MCA Australia presents Past Continuous, by acclaimed Australian artist Julie Rrap

Julie Rrap (b. 1950, Widjabul Wia-bal Country/Lismore) has been a major figure in Australian contemporary art for over 40 years. Since the mid-1970s, Rrap has used photography, video, performance, sculpture, and drawing, to examine representations of the female body in art and popular culture over time, often using her own body as the subject.

Julie Rrap: Past Continuous at MCA Australia presents the artist’s landmark installation Disclosures: A Photographic Construct (1982) from the MCA Collection, in dialogue with new and recent works of video, sculpture, and photography, using the artist’s body 42 years later. This exhibition is part of an ongoing program that presents new work by living Australian artists drawing upon emblematic works in the MCA Collection.

Disclosures propelled Rrap’s artistic career in an ongoing examination of the over-observed and objectified young female body in western art history and mass media. In recent years, Rrap has reflected on the invisibility of the aging female body and how we look or look away when confronted by certain bodies.

New works in the exhibition consider the body through time, addressing both its strengths and vulnerabilities. They continue Rrap’s motifs of layering, mirroring, and doubling that are characteristic of her oeuvre, with new video works featuring self-portraits from Disclosures, four decades on.

A key theme of Rrap’s work is the body in action. The multichannel video projection Drawn In (2024) documents the physical gestures of drawing the body with charcoal to reference a long history of the naked body posing for life drawing classes. With three Go-Pro cameras strapped to the artist’s body, she undertakes a test of endurance through self-documentation. Similar to Disclosures, the model becomes the active agent of this scenario, acting as both model and artist.

Curator Lucy Latella notes, ‘The relationship of the viewer to the artwork remains a central concern of Julie Rrap’s practice. Extending the performative nature of her artmaking, Rrap considers how her work might engage an audience so that their role is ‘implicated in the interpretative process’. Rrap’s works can act as a mirror to our personal and societal biases and reveal our relationship to our own humanness.’

Artist Plus One: Julie Rrap and Drusilla Modjeska
29 June 2024, 2–3pm

Join a conversation between acclaimed artist Julie Rrap and writer Drusilla Modjeska on the opening weekend of Julie Rrap: Past Continuous. Together, they will discuss Rrap’s creative process and historical positions of women artists, followed by a Q&A. Visitor advisory: This talk may contain mature references and imagery.
Ticket price: General admission $21.95, Concession $16.85, tickets available at mca.com.au.

Curator Talk: Julie Rrap
27 July 2024, 2–2.30pm

Join exhibition curator Lucy Latella to gain insight into Julie Rrap: Past Continuous and learn behind-the-scenes details of key works.
Free

Julie Rrap: Past: Continuous is curated by Lucy Latella, MCA Australia Assistant Curator. This exhibition is kindly supported by Create NSW through the New Dimensions: NSW Visual Arts (Established) Fellowship.

Julie Rrap: Past Continuous is open at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia from 28 June 2024 until 16 February 2025.