Mike Parr is one of Australia's most celebrated - and outspoken - artists. His performance works extend back to the late 1960s and explore his physical limits, memory and subjectivity. From nailing his only arm to a wall for 60 hours, to being buried in a vault below a city intersection for 72 hours they have often been political and drawn controversy.
In 1981, after representing Australia at the Venice Biennale, Parr also began painting and printmaking. And he continues to exhibit and perform frequently.
Two years ago, one of Australia's leading gallery owners, Anna Schwartz, terminated her 36-year long professional relationship with Parr.
The very public break-up came after a four-and-a-half-hour performance work by Mike Parr about the Israel-Gaza War at Schwartz’s Sydney gallery in which he painted words taken from news reports and conversations with Schwartz on the gallery wall – all while the artist’s eyes were shut.
The work is called 'Going Home', and a video of the performance is currently being exhibited at the Whangārei Art Museum.
At the time, Schwartz, who is Jewish, told the ABC she was “sickened” by what she called “hate graffiti” in the work. In particular, the use of the words 'Israel' and 'Nazi together in the work. Parr disputed this, noting those words were among very many painted over each other on the wall, with many then over-painted with red paint.
Schwartz said in a statement there had been a “serious breach of trust” and “difference of values” but she also said in a subsequent interview she believed Parr was “the greatest artist Australia had ever, and will ever produce”.
This has been an incident that continues to speak to polarised perspectives on the Israel - Gaza war.
Mike Parr joined us from the Blue Mountains near Sydney.
'Going Home' is being exhibited at the Whangārei Art Museum until the 25th of January as part of a group show about the charged nature of language, called Detokenisation.
