist this country has ever and perhaps will ever produce", and that she was not censoring his work. What she had objected to in particular was using the word "Nazi" and the word "Israel" on the wall together, which made her feel sick, and she also felt personally hurt by Parr. [8]

Works

Parr's early works were designed to get a reaction from the audience, though he also focused on exploring questions of identity, memory, and states of being. He particularly used his body as a performative tool, often using his prosthetic arm and testing the physical limits of his body through endurance challenges. [9]

For one of Parr's earlier works, he sat in front of his audience and began talking to them in a conversational manner, then very suddenly brandishes an axe and begins hacking into his prosthetic arm which he had filled with minced meat and fake blood. Most of the people in the audience were not aware of his disability, and therefore shock factor was the main aim.[ citation needed ]

In the late 60s, Parr's performances were started with "psychotic" episodes in which he cut and attacked his body, which he cites as "psychotic operation(s)". [9]

In 1971 he began to write his book Programmes & Investigations, in which he recorded grotesque performance ideas, including letting a dog drink the performer's blood and sewing a fish onto one's skin. [10] By 1973, he had listed over 150 different ideas, performing the actions as he wrote them down, and it became the basis for his activity for more than a decade. [9]

In 1981 Parr stopped performing and began painting and printmaking, later returning to performance art in the 90s. [9]

In 2002, Parr's most challenging performance, "For Water from the Mouth" was held at the gallery Artspace – a work of ten whole days where Parr was isolated in a room with no human contact, and nothing but water to keep him alive. His every action was surveyed by surveillance cameras and broadcast live on the Internet for 24 hours a day. [9]

"A stitch in time" was another of his performances, a live web cam showing Parr having his lips and face extensively stitched with thread into a caricature of shame.[ citation needed ]

In 2003, one of Parr's extended performances was as live web broadcast received more than 250,000 hits in the first 24 hours alone. For 30 hours Parr sat in a gallery (again at Artspace) with his non-prosthetic arm nailed to the wall in opposition to the Australia government's treatment of refugees and asylum seekers. [9] This was called "Malevich (A Political Arm)".

In June, 2018, he had himself interred in a room constructed below a street in Hobart, Tasmania, for 72 hours, sustained only by water and soup. This was to highlight the fate of Aboriginal Tasmanians, among other issues. Metaphorically, the issues (as represented by Parr) are buried but are still there, ready to resurface at inconvenient times; including colonialism and communal and personal histories.

His work was included in the March 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia, which is titled "Monster Theatres". [11] [12]

Exhibitions

Selected Solo Exhibitions

Cloacal Corridor (O Vio Prote/O Vio Proto/O Vio Loto/O Thethe) Self Portrait as a Pair or Self Portrait as a Pun, drawing installation; Identification Number 1 (Rib Markings in the Carnarvon Ranges, North-West Queensland), January 1975, photoseries Screenings of Rules and Displacement Activities Parts I, II and III; Performance presentation from George Brecht's WaterYam, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. Curator: Barbara Campbell Drawings, Art Projects, Melbourne

3 Installations, City Gallery, Melbourne; Mike Parr, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney Survey of Recent Work, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth

Black Mirror/Pale Fire, Various Routes, Whistle/White, 3 performances, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, University of New South Wales, Sydney

Echolalia (the road): Prints from the Self Portrait Project: Mike Parr 1987–1994, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 100 Breaths/100 Songs from (ALPHABET/ HAEMORRHAGE) Black Box of 100 Self Portrait Etchings 5, 1993–1994, performance, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide Fathers 11 (The Law of the Image), installation, Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide The Bridge, performance, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Day Break, performance, Scene Shop at the Cultural Centre of Manila, Manila

Head on a Plate, New York Studio School, New York The White Hybrid (Fading), performance, Artspace, Cowper Wharf/Artspace, Sydney Unword, performance, University of Western Australia

Female Factory, 7 hour performance, 25.4 Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne Blood Box, 24-hour performance, 6.9/7.9, Artspace, Sydney Boubialla Couta, (performance), College of Fine Arts, Sydney The Rest of Time, Sherman Galleries Goodhope, Sydney Mike Parr, Sherman Galleries Hargrave, Sydney Photo-Realism, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne

Wrong Face, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne Three Collaborations, Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney

