Alvaro Barrington Things that are real: Alvaro Barrington x Dean Cross

Cement Fondu presents its fifth annual exhibition pairing of an early-career local artist with a celebrated international artist. Alvaro Barrington's work is informed by a commitment to personal heritage and community. Barrington was born in Venezuela to Grenadian and Haitian parents, and raised between the Caribbean and New York by a network of relatives. His first solo exhibition was held at MoMA PS1, New York, in 2017, and recent major exhibitions include an acclaimed solo show at South London Gallery (2021) and Mixing It Up: Painting Today, Hayward Gallery, UK (2021). Barrington's work will appear in dialogue with that of regional New South Wales-based artist Dean Cross: a Worimi man, born and raised on Ngunnawal/Ngambri Country, whose work enacts First Nations sovereignty through expanded contemporary art methodologies.

Things that are real: Alvaro Barrington x Dean Cross is the most ambitious of this series to date, creating an unprecedented level of cultural and artistic exchange. The project facilitates a dynamic and hybrid engagement model, with the artists exchanging works-in-progress and ideas during a remote development phase and collaborating together in Sydney, with Cement Fondu hosting Barrington for an intensive, creative install period. This rich exchange of culture, ideas and methodologies embraces risk-taking, experimentation and innovation.

Featuring solo and collaborative artworks, Things that are real culminates from an exchange of works-in-progress between Australia and the UK and a live experiment in situ, with the artists generating new material conversations during installation at Cement Fondu.