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A lifelike mannequin with curly hair, wearing a tan trench coat and sneakers, stands on a pedestal in a dimly lit modern art gallery with various artworks and displays in the background.

No one is watching you: Ronnie van Hout

When

This exhibition has now ended.

Location

Buxton Contemporary Corner Southbank Boulevard & Dodds Street, Southbank. The University of Melbourne, Melbourne

This ironically titled exhibition shone a spotlight on Ronnie van Hout, a Melbourne-based New Zealand-born artist best known for his distinctive brand of existential absurdism. Bringing together works that span more than thirty years of practice, No one is watching you: Ronnie van Hout encompassed sculpture, video, photography, embroidery and text, and features major new installations.

Van Hout’s tragicomic oeuvre references a wide range of sources, from science fiction, cults and cinema to art history and popular and celebrity culture. He frequently draws upon childhood experiences and recollections to create wryly amusing yet heart-rending micro fictions. Casting fragile, lonely figures in the midst of perplexing scenarios, van Hout masterfully evokes familiar and yet strange interior worlds. His unsettling tableaux unleash deep social anxieties and feelings of self-consciousness, triggering the impulse to simultaneously laugh and cry.

The multitude of protagonists populating van Hout’s work includes figures from pop culture, peculiar everymen and wicked self-portraits. The latter appear to theatrically seize the artistic limelight while at the same time attempting to elude its searching glare. Van Hout’s practice deliberately blurs the boundaries between self and other, artist and audience, tragedy and farce, at once humorously and poignantly exploring powerful sensations of the contemporary human condition.

Curated by Melissa Keys.

Gallery

A child-sized mannequin in pajamas and animal print shoes stands in a gallery, pointing toward the camera. On the wall are bold black letters reading “NO ONE IS WATCHING YOU” and “RONNIE VAN HOUT.”.
Two realistic, life-sized sculptures in a dimly lit room: one of a person lying down in striped pajamas, and another standing in blue pajamas with a sling on their arm, gazing upward with a solemn expression.
A dimly lit gallery displays several life-sized nude sculptures, some wearing helmets and holding weapons. Figures stand or pose on various pedestals, with a video projection of a hooded person on the far wall.

Exhibition Catalogue

A realistic sculpture of a solemn-faced person with reddish hair is shown in front of a white wall. Bold text above reads, NO ONE IS WATCHING YOU, and below says, RONNIE VAN HOUT.

No one is watching you: Ronnie Van Hout

Spanning more than three decades of Ronnie van Hout’s protean practice, No one is watching you: Ronnie van Hout brings together almost 80 artworks in the most comprehensive presentation of his work ever seen in Australia.

Contributors: Russell Smith and Melissa Keys.

Foreward by Ryan Johnston.

Publication is sold out and out of print.

Read more


Access

Download wall labelsPDF (188 KB)

Supporters

No one is watching you: Ronnie van Hout is presented in association with Melbourne International Arts Festival.

  1. Banner Image:

    Installation view, No one is watching you: Ronnie van Hout, Buxton Contemporary, the University of Melbourne 12 July – 21 October 2018, with Punk on a bed, 2015, photography Christian Capurro