MELBOURNE.- Australian Centre for the Moving Image presents the first Australian solo exhibition of internationally acclaimed French artist and filmmaker, Philippe Parreno – one of the most significant contemporary artists working at the intersection between art and film.

Fresh from opening his triumphant exhibition Anywhen for the prestigious annual Turbine Hall Commission at London’s premiere contemporary art gallery, Tate Modern, the artist will be in Australia to open Philippe Parreno: Thenabouts at Australia’s only museum devoted to the moving image.

Introducing Parreno’s innovative and experimental practice to Australian audiences and occupying ACMI’s subterranean gallery, this exhibition is the first-ever retrospective of Parreno’s filmic works as a cinematic ensemble in which the artist’s films play with temporal and spatial boundaries, guiding the visitor through a complex journey of images, duration, memory, and the passage of time in which every visitor’s viewing experience will be unique.

For nearly three decades Parreno has been producing films and exhibitions that subvert audience expectations and seek to redefine the exhibition experience. Working with the exhibition itself as a medium, Parreno explores its possibilities beyond the presentation of individual works to create scripted spaces within which a series of events unfolds. This exhibition enfolds visitors within a composition of image and sound in which time is not chronological, and a moment becomes eternity.

“ACMI is thrilled to be bringing the first major exhibition of Philippe Parreno’s work to Australia. He is one of the most exciting artists in the world to be working with the moving image.” said ACMI CEO and Director, Katrina Sedgwick.

“His exhibition at the Tate Turbine Hall has been receiving rapturous reviews, and it will be wonderful to have him here in Melbourne. Over summer Philippe Parreno: Thenabouts will introduce our audiences to this wonderful artist’s work, and challenge their ideas of what an exhibition could and should be.”

In recent years, Parreno has risen to a new level of prominence. His largest US show to date, H {N)YP N(Y} OSIS, premiered on a dramatic scale at New York’s expansive Park Avenue Armory in 2015 to critical acclaim. This year he was the recipient of the prestigious Turbine Hall Commission, a series of site-specific installations by contemporary artists at London’s Tate Modern, showing concurrent to the ACMI exhibition, from 4 October through to 2 April 2017.

Alongside the Melbourne exhibition, ACMI will present a series of yet-to-be announced public events and film screenings.