Arlo Mountford / United Kingdom/Australia b.1978 / The Folly (still) 2007–09 / Three-channel digital animation with four-channel audio (uncompressed AVI file and uncompressed WAV file on hard drive): 9:00 minutes, colour, sound / Purchased 2009. The Queensland Government’s Queensland Art Gallery Acquisitions Fund / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Arlo Mountford

 

Arlo MOUNTFORD
The Folly 2007–2009

Not Currently on Display

In The Folly, Arlo Mountford animates three paintings by sixteenth-century Flemish master artist, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1525–69): The hunters in the snow 1565, The harvesters 1565 (two of five surviving works from a series depicting the seasons of the year), and Landscape with the fall of Icarus c.1558.

Mountford sets in motion the action implied in each painting, which occurs successively as the soundtrack leads the viewer’s attention from one animation to the next. The Folly makes many references to art history, contemporary culture and the artist’s own practice.

The title refers to the elaborate, but purposeless, architectural embellishment, or follies, built in aristocratic gardens, often to keep the workforce occupied.

The title also refers to the fall of Icarus, which Bruegel famously depicted as a relatively inconspicuous detail in the foreground. Bruegel instead focuses on witnesses to the event — the ploughman, shepherd and angler in the account by the classical poet Ovid. In a final comic touch, a stick figure drops from the sky, as though the artist acknowledges the folly of his own ambitious project.

Born in 1978 in Honiton, England, Arlo Mountford arrived in Australia in 1983. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2002. Mountford lives and works in Melbourne and has exhibited regularly since finishing his studies.

In 2015, he completed two works as a major commission for the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. In 2007, Mountford was awarded the ABN AMRO Emerging Artist Award and completed a residency at the Frank Mohr Instituut, Groningen, Netherlands. In 2012, he completed a studio residency in Japan with a grant from the Australia Council for the Arts.

Discussion Questions

1. The lives of the people in Bruegel’s paintings were very different to ours today. Does Mountford’s The Folly give you an insight into the lives of the people portrayed?

2. Why do you think the artist has chosen to make a new artwork based these on much older paintings and call it The Folly? Does the title refer to just one incident we can see or are there more ways to see folly (or foolishness) in this work?

Classroom Activities

1. Examine the work carefully and discuss the characters and their relationships with each other, the environment and what is taking place. Use your imagination and draw an image of the next scene.

2. Depict a scene from your daily routine that is comparable to a scene from The Folly. Draw an area where you might sit at lunch or where your friends gather. Now create an additional scene in the background and think about whether the two scenes are linked or separate?