PART 1. You are already doing it (choreographing social and public space)
SETTING as installed by Helen Grogan for PART 1. You are already doing it (choreographing social and public space). Courtesy the artist. Photo: Laura May Grogan
Helen Grogan, SPECIFIC IN-BETWEEN (The choreographic negotiated in six parts)
PART 1. You are already doing it (choreographing social and public space)
PERFORMANCE, 3:00PM, GALLERY 1, SATURDAY 18 OCTOBER
For PART 1 of SPECIFIC IN-BETWEEN (the choreographic negotiated in six parts) Wrong Solo (Agatha-Gothe Snape and Brian Fuata) perform their work Cruising within the Framed Movements exhibition and the broader ACCA site. Everyone is invited. Everyone is implicated. Everything that may occur on this evening is Cruising.
ABOUT WRONG SOLO (TO BE READ BY AN OTHER)
THIS WORK HAS BEEN MADE IN A NUMBER OF SPACES AND CONTEXTS
INCLUDING EVANS ST ROZELLE, THE CAC GALLERIES AND
RESIDENCIES, MT ANNAN BOTANIC GARDENS, THE MCA, THE MALLS OF
INGLEBURN, CAMDEN, MCARTHUR SQUARE AND BONDI JUNCTION,
FRASERS STUDIOS AND BUNDANON.
THIS WORK EXISTS IN ALL THESE PLACES. RIGHT NOW, IT ALSO EXISTS
HERE IN THE FOYER AND LATER IN THE THEATRE. THIS WORK IS NOT
SITE-SPECIFIC, BUT IT IS IN FACT SPECIFIC TO THIS MOMENT.
WE DIDN’T REALISE THIS SHOWING WAS GOING TO HAPPEN, AND IN
FACT IT’S NOT.
THIS IS NOT A SHOWING OR A WORK IN PROGRESS. THIS IS NOT A
TEST. THIS WON’T BE A CLUMSY PUTTING TOGETHER OF A WHOLE
RANGE OF IDEAS, PRACTICES AND EXPERIENCES NOR WILL IT BE A
CONFUSED CONVOLUTED REPRESENTATION OF THE SPACES BETWEEN
VISUAL ARTS, THEATRE AND DANCE. THIS IS NOT THE RESULT OF A
FRUITY COLLABORATION BETWEEN DEAR FRIENDS.
THIS IS NOT A SHOWING BECAUSE THIS IS IT, AND WHATEVER IT IS, IT
IS ALL THERE IS.
AND BEFORE WE CONSIDER WHETHER WHAT IM SAYING IS TRUE,
BEFORE WE SEE ALL THIS FOR WHAT WE KNOW IT IS, STOP.
BECAUSE IT JUST DOESN’T MATTER, BECAUSE BY NOW IT’S ALREADY
HAPPENING. IT ALREADY IS.
THERE IS NOTHING MORE THAN THIS.
You are already doing it (choreographing social and public space)
ONLINE CONTRIBUTIONS
WRONG SOLO
Cruising Preparation Video
Cruising Instructional Poster 1
Cruising Advertisement, MCA 1
Cruising Advertisement, MCA 2
PARTICIPANTS AND PRACTICES
WRONG SOLO
Wrong Solo is Brian Fuata and Agatha Gothe-Snape (with the occasional additions of Sarah Rodigari, Lizzie Thomson and Shane Haseman). Wrong Solo present work in galleries, private and public spaces for known and unknown audiences. Their work draws on a shared history of performance training in the late 1990’s, an interest in text and its articulation, and the slippery space between “big P” and “little p” performance and the various framing mechanisms and conventions which we rely upon to understand what is being performed. Wrong Solo has exhibited in a variety of institutions including the MCA, ACCA, the AGNSW, PICA and QUT.
BRIAN FUATA
Born Wellington, New Zealand, 1978. Brian Fuata is a Sydney based performance artist and writer, who has performed and exhibited extensively in Australia since 1999. Fuata works both independently and in Wrong Solo, a performance-orientated art collective (including also Agatha Gothe-Snape and Shane Haseman).
