David Noonan "Kabarett keif" Solo Exhibition

Neither entirely in memory, nor in dreams, nor in reality, these image paintings measure 150x200 cm (2007). David Noonan's solo exhibition "Kabarett keif" was on display at Art:concept Gallery from January 26 to March 8. Born in 1969, David Noonan is one of Australia's most representative contemporary artists. I visited his solo exhibition at Palais de Tokyo Contemporary Art Museum last May and was deeply impressed by his multi-collage photocopied image paintings. Seeing his solo exhibition titled "Kabarett keif" again now, the title evokes German 1930s popular farces and cabarets, within a world of avant-garde and experimental ambiguity that is extraordinary. In the first exhibition room, Noonan places images in a theater-like space, laying flat a square straw mat with a double-image figure dressed like an actor in black-and-white stripes standing upright at one end; the relationship between this physical action and structure reinforces each other materially and spatially. In the second room, a series of multi-collage photocopied image paintings connects to the artist's past life experiences, drawing on figures from theater and film. By appropriating these images and exploring narrative possibilities through collage and overlapping multiple image prints, he investigates abstract constructions of realistic possibilities, aiming to reveal alternative possibilities amidst contradictions—neither entirely in memory, nor in dreams, nor in reality—achieving his distinctive artistic style characterized by theatricality.