Nicholas Mangan
- For as long as I can remember, I have been pulling things apart – attempting to understand them – and then putting them back together (but not always in the same way). My practice is driven by the desire to make sense of the world by unpacking histories and possible narratives that surround specific contested sites and objects. This investigation explores the unstable relationship between culture and nature, evidencing the flows of matter, energy and ideologies that are produced through the tension of these two realms. A disputed tropical mine, a bankrupted island nation, a geological sample of the earliest earth crust, discarded tourist souvenirs and the remnants of a demolished architectural icon have each lent material to this process of dissection and reconfiguration. By rerouting these events, stories and objects, new forms and latent narratives are unearthed. Recent projects have utilised a confluence of film and sculpture as an agent for both formal and metaphorical excavation.
- Born 1979 Geelong, Victoria, Australia.
- Lives and works in Melbourne, Australia.
Education
- 2015–Current
- Senior Lecturer, Higher Degree Research Supervisor & Honours Coordinator, Monash University,
Department of Fine Arts
- 2015
- PhD in Fine Arts, Monash University, Melbourne
- 2007–2008
- UDK, Berlin, Germany
- 2001
- Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art), Victorian College of the Arts
Selected Solo Exhibits
- 2020
- Termite Economies: Phase 3, Labor, Mexico City, Mexico
- Termite Economies: Neural Nodes and Root Causes, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
- 2019
- Termite Economies, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), Perth, Australia
- 2018
- Termite Economies: Phase 2 (Metabolic Shift), Mossman, Wellington, New Zealand
- Termite Economies: Phase 1, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
- 2017
- Limits to Growth, Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, New Zealand
- Limits to Growth, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany
- 2016
- Limits to Growth, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia
- Brilliant Errors, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
- Ancient Lights, Labor, Mexico City, Mexico
- 2015
- Other Currents, Artspace, Sydney, Australia
- Ancient Lights, Chisenhale Gallery, London, United Kingdom
- 2012
- Some Kinds of Duration, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Australia
- 2011
- Let’s Talk about the Weather, Y3K, Melbourne, Australia
- 2010
- Nauru, Notes from a Cretaceous World, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
- 2009
- Between a rock and a hard place, Level 2 Project Space, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
- 2008
- Misplaced / Displayed Mass- A1 Southwest Stone, Studio 12, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne, Australia
- A1 Southwest Stone, Sutton gallery project space Melbourne, Australia
- 2007
- Comparative Material, Projects @ 230 Young Street Fitzroy / Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
- 2006
- The Mutant Message, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
- 2005
- The Colony, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne, Australia
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
- 2022
- MCA Collection: Perspectives on place, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia
- 2021
- This brittle light: Light Source commissions 2020-2021, Buxton Contemporary, Melbourne, Australia
- A Biography of Daphne, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia
- trust & confusion, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong
- Eucalyptusdom, Powerhouse Museum, Ultimo, Australia
- 2020
- TOWARDS REGROWTH, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
- On Celestial Bodies, Arter, Istanbul, Turkey
- The Penumbral Age: Art in the Time of Planetary Change , Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland
- 2019
- The Posthuman City, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore
- Antipodean Stories, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milano, Italy
- Werethings, Galeria Plan B, Berlin, Germany
- D.E.E.P. (Disaster of Extra Epic Proportions) in The Mesh, an exhibition coproduced by chi K11 Art
Museum and NOWNESS, Shanghai, China
- Capital, National Centre for Photography as part of the Ballarat international Foto Biennale, Ballarat, Australia
- Pictures and Words, Bus Projects, Melbourne, Australia
- 2018
- Let’s Talk About the Weather: Art and Ecology in a Time of Crisis, Guangdong Times Museum,
Guangzhou, China
- 74 million million million tons, Sculpture Centre, New York, USA
- A World Undone, 21st Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
- Unthought Environments, The Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, USA
- 2017
- être pierre, Musée Zadkine, Paris, France
- Manipulate the World, Morderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
- The National 2017: new Australian art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
- Out of the ordinary, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
- Human/Animal/Artist, McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
- 4.543 BILLION. The Matter of matter, CAPC, Bordeaux, France
- 2016
- Imagine the Present, curated by Abby Cunnane, St Paul St. Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
- Riddle of the Burial Grounds, curated by Tessa Giblin, Extra City, Antwerpen, Belgium