Fuata’s work often exhibits an immediate and spontaneous quality, with actions and dialogue created in situ. At other times pre-prepared dialogue and text based ‘scripts’ (often generated from email correspondence) are deployed alongside low production audio-visual elements and ‘at hand’ scenery. Fuata’s work explores themes of death, ritual and sacral art, narcissism (especially that of the contemporary artist), the risk of failure, and the limits and fault lines of language. These themes are often filtered through severe parody juxtaposed against underlying traits of melancholia, delivered with a removed dead-pan humour.
AGATHA GOTHE-SNAPE
Agatha Gothe-Snape is an artist living in Melbourne and Sydney.
PART 2. Between thing and event
Helen Grogan, PART 2. Between thing and event, Courtesy the artist. Photo: Laura May Grogan
Helen Grogan, SPECIFIC IN-BETWEEN (The choreographic negotiated in six parts)
PART 2. Between thing and event
DISCUSURSIVE EVENT AND PERFORMANCE, 6PM, GALLERY 1, WEDNESDAY 22 OCTOBER
Discursive and performative works are enacted by Benjamin Woods and Geoff Robinson. Both artists incorporate approaches to ‘doing’ or ‘enacting’ as means for presenting their ideas. Benjamin Woods shifts between a research paper and bodily and perceptual demonstrations, and Geoff Robinson structures a situation in which performance is a means for articulating live decision-making. Consistent with his on-going practice of overlaying sites, Robinson uses Gallery 1 as the material site to enact processes central to his work. This event involves the performative participation of Helen Grogan, through the invitation and direction of Geoff Robinson and Benjamin Woods.
PHOTOGRAPHIC DOCUMENTATION
Between thing and event ONLINE CONTRIBUTIONS
BIANCA HESTER
Bianca Hester has contributed two texts for this program. These texts have been selected in consultation with live participants, Benjamin Woods and Geoff Robinson.
there there, here now: sound-space, abstraction, embodiment, written as a catalogue essay for Geoff Robinson, February 2009, Bianca Hester
enabling restraints, November 2008, Bianca Hester
BENJAMIN WOODS
feeling material – an essay to be reworked for SPECIFIC IN-BETWEEN (the choreographic negotiated in six parts), a curatorial and research series presented by Helen Grogan as part of Framed Movements, ACCA, 15 October – 19 November 2014, Benjamin Woods
potential poster imagery SIDE A, computer drawing from action documentation in various locations with Helen Grogan and Megan Dennis, 2014, Benjamin Woods
Benjamin Woods, widen, subtract, warm, cool, observe out, computer drawing from action improvisation with Megan Dennis and Benjamin Woods for the project exfoliated by the world, presented at Fort Delta, June 2014.
GEOFF ROBINSON
Geoff Robinson has contributed the following video material to PART 2. Between thing and event of SPECIFIC IN-BETWEEN (the choreographic negotiated in six parts).
PARTICIPANTS AND PRACTICES
BIANCA HESTER
Bianca Hester’s practice explores the convergences between social space, materiality and embodiment as processes in motion. Recent projects involve experimenting with the various limits that regulate territories by developing strategies for addressing the ways spaces are constructed. Her practice explores the manifold rhythms at play within and across various sites, generating and interposing other rhythms (movements – materialities – actions) in order to open up possibilities for how we might engage, encounter and occupy place. The work she produces emerges in response to specific material, social and spatial conditions, often involving the fashioning of site-based alterations, actions, constructions, objects, collaborations and video. More recently, she has been developing projects that work directly with the fabric of the city which attempt to bring about an expanded form of public sculpture where multiple relations including bodies, sites, objects, histories, and temporalities converge.
