FEB 16- 24 MARCH 2007
Between 1992 and 1994 Khalaf collected military
objects abandoned by the Iraqi Army in Kuwait and painted them in
the style of ‘Athenian Red Figure’ pottery. ‘Acts
of War’ is a development on this work, consisting of painted
military objects, paintings and installation.
In ‘Acts of War’ Khalaf uses terracotta fragments collected
from ground zero of the 2002 Bali Bombing, painting body parts on
them, and then constructing larger fragments out of canvas &
wood to painted figures based on characters from ‘The Iliad’.
image:
TORMENTING PHINEUS (2007)
Hamad Khalaf
Acrylic on rubber and aluminum gasmask.
16 FEB- 24 MARCH
In Strata the layered land fragmented texts from explorers,
naturalists, artists, writers and the artists own journals overlap
as paths and thoughts are crossed, merged, and erased; the artist’s
process creating a palimpsest of experiences held by the land in
Central Australia.
Juxtaposed against this landscape of text is a large-scale geologic
rubbing from the ancient strata of the Amadeus Basin, an inland
sea that dominated Central Australia between 950 and 450 MYA.
image:
STRATA the layered land (detail)
Bek Mifsud
Monoprint and graphite on paper
2006
SCREENING ROOM: 16 FEB- 24 MARCH
VIDEODROMO is an exploration of current video-play: the video-camera as part of the grand game of the visual; the state-of-play reconfigured, the goalposts shifting even as we hit the record button… Positing the hybridity of the moment, this exhibition sets out for where video-tech becomes a recombinant with the digital, producing new infections that are already extending the symptoms of visuality.
Videodromo (1.5) aims to demonstrate that analogue video has been
surreptitiously hybridising with the digital to become the new retro-media
of our time."
An essential component in VIDEODROMO (1.5) will be the DARWIN DIALOGUE:
video work solicited from emerging local Darwin filmmakers/new media
artists Elka Kerkhofs, Marko and Brandon Williamson
images:
top:2006, Rated VHS, Tanja Visosevic, Video
Installation. (detail).
bottom: 2006, VIDEODROMO, Spectrum Project Space. (exhibition detail)
THE BOX SET 16 FEB- 24 MARCH
The Landlord is a project exploring memory,
memorial and the attempt to forget:
A found photograph, with a deliberate ‘cut-out’ of an
expelled individual, and a corresponding sculptural form mirroring
the missing face.
Hayley West’s practice investigates
issues of the private/public, utilising unsuspecting third parties,
communication breakdown, cultural misunderstandings, journeys and
the movement through eternal and un/determined routes.
http://thecarrotjoke.blogspot.com/
image:
Hayley West, The Landlord (detail) 2006
THE MONITOR 16 FEB- 24 MARCH
The Dawn of Remix (2004) is a scratch video which re-edits footage from Stanley Kubricks 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) with audio sampled from the LL Cool J track Cant Live Without My Radio. The original scene from 2001 documents the very first moment an ape understood how to put an object to an alternative use - he picks up a bone and realises that it can be wielded as a weapon. The Dawn of Remix conflates this momentous act of re-use with the evolution of audio remixing in hip-hop culture. Instead of a weapon, the bone becomes a drumstick and microphone, while other apes DJ and break-dance.
ARTIST BIO
Soda_Jerk (Dan & Dominique Angeloro) are Sydney-based remix
artists working across the fields of video, photo-collage and installation.
They also work collaboratively as independent arts writers and curators.
30 MARCH – 5 MAY
The Exquisite Pirate work has developed from a long-term interest in representations of feminine identity with reference to contemporary and historical models. It also brings forth the woman pirate as a metaphor for contemporary global issues of personal and social identity, cultural instability, immigration and hybridity, and reflects on the symbolism of the ship and its relevance to postcolonial discourse and, specifically, its relevance to contemporary and historical Australia. My work places a practical and theoretical emphasis on the installation space, on mutable forms and methodologies of deconstruction and reconstruction. My use of materials is integral to the conceptual unfolding of my work: the process of cutting, collage, photo-montage, staining, sewing and stitching – and their association with women’s practices – are refined and reassessed in the context of each installation.
