Venereal Architecture

“Our exhibition, Venereal Architecture, is about the spaces we inhabit. As humans we are forever adapting and manipulating our environment to cope with the elements and creatures that share our spaces. We build structures that enclose and protect us from nature. Air conditioning controls the temperature and we domesticate animals so they can live with us. Our control over nature (or lack there of) is central to this body of work.

Lego and Ikea furniture are very similar in a sense: they are both objects of aspiration that require assembly. Lego, which we grew up with, represents the dreams and fantasies of a child; Ikea furniture, which has become so ubiquitous, represents the dreams and fantasies of an adult. By meshing these two objects together we can think about the gap between our fantastic dreams and our banal longings. Both products represent destruction and re-construction, which are concerns we revisit continually within our practice.

The wall works act as a counterpoint to a possible reading of the sculptural works as a simple man/nature dichotomy. The works represent our sublimated animal urges expressed through shopping. The Lego wall works are based on found screen shots from pornos that utilise Ikea furniture within their set design. The ubiquity and relative economy of Ikea furniture means that it was inevitable that the furniture should share the screen with actors in low budget skin flicks.

We believe that the combination of Ikea and sex is palpable. Visiting an Ikea showroom is a serious group-nesting experience: like giant bower birds, we carry around our blue object bag in the vague hope of getting laid if we curate the right combination of objects into our love-nests. The consumer experience must be the result of some natural urge gone slightly wrong”.

—Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro, 2014

—

Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro’s installation Life Span was part of the Australian representation at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009. In 2012 the Museum of Contemporary Art held a major survey show, which toured to the University of Queensland Art Museum. Other recent solo exhibitions include Are we there Yet? at the Corcoran Gallery, Washington DC (2011), PREMS at La bf15, Lyon (2009), The Paper Trail at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (2007), flatpack at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2006) and The Cordial Home Project, Artspace Sydney (2003). Healy and Cordeiro’s work has been included in numerous group exhibitions in Australia, Belgium, China, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, Turkey, Taiwan the United Kingdom and the United States. Their works are held in several important public collections including The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Newcastle Regional Art Gallery, The Art Gallery of South Australia and The University of Queensland Art Museum.