The Stand Ups I Bus Projects, Naarm (Melbourne)

 

Cybele Cox, Dean Cross, Chris Dolman, EJ Son, Melanie Jame Wolf 

curated by Elyse Goldfinch 

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The Stand Ups brings together five artists whose works deal directly or indirectly with notions of humour. The exhibition considers how artists can use humour as a methodology to subvert traditional forms of power, language and self.

 

Jokes have long played a fundamental civic function: to ridicule the powerful is a universal desire. In the current political climate, comedy and satire are readily used as forms of communication, entertainment and public address. Humour can also be inherently internalised and self-deprecating, operating as a coping mechanism to deal with anxiety, failure and loss. The Stand Ups will explore humour through the complexity of its rhetoric, delivery and form.

 

Comedy often acts as a vehicle for criticism and persuasion. The exhibition will also comprise of a public program in the form of a stand up set with emerging comedians to deconstruct the role of humour in the everyday and explore how audiences can understand themselves to be fabricated through comedy.

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