Description:
Gertrude Contemporary is pleased to present Octopus 11: The Matter of Air. Running for over a decade, the annual Octopus exhibition series offers a curator the opportunity to explore key ideas in current curatorial practice, experimenting with their methodology and opening up new possibilities for the discipline. The Matter of Air takes air as a starting point for broader examinations of matter in its many physical, perceptual and symbolic guises. Featuring five artists from across the globe, the exhibition considers transformation through Visual art works that traverse the threshold between the material and the immaterial. Taking poetic licence with the language of science, the artists draw upon properties of matter such as volume, weight, density and temperature to manipulate and redefine form. Whilst many of their works give shape and substance to matter that is amorphous or invisible, others dissolve traditional notions of solidity in favour of forms that are indistinct and indefinable, ultimately revealing the mutability of all things. In Michaela Gleave’s (Aus) “Cloud House” (2011), viewers climb into a raised room that is carpeted by a floor-bound field of mist. As the viewer moves around, the cloud-like form responds to the shifting air currents, swirling, dividing and regrouping like a mobile, airy composition. This work hinges on a transformation from liquid to gas, employing inaudible high frequency sound waves to break up water into a vaporous mist. Dane Mitchell (NZ) continues his investigation of substances that hover on the edge of perception and materiality in “Various Solid States” (2011), a work that draws attention to the physical properties of empty space by giving form to the humidity present in the gallery’s air. Water is collected from a dehumidifier, mixed with plaster and then poured a-top bubble wrap, with each air pocket creating a metaphorical imprint of the surrounding gallery space. In the kinetic sculpture “Double O” (2008), Zilvinas Kempinas (Lithuania) sets the air in motion and employs invisible air currents to define visible form. Loops of unspooled videotape dance in the turbulent currents formed between two industrial fans, spinning and twisting to sketch a constantly shifting line in thin air – a gravity-defying drawing in space. Melbourne-based Sannè Mestrom also gives form to the void, through her major new installation “Compression Chamber” (2011). The work is premised on the weight of air – in this case, the 6.5 kilograms of air contained by the 5 cubic metres of space in which the installation sits. Varying in shape, scale and substance, the sculptures act as visual equivalences that compact and solidify the expansive, ethereal matter of air. Exploring transformation through the lens of perception are the collaborative duo João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva (Portugal). For The Matter of Air they will present five of their dream-like 16mm filmic enquiries into the ambiguity of vision and matter. These films draw upon the possibilities of ‘pataphysics,’ or ‘the science of imaginary solutions,’ to present a speculative philosophy that challenges our perceptions of the world and makes the ordinary wonderfully strange. The Octopus series of exhibitions are made possible through generous support from Proclaim Management Solutions who have sponsored this exhibition since 2004. The Matter of Air has received support from Inspirations Paint and Colour, Instituto Camoes, the Embassy of Portugal, Canberra, and the Australian Lithuanian Foundation.
Description:
Gertrude Contemporary is pleased to present Octopus 11: The Matter of Air. Running for over a decade, the annual Octopus exhibition series offers a curator the opportunity to explore key ideas in current curatorial practice, experimenting with their methodology and opening up new possibilities for the discipline. The Matter of Air takes air as a starting point for broader examinations of matter in its many physical, perceptual and symbolic guises. Featuring five artists from across the globe, the exhibition considers transformation through Visual art works that traverse the threshold between the material and the immaterial. Taking poetic licence with the language of science, the artists draw upon properties of matter such as volume, weight, density and temperature to manipulate and redefine form. Whilst many of their works give shape and substance to matter that is amorphous or invisible, others dissolve traditional notions of solidity in favour of forms that are indistinct and indefinable, ultimately revealing the mutability of all things. In Michaela Gleave’s (Aus) “Cloud House” (2011), viewers climb into a raised room that is carpeted by a floor-bound field of mist. As the viewer moves around, the cloud-like form responds to the shifting air currents, swirling, dividing and regrouping like a mobile, airy composition. This work hinges on a transformation from liquid to gas, employing inaudible high frequency sound waves to break up water into a vaporous mist. Dane Mitchell (NZ) continues his investigation of substances that hover on the edge of perception and materiality in “Various Solid States” (2011), a work that draws attention to the physical properties of empty space by giving form to the humidity present in the gallery’s air. Water is collected from a dehumidifier, mixed with plaster and then poured a-top bubble wrap, with each air pocket creating a metaphorical imprint of the surrounding gallery space. In the kinetic sculpture “Double O” (2008), Zilvinas Kempinas (Lithuania) sets the air in motion and employs invisible air currents to define visible form. Loops of unspooled videotape dance in the turbulent currents formed between two industrial fans, spinning and twisting to sketch a constantly shifting line in thin air – a gravity-defying drawing in space. Melbourne-based Sannè Mestrom also gives form to the void, through her major new installation “Compression Chamber” (2011). The work is premised on the weight of air – in this case, the 6.5 kilograms of air contained by the 5 cubic metres of space in which the installation sits. Varying in shape, scale and substance, the sculptures act as visual equivalences that compact and solidify the expansive, ethereal matter of air. Exploring transformation through the lens of perception are the collaborative duo João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva (Portugal). For The Matter of Air they will present five of their dream-like 16mm filmic enquiries into the ambiguity of vision and matter. These films draw upon the possibilities of ‘pataphysics,’ or ‘the science of imaginary solutions,’ to present a speculative philosophy that challenges our perceptions of the world and makes the ordinary wonderfully strange. The Octopus series of exhibitions are made possible through generous support from Proclaim Management Solutions who have sponsored this exhibition since 2004. The Matter of Air has received support from Inspirations Paint and Colour, Instituto Camoes, the Embassy of Portugal, Canberra, and the Australian Lithuanian Foundation.
