Heide Museum of Modern Art

The art of existence

Les Kossatz

22 November - 8 March 2009

Venue: Heide III: Central Galleries

The art of existence is a major survey exhibition that reviews the 40 year career of artist Les Kossatz. A practitioner who has worked in painting, stained glass, sculpture, printmaking, drawing and installation, Kossatz has taken a consistently experimental approach to media and techniques.

Spanning the 1960s to today, the exhibition presents wide-ranging examples of the artist’s work. These include his early success with pop-style paintings on the subject of disenfranchised war veterans and the symbolism of memorabilia, as well as the celebratory lights and flags of the 1960s. Recent sculptures reflect Kossatz’s sharp observations of society, through various travel objects, tools of trade, religious iconography, organisational symbols and scientific knowledge.

Visitors will recognise the familiar life-size sheep sculptures and maquettes for large-scale commissions featured in the gallery spaces and outside in the Connie Kimberley Sculpture Park, along with two and three-dimensional works inspired by the artist’s surrounding environment.

Bringing together over 100 works sourced from public and private collections throughout Australia, the exhibition conveys Kossatz’s multifarious creative interests: his life-long fascination with the natural world and desire to understand both its human and animal inhabitants; exploration of the systems of knowledge and codes of behaviour that structure individual and communal life; and his critical and playful reflections on contemporary behaviour and the mysteries of existence.

For more information, read The art of existence, Les Kossatz media release.

GOVERNMENT PARTNER

Indemnification for this exhibition is
provided by the Victorian Government