The Drum Riser Billboard in Melbourne

Next Wave has teamed up with Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) to present a gigantic billboard in the heart of Melbourne, featuring work by 2010 Next Wave Festival artist Lauren Brincat.

Drum Riser (2007) is part of a new Next Wave/MONA project that that involves the co-commissioning of a major new work by Lauren. This new work will feature in both MOFO, MONA’s 2010 Festival of Music and Art in Hobart this month, and in the 2010 Next Wave Festival, here in Melbourne in May.

UPDATE: Read about Laren’s work, and performance at MOFO, here.

Drum Riser was a happening that took place on 5 May 2007 at 7:30am at Cook and Phillip Park, Sydney. Lauren performed for an hour, improvising drum lines that ricocheted off buildings and business people as they walked to work. Lauren Brincat, a Sydney-based artist who emphasises that she cannot play the drums, is currently working in a more performative and sculptural manner, focussing on the preciousness and symbolic power of the drum kit. Sometimes this involves drum kits being exploded to smithereens. Her work also looks at the crossover of rock ‘n roll and painting, each of which are constantly being referred to as dead, but in fact are constantly being reinvented.

In 2008 Lauren won the Mosman Westpac art prize, and more recently her work was shown in the group exhibition Make a Scene at Anna Schwartz Gallery, Sydney. Lauren took part in the 2009 Splendid residency at Lismore Regional Gallery and was the recipient of the 2009 Helen Lempriere Travelling Scholarship.

We urge all of you to see this work, and to get a taste of the magnificent and majestic art that our artists are cooking up for the 2010 Festival.

On Now
Lauren Brincat’s Drum Riser, 2007
Until February 2010
Corner of La Trobe and Queen streets, Melbourne (Map)

And, new work forthcoming by Lauren …
In MONA FOMA
8 – 24 January 2010
PW1, Princes Wharf Shed Number 1
Sullivans Cove Tasmania

In the 2010 Next Wave Festival
15 – 30 May 2010
NO RISK TOO GREAT