Stuart Ringholt: KRAFT

Overview

Stuart Ringholt wants to get you naked. He wants a lot of people to get naked, and then he wants them all to dance. In one of the most ambitious and downright exciting artistic happenings of recent years, Stuart Ringholt is transforming MUMA into a nude, daytime disco called 'Club Purple', and we couldn't be more excited about it.

If you've seen anything by this artist, you'll know this is kind of his thing. He has cheeky, naked portraits on exhibition in Melbourne Now, he led an art show at MCA with mandatory nudity for all gallery-goers, and now he wants Melbournites to get into it, drop trou, and boogie. Needless to say, this will be a pretty unique experience. There will be solo dance days, mixed events, 'ladies days'; and to accompany the disco, there will be an enormous temporarily askew clock to disorient you further while in your fleshy dancing haze.

For those that wish to intellectualise the work, Ringholt claims it comes from "try[ing] to understand how fear manifests in the body and how it debilitates you”. For those that are at one with the idea — enjoy. This kind of fun usually winds you up with an awkward run-in with the cops and a fine.

Image: Stuart Ringholt, Anger Workshops 2008/12, courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery. Photo: Nick McGrath.