BENJAMIN CHADBOND, LIZ MCCRYSTAL, SALOTE TAWALE, KATRIN KOENNING, YOUNG SUN HAN, JENNIFER LOEBER, MARIE SHANNON & NINA RÖDER
’THE LEFTOVERS’
CURATED BY TALIA SMITH
2 JUNE – 25 JUNE, 2016
The Leftovers, 2016, detailed shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ID: There is a series of two small images on a piece of white paper, spread across a wooden table. There are little white wooden blocks around the photos, propping up a piece of clear perspex on top of the table.
EXHIBITION STATEMENT
The Leftovers is a group exhibition that examines the delicate nature of the passing of something or someone. The works question the memories that we hold onto and the histories we try to rebuild when something comes to an end, trying to both honour and make sense of what has happened. Curated by Talia Smith and featuring artists from Australia, New Zealand, Germany and America each artist brings the viewer on a personal journey through grief, existence and acceptance.
The Leftovers, 2016, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ID: In the forefront, there is a light brown, wooden table with a piece of reflective perspex laying on top. Behind on the left wall, there is a white frame hung with three black and white images vertically placed, with a television with white text on it. On the right wall, there is a collection of various sized frames placed on random spots along the wall, with different images across each one.
‘My father was a hoarder, and after disposing of all his hoardings after his death I can only conclude that some of this hoarding was an attempt to try to prevent time itself from passing, by stopping its processes of entropy and erasure with box after box of slides, of dusty collections, of account ledgers.’
Rebecca Solnit
The Leftovers, 2016, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ID: There are a collection of various photo frames. The most visible one to the left has a blonde child’s portrait, with a portrait of a woman on the far back, and abstract images of a blue glove and compact drill in a case.
New York based artist Young Sun Han documented with his cellphone the last months of his fathers life as he lost his battle with illness, a raw and honest depiction of the small in between moments – the humourous and the sad - between life and death. Katrin Koenning and Liz McCrystal share the experiences of losing someone to mental illness, their projects trying to make sense of a situation that we will never be able to fully understand.
Benjamin Chadbond and Nina Röder explore human existence and our own mortality with the knowledge that one day we too, shall pass. Salote Tawale and New Zealand based artist Marie Shannon examine the loss of a family member, Shannon documenting the process of clearing out her partner’s artist studio. Tawale uses an intuitive drawing process as a way of connecting with a grief that is intangible.
The Leftovers, 2016, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ID: In the forefront, there is a light brown, wooden table with a piece of reflective perspex laying on top. Behind on the left, there are a series of black and white images that slowly fade away as it cascades to the last image. On the right, there is a white frame on a white wall with a television that has white text on it.
In an online component to the exhibition, American artist Jennifer Loeber shares her project Left Behind which documents her mother’s belongings and family photographs through an Instagram account, allowing public access to the artists explorations of honouring and remembering a loved one.
The Leftovers is a poem to the past/passed, to the grief that we experience, personally and universally, and to the others who have also been left behind.
The Leftovers, 2016, Installation shot. Photography by Document Photography.
ID: On the wall from left to right, there is a black and white abstract image with a piece of neon pink string hanging off it. Next to that there is a large series of black and white images that slowly fade as it repeats itself, in the forefront there there is black book sitting on a wooden shelf.