Course

Jan Svenungsson and Tom Nicholson.

Invitation

Tom Nicholson and Jan Svenungsson. The exhibition "course" brings together works by Swedish artist Jan Svenungsson, and Melbourne-based artist Tom Nicholson.

Jan Svenungsson

Svenungsson brings his work 'Newshour' to Melbourne, a video work made in response to the days leading up to the invasion of Iraq and last exhibited at the Berlin Art Forum.  Based on an hour-long jogging session through Berlin, where he lives, this work draws out the relationship between the daily encounter with an urban environment and the meaning of international events – their distance and urgency. For the exhibition at Ocular Lab, he has also produced a drawing related to the video work.Tom Nicholson exhibits a large-scale wall text – produced over a two week period leading up to the exhibition – and images from his most recent series of banner marches, "Marches for a May Day", undertaken in the lead up to May Day in Sydney this year.The exhibition is the result of the ongoing artistic exchange between Svenungsson and Nicholson, begun in 2002 when both were living in Berlin.  The dialogue between them regarding this exhibition will also be part of the exhibition. Svenungsson has exhibited extensively in Europe, including his native Sweden and Germany, where he has lived for the last decade.  He was included in a survey of contemporary Scandanavian art at the Hamburger Bahnhoff in Berlin in 2003.  He currently lives in Berlin.

Nicholson's recent exhibitions include 'NEW04' at ACCA, '2004: Australian Culture Now' at the NGV (with Raafat Ishak), and 'From Place to Space' at PICA in 2005.  He is a finallist in the Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture, which is to be staged at Federation Square in October this year.  He currently lives in Melbourne.