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Imants Tillers' installation 'Conversations with the bride' 1974-1975 stages a critical dialogue with Marcel Duchamp's famed painting 'The bride stripped bare by her bachelors, even' 1915-23, also known as 'The large glass'. Tillers' 'Conversations with the bride' comprises a system of 112 miniature paintings and photographs, fixed atop of 'coupled' aluminium tripods. Each image is appropriated from Duchamp's 'The large glass', as well as Hans Heysen's emblematic Australian landscape watercolour 'Summer' 1909 in the Art Gallery of New South Wales' collection, and textbook illustrations of gum trees.
The work exemplifies Tillers' postmodern strategy of 'intertexuality' whereby the relationship between artworks, artists and viewers is explored through the layering of historic and contemporary references from art and literature.
Details
Date
1974-1975
Materials used
gouache, synthetic polymer paint on paper, type C photograph, aluminium
Dimensions
dimensions variable :
112 paintings, 12.7 x 18.3 cm, each painting
112 tripods, 163 cm, each tripod [height)
7 photographs, 43 x 58 x 3.3 cm, each frame
Signature & date
Not signed. Not dated.
Credit
Purchased 1976
Location
Not on display
Accession number
235.1976.1-232
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Imants Tillers
Conversations with the bride
Shown in 5 exhibitions
Exhibition history
Conservations with the bride, Watters Gallery, East Sydney, 1975–1975
XIII Bienal de São Paulo, Parque Ibirapuera, São Paulo, Brazil, 17 Oct 1975–15 Dec 1975
Off the Wall / In the Air: A seventies' selection, Monash University Gallery, Clayton, 28 Jun 1991–10 Aug 1991
Towards Infinity: works by Imants Tillers, Museo de arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (MARCO), Mexico, 24 Sep 1999–01 Jan 2000
Imants Tillers 'Journey to Nowhere', Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga, 06 Jul 2018–30 Sep 2018
Referenced in 8 publications
Bibliography
Wystan Curnow, Imants Tillers and the 'Book of Power', "Part 1: Imants Tillers', Singapore, 1998, 12-14, 12-13 (illus.), 17, 19.
Jenepher Duncan (Editor), Off the Wall / In the Air: A seventies selection, Unknown, 1991. cat. no. 137
Deborah Hart (Curator) and Imants Tillers (Artist), Imant Tillers: one world many visions, 'Introduction: a work in progress', pg. 1-17, Canberra, 2006, 6 (colour illus.), 7.
John Kaldor AO (Curator), An Australian Accent, Sydney, 1984, 19 (illus.). figure no. 13
Charles Merewether, Towards Infinity: works by Imants Tillers, Displacement, Diaspora, Dissemination', pg.21-27, Mexico, 1999, 22, 24, 30 (colour illus.), 31 (colour illus.). cat. no 1
Imants Tillers, Australia: XIII Bienal de São Paulo, 'Imants Tillers, Bienal de Sao Paulo, Australia 1975, Conservations with the Bride', Sydney, 1975, (illus.). illustrations of the 7 framed photographs
Wayne Tunnicliffe, Contemporary: Art Gallery of New South Wales Contemporary Collection, 'Cultural memory, critical distance', pg.154-203, Sydney, 2006, 156, 198 (colour illus.).
Donald Williams and Colin Simpson, Art now: contemporary art post - 1970, Sydney, 1994, 27 (colour illus.). fig. 2.5