LUKE ROBERTS

Performance artist Luke Roberts has been a key figure in the Brisbane art scene for over three decades. He has developed an intricate personal mythology that collapses personal and political, local and cosmological, and past and future to offer a unique spin on themes of religion, sexuality, and human history. Roberts started doing drag performances as Alice Jitterbug in the early 1970s. In the late 1970s, this persona was superseded by Pope Alice, who was related in part to both Pope Joan (the legendary cross-dressing female pope) and Lewis Carroll's Alice. According to Roberts, Pope Alice came from the planet Metalluna, and landed at Alice Springs, giving her name to the place. Through this alternative-pontiff persona, Roberts has been able to contest the Catholicism in which he was raised (particularly its repressive attitudes to sexuality), while drawing on its paraphernalia and iconographies.
Roberts has had solo shows at the Institute of Modern Art in 2010, 1996 and 1982, and the IMA published Vanitas: Pope Alice Presents Luke Roberts, a monograph on his work, in 1999. His work featured in Australian Perspecta at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1991 and 1995, in the Asia-Pacific Triennial at Queensland Art Gallery in 1996, and the Biennale of Sydney in 2002. He was artist-in-residence at New York's PS1 Contemporary Art Center in 1996–7.

1952 Born Alpha

1971  Julian Ashton School, Sydney

1972-74  Queensland College of Art, Brisbane

1979-80 Co-Director, E.M.U., experimental art space, Brisbane

1984 Atelier Dalmas, Paris

1984-87 Lived and worked in Europe

1989-94 Co-Director AGLASSOFWATER, Brisbane

1989 New Image Research Award, Australian Film Commission

Premier's Encouragement Award

REMM Art Award

1991 VA/CB Overseas Development Grant

Qld. Ministry of Arts Project Grant

1995 Prize-winner, Mary MacKillop: A Tribute, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

1996 Fellowship Residency, P.S.1 Studio, Institute of Contemporary Art, New York

1999 Arts Queensland Professional Development Grant

2001 Master of Fine Arts degree, Queensland University of Technology

2002 Australian Representative, Biennale of Sydney

2003 UFO, Public Art Commission , West End, Brisbane

2006 Residency, Walter Reid Cultural Centre, Rockhampton

2006 Board member, Artworlkers Management Committee

2008 AlphaStationAlphaVille, Professional Development Grant, Arts Queensland

2008 Presented with the Order of the Morning Star (OMS). LuXifer officially added to artist's name, an honorary title from HDH Pope Alice who has affectionately referred to him by this name for some years.

Luke / LuXifer has guided the Pope Alice Xorporation in managing the earthly affairs of Her Divine Holiness Pope Alice, Spiritual Leader of Mu etc, etc, from the early 1970s to date. He is Head of the Supreme Council for Antiquities of Mu and Keeper of the Papal Wunderkammer. He remains Her Divine Holiness' trusted servant, amanuensis and camerlingo.

(see www.popealice.com for further details)

 

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2008 Does this show make my arse look big?, conceptual exhibition proposed for a publicly funded artspace

2006 You Are Not Alone, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane

Alpha Paintings (Frontiers), Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane

2005 Paradise Regained: Headlands and Skylands, Redland Art Gallery

2004 Arrivedeci Rivoli, Bellas Gallery Brisbane

2003 Missing Person: Alice Jitterbug Photographed, Bellas Gallery

2002 Mu Pavilion Installation, Sydney Biennale, MCA, Sydney.

Aloha Eloha, Stranger Than Fiction , Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney

Venice Paintings/ Alpha Paintings, Bellas Gallery, Brisbane

2001 1+1=8, Bellas Gallery, Brisbane

2000 Dressed up for Paradise (Beyond the Great Divide), Bellas Gallery, Brisbane

Forbidden Universe, Bellas Gallery, Brisbane

1997 Snakes and Aliens, Bellas Gallery, Brisbane

Mu Consciousness raising exercises and Pope Alice sightings... Sala Diaz, San Antonio and Texas USA

1996 Clutch, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane

Dispersion, Randall Street Studio, Brisbane

1994-5 WUNDERKAMMER/KUNSTKAMERA, Gallery 14 Project, Queensland Art Gallery

1994 Lot 204: Luke Roberts, a Closet, a Painting, a Duchesse and a pair of oversize hand carved wooden salad servers, Martin Browne Fine Art, Sydney

Lot 62: POSTCARDS FROM ALPHAVILLE (Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft) POST JOHNSTONE DIASPORA/Lorraine, My Heart is Full, Bellas Gallery, Brisbane

1993 All Souls of the Revolution (detail) + Objects of My Affection, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne

1992 18 Paintings in Search of a Glossary (Life), Sutton Gallery, Melbourne

The Wonder of You, Bellas Gallery, Brisbane

1991 The Veto of Reason, Bellas Gallery, Brisbane

1990 Wunderkammer, State Library of Queensland

Objects of My Affection, Site, Brisbane

1989 Without Closure, Bellas Gallery, Brisbane

Artist's Videos, National Arts Week, Brisbane

1988 Logic Assassinates, Bellas Gallery, Brisbane

1987 1+1=3, ongoing photographic work

1986 Plan 9, The Compartners, Amsterdam

Touring Exhibition, Araluen Centre, Alice Springs

1985 Name Dropping, St. Olofspoort, Amsterdam

1984-6 Touring Exhibition, Queensland Arts Council

1984 -5 Der Kunstler Als Narcis/Das Leben Ist Kunst Ist Kitsch Screening and Discussion of the Artist's own films, Hannover Fachhochschule + Braunsweig Film Academie, Fed Rep. Germany

