Tracey's world (Parts I and II)
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Terry Urbahn
b.1961
Title
Tracey's world (Parts I and II)
Details
| Production Date | 1995 |
|---|---|
| Collection(s) | Collection Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth |
| Accession Number | 97/1 |
| Media | Mixed media |
| Measurements | Part 1: 8 packets, each approx. 860 x 620mm Part 2: 3 cases, each approx. 480 x 600 x 146mm Part 3: video transferred to DVD, variable dimensions |
About
Tracey’s World has its roots in a series of photographs taken by Terry Urbahn of the interiors of vacant shops in New Plymouth’s city centre. These photographs led to a number of paintings featuring imaginary exhibitions in these areas. The idea of empty city buildings also led to Pretty Vacant, one of a series of installations for Te Papa’s Art Now exhibition in 1994. Pretty Vacant was installed in a ground-floor window of the derelict Colombia Hotel in Wellington and included footage of the interior of the building as well as the abandoned belongings of former tenants.
While Pretty vacant presented the ‘big picture’ of the Colombia Hotel, Tracey’s World Parts I and II is a close-up look at the lives of its inhabitants. Items found in the building are used to suggest the story of a fictional character who might have lived there. The work also employs the visual and verbal languages of popular music culture. Urbahn’s inclusion of the amateur, simplistic dioramas of tribal culture used in the former National Museum’s portable education cases serves as an analogy to that nonconformist urban youth, itself a form of subculture in our society, often misunderstood yet worthy of ‘excavation’ and analysis.
