A Sensory Overload of the Beautiful and Bizarre

Allegoria Sacra, the monumental new video work by celebrated international collective AES+F, will make its Australian premiere at a free outdoor screening at the Art Gallery of South Australia on North Terrace as part of the Adelaide Fringe opening night celebrations.

Art Gallery of SA Director Nick Mitzevich describes Allegoria Sacra as, “A digitally animated collage, comprised of thousands of photographs, which bombards the senses and offers a potent allegory of contemporary culture.”

Set in an international airport; the protagonists are suspended in time and place – purgatory. Here they wait, united by their desire to move from one world to another, yet remain detached and self-absorbed, like the figures in the iconic Giovanni Bellini painting of the same name.

Futuristic scenarios, images of idealised beauty, youth, style, progress and wealth, and the fusion of historical with the contemporary seduce the viewer. Painterly compositional devices, particularly those of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque traditions, provide the structural basis and visual splendour of individual frames.

AES+F draw on varied references, from religious symbolism to Delacroix’s orientalism and 1960s sci-fi cinema, but the social issues that sustain the work are drawn from the present. The viewer is ultimately left to question whether humanity can return to something more pure.

Allegoria Sacra will be screened outdoors for one night only, 9.30pm Friday 24 February.. Following the opening the work will be exhibited in Gallery 15 throughout the Fringe season.

Don’t forget to check out our Adelaide Fringe mini-site and the Adelaide Fringe homepage.

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