Almost Always Everywhere Apparent
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Sonia Leber and David Chesworth
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August 11 – September 30, 2007
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Sound, video and installation artists Sonia Leber and David Chesworth will create a ‘polyphonic phantasmagoria’ at ACCA as the third annual Helen Macpherson Smith Commission recipients.
Human voices will resonate through a series of corridors, all leading into a central, cathedral-like space in what will be a major new work from these international, Melbourne-based artists.
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ACCA’s Artistic Director Juliana Engberg says: “Leber and Chesworth combine the ecclesiastical and the secular in this massive sound and structure project. Almost Always Everywhere Apparent collides the concepts of the ‘all seeing’ enlightenment with the prescient and primordial unseen. The audience will enter a heavenly chamber, or an earthly confinement, depending upon their own reactions to the space. Leber and Chesworth have been devoted to exploring the voice as an object in itself, broken free from its connection to the body and language”.
Using the human voice as its principal medium, Leber and Chesworth have created a fascinating body of work since first collaborating in 1996. A chorus of female voices called for attention from the pit of a subterranean toilet block in The Gordon Assumption (2004, as part of the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts), passers-by were beckoned, controlled and cajoled like a much-loved family pet from a wall in Canberra's City Walk (The Masters Voice, 2001), and a sonic corridor of human voices from 53 Commonwealth nations proclaimed culturally significant songs on Melbourne's William Barak Bridge (Proximities, 2006, in collaboration with Simeon Nelson).
Both artists have been focused on sound for many years. Chesworth began creating soundworks in 1978 with the experimental music outfit Essendon Airport at the Clifton Hill Community Music Centre. He is today a sought-after composer whose works and sound installations have been performed and exhibited extensively in Australia and overseas. Sonia Leber began using sound in her film and video works, and in 1994 curated the major sound art event Earwitness: Excursions in Sound for Melbourne's Contemporary Music Events.
Sonia Leber and David Chesworth are the third recipients of the Helen Macpherson Smith Commission, which has become one of the most significant and generous commissions in Australia. The partnership between ACCA and the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust offers Victorian artists the opportunity to create an ambitious new work of art, accompanied by an exhibition in ACCA’s exhibition hall.
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Sonia Leber and David Chesworth
Almost Always Everywhere Apparent
August 10 – September 30, 2007
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 111 Sturt Street, Southbank.
Gallery hours: Tuesday-Friday 10am–5pm. Weekends 11am-6pm. Mondays by appointment. Tel: 03 9697 9999. Admission: Free. www.accaonline.org.au
For further media information: Katrina Hall on 03 9697 9999,
mobile 0421 153 046 or email khall@accaonline.org.au
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