Richard Grayson Messiah, 2004 (installation view)
Richard Grayson Messiah, 2004 (installation view)
Richard Grayson Messiah, 2004 (installation view)
This is the first time that Richard Grayson has shown at Matt’s Gallery and is his first solo exhibition in London. Two separate video installations, Messiah and Intelligence, will be shown consecutively, one before Christmas and one after. Richard Grayson was a founder member of the Basement Group in Newcastle upon Tyne 1979-1984, the Director of the Experimental Art Foundation Adelaide from 1992- 1998, and was the Artistic Director of the 2002 Sydney Biennale: (The World Maybe) Fantastic. He is represented in Australia by the Yuill/Crowley Gallery Sydney.
In October 2003, Richard Grayson approached the Australian Country and Western Band The Midnight Amblers to collaborate on a project re-arranging and performing the libretto to Handel’s 1742 Oratorio ‘The Messiah’. The dual projection video work Messiah is the end result. The text, written and assembled by Charles Jennens was created to support the idea that Jesus Christ was indeed the person anticipated by the Jewish prophets of the Old Testament, not an event that rendered such prophecy void. The Band has written tunes around these words that only fleetingly make reference to the original melodies – ‘The Hallelujah Chorus’ for instance – and which use instead the languages of country rock.
‘The Messiah’ holds a central place in British culture, being listened to and performed by many in choirs and events around the country. By taking the words out of the matrix of classical music, they are made strange and magical again, rather than merely a distant component of ‘high culture’. This serves to reanimate them as an expression of a supernatural belief system: one which is now shaping significant social and political policy in the United States through the Christian Right, as well as helping directly shape certain expressions of American foreign policy in the Middle East. 42% of Americans describe themselves as ‘born again’ and 82% believe in miracles. Political ideology rooted in Enlightenment ideals of rationality is being eroded and replaced by Theology. In Australia the Christian Family First party has just helped secure the return of the conservative party of John Howard. In Tony Blair Britain has one of the most overtly ‘Christian’ prime-ministers since Gladstone.
This exhibition was generously supported by The Henry Moore Foundation, Arts and Humanities Research Board, Arts Council England and Australia Council for the Arts
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Biography
Selected Solo
Exhibitions 2006 Suspicious Fires, Yuill/Crowley Gallery, Sydney 2005 Intelligence, Matt’s
Gallery, London 2004 Messiah, Matt’s
Gallery, London and Yuill/Crowley Gallery, Sydney; The Messiah, Kunstlerhaus
Gethanien, Berlin 2002 A Diary, A History,
A Walk up the Hill, Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide; Ways the
World Ends, Yuill/Crowley Gallery, Sydney 2000 Negative
Space (things I
don’t understand), Yuill/Crowley Gallery, Sydney 1999 1000
accidents/Ahistoryofreading,
Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; Ahistoryofreading Artspace, Sydney 1998 A
Famous Struggle/VariousThings Explained, Contemporary Art Centre, Adelaide
Selected Group Exhibitions 2009 International
Artist in Residence: New Works
09.01. curated by Trevor Smith at Artpace, San Antonio, Texas 2008 Obscurum
Obscurantis
Tallin Arthoone, Estonia 2007 A Number of
Worlds Resembling Our Own Smart Project
Space, Amsterdam; Navigations Per Forma Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin
2006 Happy Believers 7th Werkleitz Biennial,
Halle Germany 2005 Art
Unlimited Basel; Project 3 CACSA Adelaide; Electric Renaissance Culture-Centre
Halle; Gott
sehen - Das Überirdische als Thema derZeitgenössischen Kunst Kunstmuseum
