The Gold­en Age

The self-por­trait project has defined the art of Mike Parr for more than forty years: a prac­tice of con­tin­u­al exper­i­men­ta­tion, explo­ration and expo­sure. The por­trait head in its mul­ti­ple and diverse ren­der­ings per­forms as a high­ly com­plex and ambigu­ous sign of the psy­cho­an­a­lyt­ic and the social self.

Parr’s draw­ings and prints exist at the core of his prac­tice in strong rela­tion to the per­for­mance works. While Parr asserts that each medi­um is essen­tial­ly ​‘per­for­ma­tive’ and rep­re­sents psy­chic risk tak­ing, it is draw­ing that is most able to extend the core per­for­mance work into anoth­er area of prac­tice. The films, videos and pho­tographs are also impor­tant traces of the artist’s per­for­mances and an impor­tant aspect of the draw­ing is its rela­tion­ship to per­for­mance pho­tog­ra­phy. ​“I began draw­ing to free the per­for­mance record of ​‘pho­todeath’ and to intro­duce lim­it states into draw­ing direct­ly”. (Mike Parr)

Through ges­ture the artist occu­pies the paper and inter­ro­gates the self. The inten­si­ty and mean­ing of the endurance per­for­mance works and the echoes of the indi­vid­ual per­for­mances them­selves, find their way into the draw­ings and prints. Parr asserts that the ​“per­for­ma­tive” is fun­da­men­tal­ly impor­tant ​“for all of my work”. This capac­i­ty of rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the draw­ings and prints can­not be repli­cat­ed any­where else – the unique per­for­mances hap­pen and are gone: only the draw­ings and prints remain as artis­tic expres­sions and resid­ual objects.