ProfessorDavid Cross

Professor of Visual Arts

Faculty of Arts and Education/School of Communication and Creative Arts

  • Professor of Visual Arts
    Faculty of Arts and Education/School of Communication and Creative Arts
  • +61 3 924 43962 (Work)
  • Melbourne Burwood Campus, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125

BIO

David Cross is Professor of Visual Arts at Deakin. Working as an artist,
curator and writer, his practice extends across performance, installation,
sculpture, public art and video. Known for his examination of risk, pleasure
and participation, Cross often utilises inflatable structures to negotiate
inter-personal exchange. He has performed in international live art festivals
in Poland and Croatia and was selected as a New Zealand representative at the
2011 Prague Quadrennial. Cross was commissioned by National Institute of
Experimental Art/City of Sydney to develop Drift, a large-scale public art
commission for Taylors Square in Sydney (2011) and his installation Lean was
included in The Aberrant Object at Wellington City Art Gallery (2012). His
work Hold was selected for inclusion in Liveworks at Performance Space, Sydney
in 2010 and featured as part of the Arts House season in the Melbourne
International Festival in October 2012. More recently he was commissioned by
Scape Public Art 7 curator Blair French to develop Level Playing Field, a
temporary intervention that fused sport, performance and sculpture in
Christchurch. A monograph of his work Air Supplied was published by Punctum
Books, Los Angeles in 2018.

As a curator and public art facilitator he developed with Claire Doherty the
One Day Sculpture project across New Zealand in 2008/9 featuring 30
international artists including Thomas Hirschhorn, Superflex, Rirkrit
Tiravanija and Paula Pivi. In 2011 he was CAST Tasmania's international
curatorial resident. From this project he curated Iteration:Again 13 Public
Art Projects Across Tasmania examing the idea of repetition and transformation
in temporary public art and featuring 20 local and international artists. He
has edited internationally published books on the aforementioned projects and
writes regularly on contemporary art for international publications.In 2017 he
co-founded with Cameron Bishop the research initiative Public Art Commission
(PAC) at Deakin University which is devoted to the commissioning and
scholarship of temporary public art. Recent PAC projects all co-developed with
Cameron Bishop include, Treatment with Melbourne Water and City of Wyndham
(2015. 2017, 2021), Venetian Blind with European Cultural Centre, Venice
(2019), Six Moments in Kingston for the City of Kingston (2019) Front Beach
Back Beach {Cameron Bishop and Danny Lacy} (2022) and Treatment 3 (2023).
Cross is currently Professor of Visual Arts and Research Leader of the new
research initative Public Exchange Bureau @ Deakin

DEAKIN UNIVERSITY CURRENT APPOINTMENT

  • Professor of Visual Arts
    Deakin University, School of Communication and Creative Arts

DEGREES

  • Doctor of Philosophy
    Queensland Univ. of Technology

FIELDS OF RESEARCH

  • Visual arts
  • Art history, theory and criticism

AVAILABILITY FOR SUPERVISION

  • Masters by Research and PhD supervision

AREA/FACULTY

  • Faculty of Arts and Education

DEPARTMENT/SCHOOL/INSTITUTE/DISCIPLINE

  • School of Communication and Creative Arts