Air Supplied doubles as an artbook and edited collection of critical essays on the work of Australian-based artist David Cross. Known for his practice with inflatable structures, his projects often draw audiences into unexpected situations and dialogues. Working across performance/participatory art and object-based environments, Cross has developed a unique body of work that focuses on relationships between pleasure, the grotesque, and phobia. His curious architectural structures, which often resemble children’s funhouses, draw participants into physically and psychologically complex scenarios. While often large in scale, these structures at the same time create a framework around which ideas of intimacy and haptic experience can be negotiated and challenged. Since 2011 Cross has begun to work increasingly in the public sphere, developing works that navigate the relationship between sport, collective decision making, and sensory deprivation. Capturing work since 2005 that was produced in Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, and Australasia, Air Supplied features a survey essay by New Zealand-based Martin Patrick, an interview with the artist, and eleven commissioned essays on each of the artworks. The publication also includes a separate booklet of field notes by the artist, capturing reflections on each of the works.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Cross is as an Australian-based artist, curator, and writer whose practice extends across performance, installation, sculpture, public art, and video. Known for his examination of risk, pleasure and participation, Cross often utilises inflatable structures to negotiate inter-personal exchange. He has performed in international live art festivals in Poland and Croatia and was selected as a representative at both the 2011 and 2015 Prague Quadrennials. Cross was commissioned by the National Institute of Experimental Art/City of Sydney to develop Drift, a large-scale public art commission for Taylors Square in Sydney (2011). His work Hold was selected for inclusion in Liveworks at Performance Space, Sydney in 2010 and featured as part of the Arts House season in the Melbourne International Festival in October 2012. More recently he was commissioned by MCA Sydney Deputy Director and Scape 7 curator, Blair French, to develop Level Playing Field, a temporary intervention that fused sport, performance, and sculpture for Scape 7 in Christchurch, a work that also toured four cities in France in 2016 as part of the L’Entorse festival of art and sport. As a curator and public art facilitator, he developed with Claire Doherty the One Day Sculpture project across New Zealand in 2008/9 featuring 30 international artists, including Thomas Hirschhorn, Superflex, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Paula Pivi and Iteration:Again: 13 Public Art Projects Across Tasmania, examining the idea of repetition and transformation in temporary public art. He is Professor of Art and Performance at Deakin University, Melbourne, and you can learn more about him at David Cross: Artist.

This book is included in DOAB.