Glass beads, wire, monkey skull, dice
Fiona Hall Monkey Magic, 2012 Glass beads, wire, monkey skull, dice 148 x 32 x 17 cm Image courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney Fiona Hall’s meticulous attention to detail emphasises the beauty and fragility of the natural world. Hall transforms ordinary, everyday materials into organic forms with both historical and contemporary relevance. Hall's sculptures are characterised by their intricate construction and thematic resonance with issues of globalisation, ecology and natural history. At Art Basel | Hong Kong, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery presents Hall’s work, Monkey Magic (2012). The spectral elegance of the sculpture, which is composed of delicate glass beads woven with wire, is punctuated by a totemic monkey skull. Encased in a classic vitrine, the work draws upon the anthropological and mystic, uniting them in the form of an exquisite artefact. Fiona Hall will represent Australia at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015, with an exhibition entitled Wrong Way Time, curated by Linda Michael. Further highlights include: Big Game Hunting, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Victoria (2013); Fiona Hall, Force Field, (touring exhibition) at Christchurch Art Gallery, New Zealand, City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand and Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2008); Fieldwork, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney (2008),
A Transit through Paradise, Gallery 706, Colombo, Sri Lanka (1999); Global Liquidity (with Nalini Malani), Gallery Chemould, Bombay, India Garden of Earthly Delights, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Gallery of Victoria Melbourne; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney(1994). Hall’s work has also been presented in significant and international group shows. Recent highlights include: Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2014: Whorled Explorations, Kochi, Kerala, India (2014); Dark Heart, 2014 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (2014); Australia, Royal Academy of Arts, London. (2013); dOCUMENTA13, Kassel, Germany, (2012); 17th Biennale of Sydney, Beauty of Distance, songs of survival in a precarious age, (2010), The Third Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia (2009); DeOverkant/Downunder, Den Haag Sculpture 2007, Netherlands (2007); Prism: Contemporary Australian Art, Bridgestone Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2006); Face Up: Contemporary Art from Australia, Museum for the Present, Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Germany (2006) and Tree Time, Museum De Zonnehof, The Netherlands (2006). Fiona Hall’s work has been collected in depth by all the major Australian museums.