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By: Kirsten Law
Date: 7th Feb 07
Medium: Installation
Drink: Anything, as long as you look good holding it
What:
Live Through This
Where:
Uplands Gallery, 251 Chapel Street, Prahran
When:
Runs until February 24. Tues-Sat 11am-5.30pm
How much:
Free
Contact:
9510 2374
Image by:
Image caption: Kain Picken and Rob McKenzie, Live Through This, Uplands Gallery, February 2007, image courtesy of the artist and Uplands Gallery
More than just a reference to Courtney Love’s angst-ridden 1994 album, Kain Picken and Rob McKenzie’s Live Through This explores the contemporary condition of mediating life’s experiences through various devices, as well as ideas surrounding notions of survival.
Posters made up of hundreds of images dominate the show: iPods display pictures of everything from sexually perverse acts to pop culture icons, and cats in various guises stand in for our senses of limitation or opportunity. Stolen bikes trigger a consideration of trust and Birth Control addresses population explosion and deep ecology.
Long-time collaborators and veterans of the Slave collective, Kain and Rob met at art school in 2001. Having shown around Australia and in New Zealand they now mount their first show as Uplands artists in the gallery’s new space on Chapel Street (it used to be where TCB is in the city). Rumour suggests that after this Rob will be concentrating on his other career (apprentice chef) for a while so working out how to open the front door at Uplands will be well worth your trouble.