2017 ARTISTIC PROGRAM
ANDRIANA CARNEY, ANGELA GARRICK, ELWIRA TITAN, HAYLEY ROSE HILL, JACK GODFREY-BAXTER, KENNETH MITCHELL, LAUREN LENNON, MARIIA ZHUCHENKO, NINA DODD, SAM SPRAGG, SARA MORAWETZ, STEPHEN BURSTOW, THOMAS COLE & BENEDICT ANDERSON
‘CORPOREAL: THE PRESENSE AND ABSENCE’
CURATED BY HELEN WALLER & CHLOÉ HAZELWOOD
2 February – 26 February
Corporeal : the presence and absence, installation view, dimensions variable, 2017. Photography by Document Photography.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Corporeal : the presence and absence presents a selection of tangible works with intangible qualities. Showcasing mediums spanning from installation and documentation to video, photographic, and sound, this exhibition aims to unfold the seen and unseen areas of matter.
LUCAS DAVIDSON
‘FRAME OF MIND’
1 March – 1 April
Lucas Davidson, Frame of Mind, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Frame of Mind was a site-specific video installation that used light, mirror and sound to form a complex spatial reconfiguration of the screen. The 16:9 format of the screen was reduced to a white moving image that projected through the gallery space onto a series of suspended mirrors. The mirrors responded to the slightest movements in the gallery, reflecting back abstract light forms that circumnavigated the walls, bleeding onto the floor, ceiling and internal space of the gallery making every surface including the viewers body a screen.
LISA SAMMUT
‘TAPESTRIES FOR GALAXIES’
1 March – 1 April
Lisa Sammut, Tapestries for galaxies, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Tapestries for galaxies was concerned with the knowledge of a distant cosmic reality – so present in imagination yet far removed from the grasp of our immediate senses. A panoramic constellation of celestial structures and handmade prop-like objects, the installation presented a speculative new cosmography, where the historical practice of diagrammatical illustrations of an interconnected universal whole takes material form. Drawing on relations rather that representations, tapestries for galaxies looked to the likeness, alignments, chemistry and mimesis between objects as a relational tool for embodying a sense of expansion. While questioning the tendency for automatic and singular perspectives, this exhibition expanded on the artists’ current interest in the emergence of a social, cultural and philosophical cosmic anxiety, where the astronomic, ecologic and geologic spheres can be understood as a condition of our time.
LEYLA STEVENS, BRIDIE GILLMAN, ALFIRA O’SULLIVAN, KARTIKA SUHARTO-MARTIN, IDA LAWRENCE & MASHARA WACHJUDY
‘WOVEN’
6 April – 26 April
Woven, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Woven was an exhibition and performance event that tied together the practices of six female Australian artists who each have personal connections to Indonesia. These connections exist through the artists having an Indonesian parent, being immersed in the culture, living part of their childhood in the archipelago, and living there more recently. The artists’ works explored the complexities of history, identity, memory and cross-cultural understanding – on both personal and national levels – and span installation, performance, painting, collage, photography, video and sculpture.
SHIREEN TAWEEL
‘TRANSLATED ROOTS’
6 April – 26 April
Musallah, 2017, Pierced copper, 174 x 174 x 30cm, detailed shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Translated Roots conveyed aspects of 'traditional' identity through the acknowledgment of early Australian settlers from the greater Muslim community, highlighting the complexity of change through the sense of transience for those who migrate to sow their roots within a new context of a greater global community. Musallah formed by hand from sheet copper partakes in a cross-cultural discourse, while its sense of the arcane and shifted structure opens dialogue between shared histories and communities of fluid identities.
KOJI RYUI, HUSEYIN SAMI & BRENDAN VAN HEK
‘UNLIMITED SUPPORT’
4 May – 27 May
Unlimited Support, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Unlimited Support was an artist led project that uses the formal qualities of installation, painting and sculptural work to look at what constitutes a support. The three artists employed supports in their work in diverse and distinctive ways, and in this exhibition they explored points of connection and difference in how they think through the potential of engaging with supports.
