Continuing ACCA’s ongoing series of significant solo exhibitions by leading international artists, ACCA is excited to present a major show by Irish-born, London-based artist Eva Rothschild.
Curated by Max Delany and Annika Kristensen, Eva Rothschild: Kosmos brings together new sculptural commissions with recent work spanning the last decade of the artist’s diverse yet distinct practice. Shaped by a myriad of influences from minimal art of the 1960s and 70s to classical architecture, spiritualism and pop-culture, Rothschild has developed an international reputation for sculptural works that are both striking and spare, as sharp geometric forms morph into flamboyant, enigmatic compositions. Stripped of excess, Rothschild’s abstract arrangements draw the mind into spaces where power, ritual, the architectural and the existential intersect.
Alongside the artist’s interest in the materiality of sculpture – encompassing ideas of form, space and scale – is an attentiveness to the physical presence of the body and its role both in the act of making and experiencing an artwork. Rothschild’s arresting and at times eccentric forms, assembled from a variety of materials including concrete, leather, jesmonite, fabric and plastic, encourage a physical and aesthetic response from the viewer, as they navigate their own corporeality in proximity to the work, the composition of the exhibition, and the architecture of the gallery. Several works consider the social potential of sculpture as open-form spaces and informal social settings in which to convene and converse; while others serve as spatial interruptions or thresholds, reorienting the passage and behaviour of the viewer. As a mise-en-scene or backdrop for performance, Rothschild’s installations also invite the idea of the chance encounter, as spaces in which to reflect, watch, dream and act.
Eva Rothschild: Kosmos is the first survey of Rothschild’s work in Australia, and a timely exhibition in advance of her forthcoming representation of Ireland at the 2019 Venice Biennale. Presented in association with City Gallery Wellington, and the Melbourne International Arts Festival, with the support of Culture Ireland.
Eva Rothschild has exhibited widely since the early 2000s, following post-graduate studies at Goldsmith’s College, London and an earlier degree at the University of Ulster, Belfast. Recent solo exhibitions include Iceberg Hits, Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London, 2018; A Material Enlightenment, 303 Gallery, New Work, 2017; Alternative to Power, The New Art Gallery Walsall, 2016; A Gated Community, Sonneveld House, Rotterdam, 2016; and Sightings, Nasher Sclpture Center, Dallas 2012. Rothschild was awarded the 2012 Children’s Art Commission at London’s Whitechapel Gallery and the 2009 Duveen Commission by Tate Britain. In 2011 she was commissioned to produce a new public work, Empire, for New York’s Public Art Fund.
Curators: Max Delany and Annika Kristensen
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Digital Publication: Writing in the Expanded Field
Writing in the Expanded Field took place in conjunction with Eva Rothschild: Kosmos. The program was initiated by ACCA, in collaboration with Lucinda Strahan, and was presented in partnership with RMIT University non/fictionLab and supported by Media Partners, Art+Australia, Art Guide Australia and The Lifted Brow. The program composed workshops, a public forum and a digital publication compiling the writing of all participants.
