Untitled, 2014, by Dereck Kreckler
Single channel video installation, paper strip screen, electric fan.
Image courtesy the artist
DEREK KRECKLER (Australia, b. 1952) works in performance, video, sound and photography. His work is concerned with the present-time re-imagining of historical events. The starting point for his LANDSEASKY installation Littoral (2014) was a photograph by George Mortimer titled Big Wave Hunting (circa 1903). Kreckler’s reenactment results in footage of a coastline rock shelf, stormy horizon and tumbling waves. As a counterpoint to the dramatic excesses of the original site, the work has no sound, save the banal oscillating fan, a projection devoid of colour, and a horizon that cuts the vertical projection strips. The transgressive wave-line slices through the moving gaps of the screen to fall onto the surrounding walls creating a dynamic stenciled partial view.
Derek Kreckler has been exhibiting since 1977 working across performance, video, sound and photography, examining the transformation of modes of historical avant-gardism into the present. He has exhibited internationally, extensively throughout Australia including: 2004 Biennale of Sydney, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, the 2004 Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia, National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, 1992 PS1. New York, 1990 Biennale of Sydney; National Review of Live Art Glasgow, UK