SHAUN GLADWELL
Shaun Gladwell ‘s videos of street culture and performances such as skateboarding, BMX riding and break dancing, challenge familiar perceptions of hip hop and MTV urban culture, encouraging its consideration and criticism in the context of European romanticism and religious allegory. Gladwell graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from the Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney in 1996 and completed postgraduate research at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales in 2001.
Streetwise and entertaining, Gladwell’s urban hip hop performances retain deeper political and philosophical concerns with the artist playfully shifting the viewer’s reading of a performance, slowing down time and reinventing break dancing and skate board culture as a lyrical and poetic experience. Gladwell represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 2009 with a series of videos that relocated hip hop culture within the Australia desert. The dislocation of such performances from the urban environment shifted perceptions and understanding of both hip hop culture and the landscape.
Gladwell had exhibited locally and internationally and his work is represenetd in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
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