Adam Geczy

Biography

Geczy's undergraduate degree was in painting, after which he did Honours and a PhD in Art Theory (USyd) on the topic of the visual in Marcel Proust. After working in painting, printmedia and photomedia, in 1997 he turned to installation practice, strongly inflected by performativity. In 1997 he exhibited in the historical exhibition 'BODY' at the AGNSW, and in 2000 he was resident at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin. It was there that he began working with the electroacoustic composer Thomas Gerwin (formerly ZKM), with whom he has been working ever since. By this time two strands of his practice became apparent: one abstract and tactile, the other conceptual and political. It is this working across concerns and disciplines that he finds most stimulating. His collaborative practice developed with a series of national and international performance-based installations with Mike Parr in 2003–04 and, since 2002, an ongoing suite of works with Australia's foremost composer, Peter Sculthorpe. Several musical 'music+video' works, one involving a major sculptural installation, were included in the survey of 6 key Australian video artists, 'Video Logic', in 2008 at the MCA, Sydney.

The political side of his practice is evident not only the Geczy/Parr collaborations but also in works such as 'I Hate Australia' and the more recent collaborations with Aboriginal artist Adam Hill. In Ghent, Belgium in 2010 he conducted a performance and made an installation on the legacy of the Belgian Congo.

As a writer he is constantly engaged in contemporary discourse related to art and culture, and in support of younger artists. His fourth book won the CHOICE award for best art book of 2009. Current book projects include Orientalism and Fashion.

Research

Geczy's art practice covers the following media/concerns: the non-literal, aesthetic expression of socio-political dissent; electro-acoustic/electronic and classical/traditional music and its relationship to art, with an emphasis on video; video installation; multimedia and mixed media installation that also involves technology; performance art and performance leading to installation; urbanism; racial vilification and its positive aesthetic translation within art; subjective subjugation; cross-cultural collaboration; and cultural engagement.

The theoretical/written work is engaged in areas of art criticism and cultural discourse. It is also focused on art theory as it relates to art practice: on questions surrounding the art–research debate. Music and literature in relation to the arts are also ideas that constantly arise. A recent preoccupation has been fashion theory in Orientalism and in art generally. He is editing, with A/Prof Vicki Karaminas (UTS), a major anthology of essays on the crossovers between art and fashion (Berg Publishers, Oxford and New York).

Significant Exhibitions

Beautiful Cities, Art space Contemporary Art Centre, Sydney, 2012

Decapitated, Gyor Museum of Art, Hungary, 2011

Remember to Forget the Congo, Croxhapox, Ghent, Belgium, 2010

Of Art and Music, Perth Arts International Festival, John Curtin Gallery, 2009

Video Logic, MCA, Sydney, 2008

Farb-Laut, (Geczy/Gerwin) Galerie Tiergarten Mitte, Berlin, 2008

Video Sculptures, NOASS, Riga, Latvia, 2008

The Mass Psychology of Fashion, Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, Zip-a-dee-ay,
(Geczy/Parr) AGNSW Sydney, Monash Faculty Gallery, Melbourne, The First Dashanzi International Art Festival, Beijing, 2004

Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, AGSA, 2004

Film noir, politique blanche, (Geczy/Parr) Performance Space, Sydney, EAF, Adelaide, PICA, Perth, QCA Gallery Brisbane, 2003

Der Kabentanz, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin,2001

BODY, AGNSW, 1997

Significant Publications

(Forthcoming with Vicki Karaminas) Queer Style, London and New York: Berg/Bloomsbury, 2013

(Forthcoming) Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas eds., Fashion and Art, London and New York: Berg/Bloomsbury, 2012

Art: Histories, Theories and Exceptions, Berg,2008
ISBN:978845207007/9781845207014

Music+Video=I See Music, in Video Logic Catalogue, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2008, ISBN: 9781921034275

William Seeto: The Thingness of Light, Artspace, 2007 ISBN: 9781920781354

ReFraming Art (Carter and Geczy) UNSW/Berg, 2006 ISBN: 0868404314

Fatwhitestraightbaldguy, Performance Space, Sydney, 2006 ISBN: 0958961123

Here, There, Nowhere, Dead: Performance Art and the Cybernetic Involution,
Artspace, 2006 ISBN: 0958961123

The 2004 Sydney Biennale: Criticism, Engagement + Thought, (French, Geczy and Tsoutas (eds) Artspace, 2004 ISBN: 1920781102

Bleed Bled Said, (Storer, Geczy and Parr), Power Publications, 2003
ISBN: 1864875534

What is Installation? (Geczy and Genocchio [eds]), Power Publications, 2001
ISBN: 1864874309

'No Feeling', catalogue essay in Requiem Neue Galerie Graz and John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University of Technology, 2000 ISBN: 1863428585

Research Supervision

Heidi Abraham Algebra, PhD, 'The Reunion of Broken Parts'

Jasmine Powell, PhD, 'Society's Outsiders and Autobiographical Self-Fashioning'

Anton Pulvirenti, PhD, 'Internement Camps, Memory, Painting'

Andrew Lavery, PhD, 'Urbanism and Gentrification'

Mimi Kelly, PhD, 'Beauty-Ugly'

Ian Page, PhD, Art, 'Activism and Politics'

Jonathan McBurnie, PhD, 'Drawing in the era of the Contemporary'

Paul Mumme, PhD, 'The Absurd Absurd'

Markela Panegyres, PhD, 'The Scream'

Aleks Wansbrough, PhD, 'Nietzsche and the Tragic in Cinema'

Sam Doctor ,MVA, 'Labour/Repetition

Christine Simpson, MFA, 'The Pulse'

Bonita Bub, MFA, 'Painting in the era of Post-Painting'

Awards & Grants

2009-2010 CHOICE (USA) Best Art Book
2007–08 Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council Grant for New Work
2006 Power Institute of the University of Sydney Artist’s Residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (principal artist’s residency)

2005–06 Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council Grant for New Work
2003 New Media Board of the Australia Council Grant for New Work
2000–01 Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council Grant: Artist’s Studio Fellowship at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien

2001 VACB of the Australia Council Grant: Presentation and Promotion (with Trafó, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Budapest)

2001 Comprehensive support grant from the cultural body of Dresden/Saxony for exhibition at the Festspielhaus, Dresden-Hellerau

1998 Goethe-Institut Fellowship for Key Positions in the Arts
1997 Harri Jones Memorial Award for Poetry, University of Newcastle

Professional Memberships

Studies in Material Thinking Journal, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand Editorial adviser 2009–
Artspace Sydney Board member 2006–10
Broadsheet, Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia Editorial board 2005–
Art Asia Pacific (New York) Editor-at-large 2003

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