CONTEXT REVIEW

Cover image: Noémie Goudal, Cascade, Lightjet Print, 168 x 210 cm 2009

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Cynthia Daignault, Blues, 2018, oil on linen, 60 parts: each 9 x 9 in

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Elise Rasmussen, Did You Know Blue Had No Name?, 16mm film transferred to HD Video, 6:38, 2018.

“Did You Know Blue Had No Name? explores epistemological aspects of “blueness” through various historical narratives, examining the relationship between the color blue and mountaineering, early photographic technologies, art history and how knowledge is ascribed and recorded. As a starting point, I investigate 18th century Swiss scientist and alpine enthusiast Horace-Bénédict de Saussure’s cyanometer, a device he created for measuring the blueness of the sky. Saussure’s quest to test his apparatus and theories on blue led to a contest inspiring the first expedition to the summit of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps. The quest for blue has likewise had challenges in early photography as blue skies were difficult to record leading to innovations such as split printing and challenging the “truthfulness” embedded in the medium. Similarly, in ancient texts, no word for blue exists. The word blue only makes an appearance in recorded language after the color could be extracted for pigment. This project weaves together these and other histories of blue, commenting on issues of [in]visibility, innovation, conquest and the contest.”

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Lisa Reihana, in Pursuit of Venus [infected]

“In Neoclassical France, entrepreneur Joseph Dufour used the latest printing innovations to produce Les Sauvages De La Mer Pacifique (1804), a sophisticated twenty panel scenic wallpaper. Mirroring a widespread fascination with the Pacific voyages undertaken by Captain Cook, de Bougainville and de la Perouse; it’s exotic themes referenced popular illustrations of that time. Two hundred years later, Maori artist Lisa Reihana employs twenty-first century digital technologies to animate Les Sauvages De La Mer Pacifique. Enlivened with the sights and sounds of dance and cultural ceremonies, a vast video panorama is populated by a myriad of people drawn from across New Zealand and the Pacific.

Separated by two centuries, both the wallpaper and video are set against a utopian Tahitian landscape. While Dufour’s work models Enlightenment beliefs and ideas of harmony amongst mankind, Reihana’s reading of the past is darker and more nuanced. The artist foregrounds the complexities of cultural identity and colonisation by including scenes of encounter between Europeans and Polynesians.

in Pursuit of Venus is a major video project that has been in development for several years. It reflects the wallpapers utopian ideals, is eight minutes long and presented on two-screens, in Pursuit of Venus has been exhibited in historic homes, art galleries and museums - repurposing each presentation offers new insights and unique presentation opportunities.

The final realisation of in Pursuit of Venus [infected] makes visible some historical narratives absent from the original wallpaper, such as the brisk trade of iron and desirable goods for sexual favours. Differing ideas of ownership and reciprocity resulted in misunderstandings and violent outbursts. This latest version includes famous figures like the privileged and inquisitive botanist Joseph Banks shown terrorising villagers with a Tahitian Chief Mourner; and Tupaia - the Machiavellian Tahitian who was a gifted navigator, politician and artist, and Captain Cook’s invaluable companion. Leading these agentsof change is Captain Cook - famous explorer, gifted cartographer and arguably the harbinger of colonisation. As in the wallpaper, Cook’s death is portrayed, albeit from a renewed perspective. Challenging historical and contemporary stereotypes, in Pursuit of Venus [infected] returns the gaze of imperialism with a speculative twist that disrupts notions of beauty, authenticity, history and myth.”

 - www.inpursuitofvenus.com

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Driessens & Verstappen, Top-down Bottom-up, 2012

... “an installation with four dripping machines and 800 kg of beeswax. During the course of the exhibition four stalagmites of wax will arise on the floor of the museum. The dripping machines are suspended from the ceiling and are refilled with new rods of wax two times a week. The work was developed for the exhibition Exploded View and commissioned by the Centraal Museum in Utrecht.”

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Michaela Gleave, The World Arrives at Night (Star Printer), 2014, Dot matrix printer, mini PC, custom computer program, fanfold paper, table.  Programming: Michael Fitzgerald, Duration: infinite, Installation view: Melbourne Art Fair.  Photograph: Michaela Gleave.

