Prof David Cross

David Cross is Professor of Visual Arts at Deakin. Working as an artist, curator and writer, his practice extends across performance, installation, sculpture, public art and video.  Known for his examination of risk, pleasure and participation, Cross often utilises inflatable structures to negotiate inter-personal exchange. He has performed in international live art festivals in Poland and Croatia and was selected as a New Zealand representative at the 2011 Prague Quadrennial. Cross was commissioned by National Institute of Experimental Art/City of Sydney to develop Drift, a large-scale public art commission for Taylors Square in Sydney (2011) and his installation Lean was included in The Aberrant Object at Wellington City Art Gallery (2012). His work Hold was selected for inclusion in Liveworks at Performance Space, Sydney in 2010 and featured as part of the Arts House season in the Melbourne International Festival in October 2012. More recently he was commissioned by Scape Public Art 7 curator Blair French to develop Level Playing Field, a temporary intervention that fused sport, performance and sculpture in Christchurch. A monograph of his work Air Supplied was published by Punctum Books, Los Angeles in 2018.

As a curator and public art facilitator he developed with Claire Doherty the One Day Sculpture project across New Zealand in 2008/9 featuring 30 international artists including Thomas Hirschhorn, Superflex, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Paula Pivi. In 2011 he was CAST Tasmania's international curatorial resident. From this project he curated Iteration:Again 13 Public Art Projects Across Tasmania examing the idea of repetition and transformation in temporary public art and featuring 20 local and international artists. He has edited internationally published books on the aforementioned projects and writes regularly on contemporary art for international publications.In 2017 he co-founded with Cameron Bishop the research initiative Public Art Commission (PAC) at Deakin University which is devoted to the commissioning and scholarship of temporary public art. Recent PAC projects all co-developed with Cameron Bishop include, Treatment with Melbourne Water and City of Wyndham (2015. 2017, 2021), Venetian Blind with European Cultural Centre, Venice (2019), Six Moments in Kingston for the City of Kingston (2019) Front Beach Back Beach {Cameron Bishop and Danny Lacy} (2022) and Treatment 3 (2023). Cross is currently Professor of Visual Arts and Research Leader of the new research initative Public Exchange Bureau @ Deakin