Bianca Hester recently began a three-year Post-doctoral research fellowship at the Sydney College of the Arts (University of Sydney). Before then she taught in the department of Sculpture and Spatial Practice at the Victorian College of the Arts (University of Melbourne) between 2005-2012. She completed a PhD by project in sculpture at RMIT in 2007. She was a founding member of CLUBSproject inc. (2002-2007), and is a member of OSW (2003 – ongoing). Recent projects include: only from the perspective of a viewer situated upon the surface of the earth does day and night occur, commissioned by ACCA and The Common Guild in Glasgow, as a part of the Glasgow International Festival for Visual Arts, 2012; a world fully accessible by no living being at Federation Square, which was the winning entry for the Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture, 2011; please leave these windows open overnight to enable the fans to draw in cool air during the early hours of the morning at The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 2010; these circumstances: temporarily generating forms, improvising encounters at Sarah Scout Presents, 2011; only from the perspective of a viewer situated upon the surface of the earth does day and night occur at The Narrows, 2009; The West Brunswick Sculpture Triennial, with the OSW collective, 2009; fashioning discontinuities at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, 2009; and, projectprojects at The Showroom in London, 2008. The book titled accommodating spaces, materials, projects, people, videos, actions, objects, thoughts: relatively was commissioned by The Narrows in 2009. She is represented by Sarah Scout Gallery, Melbourne.
GEOFF ROBINSON
Geoff Robinson creates process-determined, site-based artworks that engage with sound mapping and spatial diagrams. His practice investigates the transformation of sonic experiences into form and the alternate relationships and contexts that occur when sites are overlaid through sound and diagram.
Geoff has exhibited at MoKS, Estonia, 2014; Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, 2012; HIAP, Finland, 2012; Sound Effects: Sound Specific, South Korea, 2010; Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 2009; Heide Museum of Modern Art, 2007; and, presented the Site Overlay/Acoustic Survey project across three public sites in Melbourne, 2013. He received the City of Melbourne 2009 Laneway Commission, a Gertrude Contemporary studio 2004-2006, is a finalist in the 2014 Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture and is currently undertaking a PhD in Fine Art at Monash University.
BENJAMIN WOODS
Benjamin Woods uses an open, generative and performative process of making that poetically engages with a turning, shifting set of intensities; meeting and enfolding differing textures, patterns and actions, and weaving these forces into particular discursive and architectural circumstances. His practice becomes public with improvisations, actions, sculptural productions, installations, images, discussion and writing.
Benjamin Woods is a Melbourne-based artist working across sculptural, spatial and movement practice. He completed a Master of Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2012 with a project titled becoming becoming open all-around, researching open artistic practice through improvisational experiments between sculpture and action. Since then, Ben has produced projects for Outward Project, Launceston, 2013; Interpreting Variable Arrangements, Stockholm, Sweden, 2013; Does it Matter? Kings ARI 10 year Program, Melbourne, 2013; and c3 Contemporary Art Space, Melbourne, 2013; as well as participating in many collaborative projects across Melbourne. In 2012 Ben received a City of Melbourne grant to produce a sporadic and nomadic sculptural improvisation project called open blankets. Most recently, Ben produced the project exfoliated by the world at Fort Delta, and collaborated with Sarah crowEST on a Melbourne Art Fair project room titled BETTER. FASTER. STRONGER. supported by the Melbourne Art Foundation (with c3 Contemporary Art Space).
PART 3. Time is happening
Helen Grogan, PART 3. Time is happening. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Laura May Grogan
Helen Grogan, SPECIFIC IN-BETWEEN (The choreographic negotiated in six parts)
PART 3. Time is happening
DISCURSIVE EVENT, 6PM, GALLERY 1, WEDNESDAY 29 OCTOBER
For Part 3. Time is Happening Nathan Gray and Matthew Day identify the specific manner in which time and duration operate within recent works. Gray outlines strategies to hold coalescence at bay and maintain the brevity and specificity of encounters with objects discussing Species of Spaces, 2014 and his accumulative project Works Under 30 Seconds.
Matt Day focuses on the use of time as material within The Trilogy Series (2009-2012). These live works employ minimalist and durational choreographic strategies to approach the body as a site of infinite potential and continual becoming. Thousands, the first work in the series, attempts to locate a degree zero of choreography, utilising microscopic movement, the body is approached as a site of re-membering, as an agent capable of deterritorialising the flow of space and time. Day and Gray’s talks are followed by open discussion on time as material, structure and a conceptual field for art making.
PHOTOGRAPHIC DOCUMENTATION
Time is happening ONLINE CONTRIBUTIONS
EMILY CORMACK
Emily Cormack has contributed the following writing to SPECIFIC IN-BETWEEN (the choreographic negotiated in six parts), PART 3. TIME IS HAPPENING.