Description:
Drawing from alternative currencies, banking archives, pop culture and contemporary art, Creative Accounting scratched below the surface of the economic system to reveal money’s enigmatic side. Money is many things at once-an abstract rendering of value, an agent of propaganda, a decorative device. It plays a central role in all of our lives yet is often overlooked as an object of contemplation. Creative Accounting brought to light some of the stories that surround currency-from the history of banking to the intricacies of anti-counterfeit patterns. Casting a critical eye, the exhibition aimed to reinvigorate our engagement with money and the economic system beyond next week’s pay packet or the latest stock market crisis.
Description:
Drawing from alternative currencies, banking archives, pop culture and contemporary art, Creative Accounting scratched below the surface of the economic system to reveal money’s enigmatic side. Money is many things at once-an abstract rendering of value, an agent of propaganda, a decorative device. It plays a central role in all of our lives yet is often overlooked as an object of contemplation. Creative Accounting brought to light some of the stories that surround currency-from the history of banking to the intricacies of anti-counterfeit patterns. Casting a critical eye, the exhibition aimed to reinvigorate our engagement with money and the economic system beyond next week’s pay packet or the latest stock market crisis.
Description:
Song to the Sea is a collaborative performance featuring the sunset, the ocean, the sand and a chorus of people in a moment of sharing the largess of life.
Description:
Viscopy is pleased to announce Sanné Mestrom the winner of the John Fries Memorial Prize 2011 for emerging visual artists. Mestrom received the $10,000 prize at the opening of the exhibition of the fifteen finalists last night at Blackfriars off Broadway, Viscopy’s contemporary art space in Chippendale. The prize was awarded by acclaimed Sydney artist, Lindy Lee. Mestrom's winning Visual art work, Thinking Props features in the exhibition with the other fourteen finalists: Cyrus Tang, Erica Molesworth, Eva Hampel, Heath Franco, Jennifer O'Brien, Karl Khoe & Tessa Zettel, Keiko Matsui, Kristel Britcher, Kurt Sorensen, Nathan Taylor, Pauletta Kerinauia, Susie Nelson, Wade Marynowsky and Walter Brecely. The winning entry was selected by an auspicious panel of judges including Anna Davis, media artist and Museum of Contemporary Art curator, Hannah Bertram the 2010 John Fries Memorial Prize winner, Danie Mellor contemporary Indigenous artist and 2009 National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award winner and Kath Fries, artist and Viscopy Board member. Mestrom's sculptural installation Thinking Props plays with the idea of a physical prop designed to promote cerebral and psychological contemplation. Made from everyday found objects, the work consists of three components: a table, a cluster of door handles and a “joy prop”. Her table is tailored to one assuming the classic position of Auguste Rodin's The Thinker, with elbow placed on table enclave and chin on cupped hand. It is a physical prop that encourages cerebral revelation. A grid of door handles below the table suggests opening doors, that endless possibilities and zones of discovery are just a simple action away. In front of the table sits a “joy prop” constructed of a cast bronze mould hypothetically designed to be fitted into the mouth to force a smile. Danie Mellor says of the Mestrom’s Visual art work: “In her winning entry for the 2011 John Fries Memorial Prize, Mestrom engages with the everyday and what she terms ‘psychological props’. Through her interest in human intimacy and this field of research and play in her practice, she presents playful and thought provoking arrangements of objects that recall Modernist engagements with the readymade. The difference with her work by comparison though, is that an intimacy is invoked that allows a bodily interaction with form, if only through the viewers’ realisation that in fact ‘this is what you (can and are supposed to) do’ with the objects. They are both familiar and out of reach as fragile objects in a gallery space, a temptation for the curious. The complexity of the potential interaction that the installation suggests, and its resolution as an intricate and multi-layered object, lends this work its intrigue and place as a well deserving winner.” The exhibition, curated by Venita Poblocki, runs until 30 September and is open between 1pm and 5pm from Wednesday to Friday. The John Fries Memorial Prize for emerging visual artists is an annual prize donated by the Fries family in memory of former Viscopy director and honorary treasurer, John Fries, who made a remarkable contribution to the life and success of Viscopy. The competition is open to emerging Australian and New Zealand artists of all ages and disciplines who are not represented in a regional, state, territory or national public art collection.