Ian Strange: SUBURBAN

Ian Strange: SUBURBAN from Ian Strange [KID ZOOM] on Vimeo.

Delivering his largest and most ambitious project to date, Australian born, New York based artist, Ian "Kid Zoom" Strange presents SUBURBAN, a multifaceted photography, film and installation exhibition opening at the National Gallery of Victoria on July 26.

Since recreating a full-scale replica of his childhood home inside Cockatoo Island's Turbine Hall in Sydney, 2011, Strange has continued his ongoing investigation of suburbia. For the past two years Strange has travelled across the East Coast of the United States working with a film crew and volunteers in Ohio, Detroit, Alabama, New Jersey, New York and New Hampshire to create, photograph and film eight site specific interventions incorporating suburban.

Suburban presents eight large-scale photographic works, a multi-channel, surround sound video installation along with carefully selected fragments of the original buildings that Strange has saved and re-presents as both sculptural objects and social artefacts.

On the exhibition, David Hurlston, Curator of Australian Art, National Gallery of Victoria, said, "We are excited to be able to present this ground-breaking exhibition of work by Ian Strange. From his early work as a street artist in Australia he is now a noted contemporary artist with a developing international standing. Strange is fast becoming recognised, both locally and internationally, for his distinctive practice and, in particular, for this new and unique body of work."

Cinematic in both tone and scale, SUBURBAN investigates the iconography surrounding the family home and its place in the current economic climate. Through the work, Strange articulates his own conflicted relationship with suburbia he experienced growing up in the Australian suburbs, juxtaposed with living in New York City and the United States.

"This project has been all consuming for the past two and a half years of my life", said Strange. "I wanted to create a body of work that reacted to the icon of the suburban home and to the suburbs as a whole. The suburbs have played an important role in shaping who I am as a person and an artist. The suburbs have always been home, but I have always found suburbia isolating. SUBURBAN is my reaction to that."

SUBURBAN opens at NGV Studio, located at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Federation Square on July 26.

ianstrange.com

SUBURBAN: a new body of work by Ian Strange

July 26th - September 15th, 2013
NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA
Melbourne, Australia