Reko Rennie has been awarded the second Artbank + ACMI Commission. The artist will receive $70,000 to make a new video work titled What Do We Want.
On receiving the award the artist said, “This commission is an amazing opportunity to create a new work that I’ve wanted to make for some time and I look forward to sharing it with you.”
Rennie’s Artbank + ACMI Commission will debut at ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) in Melbourne in 2020.
“Reko Rennie is a vital voice at the forefront of Australian contemporary art and we are thrilled to award Reko the Artbank + ACMI Commission, providing him with the support to pursue and extend his practice,” said ACMI’s director and CEO Katrina Sedgwick. “Reko’s probing cinematic artworks defy categorisation and it’s exactly these types of works that the Artbank + ACMI Commission was designed for.”
Artbank’s assistant director Emma Crimmings said, “Set in a dojo studio and paying homage to Blaxploitation films of the 70s, What Do We Want is a highly stylised and choreographed examination of urgent questions facing Aboriginal people today.”
The aim of the Artbank + ACMI Commission is to support innovative works that blur the boundaries between film and art. The inaugural $70,000 commission went to Zanny Begg for her video installation The Beehive, 2018.
The Artbank + ACMI Commission is a three-year-long initiative.
ACMI is currently closed for renovations and will reopen in mid 2020.
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