Michael Zavros: The Favourite

This spectacular showcase features 90-plus paintings, sculptures, videos, photos and performances by the Queensland artist.
Sarah Ward
Published on June 24, 2023

Overview

From Saturday, June 24–Monday, October 2, filling Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art for winter as well as the start of spring, Michael Zavros: The Favourite is serving up a major survey of the Queensland artist. On display: 90-plus paintings, sculptures, videos, photos and performances, as part of one of GOMA's two big midyear exhibitions (the other: eX de Medici: Beautiful Wickedness).

With The Favourite, GOMA looks back across 25 years of Zavros' art — although Drowned Mercedes is brand new. Created for the exhibition, the sculpture fills the cabin of an original classic 90s Mercedes-Benz SL convertible with water. When attendees peer at the piece, they see their own reflection in the water.

Other Zavros highlights include paintings including Man in a wool suit and Ferragamo 2000, which take inspiration from men's magazines; the Prince/Zavros, with American conceptual artist Richard Prince's late-80s Cowboy images and Marlboro Man tobacco ads an influence; architectural representations Love's temple and Unicorn in the anticamera; and a heap of portraits, with Zavros himself a frequent subject.

Still-life works; equestrian paintings, drawings and sculptures; depictions of rare Japanese Onagadori chickens: they all grace GOMA's walls and halls, too. So does Acropolis Now, a large-scale mural depicting the Parthenon in Athens, which is being turned into a Greek coffee house once a month thanks to folks from Brisbane's Greek community playing backgammon and sipping Greek caffeinated beverages.

Images: installation views of Michael Zavros: The Favourite, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2023. © Michael Zavros and eX de Medici / Photographs: Joe Ruckli © QAGOMA.

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