Kaldor Projects and Sydney Festival announce Project 28: Roman Ondák

Kaldor Public Art Projects is always worth getting excited about, and this one is no exception!

It was announced last week that Kaldor Projects is teaming up with the Sydney Festival to present ‘Project 28: Roman Ondák’ at Parramatta Town Hall from January 10 to 24, 2014.

The internationally acclaimed contemporary Slovakian artist Roman Ondák is known for his thoughtful and witty installation, performances, and interventions to public space.

Of the cultural contribution that Roman Ondák’s work will bring to western Sydney, John Kaldor (Director of Kaldor Projects) says: “It’s exciting to be bringing a significant exhibition by an international artist to the historic Parramatta Town Hill. I believe these works will appeal to the multi-cultural communities of western Sydney.”

The exhibition will feature three of his works, including Measuring the Universe which was recently shown at MoMA, New York and the TATE St Ives, England, and was met with critical and public acclaim. Measuring the Universe lets visitors leave their height and name on the gallery walls – reminiscent of childhood height charts. Over the two weeks of the exhibition, the height measurements and names accumulate into a mass of markings, creating a swarm pattern and distinctly tactile recording of visitors to the exhibition.

Viewers will also get another chance to take part in the work Swap, which was included in Kaldor’s last work in Sydney – ‘Project 27: 13 Rooms’, at Pier 2/3 earlier in the year. In Swap, a performer takes an object and invites visitors to swap it with anything else they have on them, and this continues throughout the exhibition. This creates an interactive and ongoing chain of exchange of everyday objects and personal belongings, challenging individuals’ relationship and feelings towards their possessions and the notion of value and exchange.

Project 28 will also see Ondák create a new work titled Terrace, and is a reproduction of his home terrace from Bratislava, Slovakia.

Roman Ondák’s poetic investigation of social and cultural conventions relies on visitors participation and will evolve over the duration of the show, engaging us in questioning our usual associations with objects, people, actions and ideas.

Don’t miss it!

Project 28: Roman Ondák
Parramatta Town Hall, Sydney
10 to 24 January, 2014

Images:

Measuring the Universe, 2007. View of the performance at Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich. Collection Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich and MoMA, New York.
Courtesy the artist, gb agency, Paris, Martin Janda, Vienna and Johnen, Berlin. Photo: Ernst Jank.

Measuring the Universe, 2007, at the Museum of Modern Art. Courtesy the Museum of Modern Art.