1984 Alpha Centenary, commemorative envelopes, Australia Post

1982 Luke Roberts, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane

1980 Pope Alice Presents Luke Roberts, Spring Hill Gallery, Brisbane

 

Selected Group Exhibitions

2009 I have not been myself lately... Queensland College of Art Gallery, Brisbane.

Soft Sculpture, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Artscape: The Art Life: Who Made Who?, ABC TV

2008 Oooga-booga, Pope Alice Xorporation with Proppa Now, George Petelin Gallery

2007 Morimura, Mishima. Roberts Art Gallery New South Wales

The Visitors, Penrith Regional Gallery

Multiple Personality, MOP, Sydney

2006 Queensland Live, Queensland Art Gallery touring exhibition

Colonial to Contemporary, Queensland College of Art, Brisbane

2005 Baroque and Neo-Baroque. The Hell of the Beautiful, Domus Artium (DA2) Salamanca, Spain

Beyond Real, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney

Points of View: Australian Photography 1985-95, Art Gallery of New South Wales

2004 Don't call it Performance, El Museo del Barrio, New York

Sailor Style, National Maritime Museum, Sydney

the world may be post-dated: Luke Roberts and Jennifer Maklem, Galerie de l'UQAM, Montreal, MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie, Canada

2003 Parthenogenesis, Ivan Doughety Gallery, Sydney

No lo Llames Performance, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, and touring Spain

One Square Mile, Museum of Brisbane

the world may be post-dated: Luke Roberts and Jennifer Maklem, University of Waterloo Art Gallery and touring Canada.

2002 13th Biennale of Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney

Stranger than Fiction, ACP, Sydney

1996 The Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery

Gramercy Park International Hotel Art Fair, New York

ARCO'96 International Contemporary Art Fair, Madrid

Asia-Pacific Hotel Art Fair, Brisbane

Recollection, Brisbane City Art Gallery and Museum

1995 Australian Perspecta 1995, Art Gallery of New South Wales

Mary MacKillop: A tribute, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, New Parliament House, Canberra

1994 Remain in Light, AGLASSOFWATER project, Blaxland Gallery, Sydney

1993 Happiness is a Loaded Brush. Outside the Walls of Jericho (with Beattie Millis), Bellas Gallery, Brisbane

Dislocations: Body, Memory, Place (curator Marcus O'Donnell) Access Gallery, National Gallery of Victoria

1990 Eating People is Wrong, (with Scott Redford), AGLASSOF WATER, Brisbane

1989 All Souls Day (with Urszula Szulakowska), Artspace, Sydney

Slow Information (with Scott Redford), Arch Lane Public Art, Brisbane

Running Man, (with Scott Redford), AGLASSOFWATER, Brisbane

1988 The World Is Full of Objects (with Scott Redford), slide documentation

Redford/Boyd/Roberts (with Scott Redford and Adam Boyd), Arson Street, St. Kilda, Melbourne.

 

Selected Publications

Daniel Mudie Cunningham, Queer Today, Gone Tomorrow, Art and Australia, Winter 2009

NEW, exhibition catalogue, University of Queensland Art Museum, 2008

Vanitas: Pope Alice Presents Luke Roberts, monograph pub. Institute of Modern Art 1999

Queensland Live, exhibition catalogue, Queensland Art Gallery 2005

Points of View, Photographay 1985-95, exhibition catalogue Art Gallery New South Wales 2005

Biennale of Sydney 2002, exhibition catalogue

Australian Perspecta 1991, exhibition catalogue, Art Gallery New South Wales

Australian Perspecta 1995, exhibition catalogue, Art Gallery New South Wales

Urszula Szulakowska, feature article eyeline #10, Dec 1989

Michele Helmrich, feature article, eyeline 1995

Louise Martin-Chew, exhibition catalogue for Paradise Regained: Headlands and Skylands 2005

Photofile, Australian Centre for Photography 2004 (first issue of the new look Photofile)

Alpha Paintings (Frontiers), artist statement, exhibition catalogue, Philip Bacon Galleries, 2006

The Visitors, exhibition catalogue, Penrith Regional Gallery, 2007

STUDIO: Australian Painters on the Nature of Creativity, R. Ian Lloyd and John macDonald, 2007

John LeKay, interview heyokamagazine 2008

http://www.heyokamagazine.com/heyoka.19.lukeroberts.interview.htm

Pope Alice, religion, heyokamagazine 2008 -

Pope Alioce Xorporation is a regular contributer to heyokamagazine.com http://www.heyokamagazine.com/heyoka_magazine.28.popealice.htm

 

Collections

 

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Gold Coast City Art Gallery

Griffith University

Harriet Jane Neville-Rolfe Gallery, Alpha

James Hardie Collection, State Library of Queensland

Kamloops Art Gallery, British Columbia, Canada

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain

Museum of Brisbane

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane

Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane

Rockhampton Art Gallery

University Art Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane

University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba

Newcastle Region Art Gallery