Christopher L G Hill 'flora' 2012 featured in the exhibition 'Micro Management', curated by David Homewood at Utopian Slumps Melbourne in 2012. It accompanied 8 a4 text pieces. documentation of the show in archive (also featured; Elizabeth Newman, Alex Vivian, Kate Meakin, Joshua Petherick and Matthew Benjamin)
Gertrude Studios 2012 exhibition (doccumentation of my work, and others)
"big painting" Trevelyan Clay
" Sculptural work" Darren Sylvester.
Photos: Jake Walker
GERTRUDE STUDIOS 2012
17.11.12 – 15.12.12
FERGUS BINNS, TREVELYAN CLAY, ELIZA DYBALL, GEORGE EGERTON-WARBURTON,
CHRISTOPHER L G HILL, VERONICA KENT, ASH KILMARTIN, KATIE LEE, LAITH
MCGREGOR, JOSHUA PETHERICK, REKO RENNIE, DARREN SYLVESTER, HANNA TAI,
JENSEN TJHUNG, JAKE WALKER, PAUL YORE
EXHIBITION DATES: 17 NOVEMBER - 15 DECEMBER 2012OPENING: FRIDAY 16 NOVEMBER, 6-8PM
STUDIOS OPEN DAY: SATURDAY 24 NOVEMBER, 1-4PM
Featuring sixteen artists working across a range of disciplines the Gertrude Studios exhibition seeks to enhance commonalities as well as linking and intersecting what appear to be divergent practices, to reveal shared concerns and associations.
Veronica Kent presents a new installation work that sees her intimate portraits of an otherworldly family emerge and recede amongst objects and layered fabric. These figures and their accompanying objects seem to speak to each other silently in a private language of symbol and sign. The furtive tendencies of objects are also explored in Ash Kilmartin’s new installation work. Created specifically for the front gallery of Gertrude Contemporary and spanning the entire window, the silk and bronze work filters daylight as it enters the gallery and recalls both the physical and elusive presence of lingering memory.
Eliza Dyball’s installation follows the parameters of the gallery, snaking around the walls, negotiating the building, discretely tracking the spatial and relational currents of the exhibition. Dyball challenges our experience of space, while Darren Sylvester draws our attention to the passage of time, foregrounding our own mortality. Sylvester takes his recent interest in the neo-mysticism of contemporary beauty products to a new, monumental scale with the creation of a carved totem that greets both the future and the past. With her eye also fixed on the intersection of time, mysticism and science, Hanna Tai presents a new video work made during her recent research trip to Jantar Mantar, Jaipur. Here, monumental astronomical instruments constructed in the 16th Century provide the site for Tai’s ongoing exploration of cosmology and astronomy.
This exhibition also features new works by Fergus Binns, Trevelyan Clay, George Egerton-Warburton, Christopher L G Hill, Katie Lee, Laith McGregor, Joshua Petherick, Reko Rennie, Jensen Tjhung, Jake Walker and Paul Yore.
As part of the annual exhibition Gertrude Contemporary Studio Artists will be opening their studios to the public for one afternoon only on Saturday 24 November 1 - 4pm. This is an exclusive opportunity to meet the artists and gain an invaluable insight into their practices.
The Gertrude Studios exhibition is generously supported by Suzi Carp, Gertrude’s Table, Head of the Table, Exhibitions.
The Danielle and Daniel Besen Foundation, Gertrude’s Table, Head of the Table The Studio Artists’ catalogue is designed and generously sponsored by Yanni Florence.
2events 2night
Opening : Friday, November 9th - 8 PM till late
Conversation with the curators : Saturday, November 10th - 5:30 PM
Works by Brooke Babington, Jon Campbell, Holly Childs, Greatest Hits, Matthew Greaves, Christopher LG Hill, Lou Hubbard, Oliver van der Lugt and Lisa Radford.
Micromanagement documentation
Exhibition: Micromanagement
Curated by David Homewood
Sat 22 September - Sat 13 October 2012
MATTHEW BENJAMINCHRISTOPHER LG HILL
KATE MEAKIN
LIZZY NEWMAN
JOSHUA PETHERICK
ALEX VIVIAN
- In his classic 1917 essay “Art as Technique,” the Russian critic Viktor Shklovsky suggests that ordinary perception is nothing more than the product of the deadened residue of habit. Clouded by the laws of senseless repetition, perception is blind not only to its object but also, more troublingly, to the act of perceiving itself; this autopilot of permanent distraction is a precondition for the appearance of the world. For Shklovksy, the primary significance of art derives precisely from its capacity to disrupt perception through the technique of “defamiliarisation” (ostranenie). “A work is created ‘artistically,’” Shklovksy writes, “so that its perception is impeded and the greatest possible effect is produced through the slowness of the perception.” In their subtle (and at times barely noticeable) modification and recombination of found objects, the artists featured in this exhibition seek to induce the sort of punctuation of perception theorised by Shklovksy.
- Analogous to the found object functioning as the ground upon which the artist’s gesture is inscribed, the contextual frame of the art gallery permits the same object to reveal itself as such. But the installation of numerous objects comprising a single artwork not only throws into relief the negative space of the gallery—it also means that, inevitably, an alteration to the form of a single work comes to partially determine the form of other similarly structured artworks in the exhibition. As the role of the artist fades imperceptibly into that of the curator—and the broadly curatorial orientation of the work on display here is further indicated by the set of techniques (collection, storage, organisation, and display) commonly employed by the artists in their production—the exhibition comes to be seen increasingly as an artwork in itself.
- The professional curator, that nascent figure in the landscape of post-1960s art, is located on the periphery of artistic production. And since they are obliged to perform a range of duties straddling the domains of public relations, marketing, administration and management, they have been regarded by some as a potential threat to the autonomy of the contemporary artist. In these accounts, the curator is depicted as a sort of middleman, a middle-management type who mediates between the artist, institution, and public.
- The term “micromanagement” ordinarily refers to a manager’s close surveillance of, or unnecessary interference with, the carrying out of delegated tasks in the workplace. In the case of an art exhibition, the term might be broadened to refer to a situation in which another party (whether artist, curator, gallerist, director, landlord, policeman etc.), through their efforts to have the autonomous artwork conform to their own code, threatens in some way the latter’s capacity to actualise the desired effect of defamiliarisation. In bringing together six artists whose work is broadly curatorial in orientation, the current exhibition sets up a situation in which artists themselves are forced to engage in what might be called the micromanagement of form, seeking to assume responsibility for the form of their own artwork while, at the same time, necessarily acknowledging in that same work the artistic production of their peers.
Micromanagement at Utopian Slumps closes this Saturday 13th
from the past (2011)
They look a lot different now, the backs defiantly looked beter than the fronts at this point.
Photos Nic Tammens
