Angelica Mesiti: The Rites of When

(Hardback)

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Angelica Mesiti is one of Australia's leading contemporary artists. Celebrated for her distinctive moving-image and sound-based works, the Sydney-born, Paris-based artist explores individual and communal forms of expression, ranging from sign language, choreographic gesture, Morse code and whistling to ancestral musical traditions, body percussion and communication between non-human species.

The Rites of When, Mesiti's first solo exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, pays tribute to ritual practices of seasonal renewal, both ancient and contemporary. The monumental, sevenchannel video installation - comprising two sweeping movements that conjure hibernal (winter) and aestival (summer) solstice celebrations - is an immersive reflection upon the age-old and continuing relationship between humankind, the natural world and the cosmos. With choreographed performance, new music compositions and soaring aerial views, The Rites of When offers a vision of an enmeshed world and the renewal of hope.

Published in association with the eponymous exhibition, Angelica Mesiti: The Rites of When documents the second major commission for the post-industrial Tank space at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Richly illustrated with video stills from Mesiti's captivating and cinematic video installation, it features a new essay by Isobel Parker Philip and interview by Beatrice Gralton, cocurators of the exhibition. An additional visual section illuminates the influences that shaped the work.

Author Bio

Angelica Mesiti is an Australian artist who was born in 1976 in Sydney and currently lives and works in Paris, where she is a studio professor at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. Her multi-channel sound, performance and video installations have been internationally recognised through major exhibitions, significant commissions and awards. In 2019, she represented Australia at the 58th Venice Biennale with the three-channel video installation ASSEMBLY, exploring notions of plurality and non-linguistic communication that have become the hallmark of her work. In addition to Venice, Mesiti has participated in the Busan, Adelaide, Sydney, Istanbul, Sharjah, Kochi-Muziris and TarraWarra biennials, and the Aichi and Auckland triennials. From 2000 to 2010, she was a member of the Sydney-based four-person collective The Kingpins, known for their music video-like performances and video installations.



Beatrice Gralton is the senior curator of contemporary Australian art and the Brett Whiteley Studio at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. With over twenty years in Australian and international art museum roles, Gralton has extensive collection, exhibition, commissioning and publishing experience. At the Art Gallery, she has curated Brett Whiteley: Inside the Studio (touring 2024-25), Brett Whiteley: Chapters 1959-69 (2023-24), Brett Whiteley: Eternity is Now(2022-23) and The National 4: Australian Art Now (2023). As head curator of visual art (201720) and curator of visual art (2012-17) at Carriageworks, Sydney, Gralton was responsible for major multidisciplinary projects, performances and exhibitions. She has held curatorial roles at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, Washington, DC (2008-12) and the National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra (1999-2007), and was the manager of cultural affairs at the Embassy of Australia, Washington, DC (2007-08). Gralton has lectured and published widely on Australian and international art.

Isobel Parker Philip is director, curatorial and collection at the National Portrait Gallery, Kamberri/Canberra. She was previously the senior curator of contemporary Australian art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, where she curated exhibitions including Hoda Afshar: A Curve is a Broken Line (2023-24) and, with Erin Vink, the Art Gallery's curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, Daniel Boyd: Treasure Island (2022-23). She has independently curated exhibitions in a range of institutional contexts, most recently Garden Variety: Photography, Politics and the Picturesque at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria for the PHOTO 2021 International Festival of Photography. Parker Philip sits on the board of Murray Art Museum Albury (MAMA). Her writing has been published extensively.