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Penelope Benton & Alexandra Clapham 'Great Expectations' (detail) 2014. Performance installation view, 'Day for Night', presented by Performance Space, Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, and Carriageworks. Image courtesy: the artist.
Exhibition

Penelope Benton: The Icing on the Cake

Penelope Benton: The Icing on the Cake
  • When 3 Mar - 15 Apr 2017
  • Where
    UNSW Galleries
  • Address
    Cnr Oxford St & Greens Rd Paddington NSW 2021
  • Hours
    Tues to Sat, 10am–5pm

Penelope Benton’s collaborative practice with her partner Alexandra Clapham explores the connections and tensions in their work and relationship in the context of the Queer Baroque, a term used to describe the intersection of similarities between Camp and Baroque cultural genres.

Throughout the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries, sugar played a leading role at baroque banquets in the form of decorative showpieces created to entertain and impress guests of the host. Adapting the idea of the 'showpiece' through the Queer Baroque, this exhibition presents work using still performance, video and installation. In this exhibition the baroque banquet table, a central motif in the artists’ collaborative practice, is presented as a platform (both literal and symbolic), able to engage with questions of taste, consumption, identity and difference. 

Penelope Benton works collaboratively with artist and partner Alexandra Clapham. Their practice incorporates performance, installation and other ephemeral mediums to explore the concept of the tableau vivant. 'The Icing on the Cake' investigates the tensions of their collaborative practice both in relation to their art-making and relationship.

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Penelope Benton Empress 2005-08 in Tableau Vivant 2013-17. Installation view, 'The Icing on the Cake', UNSW Galleries, 2017. Photograph: Silversalt Photography

 
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Penelope Benton Tableau Vivant 2013-17. Installation view, 'The Icing on the Cake', UNSW Galleries, 2017. Photograph: Silversalt Photography
 
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Penelope Benton Tableau Vivant 2013-17. Installation view, 'The Icing on the Cake', UNSW Galleries, 2017. Photograph: Silversalt Photography

 
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Penelope Benton Tableau Vivant 2013-17. Installation view, 'The Icing on the Cake', UNSW Galleries, 2017. Photograph: Silversalt Photography

 
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Penelope Benton Tableau Vivant 2013-2017. Installation view, 'The Icing on the Cake', UNSW Galleries, 2017. Photograph: Silversalt Photography

 
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Penelope Benton Great Expectations 2014–17. Installation view, 'The Icing on the Cake', UNSW Galleries, 2018. Photograph: Silversalt Photography

 
 

Public Program

Tableau Vivant: Performances

7pm Friday 3 March, UNSW Galleries
The Opening night tableau vivant performance features Anthony Aitch, Yasmina Black, Mat Hornby, Joy Ng and Latai Taumoepeau. 

10.15am Wednesday 15 March, UNSW Galleries
The second performance series features KoCo Carey, Kelli Jean Drinkwater, Samara Shehata, Justin Shoulder, and Matthew Stegh.