Perth Voice Interactive

THERE’S still time to catch some great exhibitions at the WA Art Gallery before the new summer program, including a masterclass in existential dread by Özgür Kar.

The Turkish installation artist has scared the living daylights out of sandgropers with his first show in Australia – Good Night – an almost eight-metre long animated skeleton trapped inside four TV screens.

Created by Kar during the pandemic, it perfectly captures the feeling of being trapped by covid – whether in a country, house, room or the confines of your own mind. The skeleton is reminiscent of the cartoon character Bonesy, found in early works by the Gorillaz, a virtual band co-created by Blur frontman Damon Albarn.

Working across video, sound, performance and installation, Kar explores contemporary existentialism, fusing danse macabre, experimental theatre, early 20th century animation and 1990s MTV cartoons.

Using voice actors and musicians, he loops visuals and sounds to create an increasingly fraught and tense, and sometimes profound, experience.

The 31-year-old artist lives in Amsterdam, where he studied at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, a classical academy where philosophers, academics and artists meet to exchange ideas and knowledge.

After all that existential navel-gazing, you might need some light relief, so make sure you check out Exquisite Bodies, a multi-sensory exhibition where people of all ages and abilities get to build giant figurative sculptures.

Developed in collaboration with disabled artist Bruno Booth, it uses materials that young children, teens, artists and adults can easily pick up and manipulate. It’s a fun, arty way of letting off steam and satisfying your creative urges (as well as tiring the kids out during the school holidays).

Winding up on September 25, Spacingout taps into those moments when your brain disconnects from reality and enters a parallel dimension. 

“This exhibition lingers in moments of confusion and uncertainty; when our feelings and understandings of particular situations are not quite defined,” reads the WA Art Gallery blurb.

“Spacingout foregrounds what so often remains in the hazy background of life and proposes the potential for events to be other than what they are.”

by STEPHEN POLLOCK