Body of Objects
2018 - Installation (Installation)
11 objects, dimensions variable
Dale Harding
Dale Harding’s installation Body of Objects consists of eleven sculptural works that the artist based on imagery found at sandstone sites across Carnarvon Gorge in Central Queensland. Mouth-blown with ochre on sandstone, these extraordinary stencilled images depict weaponry, domestic tools, and ceremonial objects that are specific to the region and that relate to Harding’s own ancestry. In response to these enduring indexes of Indigenous material culture, Harding produced a suite of cast objects using the stencilled imagery as a guide, along with objects that relate to his family history: boomerangs, spears, clubs, and whips are all part of the display. Reproduced in silicone, the soft objects—some translucent, flaccid, and some embedded with spikes— droop over the edges of numerous white museum plinths of varying sizes and heights. This mutability works to unsettle the conventions of their museum-style display, referencing the way in which such objects have been displaced, exchanged, and interpreted since colonization. This complicates any easy distinction or classification between notions of original and copy, traditional and contemporary, utilitarian object and cultural fetish.
A descendant of the Bidjara, Ghungalu, and Garingbal peoples, Dale Harding’s work references and expands upon the philosophical and spiritual touchstones of his cultural inheritance. Through a variety of media, Harding examines the visual and social languages of his communities. Some of his works involve stories from the artist’s maternal family line, and others draw on the techniques, tools, and iconography that are present in Carnarvon Gorge—a significant cultural site for the Indigenous peoples of Central Queensland, globally recognised for its stenciled rock art. Concurrently, Harding references and interrogates European and American art historical traditions—including Colour Field painting, Minimalism, and performance, as well as modes of museological display and the categorization of art and cultural objects. His profound commitment to an archaeology of reproduction unravels the type of display that seeks to stabilize the material that is the subject of his work. His objects are traced in history, yet liberated from it. They remain in flux, offering a sharp comment on the gendered and racial stereotypes still associated with certain Indigenous historical objects.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » KADIST
Robert Zhao Renhui
2014Created during Zhao Renhui’s residency at Kadist SF in 2014, Zhao Renhui began observing and cataloguing insects inspired by the scientific impulse towards exhaustive taxonomy of Sacramento-based Dr...
© » KADIST
Karl Haendel
2011Haendel’s series Knights (2011) is a set of impeccably drafted, nine-foot-tall pencil drawings depicting full suits of armor...
© » KADIST
Nicolás Paris
2012Nicolas Paris studied architecture and worked as an elementary school teacher before he decided to become an artist...
© » KADIST
Oren Pinhassi
2020Oren Pinhassi’s work examines the relationship between the human figure and the built environment...
© » WHITEHOT
Matthew Barney’s REPRESSIA (decline) at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art advertise donate post your art opening recent articles cities contact about article index podcast main December 2023 "The Best Art In The World" "The Best Art In The World" December 2023 Matthew Barney’s REPRESSIA (decline) at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Matthew Barney, Cremaster 5 (production still), 1997 (fig...
© » 1854 PHOTOGRAPHY
Now on show in New York City: BJP's Female in Focus winners - 1854 Photography Subscribe latest Agenda Bookshelf Projects Industry Insights magazine Explore ANY ANSWERS FINE ART IN THE STUDIO PARENTHOOD ART & ACTIVISM FOR THE RECORD LANDSCAPE PICTURE THIS CREATIVE BRIEF GENDER & SEXUALITY MIXED MEDIA POWER & EMPOWERMENT DOCUMENTARY HOME & BELONGING ON LOCATION PORTRAITURE DECADE OF CHANGE HUMANITY & TECHNOLOGY OPINION THEN & NOW Explore Stories latest agenda bookshelf projects theme in focus industry insights magazine ANY ANSWERS FINE ART IN THE STUDIO PARENTHOOD ART & ACTIVISM FOR THE RECORD LANDSCAPE PICTURE THIS CREATIVE BRIEF GENDER & SEXUALITY MIXED MEDIA POWER & EMPOWERMENT DOCUMENTARY HOME & BELONGING ON LOCATION PORTRAITURE DECADE OF CHANGE HUMANITY & TECHNOLOGY OPINION THEN & NOW © Minxu Li, Female in Focus 2022 single image winner BJP’s new exhibition takes place in a converted Brooklyn townhouse, reflecting the award’s domestic focus The winners of BJP ’s Female in Focus 2022 include two series and 20 single images which demonstrate the sheer power of photography by women...
© » KADIST
Gan Chin Lee
2019In Studies of Chinese New Villages II Gan Chin Lee’s realism appears in the format of a fieldwork notebook; capturing present-day surroundings while unpacking their historical memory...
© » KADIST
Colter Jacobsen
2010The title Untitled Passport II was first used by Felix Gonzalez-Torres in an unlimited edition of small booklets, each containing sequenced photographs of a soaring bird against an open sky...
© » KADIST
Robert Zhao Renhui
2014Created during Zhao Renhui’s residency at Kadist SF in 2014, the photographic grid features a selection of some 6,000 members from single family of flies –hoverfly– identified over the last 25 years by Sacramento-based Dr...
© » KADIST
Adrian Villar Rojas
2010The two drawings in the Kadist Collection are part of a larger series entitled Las Mariposas Eternas (The Eternal Butterflies)...
© » KADIST
Gan Chin Lee
2019In Studies of Chinese New Villages II Gan Chin Lee’s realism appears in the format of a fieldwork notebook; capturing present-day surroundings while unpacking their historical memory...
© » KADIST
Pablo Rasgado
2011Pablo Rasgado’s paintings and installations serve as a visual record of contemporary urban human behavior...
© » KADIST
Zach Reini
2015Particularly shaped by his own youth in the 1990s, his recent works have incorporated things like a marijuana leaf, a dragon-emblazoned chain wallet, metal grommets, and the ubiquitous (in the 90s) Stussy symbol...
© » KADIST
Milena Bonilla
2009Milena Bonilla’s discursive practice explores connections among economics, territory, and politics through everyday interventions...
