For ‘Project 36: do it (australia)’, Kaldor Public Art Projects will commission Australian creative practitioners, across a range of disciplines, to create new work for the organisation’s first public art project to be presented digitally.
Commissioned practitioners include Rafael Bonachela, Lauren Brincat, Megan Cope, Brian Fuata, Dale Harding, Saskia Havekes, Amrita Hepi, Jonathan Jones, Janet Laurence, Ian Milliss, Glenn Murcutt, Tracey Moffatt, nova Milne, Khaled Sabsabi and Latai Taumoepeau.
Amrita Hepi. Photograph: Nikki To
The commissions will take the form of typed or handwritten instructions, occasionally paired with drawings or videos; to be released on Kaldor Public Art Projects website and Instagram each week beginning Wednesday 13 May, with the full series published over a period of 3 weeks. Kaldor Public Art Projects will gather audience responses to the artists’ instructions, collating and sharing Australians’ creative interpretations of the new work.
Co-curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and John Kaldor, and supported by Emily Sullivan (Curator) and Monique Leslie Watkins, ‘do it (australia)’ will form part of a global network of exchange, as artists’ instructions are shared with partners’ vast international audiences under the title ‘do it (around the world)’. The Google Arts & Culture platform will present a selection of the 50 commissions from the collaborating global partners.
Since it was initiated by curator and Serpentine Galleries’ Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist with artists Christian Boltanski and Bertrand Lavier in 1993, ‘do it’ has been presented all over the world, making it the widest-reaching and longest-running ‘exhibition in progress’ ever shown.
‘do it’ is based on a series of instructions written by artists – an eclectic mix of ideas that range from the active to the absurd and the philosophical. It encourages activities away from the screen, inviting audiences to respond to the artist’s call, follow their lead, enter their world and realise an artwork on their behalf.
The new global art project builds on three decades of this famous artist-led open source project, perfectly designed to share with communities during this period of lockdown across the world.
