Charles Robb

Charles Robb

Crop

2 September–8 October 20052 Sep–8 Oct 2005

For Crop, the latest installment in his sculptural self-portrait project, Brisbane’s Charles Robb strands three life-size self-portraits—aping ‘cropped’ portrait busts or fragments of classical sculpture—across the floor of our biggest gallery. This beautifully judged work mixes vast space and intense detail, visceral realism and the frigid materiality of marble. Using academic realism to paradoxically expressive effect, Crop combines the ideas of a deposed classical artistic tradition (the busts look like they have been knocked off their pedestals) and the-death-of-the-author (one mouth is stuffed, as if by a mortician or chef), yet exceeds both.

The Institute of Modern Art acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land upon which the IMA now stands, the Jagera, Yuggera, Yugarapul, and Turrbal people. We offer our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the first artists of this country. In the spirit of allyship, the IMA will continue to work with First Nations people to celebrate, support, and present their immense past, present, and future contribution to artistic practice and cultural expression.

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