HARRIET BODY
‘ONWARD’
1 June – 24 June
Onward, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
Each of Harriet Body’s works on paper and sculpted forms is the result of a series of actions, and can be unravelled to describe her body in motion. Her materials speak of walking, gathering, selecting, grinding and blending. The works evidence pulping, sifting, burning, mark-making, pasting, moulding, placing, inhaling and exhaling. They are traces of the artist’s body in action.
MARLAINA READ & KATELYN CLARK
‘SONGS OF SIBYLS’
1 June – 24 June
Songs of Sibyls, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Song of Sibyls was a collaborative and experimental sound and video adaptation of the Gregorian chant El Cant de la Sibilla, about a prophetess and the apocalypse. El Cant de la Sibilla originates from ancient Grecian myths of the Sibyls, female oracles who took divine inspiration and prophesied at holy sites. It appeared in European Christian spiritual traditions in the 10th century, due to the similarity in the story to the biblical concept of the final judgment. The music has many variations, incorporating traditions of Gregorian chant, troubadour poetry, and Catalan ritual.
ABDUL ABDULLAH, CHERINE FAHD, SHANNON FIELD, VINCENT NAMATJIRA & JOAN ROSS
WITH PORTRAITS FROM THE USU COLLECTION, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES & SYDNEY UNIVERSITY MUSEUMS
‘PORTRAITS OF MEN’
CURATED BY SÎAN MCINTYRE
29 June – 29 July
Portraits of Men, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
Hanging in the Great Hall as of 2017, the entry and exit point for all Sydney University students, there were 21 paintings, 4 busts, and 2 statues. Of these, 2 were women and 25 were men. There were 16 portraits in Maclaurin Hall - 12 paintings, 2 plaques. Of these 1 was a woman and 15 were men. Another portrait of a woman was installed on July 19. In the reading room of the Holme building, where the majority of the paintings exhibited here have been sourced, there were 6 paintings and one bust, of these 1 was a woman. The vast majority depicted white men and women over 50.
These portraits do not necessarily function as decorative art pieces; rather, they act as tributes to significant members of the University of Sydney community, people who have been integral to the development and success of the university and community at large. As such, they are shown in places of ceremony, positioned above the heads of students, to inspire and remind us of the potential capacity in us all.
PENNY COSS, SEAN O’CONNELL & CLARE PEAKE
‘ALL MATTER HAS A PAST’
CURATED BY CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA
3 August – 26 August
All matter has a past, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
All matter has a past was an exhibition that centred on the idea of encounters – between a person and a site, an idea and a form, a material and a force. The artists in this exhibition shared an interest in the idea of transference and exchange. In their work, encounters between forces or entities are either orchestrated or observed and within them the artists found connections to place, personal histories, and to formal enquiries of material and form.
ELAINE SYRON
‘DOWN THE BARREL: INDIGENOUS RESISTANCE’
3 August – 26 August
Down the Barrel: Indigenous Resistance, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Down the Barrel: Indigenous Resistance was a solo exhibition of works by Elaine Syron. Syron’s photographs captured Indigenous resistance in and around Sydney over the past four decades. This exhibition was part retrospective of Elaine Syron’s career, part survey of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander resistance she documents. Syron’s photographic archive was expanded upon with archival materials, video work, posters and annotations.
CARLA ADAMS, TROY- ANTHONY BAYLIS, CHRISTINE DEAN, CHANTAL FRASER, KATE JUST, MUMU MIKE WILLIAMS, CLAUDIA NICHOLSON, RAQUEL ORMELLA, MARLENE RUBENTJA & PAUL YORE.
‘CAN’T TOUCH THIS’
CURATED BY MIRIAM KELLY
31 August – 30 September
Can’t touch this, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
EXHIBITION STATEMENT
The title Can’t Touch This started out as a nod to 1990’s pop culture and a nerdy curatorial joke about the desire to touch artworks, in particular those made from textiles, in defiance of gallery signage. It is like there is a special set of exemptions in our minds if an artwork looks soft, plush and familiar, maybe a little warm…
Our relationship to cloth is unlike any other medium in artistic practice, experienced primarily through its relationship to our bodies. Yet, because of this proximity, it is a medium that in many ways flies under the radar of our perception. Academic Maxine Bristow has described textiles as bearing witness through their proximity to our lives, being able to provide a “convincing testimony, not because they are evident and physically constrain or enable, but often precisely because we do not see them.”
