Lau­ren Brincat
The space between us: Anne Lan­da Award for video and new media arts

Per­for­mance art has seen a resur­gence in recent years, stem­ming from a desire to ques­tion art’s abil­i­ty to affect audi­ences and test estab­lished exhi­bi­tion and view­ing habits. 

The space between us is an explo­ration of the rela­tion between video and per­for­mance art through the work of sev­en tal­ent­ed emerg­ing artists, con­nect­ed by their inter­est in the artist as per­former or as creator/​director of per­for­mances, and the viewer’s role as an active participant. 

The fifth in the series of bien­ni­al Anne Lan­da Award exhi­bi­tions, The space between us is guest-curat­ed by Char­lotte Day, direc­tor, Monash Uni­ver­si­ty Muse­um of Art, and fea­tures work from Lau­ren Brin­cat, Ali­cia Frankovich, Lare­sa Kosloff, Angel­i­ca Mesi­ti, Kate Mitchell, James Newitt and Chris­t­ian Thompson.

Lau­ren Brin­cat pre­sent­ed Mex­i­can Stand­off (2012), a two-chan­nel video and sculp­ture instal­la­tion. The video work shows a per­for­mance Brin­cat under­took in Mex­i­co City, where a group of female horse rid­ers (and includ­ing the artist her­self) ​‘stand­off’ with a stat­ue of a hero­ic man on horse­back at the Museo Nacional de Arte. The work forms a response to the lack of stat­ues of hero­ic women on horse­back com­pared to the many, many pub­lic stat­ues of men por­trayed in a hero­ic manner.

Along­side the video instal­la­tion, Brin­cat pre­sent­ed the per­for­mance Pythago­ras, Prax­ite­les, Anthemius, Michael Ange­lo, Donatel­lo, Ghib­er­ti, Phei­dias, Celli­ni, Cano­va, Jean Goujon,Giotto, Raphael, Tit­ian, Rem­brandt, Muril­lo, Rubens, Andrea del Sar­to, Bot­ti­cel­li, Belli­ni, Cimabue, Cor­reg­gio, Leonar­do da Vin­ci, Tin­toret­to, Velasquez, Vandy­ck and Gains­bor­ough (2013). The per­for­mance respond­ed specif­i­cal­ly to the famous names that adorn the façade of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

In an inter­view with the AGN­SW Brin­cat states: ​“The archi­tec­ture of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, with its eques­tri­an horse stat­ues, large columns, sand­stone walls and mar­ble floors, inspires. I can’t help but analyse the hors­es stand­ing guard when I walk past or vis­it the Gallery. The offer­ings of peace and The offer­ings of war (both 1923) have had an impact on a num­ber of my recent works. Eques­tri­an horse stat­ues around the world cel­e­brate the male hero, almost nev­er the female. The text on the Gallery’s façade cel­e­brates accom­plished painters, sculp­tors, archi­tects and thinkers, the list of names com­piled over 100 years ago. I’ve start­ed a new list, which I hope one day might be seen on a new build­ing, which may inspire the next gen­er­a­tion of young vis­i­tors, bal­anc­ing what is cur­rent­ly so male dominated.”

Final­ly, Brin­cat pre­sent­ed a sec­ond per­for­mance, Blood and Fire (2013). For this work, Brin­cat col­lab­o­rat­ed with com­pos­er Bree van Reyk to cre­ate a spe­cial per­for­mance with 50 tam­bourin­ists in the entrance court of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.