Trilogy of the Desert: Mirage by William McBride

Trilogy of the Desert: Mirage by William McBride is an absurdist, participatory performance created by the Melbourne contemporary performance collective Alice Will Caroline (Alice Dixon, William McBride and Caroline Meaden), with guest performer Mark Wilson.

Part performance, part aerobics, part dictatorship — this work turns the NGV’s fundraising campaign for Salvador Dalí’s Trilogy of the Desert: Mirage (1946) into a surreal exercise in collective movement, obedience, and art-world ambition.

The performance was inspired by the NGV's 2018 public fundraising campaign to acquire Salvador Dalí's 1946 painting Trilogy of the Desert: Mirage.

The painting, originally commissioned by a cosmetics company to advertise its Desert Flower perfume, was the subject of a major acquisition campaign, with the NGV inviting members of the public to contribute financially towards bringing the work into its collection.

Alice Will Caroline appropriated the language and promotional rhetoric of this campaign, constructing an alternative reality in which William McBride was celebrated as the great surrealist responsible for the painting.

CREATIVE TEAM

Choreography, Direction and Performance: Alice Dixon, Caroline Meaden, William McBride and Mark Wilson

Curation and Production: Jamie Lewis and Dan Koop

Presented as part of FLUX-KIT-MEL for the MEL&NYC Festival, National Gallery of Victoria 2018.

Photography: Max Milne