See two irresistible exhibitions: eX de Medici & Michael Zavros

eX de Medici – Michael Zavros

eX de Medici – Michael Zavros / View full image

Preparations are underway for our winter program of two irresistible exhibitions ‘eX de Medici: Beautiful Wickedness’ and ‘Michael Zavros: The Favourite’, presented side by side at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) in Brisbane until 2 October 2023. Focused on the practice of two highly regarded mid-career Australian artists, these exhibitions offer opportunities for unique dialogue and appreciation of the differences and similarities between the work of de Medici and Zavros.

Offering different viewing experiences, both artists are engaged in representation and share an interest in the tradition of still life painting. de Medici’s extraordinarily layered works reveal the artist’s ongoing concern with the value and fragility of life, global affairs, greed, commerce, conflict and death; while ‘The Favourite’ looks at Zavros’s recurring thematic interests: his idealised and compelling images exploring the nature and culture of beauty, inspired by fashion magazines, European palaces, luxury cars, his children, and the still life.

eX de Medici

eX de Medici, Australia b.1959 / The theory of everything 2005 / Watercolour and metallic pigment on paper / 114.3 x 176.3cm / Purchased 2005 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © eX de Medici

eX de Medici, Australia b.1959 / The theory of everything 2005 / Watercolour and metallic pigment on paper / 114.3 x 176.3cm / Purchased 2005 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © eX de Medici / View full image

‘Beautiful Wickedness’ will be the most significant exhibition of work by celebrated Australian artist eX de Medici yet staged. An avowed environmentalist and activist, she is dedicated to uncloaking abuses of power and revealing their effects on ordinary and everyday lives, highlighting the excesses of global capitalism. Through a wide-range of subjects and materials, de Medici aims to seduce her viewers, and to shake them out of complacency.

eX de Medici, Australia b.1959 / Pure Impulse Control 2008 / Watercolour on paper / 110 x 114cm / Luke Fildes Collection / © eX de Medici / Photograph: Murray Fredericks

eX de Medici, Australia b.1959 / Pure Impulse Control 2008 / Watercolour on paper / 110 x 114cm / Luke Fildes Collection / © eX de Medici / Photograph: Murray Fredericks / View full image

Michael Zavros

Michael Zavros, Australia b.1974 / The Poodle 2014 / Oil on canvas / 135 x 150cm / Private collection, Sydney / © Michael Zavros

Michael Zavros, Australia b.1974 / The Poodle 2014 / Oil on canvas / 135 x 150cm / Private collection, Sydney / © Michael Zavros / View full image

Known for his extraordinary technical prowess over 25 years of painting, sculpture, photography and video, Michael Zavros has captivated audiences with his sumptuous realist renderings and surreal juxtapositions. Frequently engrossed in notions of quality and luxury, fashion and appearance, Zavros’s idealised imagery has developed alongside Australia’s pronounced turn to conspicuous consumption and aspirational individualism.

Michael Zavros, Australia b.1974 / Summer fruits 2017 / Oil on board / 40 x 27.5cm / Collection: Allan Lee / © Michael Zavros

Michael Zavros, Australia b.1974 / Summer fruits 2017 / Oil on board / 40 x 27.5cm / Collection: Allan Lee / © Michael Zavros / View full image

Immerse yourself in an irresistible contemporary art experience, see more than 200 artworks in two major retrospectives from leading Australian artists.

‘eX de Medici: Beautiful Wickedness’ in Gallery 1.2 and 1.3 (Eric and Marion Taylor Gallery) was presented in the adjacent gallery to ‘Michael Zavros: The Favourite‘ in 1.1 (The Fairfax Gallery) and 1.2 at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) from 24 June to 2 October 2023.

