Wong Ping (Hong Kong), Mark Schroder (Aotearoa New Zealand), Pinar Yoldas (Turkey / USA)

happiness is only real when shared has been conceived as a response to Gus Fisher Gallery’s re-opening exhibition in 2019 We’re Not Too Big to Care, which addressed the commercial landscape that the gallery now finds itself in. Using a slogan from iconic grocery store Four Square as a retort to the fast paced, cyclical and constructed commercial landscape representative of contemporary life, We’re Not Too Big to Care explored what it might mean to rise above these structures to enable us all to regain a sense of humanity.

happiness is only real when shared continues the dialogues raised through We’re Not Too Big to Care from an altered landscape post-2020. Featuring three ambitious artists from different corners of the globe who each address modern capitalist desires with astute criticality and satire, the exhibition ponders the current moment through a surreal maze of animation, site-specific installation, and sculpture. Titled after a bittersweet cliché in Wong Ping’s famed Fables series (2018-19), happiness is only real when shared aims to jolt us from the throws of daily living and into a tumultuous and alternative mise en scène where transformation and individual reflection may become possible.

Park for $2 per hour, to a maximum of $10 on evenings and weekends at the Victoria St car park. Find out more.

Last updated: 19 January 2021