Anthropologist Of Avant-Garde

Inglewood-born artist Michael Stevenson is exhibiting at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art through June 19. Stevenson, who is based in Berlin, has been described as an ‘anthropologist of the avant-garde’. This exhibition is the first survey of his work. Stevenson’s work re-tells recent histories using allegory in and amongst historical fact. His work — paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations and film — utilises narrative forms that transform truth and fable. It engages with absurdities that arise when universal ideas relating often to culture or economics take hold in insular situations and seem to be both radical and perplexing.