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    Bold, contemporary, challenging and exquisite

    Two irresistible exhibitions have opened side-by-side at the Gallery of Modern Art and are poised to deliver one extraordinary experience featuring more than 200 contemporary artworks. Delve into two major retrospectives and the most extensive exhibitions from artists eX de Medici and Michael Zavros. ‘eX de Medici: Beautiful Wickedness’ ‘eX de Medici: Beautiful Wickedness’ is the largest exhibition of eX de Medici’s 40-year career. Visitors will be drawn into the exquisitely dark heart of her practice, which explores the value and fragility of life, global affairs, greed and commerce, and the universal themes of power, conflict, and death. An avowed environmentalist and activist, de Medici’s life and career has been dedicated to uncloaking misuses of power and revealing its effects on everyday lives. Exquisitely detailed and technically adept, her often large-scale watercolours seduce the viewer while seeking to expose the shadowy underbelly of consumerism and the long reach of systems of surveillance, authority, and control. Her artworks conceal surreptitious yet razor-sharp barbs among lush arrangements of historical and contemporary emblems of excess. ‘Beautiful Wickedness’ follows the artist’s journey from her ephemeral early works, including the oversized photocopy Scene from an Ivory Tower (Pistol) 1985, and the blood swabs sampled from her clients post-tattoo, The Blood of Others 1991–ongoing, which document her work as a tattooist, to her most recent series of large-scale watercolours in which she fuses moths and weapons to denounce the futility of war and its impact on the planet. These recent artworks hark back to de Medici’s earliest engagement with moths, realised in a series of studies that reflect the artist’s ongoing collaboration with entomologists at the CSIRO’s Australian National Insect Collection (ANIC), Canberra, among them leading evolutionist and Honorary Research Fellow at the CSIRO Dr Marianne Horak. Other highlights include de Medici’s sumptuous early watercolours Blue (Bower/Bauer) 1998–2000 Red (Colony) 1999–2000 and The Theory of Everything 2005, which are rich in detail and embody complex social and political ideas. Importantly, de Medici’s watercolours foregrounding the corrosive effects of coercive control and domestic violence will feature alongside related works of decorative art, such as Shotgun Wedding Dress/ Cleave 2015, based on the bridal gown that Julie Andrews wore in The Sound of Music, and The Seat of love and Hate 2017–18. ‘Michael Zavros: The Favourite’ ‘Michael Zavros: The Favourite’ is the largest state Gallery exhibition of Zavros’s work to date and traces 25-year survey of his artistic trajectory since 1999. ‘The Favourite’ highlights Zavros’s abiding interest in objects and ideals of beauty. These are rendered in exacting detail, with a subtle yet conscious focus on their status and effect on contemporary culture. At the core of the exhibition and among the things that differentiate Michael Zavros from other artists of his generation is an unapologetic love of beauty and craftsmanship, folly, and grandeur. Audiences will enter Michael’s world. They will see the rigour and breadth of his practice and how his work across multiple media reveals a subtly evolving worldview. His work is inescapably about who he is: his lifestyle — real or imagined — his family, his interests and values. ‘The Favourite’ brings together more than 90 works, primarily paintings, but also includes sculpture, video, and photography. It begins with a series of early paintings including Man in a wool suit 1999 and Ferragamo 2000, exquisite miniatures inspired by luxury advertisements in men’s magazines. These works appear alongside a series of large, sleek Debaser drawings that depict head shots of male models wearing the collars of high fashion houses but with their faces largely erased, followed by the Prince/Zavros series inspired by American conceptual artist Richard Prince’s ‘Cowboy’ images of the late 1980s – appropriations of the iconic Marlboro Man tobacco advertisements. Audiences will encounter Zavros’ dramatic equestrian series, paintings of rare Japanese Onagadori chickens with their impossibly long tails and intricate representations of architecture and stately European interiors such as Love’s temple 2006 and Unicorn in the anticamera 2008, along with a trio of large, lavish monochrome interiors that reveal domestic spaces inhabited by ‘trophy’ artworks by three very recognisable and coveted Australian artists – Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Dale Frank, and Bill Henson. Portraiture is another major focus within the exhibition and Zavros himself is a common subject, whether represented as the Greek mythological character Narcissus or by the bespoke mannequin Dad, who acts as the artist’s double, and features in numerous works, stretching and blurring notions of identity. Drowned Mercedes 2023, a major new sculptural work created for the exhibition, sees the cabin of an original classic 1990s Mercedes-Benz SL convertible entirely filled with water. Gallery visitors will peer into the luxury vehicle with its immaculately crafted wood and cream leather interior and see their own Narcissus-like reflection in the water. Both exhibitions are accompanied by major hardcover catalogues, eX de Medici: Beautiful Wickedness and Michael Zavros: The Favourite, and programs developed in partnership with the artists and QAGOMA at the Children’s Art Centre. ‘The Alien Others’, by eX de Medici encourages children to consider the important role that insects play in our world and the need for us to protect their habitats. While ‘Gods and Monsters’, a special children’s project developed by Michael Zavros , encourages children to explore key figures and symbols of Greek mythology through multimedia interactives and hands on art-making activities. For one admission price, audiences can experience ‘eX de Medici: Beautiful Wickedness’ alongside ‘Michael Zavros: The Favourite’ at GOMA until 2 October 2023. Immerse yourself in an irresistible contemporary art experience, see more than 200 artworks in two major retrospectives from leading Australian artists. Your ticket provides entry to both exhibitions on your day of visit. Buy timed tickets in advance to guarantee entry. Last session 4.00pm daily. Exhibition closes at 5.00pm. Full-day Flexi Ticket also available. ‘eX de Medici: Beautiful Wickedness’ in Gallery 1.2 and 1.3 (Eric and Marion Taylor Gallery) is presented in the adjacent gallery to ‘Michael Zavros: The Favourite‘ in 1.1...
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    eX de Medici: Hollywood, the patriarchy & political power

