Adam Cullen
(Australia 09 Oct 1965–28 Jul 2012)
- Title
- Residual paroxysm of unspoken and extended closures interrogated by a malady of necrogenic subterfuge with a nice exit
- Year
- 1993
2008 - Media category
- Installation
- Materials used
- television, air-conditioning filters, rubber, fiberglass bath, disposable nappies, various adhesives, glass-filament adhesive tape, pharmaceutical apparatus, wood, plastic/paper, sheeting, timber, varnish, mucus, ink
- Dimensions
-
75.0 x 600.0 x 700.0cm
- Signature & date
- Not signed. Not dated.
- Credit
- Gift of the artist 2008
- Accession number
- 328.2008.a-h
- Copyright
- © Adam Cullen
- Location
- Not on display
- Further information
“As an object ‘Residual paroxysm…’ recalls bodgie hospital apparatus, some sort of amateur scientific experiment, or even a home-made distillery. The components, resembling an injecting apparatus and its circulatory tubes and elements, suggest a narcotics culture made manifest. The TV is the broken animus of the circuitry/circulation system, a key to the implied exchange of fluids through the plastic tubing and matter oozing around the work. Curator and academic Edward Colless described this sculpture as both ‘criminal and aberrant’ and went on to discuss it in highly sexualized terms as a failed reproductive drive, seeing the equipment as engaged in a potential exchange of bodily fluids, but one that merged the suggestion of human genitals and technology, co-joining television and human reproduction. Colless finished with ‘If this is an emblem of maternity, then it is one convulsed in abortion. If an emblem of paternity, then it is accomplished in a dry and vain copulation’. These dysfunctional medical and anatomical analogies are not inappropriate as Cullen has often been quoted as described his work as a form of palliative care, a way of making incurable problems bearable.”
From Wayne Tunnicliffe, ‘Let’s get lost’ in Wayne Tunniliffe (ed.) Let’s get lost, Art Gallery of New South Wales, (exh. cat.), Sydney, 2000, p 11
- Bibliography (7)
-
Wayne Tunnicliffe (New Zealand; Australia) (Author), Adam Cullen: let's get lost, 2008, 11, 24-25 (colour illus.).
Ingrid Periz (Australia) (Author), Adam Cullen: scars last longer, 2004, 17 (colour illus.).
‘Miserabilism: The art of Adam Cullen’ by Benjamin Genocchio, pg.13-15, Eyeline, no.29 Summer 1995, Summer 1995, 14 (illus.).
‘A genre beyond grunge’ by Felicity Fenner, pg.19, The Sydney Morning Herald 27 May 1994, 27 May 1994, 19.
Victoria Lynn (Australia) (Editor), Australian Perspecta 1993, Sydney, 1993, 25 (colour illus.).
‘Adam Cullen: The readymade saboteur’ by Catherine Lumby, pg.34-37, World Art: the magazine of Contemporary Visual Arts Nov 1993, Nov 1993, 36 (colour illus.).
‘A good clean punch’, Sydney by Bruce James, pg.16, The Sydney Morning Herald 09 Oct 1993-10 Oct 1993, 09 Oct 1993-10 Oct 1993, 16 (illus.).
- Exhibition history (2)
-
Australian Perspecta 1993, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 06 Oct 1993–28 Nov 1993.
Adam Cullen: let's get lost, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 15 May 2008–27 Jul 2008.