- Let’s Talk About the Weather: Art and Ecology in a Time of Crisis, Curated by Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez and Nora Razian, Sursock Museum, Sursock, Beirut, Lebanon
- Neriri Kirurur Harara, SeMa Biennale Curated by Beck Jee-sook, Mediacity Seoul, South Korea
- Gwangju Biennale: the Eight Climate (What Does Art Do?), Gwangju, curated by Maria Lind, South Korea
- Beyond 2 degrees, curated by Brooke Kellaway, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, USA
- 2015
- The Biography of Things, Curated by Hannah Mathews and Annika Kristensen, Australian Centre of for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
- Riddle of the Burial Grounds, curated by Tessa Giblin, Project Arts Centre, Dublin, Ireland
- Surround Audience, New Museum Triennial, Curated by Lauren Cornell and Ryan Trecartin, New York, USA
- Concrete, Curated by Geraldine Barlow, Tophane-i Amire, Culture and Arts Center Mimar Sinan Fine Art University, Istanbul, Turkey
- Rocks, Stones, and Dust, Curated by John G. Hampton, University of Toronto Art Centre, Canada
- Art in the age of… curated by Defne Ayas, Natasha Hoare, Samuel Saelemakers, With De withe, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
- 2014
- Octopus 14: Nothing Beside Remains, curated by Tara McDowell, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, Australia
- Concrete, curated by Geraldine Barlow, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia
- Thinking About Building, Curated by Melanie Oliver, The Physics Room, Christchurch, New Zealand
- Creative Suite, Square2, Curated by Andie Bell, City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand
- Anthropocene Monument, curated by Bruno Latour and Bronislaw Szerszynski, Les Abattoirs, Toulouse, France
- 2013
- Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
- Weather Permitting, 9th Bienal do Mercosul, Curated by Sofia Hernandez Chong Cuy, Porto Alegre, Brazil
- Mom, am I a barbarian?, 13th Istanbul Biennial, Curated by Fulya Erdemci, instabul, Turkey
- Living in the Ruins of the Twentieth Century, curated by Adam Jasper and Holly Williams UTS Gallery, Sydney
- Courtesy of the artist, curated by Alexandra Baudelot, CNEAI, Paris, France
- Regimes of Value, curated by Elizabeth Gower, Margaret Lawrence Gallery and The Substation, Melbourne, Australia
- Third/Fourth: Melbourne artist facilitated Biennial, Curated by Christopher L.G Hill, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, The University of Melbourne, Australia
- 2012
- Art & Australia Collection 2003–2013, Newcastle Art Gallery, New South Wales, Australia
- Negotiating This World: Contemporary Australian Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
- Running on Pebbles: through-lines with incidents and increments, Curated by Allan Smith, The Snakepit, Auckland, New Zealand
- Sinking Islands, Curated by Vincent Normand, Labor, Mexico City, Mexico
- 2011
- Talking Pictures, Curated by Melanie Oliver Artspace, Sydney, Australia
- The Edge of the Universe (Part II), Curated by Danny Lacy, Shepparton Art Gallery Victoria, Australia
- Networks (cells & silos), curated by Geraldine Barlow, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia
- 2010
- 2010 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Before & After Science, curated by Charlotte Day and Sarah Tutton, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
- Event Horizon, curated by Mark Feary, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Australia
- The woods that see and hear, Curated by Sarah Farrer, Dertien Hectare, Heeswijk, The Netherlands
- 2009
- West Brunswick Sculpture Triennial, Ocular Lab and various venues around Brunswick, Melbourne, Australia
- 2008
- Y2K Melbourne Biennial, TCB art inc., Melbourne, Australia
- The Ecologies Project, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia
- Fictions, curated by Kirrily Hammond, Monash University, Museum of Art touring exhibition, Switchback Gallery, Gippsland Centre for Art and Design, Australia
- TarraWarra Biennial 2008: Lost & Found, an Archaeology ofthe Present, curated by Charlotte Day, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healesville, Australia
- Lucky Number Seven, SITE Biennial 2008, Curated by Lance Fung, SITE Santa Fe, USA
- Revolving Doors, an exhibition in memory of Blair Trethowan, Uplands Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
- The Shadow Cabinet, the second phase of ‘Master Humphrey’s Clock’, curated by Yulia Aksenova, Jesse Birch, Sarah Farrar, Inti Guerrero and Virginija Januskeviciute, de Appel Arts Centre, The Netherlands
- 2006
- Super Natural, Curted by Emily Cormack, The Physics Room, Christchurch, New Zealand
- Adventures with Form in Space, The Fourth Balnaves Foundation Sculpture Project, Curated by Wayne Tunnicliffe, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
- Uncanny Nature, Curated by Rebecca Coates, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia
- 2004-2005
- Molecular History of Everything, curated by Juliana Engberg, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia
- 2004
- Australian Culture Now, The Ian Potter Centre: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
- Primavera,curated by Vivienne Webb, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia
- Work in progress, curated by Hannah Matthews, Spacement, Melbourne, Australia
- Carbon Copy and Giant Molecules, curated by John Nicholson, Penthouse and Pavement, Melbourne, Australia
- Pure Negativity, Westspace, Melbourne, Australia
: Mutable Spaces, curated by Josh Milani, Metro Arts, Brisbane, Australia