Shaun Glad­well
The Lacrima Chair

Shaun Gladwell‘s two-part project is exhib­it­ed across two sites: SCAF fea­tured a new com­mis­sion The Lacrima Chair and at UNSW Gal­leries, Col­lec­tion+: Shaun Glad­well, a selec­tion of over 20 works drawn from pub­lic and pri­vate col­lec­tions worldwide.

The Lacrima Chair com­prised sev­er­al inter­re­lat­ed frag­ments: a mist screen, an air­line chair doused in water, three video works and an artist book in the form of a Semiotext(e) ref­er­enc­ing the 1960s pub­li­ca­tion that influ­enced Glad­well and many of his peers. Each com­po­nent makes obvi­ous and abstruse ref­er­ences to flight, dis­tance, cul­tur­al trans­la­tion and the notion of func­tion in art. Since com­plet­ing a res­i­den­cy at the Cité Inter­na­tionale des Art in 2000, Glad­well has had an ongo­ing inter­est in French cul­ture. The Lacrima Chair explores the cul­tur­al con­nec­tion between France and Australia.

A com­pre­hen­sive bilin­gual English/​French cat­a­logue was pub­lished by SCAF on the occa­sion of the exhibition.