Brutal Truths

Overview

Like your creative endeavours with a splash of political commentary? Then Brutal Truths is for you. As the name indicates, there's nothing nice or easy about the works on display. They're designed not only to make a statement, but to provoke discussion.

Vernon Ah Kee, the late Gordon Bennett, and collaborators Destiny Deacon and Virginia Fraser are no strangers to encouraging debate, of course. Here, Ah Kee's brutalities series interrogates racism, Bennett's Performance with Object for the Expiation of Guilt (Apple Premiere Mix) from 1995 sees the artist take on the role of the oppressor, and Deacon and Fraser’s Snap out of it focuses on floor-to-ceiling images of towering public housing flats in Melbourne.

All three major installations delve into the topic of Australia’s indigenous history, as dissected by of some of the most prominent voices in the nation's contemporary art scene. And while local circumstances provided the inspiration for each piece, they also link in to displacement and oppression in a global context.

Image: Vernon Ah Kee, Brutalities, Milani Gallery.