Not in Kansas: Black House Lands in Front of Oz Museum

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The childhood home of artist Ian Strange has literally landed right in front of the Art Gallery of South Australia as if it were picked up by a tornado and plunked there, Wizard of Oz style. The striking matte black structure is a detailed recreation of the 1920s suburban Australian home Strange grew up in, down to the scrolled ornamentation on the porch and a spigot clinging to one exterior wall.

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Installed for the 2014 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, the installation makes an intentional reference to Dorothy’s Kansas home and the jarring visual of it crashing in a place where it doesn’t belong.

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This visual is a nod to both the continued intrusion of Western pop culture into Australia, and the disconnected nature of suburbia, a recurring theme in Strange’s work.

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Strange previously explored the suburban house as a cultural icon in his series SUBURBAN, which involved drastically altering homes that were set for demolition and then burning the down, filming the entire process.