Play On: The Art of Sport

Shaun Gladwell, The archer (after Chuang Tzu) 2014An exhibition celebrating 10 years of the Basil Sellers Art Prize, Play On: The Art of Sport will open at Hazelhurst Gallery and Arts Centre on 9 December and run until 11 February 2018.

The Basil Sellers Art Prize (2006 – 2016) was a prestigious and distinctively Australian biannual exhibition that reflected upon one of our great national obsessions – sport. Featuring the winners and other key works from all five instalments of the Prize, the exhibition brings together diverse explorations of the personal and collective significance of sport and sporting culture from some of Australia’s most accomplished artists.

Play On: The Art of Sport encompasses a dynamic range of media, with works that respond to an equally extensive range of sporting genres, including community footy, women’s boxing, ground-keeping, gymnastics and AFL. They portray the sports arena as a powerful theatre of emotion, where hope, fear, adversity, triumph, glory and defeat are writ large.

Even more strikingly though, sport is used as a lens through which to contemplate a number of society’s most cogent issues; from mechanisms of cultural belonging and marginalisation, gender and race relations, to technology’s impact on our physical limits.

Play On: The Art of Sport features works by Tony Albert, Richard Bell, Lauren Brincat, Jon Campbell, Daniel Crooks, Tarryn Gill & Pilar Mata Dupont, Shaun Gladwell, Josie Kunoth Petyarre and Dinni Kunoth Kemarre, Richard Lewer, Fiona McMonagle, Kerrie Poliness, Khaled Sabsabi, Gabrielle de Vietri, Gerry Wedd.

“NETS Victoria is excited to tour Play On: The Art of Sport and share these works to a national audience,” said Mardi Nowak, NETS Director. “Covering entries from the last ten years, viewers will get to see the winning works from each prize”.

Play On: The Art of Sport
Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre, 782 Kingsway, Gymea
Exhibition: 9 December 2017 – 11 February 2018
Free admission

For more information, visit: www.hazelhurst.com.au for details.

Image: Shaun Gladwell, The archer (after Chuang Tzu), 2014. Single-channel HD video, 16:9 ratio, colour, sound 10:47 minutes. Courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery.