9 APRIL – 1 MAY 2010
FRONT, MIDDLE & SIDE GALLERIES
A quarter turn on every screw
Brad Haylock, Anthony Johnson, Yvette King, Sanné Mestrom, Sanja Pahoki, Kiron Robinson, Jackson Slattery, Nedko Solakov, Lee Walton.
Catalogue essays by Kel Glaister and Tamsin Green
Download Kel Glaister’s essay (PDF)
Download Tamsin Green’s essay (PDF)
ARTIST FLOOR TALK
Saturday, April 17, 4pm.
a quarter turn on every screw
This exhibition is an exploration of finality, anxiety and compulsion in art practice. We find ourselves at various points in out art practices, and our lives, with a project completed or a situation played out. At these points we have nothing left to do but see what happens next, what the world may throw at us. Nothing, that is, except check each (metaphorical) screw again and again.
A quarter turn… is about the activities we undertake while standing at the signpost of the point of no return. Activities based on compulsion, and on the uncertainty and nervousness that comes with the conclusiveness of an exhibition situation which must (unlike a wider practice with remains forever unfinished) at some point be let go. Much of art practice is about doing the stupid thing, the pointless thing. Maybe just to test it out, maybe because we don’t know what else to do. Painting a photo to see if it’s real, making an intricate chain to measure our own height and place in the world, bang head repeatedly. We are compelled to these things by some unpredictable quirk of personality or fate, compelled to ask questions in an uncertain milieu in an unstable language. This compulsion may not be efficient or sensical, but it is certainly logical, perhaps hyper-logical.
Activities that are one gesture of many in an ongoing project, relationship or lifetime, also form a single point in time. A statement made, the peal of a bell that cannot be unrung. This exhibition seeks to test of current circumstance, beyond the point what is required. We’re not talking about the triumphant flourish of a painter signing a canvas, these gestures can be funny, sweet, cynical, nihilist, passionate or melancholy.
Bios
Brad Haylock is an artist, designer and writer who lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. He is a Lecturer in Visual Communication at Monash University. He holds an Honours Degree in Visual Communication from Monash University and a PhD from RMIT University. He is presently a member of the Program Committee and the Board of West Space, and the Editorial Committee and the board of un magazine.
Anthony Johnson’s exhibition history includes Your call is important to us, Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery 2007; The relations which a lie is not in, Conical, 2008; Smart Casual/Dumb Formal, Six_a, Hobart 2009 and more recently (Untitled) Expand/Contract, CAST initiative, 2009. Anthony exhibited in the prestigious survey of young contemporary artists, Primavera (2007) at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and the Samstag Museum, Adelaide. He was the recipient of an Australia Council funded studio residency in Los Angeles, 2009. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours (Tasmanian School of Art, UTAS, 2001) and will begin an MFA early this year at UTAS.
Yvette King is a Melbourne artist who currently likes sculpture, electronics and party supplies. This often has hilarious results. King graduated with Honours from Monash University in 2006, in which she also received the Baldessin Foundation Travelling Fellowship. King was last at Kings for her solo exhibition of 2009, It’s a wonderful life. Her favourite possession is her spit rotisserie motor.
Sanné Mestrom’s recent exhibitions include ‘09 Things Fall Down. Sometimes We Look Up, Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney; Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow (curated by Olivia Polini) Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne, An ideal for living (curated by Simon Gregg) Linden Gallery, Melbourne; A history of space is the history of wars, Enjoy Public Art Gallery, Wellington; At the Foot of Justice, Conical Inc. Melbourne. She is on the Programming Committee of West Space Inc, Melbourne and exhibits with Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney. Mestrom is currently a Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces studio resident, Melbourne, Australia (2010-2012).
Sanja Pahoki uses everyday mediums (photography, video and text) to explore observations from everyday life. More recently she has started to work with neon. Self, identity and anxiety have been recurring themes. Pahoki’s practise is usually directed at the moments of losing it and the efforts to keep it together.
Kiron Robinson’s work examines the awkwardness created by the pressure of living between the Before and After life. Through assemblages of photography, video, and text Kiron questions the constructions humanity develops to deal with this pressure of not knowing more. Kiron’s suspicion is that it gets worse.
Drawing on found and personal photographs, Jackson Slattery’s compositions often depict uneasy or sinister scenes rendered in a meticulously refined manner. A consistent area of investigation in Slattery’s practice is the construction of identity, with his interest ranging from the spectacularised personas of contemporary stars and celebrities, to the more subtle and obscured nuances of individual’s daily lives.
Nedko Solakov lives and works in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Often regarded as an Experientialist, Lee Walton’s work takes many forms- from drawings on paper, game/system based structures, video, web-based performances, public projects, theatrical orchestrations and more.
Kel Glaister is an artist, currently living in Melbourne.
Tamsin Green is an artist, writer and curator who works predominantly in film and video. She has exhibited widely in Melbourne, as well as nationally and internationally. Tamsin Green is a Kings ARI committee member, a co-curator at Light Projects, and is currently lecturing in painting at Monash University.
A quarter turn on every screw is proudly supported by the City of Melbourne.
