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An image of Approach to Mundi Mundi by Shaun Gladwell
Alternate image of Approach to Mundi Mundi by Shaun Gladwell

Shaun Gladwell

(Australia 1972– )

Title
Approach to Mundi Mundi
Place of origin
Mundi Mundi plain → New South Wales → Australia
Year
2007
Media categories
Time-based media, DVD
Materials used
HD/DVD, 16:9 ratio, colour, silent, 8:37 min in total Duration: Dawn 03:56; Day 04:42
Edition
2/4
Dimensions

dimensions variable

Signature & date
Signed Certificate of Authenticity and on DVD masters, ink "Shaun Gladwell". Not dated.
Credit
John Kaldor Family Collection at the Art Gallery of New South Wales
Accession number
L2011.60
Copyright
© Shaun Gladwell. Courtesy Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne/ Sydney Photo: Josh Raymond
Location
Not on display
Further information

Shaun Gladwell’s video works are predominantly concerned with movement, usually in urban spaces. More recently, however, he has extended his practice into a consideration of landscape and place while retaining his core interest in the movement of bodies through space. A spellbinding sense of quietude permeates his work.

‘Approach to Mundi Mundi’ is part of the ‘MADDESTMAXIMVS’ series – an ongoing body of work that has been presented in various arrangements, including at the 2009 Venice Biennale. In ‘Approach to Mundi Mundi’ a faceless motorbike rider, clad in black leather, travels along the white lines of a highway descending into a barren Australian desert. The composition is radically divided by an unbroken horizon line and vertically segmented by the rider’s upright Christ-like position. Poised on the bike with outstretched arms, he appears to embrace the land before him, his stillness demonstrating a heightened sense of bodily awareness and concentration. Paradoxically moving yet also still, this work figuratively ‘swallows’ time, presenting a type of extended moment.

Bibliography (11)

'Shaun Gladwell' by Anneke Jaspers, pg. 13., Look Sep 2012, Sep 2012, 13.

Wayne Tunnicliffe (New Zealand; Australia) (Editor), John Kaldor Family Collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2011, 288, 289 (colour illus., video still).

'Kaldor and contemporary' by Wayne Tunnicliffe, pg. 26-29., Look Apr 2011, Apr 2011, 29.

Stephen Hepworth (Editor), Shaun Gladwell: perpetual 360° sessions, Heerlen, 2011, 10, 68-69 (colour illus., video still).

'The beauty of distance' by John Kelly, pg. 10-13., Art Monthly Jul 2009, Jul 2009, 10-13.

'Australia takes images of outback and Mad Max to Venice' by Bruce Millan, pg. 46., The Art Newspaper Jun 2009, Jun 2009, 46.

Australia Council for the Arts (Australia) (Author), Australia: 53rd International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, AUT, 2009, (colour illus., video still).

University of Queensland Art Museum (Australia, estab. 1976) (Author), Shaun Gladwell, 2008.

Sherman Galleries (Australia, estab. 1986, closed 2007) (Author), Shaun Gladwell: Maddest Maximvs, 2007, 3 (colour illus., video still).

Blair French (Author), Shaun Gladwell: videowork, 2007, 105 (colour illus., video still).

Steven Ball (Author), Catherine Elwes (France; England, b.1952) (Author), Figuring landscapes: artists' moving image from Australia and the U.K, 2007, cover (colour illus., video still), 38 (colour illus., video still).