Shallow Grave, 3-day performance, 7.7–9.7 12th Biennale of Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

John Kaldor Art Project 2: Szeemann: I want to leave a nice welldone child here (20 Australian Artists), Bonython Gallery, Sydney; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Recent Australian Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Tall Poppies, an exhibition of five pictures, University Art Gallery, University of Melbourne D'un autre continent 'L'Australie, Le réve et le réel', ARC/Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Australian Perspecta 85,Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Origins, Originality & Beyond, The Sixth Biennale of Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales; Pier 2/3, Walsh Bay, Sydney

Edge to Edge: Australian Contemporary Art to Japan, National Museum of Art, Osaka; Old and New Hara Museums, Tokyo; Nagoya City Museum, Nagoya; Hokkaido Museum, Sapporo

Spirit & Place: Art in Australia 1861–1996, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney

Body, Art Gallery of New South Wales In Place (Out of Time): Contemporary Art in Australia, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth

Southern Reflections: An Exhibition of Contemporary Australian Art to Northern Europe, Kulturhaus, Stockholm, Sweden; Konathallen Götsberg, Gothenburg, Sweden; Arhus Konstmuseum, Arhus, Denmark; Museum Tamminiementle (City Art Museum), Helsinki; Neues Museum, Bremen, Germany; Staatliche Sammlung für Kunst, Chemnitz, East Germany Telling Tales, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, University of New South Wales, Sydney

Five Continents and One City. Curator: Gao Minglu, Mexico City Gallery, Mexico The Liverpool Biennale, Liverpool, UK Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin, Queens Museum, The Walker Art Centre, Miami Art Centre and other American Museums, 1999/00

Awards

Collections

National Gallery of Australia, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, all state and many regional galleries, tertiary collections, the National Library in Canberra, Parliament House, Canberra, Chartwell Collection in New Zealand, Chase Manhattan Bank in New York, First National Bank in Chicago, The Michael Buxton Contemporary Australian Art Collection, Art Gallery of Ballarat

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References

  1. ↑ "Peter Kennedy". MCA Australia. 26 February 2021. Retrieved 31 January 2023.
  2. 1 2 "Inhibodress". Scanlines. 7 April 1971. Retrieved 31 January 2023.
  3. ↑ Grounds, Marr (30 March 2015). "Interview with Marr Grounds" (PDF) (Interview). Art Gallery of New South Wales Archive: Balnaves Foundation Australian Sculpture Archive Project. Interviewed by Edwards, Deborah. Balnaves Foundation. Art Gallery of NSW. Archived from the original (transcript) on 31 January 2023. Retrieved 31 January 2023. This is an edited transcript of a recorded interview.
  4. ↑ "Unregistered OCEE installation!!!Mike Parr | College of Fine Arts". Archived from the original on 24 July 2008. Retrieved 30 June 2008.
  5. ↑ Burke, Kelly (8 December 2023). "Melbourne's Anna Schwartz gallery drops artist Mike Parr after political piece on Israel-Gaza war". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 December 2023.
  6. ↑ "Exhibitions". Anna Schwartz Gallery. 8 June 2020. Archived from the original on 11 December 2023. Retrieved 11 December 2023.
  7. ↑ Freeland, Anna (9 December 2023). "Prominent Australian artist Mike Parr dropped by Anna Schwartz Gallery over performance that referenced the Israel-Gaza War". ABC News. Retrieved 11 December 2023.
  8. ↑ Burke, Kelly (11 December 2023). "Anna Schwartz says Mike Parr's use of 'Israel' and 'Nazi' in performance work led her to sever ties". The Guardian . Retrieved 11 December 2023.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Stiles, Kristine, and Peter Howard Selz. "Performance Art." 'Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings. 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: U of California, 2012. Print.
  10. ↑ "75 Programmes & Investigations." Art Gallery of New South Wales, Web. 29 Mar. 2017. <https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/98.2001.a-j/>.
  11. ↑ Keen, Suzie (6 September 2019). "Monster 2020 Adelaide Biennial set to create a buzz". InDaily. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
  12. ↑ Jefferson, Dee (5 April 2020). "The monsters under the bed: Exhibition reveals our worst nightmares are those closest to home". ABC News. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  13. ↑ Print Matters 30 Years of the Shell Fremantle Print Award"' Holly Story ..et al 2005 FAC ISBN   0-9757307-1-1
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