{"id":4693,"date":"2010-09-03T03:09:31","date_gmt":"2010-09-02T19:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/confronting-art-earns-graduates-cash\/"},"modified":"2022-12-07T13:06:32","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T05:06:32","slug":"confronting-art-earns-graduates-cash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/confronting-art-earns-graduates-cash\/","title":{"rendered":"Confronting art earns graduates cash"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Portion of a still shot from 'Gymnasium'<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The confronting art of two Curtin graduates has taken out a prestigious and lucrative art award in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

Tarryn Gill and Pilar Mata Dupont were recently awarded the Basil Sellers Art Prize for their video \u2018Gymnasium\u2019, receiving a cool $100,000 in the process.<\/p>\n

While Gill says receiving such good news usually leaves her in stunned silence, on this occasion her reaction differed when she received the phone call telling her of the victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was walking down the street in Melbourne and just burst into tears,\u201d Gill remembers with a laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought it was one of our friends playing a prank on us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gill says the pair will plow most of the winnings into new projects.<\/p>\n

\u2018Gymnasium\u2019 is a looped black-and-white film featuring several actors portraying athletes.<\/p>\n

The actors undertake various forms of repetitive, rhythmic exercises in a gym setting, from lifting weights to twirling calisthenics clubs.<\/p>\n

Gill says the work echoes that of the propaganda films of Leni Riefenstahl in Nazi Germany.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were looking at her camera techniques and it\u2019s in black and white as well, so stylistically it\u2019s a lot like what she did,\u201d Gill explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were interested in transposing that beautiful-yet-terrifying aesthetic onto Australian culture.”<\/p>\n

Gill says the art likens elements of Australian culture to some aspects of fascist dictatorships.<\/p>\n

“Also when the actors are doing the exercises they\u2019re all smiling, they\u2019re not breaking into a sweat, they\u2019re all looking happy,” she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of looking at the camaraderie and the focus and the determination that is all valued within sport arenas.<\/p>\n

“But the interest for us is that those same attributes are also strongly regarded in the military, as well as strength and strong minds and bodies.”<\/p>\n

Since graduating from Curtin in 2001, the duo has quickly climbed the Australian arts ladder, having had works displayed in prestigious exhibitions such as the Sydney Biennale.<\/p>\n

The Basil Sellers Art Prize is awarded every second year, and the victory came just after the pair had returned from working in Argentina.<\/p>\n

The prize was created by former Sydney Swans owner Basil Sellers to encourage Australian artists to incorporate sport themes into their work.<\/p>\n

For more information, head to sellersartprize.com.au<\/strong><\/a> or heartofgold.net.au<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Video art by two Curtin graduates wins prestigious $100,000 art award in Melbourne.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4275,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-4693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campus-and-global-community"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":false,"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":false,"author_meta":{"first_name":"Curtin","last_name":"University","display_name":"Curtin University"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-20 18:50:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4693"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=4693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}