MONASH UNIVERSITY MUSEUM OF ART
MEDIA KIT
FRANCIS
UPRITCHARD:
Jealous
Saboteurs
Exhibition dates
13 February - 16 April 2016
Curators
Jealous Saboteurs is a joint project with City Gallery Te Whare Toi, Wellington
and has been curated by their Chief Curator Robert Leonard and MUMA's
Director Charlotte Day
Opening function
Saturday 13 February 2016, 2-5pm
(including an in conversation, 2-3pm, see below)
INTRODUCTION
Spanning almost twenty years of work, MUMA is excited to present the
first major survey exhibition of London-based, New Zealand-born artist,
Francis Upritchard. From her early collections of mock burial artefacts, to
primate-like figures constructed from discarded fur coats, and her more
recent enigmatic gurus, Upritchard has developed a highly idiosyncratic
language of sculpture that frequently borrows from craft practices
and a broad range of references from the deep recesses of museum
collections, folklore and counter-cultures to high modernist design.
This exhibition will include little-seen and significant early artworks, her
arresting sloths, a selection of curious personal and ritualistic artefacts
and talismans, small sculptures accompanied by their bespoke furniture
supports, as well as recent life-size free-standing technicolour figures,
such as Blue and Green Scarf 2013 (pictured above), which blur the lines
between the archaic and futuristic.
cont. next page...
MEDIA ENQUIRES
Contact Kelly Fliedner at kelly.fliedner@monash.edu | 0418 308 059
public programs
Francis Upritchard’s Creative Collaborations
Saturday 13 February 2016, 2.00PM-3.00PM /// FREE
Francis Upritchard in conversation with German-born New Zealandbased jeweller Karl Fritsch and Paola di Trocchio, Curator International
Fashion and Textiles, National Gallery of Victoria.
HIPPY HIPPY SHAKE: Minna Gilligan’s Fabulous
Fashion Workshop for Kids
Saturday 5 March 2016, 10.30AM-1.00PM /// FREE
Bookings essential: kate.barber@monash.edu
MUMA invites kids (9-12y/o) to work with contemporary artist Minna
Gilligan to design and construct their own fantastical fashion garment.
These public programs are presented as part of the Virgin Australia
Melbourne Fashion Festival's Cultural Program Project Series 2016.
Ground Floor, Building F
Monash University, Caulfield Campus
900 Dandenong Road
Caulfield East VIC 3145 Australia
www.monash.edu.au/muma
Telephone +61 3 9905 4217
muma@monash.edu
Tues – Fri 10am – 5pm; Sat 12 – 5pm
Images: (top) Francis Upritchard, Blue and Green
Scarf 2012, modelling material, foil, wire, paint,
cloth, human hair. Collection of Auckland Art Gallery
Toi o Tamaki, gift of the Patrons of the Auckland Art
Gallery, 2013; Sun Worship 2013 (detail), modeling
material, foil, wire, paint, cloth, 141 x 25 x 19
cm, Collection of Simon Robinson. Both images
courtesy of the artist and Kate MacGarry, London.
MONASH UNIVERSITY MUSEUM OF ART
FRANCIS UPRITCHARD JEALOUS SABOTEURS: MEDIA KIT
Upritchard’s work deftly interweaves reality and imaginary. Early works such
as Pretty Necklace 2009, made of plastic straws and cigarette butts­, appear
to be part ancient object, part absurd dystopian artefact. Charlotte Day,
Director of MUMA adds, 'Upritchard evokes historical narratives and forms
but subverts that use of cultural material and imagery. Each of her sculptures
appear to come from a different realm further complicating their readings as
a whole.’
Traveller’s Collection 2003 brings together collections of Canopic ceramic
jars and clay pots, beaded jewellery, and grotesque ‘shrunken’ animal heads
presented as the strange and wonderful mementos of a cloth-wrapped
figure transitioning from one world into the next. This makeshift funerary
chamber along with mummified heads (as in Untitled 1 2002-3, pictured
bottom left) and bizarre hunting instruments (Jealous Saboteurs 2005) are
props that populate the surreal worlds created by Upritchard.
Upritchard’s sculptures scramble suggestions of ethnic and cultural
stereotypes, and are hard to place. Robert Leonard, co-curator of the
exhibition and Chief Curator of City Gallery, Wellington questions, 'Are they
Kabuki performers, dervishes, American Indians, harlequins, or hippies
in technicolour dream coats, gurus or imbeciles? Have they transcended
history or been discarded by it? Upritchard neither ridicules her subjects nor
takes them so seriously. Upritchard's beguiling works linger out of the reach
of any clear rationale.’
Conscious of creating an expanded space for her mythologies to play out,
Upritchard often collaborates with other practitioners including various
writers, UK fashion house Peter Pilotto, jeweller Karl Fritsch and her partner,
Italian furniture and interior designer, Martino Gamper who has created
bespoke supports for many of her most recent figurative sculptures. These
plinths, or the tables and benches that Upritchard often uses, create
spacious landscapes across which the figures interact.
FRANCIS UPRITCHARD — Biography
Francis Upritchard was born in 1976 in New Plymouth, New Zealand. A
graduate of Christchurch’s Ilam School of Fine Arts, Upritchard moved
to London in 1998, where she became one of New Zealand's most
successful international artists. While she maintains a close relationship
with New Zealand, returning regularly to exhibit, Upritchard has rarely
exhibited in Australia. In 2008 her exhibition Rainwob II was presented
at Artspace, Sydney and Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, and in
the same year she was curated by Charlotte Day into the TarraWarra
Biennial, Lost and Found: An Archeology of the Present.
In 2006 Upritchard won New Zealand's prestigious Walters Prize, and
since that time has had major solo exhibitions at museums such as the
Vienna Secession in 2009, Nottingham Contemporary in 2012, Cincinnati
Contemporary Arts Centre in 2012, Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma
Museum of Contemporary Art in 2013, and the Hammer Museum, LA,
in 2014. In 2009, she represented New Zealand at the Venice Biennale
with her installation Save Yourself, which was later re-presented at the
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington. Her work is in
the international collections of the Hammer, Paisley Museum, Scotland,
and Saatchi Gallery, London; in New Zealand, at Auckland Art Gallery Toi
o Tāmaki, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, Govett-Brewster
Art Gallery, Plymouth and Te Papa; and, in Australia, at the National
Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, MONA, Hobart, and the Queensland Art
Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane. She is represented by Kate MacGarry,
London; Anton Kern Gallery, New York; and Ivan Anthony Gallery,
Auckland.
(from top) Tourist 2012 (detail)
modelling material, foil, wire, paint, cloth
Collection of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o
Tamaki, gift of the Patrons of the Auckland
Art Gallery, 2013. Image courtesy of the
artist and Kate MacGarry, London.
Untitled 1 2002-03 (detail)
fibreglass, resin, fake hair and dental teeth
Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery
Toi o Tamaki, 2003. Image courtesy of
Auckland Art Gallery.