“The World Arrives at Night (Star Printer) prints data relating to one star per minute of stars as they appear over the horizon for the location of the viewer.  Astronomically correct, the object tracks the rotation of the Earth, the waterfall of paper documenting the movements of the sky as time continually compresses in the paper stack on the floor.  Programmed to operate indefinitely, the work is a collaboration between artist Michaela Gleave and astronomer Michael Fitzgerald and combines a shared interest in the mechanisms of the universe and the human construction of understanding.  Monitoring the movement of the stars for eternity The World Arrives at Night (Star Printer) breaks down distinctions between day and night, the flow of data serving as a reminder of our position within the universe.“

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Angelica Mesiti, Mother Tongue, 2017, 2 channel video installation, 18:00. 

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Steph Fuller, Deep Space

“Watch stars shoot across the Milky Way. Watch an aurora dance along the Earth’s horizon. See the Earth spinning below the International Space Station. Fuller recreates the vastness of space with the small and insignificant. “Creating this work is my way of participating in the space race. I can’t actually travel beyond our atmosphere and see things with the certainty of my own eyes. So I substitute a different kind of certainty – that of the everyday. I recreate views from the ISS and NASA using common and familiar objects – the laundry sink, a spider, a cup of coffee..” 

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Nadege Philippe-Janon, Jerry on the Katabatic Wind, 2016.

As part of New Alchemists at City Gallery, Adelaide.

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Liam Benson, You and Me, 2017.

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David Lancashire, Small Works from a Big Country, Collage, acrylic on rag paper Framed in hand-painted frame by artist 26 x 30cm

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Fabrizio Biviano, A book of longing, 2018.

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Pilar Mata Dupont, Undesirable Bodies, 2018. 

Shown at FORM.

“Internationally celebrated artist Pilar Mata Dupont returns to Western Australia this February with Undesirable Bodies, a major exhibition installation exploring colonial legacies and ecological conservation at Millstream Chichester National Park.

Filmed in the hauntingly beautiful Pilbara region, Undesirable Bodies challenges Euro-centric notions of beauty through striking images and a three-screen video. Using invasive flora species as her primary subject, Mata Dupont explores conflicting contemporary issues at Jirndawurrunha, a natural freshwater spring in Millstream Chichester National Park sacred to the Yindjibarndi people.

This contended site, now a popular tourist destination, was a pastoral station homestead in the 1920s. During this period various species of lilies, date palms and vines were planted here, creating a bucolic desert oasis. Though aesthetically appealing, these invasive species are unsustainable and cause ongoing damage to this environment. Mata Dupont’s exhibition explores the contemporary tensions inherent in this place – competing priorities of ecological preservation, the needs of tourism markets, and respect for the deep and sustained cultural importance of Jirndawurrunha are evident in her artworks.”

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Peter Hennessey, Where we are now (Navstar Block II-F satellite, USA) , 2014 Plywood ABS plastic, wax. Above: Peter Hennessey, Maquettes for a monument to escape velocity #1 , 2014 Pewter, wax. From the exhibition Here be dragons. 

“Hic sunt dracones is a medieval Latin phrase meaning ‘dragons are here’.Early cartographers would place this phrase over areas of their maps that were blank. These were places that were unexplored or literally unknown. There might have been some suspicion that strange beasts lurked there but really it was more about the lack of knowledge. They knew something was there but had no idea what. I guess that made it dangerous.” - Peter Hennessy via Domus

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Hayden Folwer, Together Again, Installation/Live performance: cage, Australian dingo and virtual reality landscape, 2017, Photo: Joy Lai

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“‘First Reduction’ an installation by Oren Arbel and Naom Tabenkin Arbel is inspired by a short story by the contemporary Syrian writer, Zakaria Tamer, in which a large man is surgically remodelled to ensure he consumes a pre-determined rationed air quantity. Their ‘machine’ compresses unfired vessels made of different layers of ‘local’ clay bodies. This survey of crushed iconic archaeological forms speaks of ancient and recent histories of conquest, and the systemic violence associated with assimilation and ‘normalisation’.”

As part of Post Colonialism? 

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LISA SAMMUT - tapestriesforgalaxies

Lisa Sammut, tapestries for galaxies (2017)

“tapestries for galaxies is 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 presents 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 looks 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 expands 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.”

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Lisa Sammut, the new moon, 2015, digital collage on ply, mirror, wire, mirrorball motor, spotlight, paint