image:
The Exquisite Pirate, 2006 installation view
2006 Contemporary Commonwealth Exhibition, Ian Potter Centre NGV
: Australia
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas and fabric with various collage
elements
Size variable, 700 x 1200 cm
30 MARCH –
5 MAY
Pete Volich's work explores themes surrounding identity, representation
and narrative structures. Volich focuses especially on everyday
materials, scenarios and forms derived from the urban and suburban
environment. Recently selected as a finalist for the Helen Lempriere
travelling scholarship at Artspace, Tales from the rear view
mirror, here we go again 2006, mimics the framed sporting memorabilia
commonly found in the 'Games Room' or 'Sporting Club'. A collection
of situations, memories and thoughts that are both real and imagined,
are reconstructed using sporting memorabilia and found snap-shot
photography that immortalise and frame a story or a moment in time.
The anthropological act of collecting and displaying these items
in their whimsical 'trophy' format contests fact and fiction. This
work plays with the idea of the antihero in a culture fixated with
competition and masculinity, and the tradition of memento mori which
explores the sentiments and memories held within personal objects.
image: "Tales from the rear view mirror'
Pete Volich
Courtesy of the artist and Stills Gallery
www.stillsgallery.com.au
THE SCREENING ROOM : 30 MARCH – 5 MAY
An exhibition of work from 2003 to 2007 by a French born Singapore-based
artist. Her screenworks engage with the female form and hair, referencing
the sixteenth century French legend The Hairy Virgin, the
erotic classic Venus in Furs, Perrault’s fairytale
Donkey Skin and the cultural notion of woman as beast,
desired and feared.
THE MONITOR : 30 MARCH – 5 MAY
How do we know how we are feeling? We have little control when strong feelings sweep us away, overwhelming us and causing havoc in reasoning. The lack of awareness of emotional feeling can also be damaging as awareness of our emotions. The ability to read emotions in both others and ourselves is central to empathy and understanding.
On the other hand, powerful emotions can simmer beneath the threshold
of awareness, impacting on how we perceive and act, even though
we have no idea they are at work. ‘Ferment’ highlights
the emotions fermenting under the surface, emphasizing how often
we don’t know how we are feeling.
THE BOX SET : 30 MARCH – 5 MAY
High and Mighty, Lowly and Meek is the first cut-out installation in See’s Tou Dongxi series that investigates cross-cultural exchange, referencing trade on the Silk Road. The little boys, ubiquitous in Chinese culture, are wearing plush toy koalas. Using the European idiom, ‘the wolf in sheep’s clothing’, the installation investigates notions of colonialism through appropriation and trade.
11 MAY– 16 JUNE
collected video and performed works that map the figure
in motion and stillness. The works oscillate between absence and
presence, multiplicities of viewpoints, animate and inanimate, and
phantoms and live bodies. They invite an experiential response from
the viewer through immersion in the visual and a first-hand interactive
experience of proprioception: how we sense ourselves. Jude Walton
was born in Manchester, UK, and lives and works in Melbourne, Australia.
She currently teaches theory and practice in performance making
on the Bachelor of Arts in Performance Studies at Victoria University.
11 MAY– 16 JUNE
Darwin artist Chayni Henry exhibits her most recent body of work.
Chayni’s practice continues to explore the vitality of local
experiences. Using text and images, her paintings form autobiographical
narratives of her life in the Northern Territory.
THE MOOD OF THE MOMENT
THE SCREENING ROOM : 11 MAY– 16 JUNE
Net artists Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries are Young-hae Chang
and Marc Voge who produce their web based work from Seoul, Korea.
Their work uses tightly synchronized text movies and jazz soundtracks
with Flash animation software, translated into multiple languages.
THE BOX SET : 11 MAY– 16 JUNE
Empty sculpted shells of garden tools from past generations, intricately
woven from New Zealand flax are made to explore lost skills, generational
change and the losing of traditions.
THE MONITOR : 11 MAY– 16 JUNE
Conceived as a hypothesis that one’s favourite line from a
movie contains within it the essence of a person’s ideal,
a passion, a conviction or a sense of self - IMAGO maps a series
of frozen moments in the Los Angeles acting community. Each actor
is seen in their day job delivering their favourite line from a
movie, mapping the day to day architectural space where desire is
incubated.
Austrian/Iranian filmmaker Minou Norouzi lives and works in London.