
Mike Parr: Language & Chaos
National Gallery of Australia 2016
Born Sydney, Australia 1945
Lives and works in Sydney
Interrogating formal and cultural orthodoxies, the vast and uncompromising practice of Mike Parr assumes multiple forms through a conflation of drawing, printmaking, sculpture and performance. Exploring the limits of his physical and mental capacity, Parr’s highly influential performance practice employs his own body as a means to examine identity and political conventions of the twentieth century. His decades-long ‘Self Portrait Project’ also draws upon his own subjectivity, unfolding as a cathartic reflection on selfhood and the proliferation of perspective.
Throughout his career Parr has continually questioned the possibilities and critical reception of contemporary art. By subsuming modes of activism into his practice, and working beyond established structures, Parr rigorously examines aesthetic norms and social circumstances to reaffirm his vital role within contemporary Australian culture.
Parr represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1980 and presented the major installation The Ghost Who Talks at the Palazzo Mora in 2015. In 2016, the National Gallery of Australia mounted the museum’s largest survey of a contemporary Australian artist, Foreign Looking by Mike Parr.
Selected exhibitions include VOLTE FACE, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne; Blind painting of a falling tree, 6.5 hour durational performance, 23rd Biennale of Sydney; Asleep in the Tree, 72 hour durational performance, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, The Blue Mountains; Monster Theatres, Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art; Half Way House, Anna Schwartz Gallery; The Eternal Opening, Carriageworks, Sydney (2019); Underneath the Bitumen the Artist, 72 hour durational performance, Dark MOFO, Hobart, Tasmania (2018), Give the People what they Want / Ideal Unions / Nazi Milk, Campbelltown Arts Centre, New South Wales (2016); Foreign Looking, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2016); Asylum, DARK MOFO, Hobart (2016); The Marked Self: Between Annihilation & Masquerade, Neue Gallery / Univarsalmuseum-Joanneum, Graz, Austria (2015); The Ghost Who Talks, 55th Biennale di Venezia, Palazzo Mora, Venice, Italy (2015); Damage Control: Body Art & Destruction 1968 – 1972, BRUSEUM, Neue Gallery, Graz, Austria (2014); Mix Tape 1980s: Appropriation, Subculture, Critical Style, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2013); Mike Parr: Edelweiß, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2012); MIRROR/ARSE in Revolutions – Forms That Turn, 16th Biennale of Sydney, Cockatoo Island (2008); Volte Face: Mike Parr Prints & Preprints 1970 – 2005, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2006).
Public collections include the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; Parliament House, Canberra; Monash University, Melbourne; and Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
Mike Parr
23rd Biennale of Sydney: rīvus
12th March – 13th June 2022
Biennale of Sydney
Mike Parr
VOLTE FACE
1st February – 2nd April 2022
Anna Schwartz Gallery
Mike Parr
Half Way House
1st May – 31st July 2021
Anna Schwartz Gallery
Mike Parr
2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Monster Theatres
28th February – 16th August 2020
Art Gallery of South Australia
Mike Parr
The Eternal Opening
25th October – 8th December 2019
Carriageworks
Mike Parr
Towards a Black Square
7th – 15th June 2019
Dark Mofo
Mike Parr
KINDNESS IS SO GANGSTER
6th October – 21st December 2018
Anna Schwartz Gallery
Mike Parr
Underneath the Bitumen the Artist
14th – 17th June 2018
Dark Mofo
Mike Parr
LEFT FIELD
7th July – 19th August 2017
Anna Schwartz Gallery
Mike Parr
Foreign Looking
12th August – 6th November 2016
National Gallery of Australia
Mike Parr
Dark Cave
20th November – 19th December 2015
Anna Schwartz Gallery
Mike Parr
Deep North
27th June – 29th August 2015
Anna Schwartz Gallery Carriageworks
Mike Parr
Easter Island
