Edge Gallery, Federation Square, Melbourne
15 Feb – 17 Feb 2008
Opening Hours: 10am – 5.30pm

Curator: Karin Neumann-Murphy

This exhibition addresses the Festival 2008 by-line: ‘Sustainability - make it your sport’.
It turned out to be a challenge since art and sport are far from natural allies. Not since pictures of Stud horses, pets and animal exotica in earlier centuries century have artists been particularly interested in the subject. As one artist so succinctly put it: ” Anyway - why sport!”

In this climate of general disinterest 10 mid career professional artist were invited to present works in the form of sculptures, installation, and digital imaging. Would artists be interested to move past established the prejudices, and open this particular can of worms or perhaps Pandora’s box (depending on points of view)? Was there enough passion to take a closer look, to identify the nature of sport, and perhaps to dismantle some of the barriers between art and sport.
And so it was! 10 artists works excavate and reinvent the passions, challenge, ambition, aggression, determination, pseudo or virtual war, war-games, the hunt, killer instinct, divisionism, winners, losers, fanaticism, cooperation, cohesion, common goal, gratification of achievement of hopes - dedication, aspiration, dreams, fame, the podium; more ambivalently - games, play, the permeating nature of sport in society, the politics and economics of sport, spectators sport – and so on.
“Why sport anyway? “ Well, because it turned out to bring to light - in the subtle language of art - an amazing collection of thoughts submerged as subtext in a ‘tedious’ label of sport , thoughts that may not instantly have sprung to minds of passionate artist or sports lover alike.
This modest exhibition (in terms of scale and some might say budget) shows how artists using sustainable materials and means have responded to some of the subtext associated with the complex nature of sport. It is difficult to escape the surprising feeling, that underneath it all, art and sport are virtually joined at the hip.
For an interesting comparison it might be added that the theme of sport will also be tackled by the Ian Potter Gallery (June 2008).
Karin Neumann Murphy has coordinated and curated the Art theme of the Sustainable Living Festival since 2005.