Before the Body -- Matter

Benjamin Armstrong, Conflict 2003-5 (detail), Monash University Collection, Donated by Peter Fay, 2005

Susan Norrie, Shudder (Pathology) 1994 (detail), Monash University Collection

Monash University Museum of Art
30 November - 15 December 2006
1 February - 14 March 2007

Curator: Geraldine Barlow

Featuring works by Hany Armanious, Benjamin Armstrong, Donna Bailey, Lauren Berkowitz, Pat Brassington, Christian Capurro, Dale Frank, Mira Gojak, Brent Harris, John Meade, Vera Möller, Susan Norrie, Mike Parr, Ti Parks, Simone Slee and Judy Watson.

Before the Body -- Matter considers the body, form and matter. Moving over the skin and inside the body, a passage is mapped between surface and interior, an interior both contained and infinite.

The Monash University Collection holds a rich array of artworks exploring representations of the body. Before the Body -- Matter brings works from the 1990s into dialogue with recent artistic practice, to explore the ways in which our material and conceptual consideration of the body has evolved and shifted over the past decade.

Is our interest in the uncanny, the grotesque and the informe abiding, or newly resurgent? The exhibition reflects upon these terms, whilst also exploring the corporeality of artistic practice, and the bodily act of looking.

See also:

• Before the Body -- Matter media release (pdf, 75kb)