Julian Charrière: Hard Core: MONA
Hard Core is Julian Charrière's first solo exhibition in Australia and his first major project in Oceania. Conceived in close dialogue with Mona's architecture and landscape, the exhibition unfolds across the museum's galleries, the Void and newly excavated subterranean spaces, tracing a journey through geological, climatic and planetary time.
Bringing together sculpture, installation, film and photography, Hard Core explores the forces that shape our world beyond the scale of human experience. Stone, ice, coal, lava, metals and fossil matter become both material and subject, as Charrière examines the entangled histories of nature, extraction, industry and myth.
Throughout the exhibition, the artist confronts the fragility of planetary systems and the deep timescales that underpin them. Glacial boulders are cored and repaired with precious metals; ancient rock formations are transformed through slow mechanical processes; landscapes marked by resource extraction reappear in film and photography as sites of both destruction and wonder.
As Charrière notes, Hard Core brings together distinct works as a single geological body, compressing planetary durations into a shared encounter. Presented in Tasmania—a place whose landscapes evoke some of the oldest chapters of Earth's history—the exhibition situates contemporary human activity within a far older story of stone, ice and transformation.
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Glacial erratic boulders, drill cores, aluminium, brass, copper, gold, steel, silver
Ensemble of four sculptures
Photo credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford
Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy the artist and Mona.
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Archival pigment prints on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Ultra Smooth
Collection of Dittrich & Schlechtriem, Berlin, Germany
Photo credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford
Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy the artist and Mona.
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Anthracite coal, stainless steel
Collection Museum of Old and New Art (Mona), Hobart, Australia
Photo credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford
Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy the artist and Mona.
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4K film, 32:10 aspect ratio, 14.2 ambisonic soundscape; duration 01:44:30, continuous loop
Film score by Robert Lippok
Photo credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford
Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy the artist and Mona.
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Cryogenised plant, refrigerated showcase
Photo credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford
Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy the artist and Dittrich & Schlechtriem, Berlin, Germany.
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White marble, oxidised iron wedges
Courtesy of the artist
Photo credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford
Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy the artist and Mona.
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Stromatolite, lapidary rock grinders, steel, aluminium, water
Commissioned by Mona for the exhibition Julian Charrière: Hard Core
Photo credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford
Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy the artist and Mona.
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Heliography on high-polished stainless steel plate
Photo credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford
Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy the artist and Mona.
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Onyx, motors, lamps, soundtrack
Photo credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford
Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy the artist and Mona.
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Photo credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford
Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy the artist and Mona.
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Volcanic rock, obsidian
Photo credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford
Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy the artist and Mona.
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Ivory Mystery Snails (Pomacea bridgesii), marble, water
Photo credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford
Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy the artist and Mona.
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Artificial lava, molten computer waste
Photo credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford
Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy the artist and Mona.
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4K film, 16:9 aspect ratio, 3D ambisonics soundscape, duration 00:32:00, continuous loop
Co-Director: Johannes Förster. Sound Composition and Design: Felix Deufel.
Photo credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford
Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy the artist and Mona.
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4K film, 16:9 aspect ratio, 3D ambisonics soundscape, duration 00:32:00, continuous loop
Co-Director: Johannes Förster. Sound Composition and Design: Felix Deufel.
Photo credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford
Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy the artist and Mona.
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Banded iron ore, water rendered from banded iron ore, custom reactor, modified Hofmann apparatus, heliostat
Photo credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford
Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy the artist and Mona.