des Kantons Thurgau, Kartause Ittingen, Switzerland 2004 Cartographies Performance
Space, Sydney; Planet B Magazin 4 Vorarlberger Kunstverein and Bregenzer Kunstverein,
Bregenz Selected Exhibitions as Curator 2007 Scary
Movie Contemporary Art Centre,
Adelaide 2006 This Will Not Happen Without You (Basement to Locus 1979 - 2007)
(Arts Council touring exhibition) John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, Hatton Gallery,
Newcastle and Belfast University; A Secret Service (Hayward Gallery
touring exhibition) Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill and
The Whitworth Gallery,
Manchester 2002 Sydney Biennale (The World May Be) Fantastic Sydney, Australia
Bibliography
Selected Articles and Publications 2007 You
Talking to Me? On curating Group Shows that Give you a Chance to Join the Group Ralph
Rugoff, What Makes a Great Exhibition, Ed Paula Marincola, Philadelphia Center
for Arts and Heritage; A Secret Service, Sally O'Reilly, Art Monthly,
May issue; A Secret Service Peter Suchin, Frieze, issue 107; Odd
unnerving and utterly compelling, Kirsten Smith, The Guardian, January 27 2006 A
Secret Service Robert Clark, The Guardian, September 16 2005 Modern
Art: A Critical Introduction Pam Meecham & Julie Sheldon, Routledge; Richard
Grayson Gabriel Coxhead, Meta Papers; Richard Grayson Martin Herbert,
Time Out issue 63; Messiah, Richard Grayson Peter Suchin, Art Monthly,
February 2005 issue 28 2004 I am Good at
Games Ed Boris Kremer essays by Ihor Holubiziky and Astrid Mania, Planet
B Catalogue, Kunstlerhaus Bethanien; 2003 Ways
of Saying; Reflections on the recent paintings of Maria Cruz and Richard Grayson Art
and Australia, Vol 41, no 1 2002 In your
dreams, HQ Magazine, May; Why the Biennale is a bit of a miracle, Bruce
James, Sydney Morning Herald, 17 May; Fietta Jarque El capital siempre determina
a las biendes, El Pais, 16 Feb; Sydney apre la Biennale: la finzione
a di scena, Flash Art (Italy), April/May; 2002 Biennale of Sydney, Simon
Rees, Flash Art No 225 July/Sep; Cuts and thrust, Michael Hutak, The
Bulletin 16, April; A Fabulous Mess, Michael Hutak, The Bulletin, 4
June; As Good as a Wink, Benjamin Genocchio, The Weekend Australian
25 May; Tate Magazine, Issue 29, Summer; Biennale of Sydney, Jeff Gibson,
Artforum, Autumn; Fantasic Sydney Biennale, Michael Benton, Art in America,
November; Biennale of Sydney, Sotiis Kyriacou, Contemporary, June; Fabulous-Biennale, Hannah
Fink, Art Monthly (Australia), No. 151 Selected Writing
(articles and catalogue essays)
2008 A Number of Disappearances, catalogue essay, Mark Wallinger; Traceurs
To Trace, catalogue essay, Layla Curtis, Chelsea Space, Aargauer Kunsthaus
Switzerland; Door Window Draw, catalogue essay for exhibition of works
by Anna Barriball at Gallery Bo Bierggaard, Copenhagen, Denmark; Lindsay
Seers, SMART Papers, SMART Project Space, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Scary
Movie, catalogue essay, Contemporary Art Centre SA, Australia; Without
You This Will Not Happen: (Basement to Locus 1979 to 2007), University of
Sunderland Press 2006 Hexen 2039, Suzanne
Treister, essay, Black Dog Publishing; A Secret Service, Hayward Gallery 2005 Mike
Nelson: Between a formula and a code, contributors Peter Eleey, Richard
Grayson, Ralph Rugoff and Rob Tufnell, Turner Contemporary, Koenig Books 2004 Doubtiful:
dans les plis du réel University of Rennes, catalogue essay; Qualified
Survivors: A curriculum for artists, ed Paul Boneventura and Steven Farthing,
Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford University 2003
Ideal States James Angus Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, catalogue essay 2002 Grasshopperworlds:
The World May Be Fantastic catalogue essay, Sydney Biennale; Mike Nelson:
The Deliverance and the Patience catalogue essay for Peer Trust, 49th Venice
Biennale