‘2017 USU CREATIVE AWARDS’
5 October – 14 October
USU Creative Awards, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
EXHIBITION STATEMENT
A shortlist of works from the USU Creative Awards will be exhibited at Verge Gallery during Verge Festival. Exhibiting Creative Awards artists include: Anja Bless, Stephen Burstow, Dream Catcher, Andrew Dong, Madeline Fountain, Emily Halloran, Jeanie Ho, Alexandra Jonscher, Gillian Kayrooz, Harry Klein, Alina Leung, Brent Liang, Danielle Lincon, Laura Moore, Yiu Nam, Kim Nguyen, Shae Caroline Potter, Shababa Salim, Andrew Simms, Alexis Weaver, and Sarah Woodward.
The USU Creative Awards gives student artists from all University of Sydney campuses and faculties a chance to showcase and publish their work to peers, industry professionals and the local community. The USU Creative Awards categories were: art, word, and music. The student artists had the chance to win $10,000 worth of prizes and be titled as the Grand Prize winner. All entries were judged by alumni and industry professionals. Alongside the USU Creative Awards was a student showcase that featured works from former Sydney College of the Arts students: Bethan Cotterill, Bernadette Smith, and Stephanie Tsimbourlas.
ANNA DUNNILL
‘TO PIERCE, TO PUNCTURE’
CURATED BY RACHEL CIESLA
19 October – 28 October
To pierce, to puncture, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ARTIST STATEMENT
When the self-contained space of the body is entirely covered with magic inscriptions, its status changes fundamentally. It is transformed into a site for the performance of ritual enactments. Such tattoos are regarded as a source of power that force the world beyond to react to the object with which it comes into contact.
To pierce, to puncture focused on the transformation of the self in relation to the ritual. Incorporating practices of tattoo and embroidery, both of which involve a repeated act of puncturing the skin and surface, the artist enacted new rituals for a queer spiritual becoming.
DAVID BORG, DOMINIC SARGENT & AUGUSTA VINALL RICHARDSON
‘TURTLE DOVE’
CURATED BY NICHOLAS KLEINDIENST
19 October – 28 October
Turtle Dove, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Some exhibition strategies can be obstructive in their desire for clean lines and didactic logic. The exhibition turtle dove, organised by artist Nicholas Kleindienst, argued for such obstructive ambiguities, for confusing displayed object with display support. Some works were shown for the public, the rest were also for the public, a future public. Presenting the works of artists David Borg, Dominic Sargent and Augusta Vinall Richardson, turtle dove considered the politics of images, revealing potentials for the destabilisation and conflation of display models that exist within documentation.
An artist book, titled turtle dove, containing texts from Sebastian Goldspink, Chelsea Hopper and Nicholas Kleindienst accompanied the exhibition.
AMIRA HAJAR, CHRISTINE DEAN, DEL LUMANTA, HARRY PICKERING, JEREMY ANDERSON, JOE BRENNAN, JONNO REVANCHE, KATHERINE CORCORAN, LEILA EL REYES, LEENA RIETHMULLER, PETER WAPLES CROWE, SHAREEKA HELALUDDIN, TARIK AHLIP & TYZA STEWART
‘TO THE INCLUSION OF ALL OTHERS’
CURATED BY NINA DODD & JONNO REVANCHE
2 November – 2 December
To the inclusion of all others, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
EXHIBITION STATEMENT
Artists in the exhibition To the inclusion of all others used the postal survey on marriage equality as a springboard to consider the political base of anti-queer decisions, the larger conversations it could inspire about the life-saving and deeply needed potency of friendships between LGBT/queer people, distanced histories, and social commentary. The show intended to be a reminder of the need to leave evidence, to reimagine queer ceremony, communion and self-affirmation, and to weigh ourselves into culture, resisting and getting red-faced in the face of danger or delegitimisation.
LACHLAN ANTHONY
‘GEOMETRIC ASYLUM’
2 November – 2 December
Geometric Asylum, 2017, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.