Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro

A definitive monograph documenting the celebrated artists’ work over the past two decades.

Ready-made Ruin is an immersive publication marking twenty years of collaboration by acclaimed Australian artists Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro. Covering two decades of work, the book features a fascinating essay from curator Felicity Fenner, while a visual inventory of the duo’s diverse practice is unveiled across more than 400 pages.

The many works presented include 2003’s The Cordial Home Project, their first foray in shared artmaking that attracted critical attention, where Healy & Cordeiro reconstructed a suburban weatherboard house scheduled for demolition, neatly stacking its parts into a large-scale installation; Lifespan, created for the 2009 Venice Biennale, made from 175,218 VHS video cassettes; Par Avion (2011), the pair’s first aircraft turned artwork; Where we’ve been, where we’re going, why? (2011), Lego works replicating media images of the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster; We Hunt Mammoth (2015), a sculptural installation comprising 121 separate Honda car parts, bound in traditional Japanese packaging of bamboo and jute; and You Are Here (2020), where Australian Air Force surplus aircraft parts where turned into Japanese kites.

Accompanying the artworks is a personal and revealing set of process images, approximately one thousand behind-the-scenes photographs, printed in gold and concealed within the specially folded pages, like treasure buried within the publication.

Healy & Cordeiro’s practice reflects a preoccupation with the dynamics of global mobility, the fallout of consumer society, and the contemporary notion of home. Combining a playful sense of humour and an engagement with art historical precedents, the duo’s work is characterised by the deconstruction and reinvention of prefabricated structures and objects into extraordinary sculptures and installations. Ready-made materials often feature in their work, including Lego, Ikea furniture, car and aircraft parts, dinosaur bones, and reconfigured architectural structures.

Healy & Cordeiro have had numerous survey exhibitions in Australia and internationally and in 2022 were awarded the AGNSW’s Sulman Prize for their work, Raiko and Shuten-dōji. Career highlights include solo exhibitions at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; The Art Gallery of New South Wales; The Corcoran Gallery, Washington DC and a survey exhibition at the MCA, Sydney. The installation Lifespan was part of Australia’s representation at the 53rd Venice Biennale, and the duo have been included in the Auckland Triennial (2013), the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art (2018), Setouchi Triennale (2010) and Oku-Noto Triennale, Japan (2021). Their latest public art commission, Place of the Eels is located in Parramatta Square.