Tarryn GILL and Pilar MATA DUPONT, Gymnasium, 2010. Single channel HD video with sound, 3:52 minutes, edition 10 of 10. Purchased 2012. Image courtesy of the artists, Moore Contemporary and Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert.
Boola Katitjin - Level 4, Breezeway South (on rotation)
Tarryn GILL
Born 1981 Perth, Western Australia
Lives and works Perth, Western Australia
Pilar MATA DUPONT
Born 1981 Perth, Western Australia
Lives and works Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Tarryn Gill and Pilar Mata Dupont are Western Australian born artists who work across photography, film, performance, set and costume design. The two artists have collaborated on numerous projects including this award-winning video.
In Gymnasium, twenty fresh-faced athletes perform synchronised routines in a gymnasium setting. Their movements are rhythmical and repetitive, like clockwork. Through this artwork, the artists investigate how many of the same qualities valued in sport such as camaraderie, focus and control, and submissive behaviour, are also valued in militarised societies. Gill and Mata Dupont thus link the sporting field to the battlefield as a location of patriotism and national pride.
The artists elegantly and humorously explore the use of a fascist aesthetic, as seen in the propaganda films of Leni Riefenstahl from the 1930s and Chinese revolutionary ballets of the 1960s, to reveal similarities in the sporting arena. This work reflects on Australia's national obsession with sport and tendency to embody our collective character in national teams and alludes to the danger that this carries with it - the risk of mob politics.