Instagram story viewer> @davidantcross> Posts

David Cross

@davidantcross

1.4K

followers

1664

following

Artist, curator, @public_art_commission writer, exponent of keytar @messislawband Professor of Vis Art, Deakin University

POSTS STORIES REELS

Immensely saddened that my friend, colleague and PhD student Stephen Hennessy left us on Friday after a sustained battle with cancer. His capacity to make work, to reflect on his practice through writing and to submit his doctorate the week before Christmas was beyond Herculean. A wonderfully dexterous artist and thinker and a raconteur of the highest order, it was one of the great pleasures of my academic life to work with him. Here he is with his supervisory team @seanloughrey2018 at the exhibition opening 6 weeks ago. A remarkable life lived to the full. Godspeed Steve! X by @davidantcross

In case you ever wondered what Jean-Luc Godard’s studio looked like, Prada Foundation in Milan has the answer meticulously recreated. We had the same taste in floor lamps! by @davidantcross

Getting into the swing of the Erwin Wurm show in Venice with dexterous manouvers from @davidsequeirastudio and Ben O-Reilly. by @davidantcross

Venetian Kind, the third iteration in PAC’s long running public art project, unfolds this month in Venice with 20 artists working across film, design, visual arts, performance, dance, creative writing and new media.

Building on the collaborative experiments of 2019 and 2024 that saw 48 Australian artists make work in Venice, this version brings artists (from Australia, New Zealand / Aotearoa, Singapore and Italy) together, through a series of bespoke cultural vessels, prompts and provocations, activating Palazzo Mora and sites across the city. Working in two groups, they will problematise, problem-solve, perform, play and participate - making work in response to Venice’s histories, infrastructures, rituals and a precarity.

Led by Deakin University in collaboration with the European Cultural Centre (a host organisation for the Venice Biennale), IUAV University of Venice and the PerLa research group, Auckland University of Technology, and LASALLE College of the Arts, Venetian Kind asks what art might offer when problems, visibly so acute in Venice, such as climate, tourism, precarity, adaptation, and coexistence, are increasingly problems shared by all of us.

Twenty artists in October. A handful of prompts. And the proposition that communal acts of making might still help us rehearse ways of living differently.

@deakinuniversity @deakinartsed @ecc_italy @iuav_venezia @perla_performanceresearch @autuni @lasallesingapore by @davidantcross

Punk is Dad! by @davidantcross

My last three posts have straddled a new journal article (with Cam Bishop), a new inflatable art work and now a single drop with Mess Is Law. Still workshopping the Jack of all trades designation. The new track called Every Monument Will Fall is the latest single from us and the first track off our forthcoming album (yes vinyl) due in the first part of 2027. Sticking the veritable boot into colonial statues of ‘questionable status’, the song pays homage to Dan Hick’s book of the same name. Available to stream now on all the standard services, you can also play it loud and proud on our Bandcamp page in the link. If it tickles your palate we would be immensely grateful for you to keep the operation rolling with a gold coin donation. To celebrate the launch we are playing a Melbourne show on August 22 at The Old Bar on Johnson St Fitzroy from 3-6. Free entry. @ryanjames1221 @russellwscoones @davidattwood @messislawband by @davidantcross

"The very limited timescale of the work’s exhibition may suggest that its impact is overtly ephemeral, that it briefly resonates and recasts our understanding of place and community before flickering out. Yet such a perspective wilfully overlooks the capacity of dextrously constructed temporary public artworks to exceed their temporality, to continue to oscillate wildly and impact well after the project has officially concluded. The impact of temporary situated artworks can, of course, be greater simply for their inherent and circumscribed constraints, for the knowledge that their beauty, value and impact are based on a fleeting imperative of valuing what is here now rather than what will still be there over extended durations. This condition, we might describe as temporal intensity, prefaces the significance of encounter, of exchange, of dialogues that may continue to extend the artworks’ existence and agency for as long as audiences reflect on it and share their experiences."
-
New in British-based journal Art & the Public Sphere (Vol 14) from PAC's Cameron Bishop and David Cross is a reflection on the Treatment 3 project (2023). Highlighting commissioned work 'Tending a Line in the Year of the Rabbit' by Linda Tegg and other works from the project, the article investigates how notions of ephemerality in temporary public art projects are recast by the unforeseen interference of both natural and commercial forces.
-
Images: Linda Tegg, Tending a Line in the Year of the Rabbit (Treatment Public Art Project) 2023. Spotswood.
-
@bishopreis @davidantcross @maddieleachartist @rachel.jmorley by @davidantcross

In 2023 we staged the third edition of the Treatment public art project across Melbourne’s west. Featuring commissions that ran from the old Pumping station in Spotswood to the Western Treatment Plant in Werribee, Treatment 3 continued Public Art Commissions longstanding interest in water ecologies and the communities that sustain them. One of the commissioned works was Linda Tegg’s powerful ‘Tending a Line in the Year of the Rabbit, conceived for a vacant industrial lot in Spotswood. Cam Bishop and I are pleased to announce that our journal article about ‘Tending a Line’ and other works in the project has just dropped courtesy of British-based journal Art and the Public sphere. It’s Volume 14 numbers 1 and 2 in a double issue edited by Maddie Leach, Mick Wilson and Cathryn Kiasto. Huge thanks to the editors, Linda, and the Treatment artists. The article is free to download and can be accessed via the journal and publisher Intellect sites. @bishopreis @rachel.jmorley @maddieleachartist by @davidantcross

Thanks to everyone who came out to see Hidden at Civic Hall in Ballarat. Always a privilege to have new work commissioned and a few shots here of Pinky Promise’ which counter-intuitively is Orange! Some peeps took up the challenge of locking pinky fingers and staying within the lines. Others as you can see used their own interpretative powers! @anindita_banerjee_dita @creativecityballarat by @davidantcross

Lean by @davidantcross Creative Ballarat Presents HIDDEN
A three-day micro festival of inflatable art
10 Jul 2026 – 12 Jul 2026From 10–12 July, six local artists unveil large-scale inflatable works that invite you to wander, touch, listen and play. Guided by mentor Dr David Cross and brought to life by producers Mikael Abromowitch and Justin Weyers by @davidantcross

In 2019, I was invited to participate in a street art festival in Delhi. Most of the festival work was mural based and to this day I am unsure they realised what they were getting when I showed up with these mini inflatables and hit the streets. Trio is a performance installation for three performers and three participants. There are no instructions as such but the situational audience seem happy to cross the threshold and stick their head inside to see what is going on. They soon realise to keep this curious shrunken lounge room inflated they have to pump and it’s from this scenario that a non-verbal dialogue begins that can last an indeterminate time. As always interesting exchanges occur and these intimacy machines act as a conduit for sometimes rich and complex interchange. Some punters pump too hard and some seem happy to let the performer do the work. The perfect metaphor for social relations. While we don’t have this impressive building as a backdrop, Trio is getting another run at the Civic Hall this coming week as part of the Cit of Ballarat’s Hidden festival. If you can make it up the western highway come and stick your head in and say hi. But don’t forget to pump. by @davidantcross