Melbourne artist Callum Morton first caught the eye of critics and commentators for his displacing installations using architectural elements applied to a gallery wall.
With major prizes and awards in between Morton came to international prominence with the immense success of his installation work, Valhalla, the Australian selection for the 2007 Venice Biennale. Valhalla presents at three-quarter scale a replica of a house his architect father built. Admired by Morton as his father’s best work but also the cause of a disruptive financial crisis which saw the house sold and family displaced, Valhalla– hand tagged by Morton with graffiti, pock-marked as if by shrapnel or shell attack and spewing smoke from the upper floor- takes it point of departure from deep-held memories of osmotically absorbed modernism and a familial back-story perhaps still not full articulated.
