Sung Tieu, The Ruling, Ordet, Milan, Italy, 2023, installation view. Co-commissioned by MUMA, Melbourne, and Ordet, Milan. Photo: Nicola Gnesi. Courtesy: the artist, Ordet, Milan, and Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne.
Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA commences 2024 with an exhibition of work by Taungurung artist Steven Rhall and Vietnamese-German artist Sung Tieu.
The presentation of Rhall’s and Tieu’s work together highlights the artists’ shared interest in bureaucracy and power, and the structures that shape individual and collective agency within legacies of displacement. The first exhibition of Tieu’s work in Australia, Statecraft will feature new and existing works by both artists in dialogue.
In her interdisciplinary practice, Tieu engages with ongoing, global intersections of colonial and Cold War ideologies, examining bureaucratic and psychological strategies of social control. This exhibition will present The Ruling, a new installation co-commissioned by MUMA and Ordet, Milan. Referencing the traditional Vietnamese measurement unit known as xích and its variation during French colonisation, The Ruling explores legacies of erasure in the nexus between colonial interests and administrative governance strategies. Accompanying existing works share Tieu’s ongoing research into imperialist military psychological operations and chemical warfare.
Rhall’s work explores and critiques the operation of economic and cultural capital within contexts of First Nations art—production, presentation and encounter. Considering in particular the framing devices that inform perception and narrative-making, he interrogates concepts and practices pertaining to authorship and curating. A new installation work by Rhall will interrogate institutional values and visibility notions by engaging with the role of First Nations arts workers, employing the artist’s characteristic absurdism.
Spanning the two wings of MUMA, Statecraft will traverse the geopolitical contexts of Australia and the Asia-Pacific region through the two artists’ critical practices.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication including long-form interviews with Rhall and Tieu by Tristen Harwood and Amelia Winata.
Opening Event: Saturday 3 February, 3 – 5pm.