    eX de Medici’s The System 2023 (dressmaker: Michael Marendy) is based on her three-panel watercolour System (This is the Place Where the Martyrs Grow) 2023 (illustrated). It is the second garment the artist has collaborated on, the first being Shotgun Wedding Dress/Cleave 2015 (dressmaker: Gloria Grady Design (illustrated). Julie Andrews in the wedding gown from ‘The Sound of Music’ (1965) | eX de Medici ‘Shotgun Wedding Dress/Cleave’ 2015 Both dresses were inspired by ‘costumes for Hollywood’ — the latter, the wedding gown that Julie Andrews wore as Maria in the perennially popular screen musical The Sound of Music (1965); the former, a figure-hugging silk crepe shift (illustrated) that Marilyn Monroe wore in her last, unfinished film, Something’s Got to Give! (1962), just prior to her untimely death. Marilyn Monroe in ‘Something’s Got to Give!’ (1962) Something’s Got to Give! (1962) Trailer The System expands on de Medici’s dissection of toxic masculinity and patriarchal power structures, including the Hollywood system that has exploited a succession of talented and vulnerable women, and, in Monroe’s case, contributed to her demise. The gun that dominates the front of the dress points upwards, its barrel targeting an assumed female subject. The hands that are depicted crossed and metaphorically tied beneath the cowl on the back of the dress imply captivity and coercive control. The iconography in The System also explores political power, something that is more apparent in the related watercolour System (This is the Place Where the Martyrs Grow). Both artworks feature the Bushmaster AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle that United States (US) forces used to fire on unarmed civilians from an aerial gunship in Baghdad in 2007, wrongly assuming they were insurgents. Iraqi Reuters journalists Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh and nine others were killed in the attack, while two children were seriously injured. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange later released footage of the atrocity online, intensifying attempts by the US to extradite him on charges of espionage. eX de Medici ‘System (This is the Place Where the Martyrs Grow)‘ (details) 2022 The weapon symbolises what de Medici regards as the US government’s ‘moral hypocrisy’ on war crimes, a position that is emphasised by the tulips that adorn the rifle (illustrated). They are a symbol of male martyrdom in Iran and other parts of West Asia and continue the artist’s exploration of the flower as a masculine signifier. De Medici borrowed the image of the handshake that appears in the watercolour from the logo for the US Agency for International Development, while the two hands, one above the other (illustrated), represent money being exchanged in secretive deals, expanding on her interest in exposing ‘systems . . . that nobody seems to be able to escape from’. De Medici adapted the vignette of two men locked in a sword fight with their severed heads kissing (illustrated) from a scene of bare-knuckled boxers in a book of nineteenth-century prints. The imagery expands on her scrutiny of male violence and the futility of armed combat. Watch | eX de Medici discusses her work Samantha Littley is Curator, Australian Art, QAGOMA. ‘eX de Medici: Beautiful Wickedness’ in 1.2 and 1.3 (Eric and Marion Taylor Gallery) was at GOMA from 24 June until 2 October 2023. ‘Beautiful Wickedness’ offered opportunities for dialogue with ‘Michael Zavros: The Favourite‘ presented in the adjacent gallery 1.1 (The Fairfax Gallery) and 1.2.