Telling Tales

MCA shows there's more than one way to skin a narrative.
Matt Abotomey
August 16, 2016

Overview

The MCA's newest exhibition, Telling Tales, explores what happens when a host of international and Australian artists lock themselves in a room with narrative structure and a hammer. Spoiler: the result is not Game of Thrones.

Described by curator Rachel Kent as "an unpicking of conventional storytelling approaches", the works range from paint and sculpture to shadow puppetry and projection and invite visitors to engage with 'unspoken narratives' that have given beginning, middle and ending the flick.

Lee Mingwei's Sonic Blossom shrinks public operatic performance to an individual serenade, Jittish Kallat's Covering Letter forcefully implicates the viewer in the distortion of history, while Kerry Tribe's There Will Be _______ re-examines the death of oil heir Ned Doheny through various Hollywood retellings.

If these aren't enough, works by Safdar Ahmed, Jumaadi and Phyllis Thomas add further weight to the argument that you should go straight home and throw both volumes of Les Miserables off a roof. Well, maybe not. But you get it.

Admission is free. Free guided tours run every day from 11am.

Information

Tap and select Add to Home Screen to access Concrete Playground easily next time. x