The Huxleys are the recipients of the 2023 Wai Tang Commissioning award and will present a new body of work during the 2024 Bowness Photography Prize exhibition season. They responded to the commission with a new body of work that has all the hallmarks of the humour, wit and outrageousness we know and love them for.
For The Huxelys Bad sports (2024) reflects upon the ostracization you can feel when growing up in a country that values sporting achievement above all else. It can be a real struggle especially when you are a creative, shy queer kid searching for kindred spirits. A love of music, art, fashion and the dark underworld is perceived to be your eventual artistic salvation.
Bad sports seeks to capture the alienation, humour and abstraction that the Huxleys experienced growing up in this sunburnt country from the larrikins looking for a fair go, a guernsey and a winning streak. For the uncoordinated and uncooperative queer prisoner, the struggle is real.
Ferociously thrust into the floodlights of the playing field, Bad sports becomes a performative way for queer people at odds with sports to feel like they can ‘play’ figuratively, creatively and physically. To allow the ridiculous feats of fashions on the field to harmonise with The Huxleys gloriously ‘bent’ vision of the world. The Dadaist notion in full athletic prowess; a giant sequinned ball lunges for the ball in play. Art imitating sport: finally at peace with one another.
Curator: MAPh Director, Anouska Phizacklea
The Wai Tang Commissioning Award is supported by:
Kee Wong and Stacey Wang
MAPh Foundation
Image:
The Huxleys
Head Over Heels 2024
from the series Bad sports
pigment ink-jet print
collection of the artists
courtesy of the artists and Murray White Room (Melbourne)
Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh)
(Formerly Monash Gallery of Art)
860 Ferntree Gully Road
Wheelers Hill VIC 3150
T: +61 3 8544 0500
E: mga@monash.vic.gov.au
W: mga.org.au
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The Public Galleries Association of Victoria (PGAV) acknowledges the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the lands where our office is located, and all Traditional Owners of country throughout Victoria and Australia. We recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples enduring traditions and continuing creative cultures. We pay our respect to Elders past, present and emerging.
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