Ken Unsworth

Description

Ken Unsworth has had a prolific career spanning over six decades. He has been in more international biennales and museum exhibitions than any other Australian Artist. Yet in all that time he has never had a book written about his work and precious little in the way of critical texts. The only dedicated catalogue was produced in 1998 for an exhibition at the 'Art Gallery of New South Wales and in accordance with Ken's wishes we avoided heavy art historical texts, it was a modest record of the event. Having worked closely with Ken since 1978 when I commissioned him to make a public sculpture for Wollongong City Gallery I was honoured to have the opportunity to undertake this first book. I am also very grateful for ArtAnd Foundation undertaking to publish as I know that large monographic books are not easy.It was 1955 when Ken Unsworth first decided he was going to be an artist. Since then he has been constantly busy in the studio. Prior to 1967 he was mainly painting and drawing both of which he pursued with prolific ardour and still does so. However in 1967 he first ventured into sculpture and it was this that brought him to public attention. Since then his International reputation has largely centred on installation, performance and sculpture. For this book I have been keen to bring all the aspects of his work together and to show how certain key ideas inform everything he does. I have also been keen to bring in other voices and I am very grateful to Daniel Thomas, Rene Block, William Wright thanks to Hilarie Mais, Felicity Fenner, Anna Johnson and Jill Sykes for their contributions.