16th November – 21st December 2013
Anna Schwartz Gallery Carriageworks
Mike Parr
Edelweiß
7th November 2012 – 24th February 2013
Kunsthalle Wien
Benjamin Armstrong, Stephen Bram, Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, Angela de la Cruz, Mikala Dwyer, Clement Meadmore, Mike Parr
In abstraction, the body
28th April – 16th June 2012
Anna Schwartz Gallery Carriageworks
Mike Parr
The Golden Age
27th August – 22nd October 2011
Anna Schwartz Gallery Carriageworks
Mike Parr
The Hallelujah Chorus
24th June – 24th July 2010
Anna Schwartz Gallery
Tom Nicholson, Jenny Watson, Mutlu Çerkez, Peter Tyndall, Ian Whittlesea, Mike Parr, Emily Floyd, Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, Rose Nolan, Grant Stevens
WORD
4th July – 8th August 2009
Anna Schwartz Gallery Carriageworks
Mike Parr
The Tilted Stage
21st November 2008 – 1st March 2009
Detached Cultural Organisation
Mike Parr
MILK
17th June – 16th August 2008
Anna Schwartz Gallery Carriageworks
Mike Parr
SALTO MORTALE: THE NOTHING SELF PORTRAITS
30th March – 5th May 2007
Anna Schwartz Gallery
Mike Parr
BLAMELESS
1st – 26th August 2006
Anna Schwartz Gallery
Mike Parr
Volte Face: Mike Parr Prints & Preprints 1970 – 2005
2nd March – 21st May 2006
Museum of Contemporary Art
Mike Parr
THE UNDERWORLD
1st June – 2nd July 2005
Anna Schwartz Gallery
Mike Parr
AETHER/AWE
1st February – 1st March 2003
Anna Schwartz Gallery
Mike Parr
ALUMINUM FROM THE MOUTH
24th August – 29th September 2001
Anna Schwartz Gallery
Mike Parr
Refusal of Face, 2015
drypoint, carborundum on 350gsm Hahnemuhle bonded to canvas
212 x 316 cm (8 sheets)
Mike Parr
Bridging Course, 2014
drypoint, carborundum, etching ink on 350gsm Hahnemuhle paper bonded to canvas with acrylic gloss
215 x 237 cm
Mike Parr
Alternative Abrahams, 2014
drypoint, anglegrinder, liftground aquatint from multiple copper plates, jig-sawn plyblock printed in relief, surface roll-up in pigmented acrylic medium, printed on Mulberry paper bonded to rag paper bonded to 3 sheets of canvas with acrylic gloss
248 x 385 cm
Mike Parr
Bigness of a Head, 2011
acrylic, pastel, charcoal pencil on 425gsm Cold Pressed Saunders Waterford Watercolour Paper
153 x 235 cm
Mike Parr
Blood in Black, 2011
acrylic mixed with pastel, charcoal, charcoal pencil on 425gsm Cold Pressed Saunders Waterford Watercolour Paper
153 x 235 cm
Mike Parr
Duck Down, 2011
charcoal pencil, watercolour, pastel on 425gsm Cold Pressed Saunders Waterford Watercolour Paper
153 x 235 cm
Mike Parr
Dumbfounded, 2011
charcoal pencil, acrylic, pastel on 425gsm Cold Pressed Saunders Waterford Watercolour Paper
153 x 235 cm
Mike Parr
High Talians, 2011
acrylic, pastel, ink, watercolour on 425gsm Cold Pressed Saunders Waterford Watercolour Paper
153 x 235 cm
Mike Parr
Wound Slash Wound, 2011
pastel, watercolour, ink, charcoal pencil on 425gsm Cold Pressed Saunders Waterford watercolour paper
153 x 229.5 cm
Mike Parr
Blutwurst, 2011
ink mixed with acrylic, acrylic, pastel, charcoal on 425gsm Cold Pressed Saunders Waterford Watercolour Paper
153 x 230 cm
Mike Parr
Coconut in the Head, 2009
relief and monoprint on paper on canvas
unique state
168.5 x 201 cm
Mike Parr
In the Nursery, 2007
colour, acrylic, Giralt pastel, ink, charcoal on two canvas panels
238 x 180 cm each
Mike Parr
God’s Beard Comes Off, 2007
colour, Giralt pastel, charcoal, ink on Stonehenge paper
127 x 259.5 cm
Mike Parr
Malevich Mirror, 2001
relief and monoprint on paper and canvas
unique state
203 x 173 cm
Mike Parr
Shallow Grave IV, 2000
liftground aquatint over etching on Velin Arches 400 gsm paper
219 x 390 cm
Mike Parr
Liver Complaints D, 1994
pastel and charcoal on paper
138 x 265 cm
Mike Parr
Mount of Olives, 1987
Giralt pastel, charcoal, ink on paper
137 x 209 cm
National Gallery of Australia 2016
Verlag fur Moderne Kunst 2012
National Art School 2012
Schwartz City 2010
Detached Cultural Organisation and Tasmanian Art Gallery, Hobart 2009
Schwartz City 2008
University Art Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane 2003
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