Mike Parr

(Australia 1945– )

Title

Bronze liars (minus 1 to minus 16)

Year

1996

Media

Sculpture

Medium

16 bronze and beeswax sculptures

Dimensions

installation dimensions variable :
a - 1; 123 x 40.4 x 40.5cm
b - 2; 122.5 x 40.3 x 40.3cm
c - 3; 111 x 40 x 40cm
d - 4; 122 x 40 x 40cm
e - 5; 183.5 x 40 x 40cm
f - 6; 187.5 x 40 x 40cm
g - 7; 178 x 40 x 40cm
h - 8; 194.5 x 59 x 40cm
i - 9; 142 x 54 x 40.5cm
j - 10; 180.5 x 40 x 40cm
k - 11; 176.5 x 96 x 56cm
l - 12; 178 x 40 x 56cm
m - 13; 178 x 40 x 40cm
n - 14; 176 x 40 x 54cm
o - 15; 176.5 x 40 x 40cm
p - 16; 194.5 x 40 x 40cm

Signature & date

Not signed. Not dated.

Credit

Purchased 1996

Accession number

564.1996.a-p

Copyright

Location

Not on display

Further information

These life sized self-portraits were Parr's first sortie into figurative sculpture. The first of them were tentative in feel but he quickly gained confidence to achieve striking likenesses. As he progressed he heightened the expressive quality to a mask like intensity and finally some of the likenesses were subjected to destructive gestures as if the material were being forged on an anvil. The likeness is reduced to abstract form.

The sequence in some ways reflects his approach to self-portraits in printmaking. The process of the form becoming and simultaneously being destroyed is constantly in tension in the material manipulation of the work. Parr modelled the pieces from the front but the absent image of the back of his head he moulded blind. The backs are by no means mute, they are as expressive as the fronts but the are formed by groping in the dark this approach bears some relationship to the dual aspects of his big drawings from the mid 1980s. In these the left side is anamorphic drawings distorted scientifically while the right hand side is expressive and employs haptic gestures. This dichotomy played out the functions of the conscious and unconscious mind or the functions of the left and right hemispheres of the brain. The bronze heads are raised up on plinths of beeswax. The cold metal of the heads suggests cold reason while the warm wax implies the body and material processes.

Bibliography (7)

Look (Apr 2012), Jill Sykes (Australia) (Editor), 10pm [print management] (Australia), Newtown, New South Wales, Australia.

Mike Parr: The Tilted Stage (2008), Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (Australia) (Author), Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (Australia).

Contemporary: Art Gallery of New South Wales Contemporary Collection (2006), Anthony Bond (England; Australia) (Commissioning Editor), Wayne Tunnicliffe (New Zealand; Australia) (Commissioning Editor), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874).

State of the arts (Jul 2003-Sep 2003), Margaret Meagher (Australia) (Editor), State of the Art Publications (Australia), Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Presence & absence: portrait sculpture in Australia (2003), Deborah Edwards (Australia) (Author), National Portrait Gallery [Old Parliament House] (Australia, estab. 1994, closed 2008), Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia.

Look (Sep 2003), Jill Sykes (Australia) (Editor), 10pm [print management] (Australia), Newtown, New South Wales, Australia.

Art Gallery of New South Wales handbook (1999), Bruce James (Australia) (Author), Edmund Capon (England; Australia, b.1940) (Director), Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia), Domain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Exhibition history (4)

cut your throat an inch at a time: a survey of the works of Mike Parr 1970 - 2005, (01 Oct 2005–20 Nov 2005), at Newcastle Region Art Gallery (Australia), Laman Street Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia 2300.

Mike Parr, (21 Nov 2008–01 Mar 2009), at Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (Australia), GPO Box 1434 Hobart Tasmania Australia 4001.

Presence and absence: portrait sculpture in Australia, (22 Aug 2003–16 Nov 2003), at National Portrait Gallery [Old Parliament House] (Australia, estab. 1994, closed 2008), Kings Hall Old Parliament House Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia 2600.

Bronze Liars (Minus 1 to Minus 16), (Oct 1996–Oct 1996), at Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne (Australia), 185 Flinders Lane Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 3000.