Wednesday 19 July 2023
12 - 1pm

Dechaineux Theatre
University of Tasmania
37 Hunter St, Hobart

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Aleks Danko’s career spans over 50 years … beginning in 1970 with his first solo and collaborative exhibition UCK with the poet Richard Tipping at Llewellyn Galleries Adelaide … then fast forward to 2022 to his most recent exhibitions …

[AS. YET. MAYBE.]  NOT A TITLE … in, over, beside, through, by, with, for, up, to, against … are they still touching? with Nigel Lendon at Milani Gallery, Brisbane, and his solo show KLIK! KLAK! VERTI-KLAK! at Sutton Gallery, Melbourne … think of his practice as being interdisciplinary … working in and of the White Cube context but also embracing site-specific installations, performance, as well as collaborative projects … and as an extension of his studio practice he is currently a part-time tutor in Sculpture, and an Honorary Senior Fellow at The School of Art, Victorian College of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne … finally he would like to leave you with this thought …

“Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they shall never cease to be amused …”
Seth Siegelaub

About this event

This is a public program associated with the exhibition Interfacial Intimacies on show at the Plimsoll Gallery from 8 June – 5 August 2023.

What does it mean to be the absolute essence of who you are without being wedded to any of it?

For a long time, the ‘self’ was considered a stable and trustworthy container within which you can be found.

Emerging theories of selfhood recognise that it isn’t so simple. We know that we can have as many social selves as the people who recognise us. Rather than being fixed and always coherent, our personalities can be participated in as a plethora of parallel processes and possibilities. Of transformation. Of continuous becoming.

This exhibition brings together artists who hold and express tenderly the multiple aspects of their selves through a series of portraiture and anti-portraiture. With photography, film, painting, installation, textile, and performance, this exhibition explores the tensions

of our networked personalities - our shadows, our masks, our shame.

Yet, the artists retain their agency and their ‘right to opacity’, to resist being wholly understood, or essentialised; towards an openness of cultural hybridity, to being visible while not being wholly transparent.

How will you show up today?

Artists: Bruno Booth, Amrita Hepi, Léuli Eshrāghi, Bhenji Ra, Aleks Danko, Cassie Sullivan, Georgia Morgan, Cigdem Aydemir, David Rosetzky, and Shea Kirk.

Curator: Caine Chennatt

^{Exhibition development received assistance through the Contemporary Art Tasmania Exhibition Development Fund and was produced by the University of Tasmania – Library and Cultural Collections}

^{Artwork image credits (top to bottom) : Aleks Danko, Incident-Ambivalence, 1991/1992. Wood, galvanised steel and synthetic polymer paint and varnish, 28 x 27.5 x 2.5cm.
University of Tasmania Fine Art Collection. Purchased with funds from the Bequest of Marion E. Wharmby 1996. Interfacial Intimacies installation view at Plimsoll Gallery, 2023. Photo by Rémi Chauvin.
Aleks Danko, self-portrait as Uncle Al . Courtesy of the artist.}