Michael Stevenson

Fine Arts, Sydney is presenting an exhibition of new work by Michael Stevenson.

Over thirty years, Michael Stevenson’s sculptures, paintings, films, and installations have visualised and given form to particular ideologies, values, and worldviews. Stevenson’s work involves detailed research into factual histories and the scrutiny of cultural relics and artefacts.

This exhibition presents two wall-mounted sculptures that take on the display form of vitrines. Each vitrine is a sculpture comprising a specific collection of information, materials, and objects that draw upon Stevenson’s extensive studio and research archives to concentrate certain narratives from across decades of practice.

The two new works in this exhibition have distinct contents and subjects, and are linked with notions of disproof, belief, and contestation.

The sculpture ‘Drum Shield Affordance Extension 1.1 Extravehicular Activity’ (2020) presents material that, amongst other things, relates to narratives that connect to astronaut, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and evangelist James Irwin. Irwin was the lunar module pilot for Apollo 15 and the eighth human to walk on the moon. Irwin collected the most significant lunar mineral sample of the Apollo missions, which dated to 4.5 billion years old. Soon after returning to earth he founded the evangelical Christian outreach organisation ‘High Flight Foundation’. Irwin went on to lead failed missions in search of Noah’s ark, and professed belief in the Genesis creation narrative as real, literal history.

The sculpture ‘Drum Shield Affordance Extension 1.2 Philanthropy 101’ (2020) presents material that, amongst other things, relates to narratives that connect to philanthropist, author, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, co-founder of PayPal and early investor in Facebook, Peter Thiel, and professional wrestler, actor, television personality, entrepreneur, and musician, Terry Bollea, known by the stage name Hulk Hogan. Thiel is alleged to have financed the invasion-of-privacy lawsuit brought by Bollea/Hogan against an online media company that published a video of Bollea/Hogan engaged in sexual activity. The lawsuit was successful and the media company was bankrupted.

Michael Stevenson has exhibited publicly since the late 1980s. An exhibition dedicated to surveying three decades of Stevenson’s work was held in Sydney at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in 2011. In recent years Stevenson has made solo exhibitions at MUMA, Melbourne (2019), Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland (2018), Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2015), SculptureCenter, New York (2015), Tate Modern, London (2014), Portikus, Frankfurt (2012), Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2012), and Generali Foundation, Vienna (2012). Stevenson represented New Zealand at the 50th Venice Biennale (2003), and his work has been included in large-scale thematic exhibitions including the 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018), Dojima River Biennale (2015), 6th and 8th Berlin Biennales (2010, 2014), Liverpool Biennial (2014), 4th Auckland Triennial (2010), 2nd Athens Biennial (2009), 8th Panama Art Biennial (2008), and the Asia-Pacific Triennial (2006). His work has been included in curated exhibitions at museums and institutions including City Gallery Wellington (2018), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2015), ZKM, Karlsruhe (2011, 2008), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (2011), Camden Arts Centre, London (2010), Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2010), Power Plant, Toronto (2008), and Tate Modern, London (2007). Michael Stevenson will be presenting solo exhibitions at Witte de With, Rotterdam, in 2020, and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, in 2021.

Michael Stevenson was born in Inglewood, New Zealand, in 1964. He lived and worked in Melbourne, Australia, through the 1990s, and has lived and worked in Berlin, Germany since 2000. He is a full-time professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Nürnberg, Germany.

This is Michael Stevenson’s first exhibition with Fine Arts, Sydney.

6 February — 21 March, 2020