Angel­i­ca Mesi­ti | The Rites of When | Art Gallery of New South Wales

One of Australia’s most acclaimed con­tem­po­rary artists, Angel­i­ca Mesi­ti, will pre­mière an immer­sive visu­al and son­ic expe­ri­ence in the extra­or­di­nary Tank at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in September.

Occu­py­ing the entire 2200-square-metre for­mer Sec­ond World War oil tank, Angel­i­ca Mesi­ti: The Rites of When is a video and sound instal­la­tion that reimag­ines com­mu­nal rit­u­als in rela­tion to sea­son­al cycles, at a time of envi­ron­men­tal uncer­tain­ty and flux.

The major new com­mis­sion includes sev­en mon­u­men­tal video screens inter­spersed between the Tank’s own for­est of con­crete columns. Across the screens, a film com­posed of two sweep­ing move­ments con­jures col­lec­tive cel­e­bra­tions relat­ing to the ​‘hiber­nal’ (win­ter) and ​‘aes­ti­val’ (sum­mer) sol­stices: the longest night and the longest day of the year, respec­tive­ly. Each move­ment begins and ends with a sequence titled ​‘Celes­tial neb­u­la’, acknowl­edg­ing the entwine­ment of sea­son­al rit­u­als and knowl­edge drawn from the move­ment of the stars.

Fea­tur­ing dance, new musi­cal com­po­si­tions and soar­ing aer­i­al drone views, The Rites of When offers a deep reflec­tion upon the age-old and con­tin­u­ing rela­tion­ship between humans, nature and the cos­mos. Ecsta­t­ic cel­e­bra­tions asso­ci­at­ed with spe­cif­ic moments in the cal­en­dar – notably mid-win­ter sol­stice car­ni­vals and mid-sum­mer har­vest fes­ti­vals – present a por­tal into a realm where the past, present and future meet: an imag­ined alternative.

Art Gallery of New South Wales direc­tor Michael Brand said the new com­mis­sion marks the first solo pre­sen­ta­tion at the Art Gallery for the Syd­ney-born, Paris-based artist.

‘Work­ing with artists to make a new, site-spe­cif­ic work in response to the scale, struc­ture and son­ic qual­i­ties of the dis­tinc­tive Tank space has fast become a high­light of our cura­to­r­i­al pro­gram. Angel­i­ca Mesi­ti has tack­led this chal­lenge with impres­sive ambi­tion and vision, and we look for­ward to shar­ing this dynam­ic work with all vis­i­tors to Naala Badu,’ said Brand.

‘Mesiti’s video prac­tice has long observed the intri­ca­cies of human behav­iour, util­is­ing chore­og­ra­phy and per­for­mance with an increas­ing atten­tion to the nat­ur­al world. This work marks an impor­tant shift from the role of the artist as an observ­er to her role as a cre­ator of alter­na­tive worlds. Mesiti’s inter­pre­ta­tion of our glob­alised exis­tence is a reminder that in times of per­ma­nent cri­sis, cul­ture and com­mu­ni­ty mat­ter deeply.’

The Rites of When is informed by prac­tices of depict­ing, describ­ing and under­stand­ing life via humanity’s shared expe­ri­ence of the night sky. Ele­ments with­in the Tank ref­er­ence the Nebra sky disc, a Bronze Age arte­fact bear­ing an ear­ly depic­tion of the Pleiades star clus­ter, a celes­tial enti­ty that intrigued Mesi­ti for its con­nec­tions to sea­son­al har­vest cycles and its sig­nif­i­cance to cul­tures across the globe.

Exhi­bi­tion co-cura­tor, Art Gallery of New South Wales senior cura­tor of con­tem­po­rary Aus­tralian art and the Brett White­ley Stu­dio, Beat­rice Gral­ton, said: ​‘Mesiti’s work is con­sis­tent­ly intrigu­ing and intu­itive while being metic­u­lous­ly researched and pre­sent­ed. In The Rites of When she invites us to imag­ine col­lec­tive respons­es to our chang­ing world that ref­er­ence his­to­ry yet pro­pel us into a spec­u­la­tive future. As cycles of regen­er­a­tion in nature have shift­ed out of sync, and peo­ple around the globe increas­ing­ly live in urbanised envi­ron­ments, Mesi­ti encour­ages us to stand still – if just for a moment – to observe our sin­gu­lar expe­ri­ence and imag­ine our col­lec­tive potential.’ 

Cel­e­brat­ed for her dis­tinc­tive mul­ti-chan­nel per­for­mance, video and sound-based works, Mesi­ti is known for her art­works that pay homage to indi­vid­ual and com­mu­nal forms of expres­sion, rang­ing from sign lan­guage, chore­o­graph­ic ges­ture, Morse code and whistling to ances­tral musi­cal tra­di­tions, body per­cus­sion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion between non-human species.

Since estab­lish­ing her career two decades ago, Mesi­ti has been inter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised through major exhi­bi­tions and sig­nif­i­cant com­mis­sions. In 2019, she rep­re­sent­ed Aus­tralia at the 58^th Venice Bien­nale with the three-chan­nel video instal­la­tion ASSEM­BLY, explor­ing notions of plu­ral­i­ty and non-lin­guis­tic com­mu­ni­ca­tion that are a hall­mark of her work. Mesi­ti received the Art Gallery’s 2013 Anne Lan­da Award for Video and New Media Arts for Cit­i­zens band 2012, one of four works now held in the Art Gallery’s col­lec­tion. She was the inau­gur­al recip­i­ent of the Ian Pot­ter Mov­ing Image Com­mis­sion in 2012 and the win­ner of the 58^th Blake Prize for Reli­gious and Spir­i­tu­al Art in 2009. Her work is held in major Aus­tralian and inter­na­tion­al pub­lic col­lec­tions, includ­ing the Art Gallery of West­ern Aus­tralia, Art­bank, Auck­land Art Gallery Toi o Tāma­ki (Aotearoa New Zealand), Musee d’art con­tem­po­rain (Que­bec, Cana­da), Nation­al Gallery of Aus­tralia, Nation­al Muse­um of Mod­ern and Con­tem­po­rary Art (Korea) and Queens­land Art Gallery | Gallery of Mod­ern Art.

The exhi­bi­tion is accom­pa­nied by a stun­ning pub­li­ca­tion that charts the devel­op­ment of Mesiti’s com­mis­sion for the Tank. The book is illus­trat­ed with video stills from the cin­e­mat­ic instal­la­tion and new writ­ing from the exhibition’s co-cura­tors, includ­ing an essay by Iso­bel Park­er Philip, the Art Gallery’s for­mer senior cura­tor of con­tem­po­rary Aus­tralian art, and an artist inter­view by Beat­rice Gral­ton.

Angel­i­ca Mesi­ti: The Rites of When will be pre­sent­ed at the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ new build­ing, Naala Badu, from 21 Sep­tem­ber 2024 to 11 May 2025. Entry is free.