Born in Adelaide in 1950, Aleks Danko’s artistic career spans more than five decades. Working across a diverse range of media including drawing, sculpture, installation, performance, and public art, Danko combines irony, humour and sarcasm with aesthetically sophisticated and materially confident gestures to interrogate the social, political and cultural landscape of Australia.
Select solo exhibitions: “Are we done? I’d like to get back to staring at nothing” Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2019; ‘Wait…I think this is where I lost my hula-hoop’ Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2017; MY FELLOW AUS-TRA-ALIENS, (a survey) Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2015-16; POINTLESS (more or less), Milani Gallery, Brisbane, 2013; DILLY-DALLY/SO-SO/SHIPPY-SHOPPY? /HO-HO/HANKY-PANKY?/BYE-BYE… shopping for and with the un-dead (YU-AH-TISH-YU-AH remix), Sutton Projects, Melbourne, 2012; Pointless, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2011; CHATTER…and more chatter upstairs, Milani Gallery, Brisbane, 2009; SOME CULTURAL MEDITATIONS 1949 – 2006 (just a little bit of ethnic folk art), Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2006; A Sing Song of Never Seven Ever/Ever, Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne, Gitte Weise Gallery, Sydney, 2005.
Select group exhibitions: MANIFESTO, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, School of Art, VCA, University of Melbourne, Southbank, Melbourne, 2019; Power & Imagination – Conceptual Art, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2018/19; BEYOND REASON – exploring the logic of the imagination, QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, 2018/19; 9 X 5 NOW, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne, 2017; MCA COLLECTION: TODAY TOMORROW YESTERDAY, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2016-17; HOWARD ARKLEY AND FRIENDS, Tarrawarra Museum of Art, Melbourne, 2015-16; Art as Verb, Art Space, Sydney, 2015; MELBOURNE NOW, NGV, Melbourne, 2013; Reinventing the Wheel: The Readymade Century, MUMA, Melbourne, 2013; Mortality, ACCA, Melbourne, 2010; 40 Years, Kaldor Public Art Projects 1969-2009, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2009.
Danko’s experience is an individual one, but at the same time ubiquitous. His particular gift and capacity is to find a truth among the many deceptions that make up our present lives and times.
Glenn Barkley and Lesley Harding, 2015