Ben Apfelbaum

NICHOLAS MANGAN : A WORLD UNDONE : THE NEW EXHIBITION @ THE MCA AUSTRALIA

Celebrated works by an artist pushing sculpture to new limits, the new exhibition at
The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia) is NICHOLAS MANGAN : A WORLD UNDONE.

Curated by MCA Australia’s Anneke Jaspers and Anna Davis, this exhibition brings together eight of the artist’s expansive sculptural projects that consider our relationship to the natural world, culminating with his latest work, Core-Coralations (2021–ongoing), inspired by the history and health of the Great Barrier Reef.

Other highlights include Ancient Lights (2015), a video that reflects on our connection to the sun, powered by an off-grid solar array on the Museum’s roof; Limits to Growth (2016–21), which compares Bitcoin with Rai, an ancient form of stone money from the Pacific; and Termite Economies (2018–20), a series of sculptures that evoke non-human labour and social organisation.

The exhibition is on show at the MCA Australia until 30 June 2024.

Artist Nicholas Mangan
Anneke Jaspers, Anna Davis – Curators

 

Featured image : artist Nicholas Mangan. Text and pics by Ben Apfelbaum

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborlang. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, United States, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication. To celebrate the opening of a permanent Photography Gallery, the State Library of New South Wales selected 400 shots from its archive of over 2,000,000 images to display in the new gallery. An image of mine was plucked out of the multi million photo archive to be part of the inaugural exhibition.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.