The creative team behind Dark Mofo's most popular performances and art installations have teamed up with Arbory Bar and Eatery for a three-week living art installation titled The Ends. Set to run daily, the mini-arts festival will turn the Arbory into an arts hub that will also be hosting Melbourne's hottest DJs including Edd Fisher, Andras Fox, and CC Disco.
The Ends's curatorial team Supple Fox, fronted by Tom Supple and Hannah Fox, have put together a program of live art, music, and performance, scoring a highly anticipated new work by Shaun Gladwell, a contemporary Australian artist best known for his moving image works. Gladwell's latest work Maddest Maximus Invert is a mixed-media photographic work depicting a Ned Kelly and Mad Max-like cross-over character strung above the dark Tasman Sea.
Other highlights include a specially commissioned sculpture by The Huxleys, who have created sculptures inspired by vintage biology installations, which will be hung around the Arbory and may even occasionally float past on a row boat. Otherwise known as Garrett and Will Huxley, the Huxley art duo has had performance art works in the Melbourne Fringe Festival, Dark Mofo, and MPavilion, and they have previously brought their fantastically trippy work to the Arbory (pictured below). The immersive art experience spans into the theatrical, with performance artist Gabi Barton set to choreograph some installations that may move when you least expect them to.
Supple Fox is well-known for their site-based performance works set in nightclubs, swimming pools and even cupboards, and The Ends could well be a game-changer for the Arbory, which so far has been kicking goals as a bar and restaurant from its proximity to the Yarra and the CBD. This is not the first time they've had a go at an arts activation, but the Supple Fox collaboration will certainly give the Arbory some serious art street cred.