NATHAN GRAY: Pressing form from water, 2014, Emily Cormack
MATTHEW DAY
THOUSANDS, 2010 (of The Trilogy Series), Matthew Day
CANNIBAL, 2011 (of The Trilogy Series), Matthew Day
INTERMISSION, 2012 (of The Trilogy Series), Matthew Day
NATHAN GRAY
Works<30s No.3, 2014, Nathan Gray
Works<30s No.13, 2014, Nathan Gray
Fluxfilm 25: The Evil Faerie, 1966, George Landow / Owen Land
Species of Spaces, 2014 (Video Preview Version), Nathan Gray
PARTICIPANTS AND PRACTICES
EMILY CORMACK
Emily Cormack is a Melbourne-based writer and curator who has been curating exhibitions in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and Asia since 2001. Cormack is currently employed as Curator at Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, and is also a PhD Candidate in Curatorial Practice at Monash University, Melbourne.
MATTHEW DAY
Matthew Day (1979) is interested in the potential of choreography to imagine unorthodox relationships and propose new ways of being human. Utilizing a minimalist approach Day often works with duration and repetition approaching the body as a site of infinite potential and choreography as a field of energetic intensity and exchange. Day’s work is invested in the proliferate potential of choreography to contribute unique forms of knowledge to cultural discourse and enable affective experiences.
Raised in Sydney, Matthew was a teenage ballroom dancing champion. He went on to study Dance and Performance Studies at the University of Western Sydney and at the Victorian College of the Arts, before collaborating with students at the School for New Dance Development, NL. Day has been artist in residence, and presented his work extensively in Australia and Europe. He is currently undertaking an MA of choreography at the Amsterdam Masters of Choreography, and is based between Melbourne and Amsterdam.
NATHAN GRAY
Nathan Gray’s work uses techniques learned from his background in experimental music to create succinct, often humorous works that span sculpture, performance and video. Recent works have focused on small economic gestures, and brief performances that attempt to use objects as scores for action. These works question relationships with objects and subvert their generally accepted use values.
Solo shows include: Works: Under 30 Seconds and Things that Fit Together, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne, 2014; Queen Size, Plinth Projects Melbourne, 2013; Acts, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne, 2012; Theorist Training Camp/Practice Piece, West Space, Melbourne, 2012; In the year 2525, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne, 2011; Gertrude Contemporary Project Space, Melbourne Art Fair, 2010; Tudo Que Acho / Everything I Think, The Narrows, Melbourne, 2008; Quem Ao Viu O Vento, Escola Dos Belos Artes, Salvador, Brazil; 2008; Untitled Installation, Mirka @ Tolarno for ACCA, Melbourne, 2007; and Love, Purity, Accuracy, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne, 2007. Recent group exhibitions include You Imagine What You Desire, 19th Biennale of Sydney, 2014; Boxes, Regimes of Value, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, VCA, Melbourne, 2013; Sonic Spheres, TarraWarra Biennial, TarraWarra Museum of Art, 2012; The Social Life of Things, Monash University Faculty Gallery, Melbourne, 2012; New Psychedelia, University of Queensland Art Museum; and ACCA Art #2, Horsham Regional Art Gallery, 2011.
Gray was the recipient of the 2014 Substation prize and is currently completing an MFA at The Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne and has completed residencies at Cemeti House, Indonesia in 2011, The Sacatar Foundation, Bahia, Brazil in 2008 and Osaka Arts Aporia 2006. He is a member of the improvised electronic duo Snawklor and convenor of Ancient Memories a group that performs works by Cornelius Cardew.
PART 4. Ambiguous edges (philosophy, dance, choreography)
Helen Grogan, PART 4. Ambiguous edges (philosophy, dance, choreography). Courtesy the artist. Photo: Laura May Grogan
Helen Grogan, SPECIFIC IN-BETWEEN (The choreographic negotiated in six parts)
PART 6. Space is happening (as we make it)
DISCURSIVE/PERFORMATIVE EVENT, 6:00PM, GALLERY 1, WEDNESDAY 5 NOVEMBER
Commissioned lectures are performed by Becky Hilton and Philipa Rothfield, followed by open discussion. These lectures address contested territories of agency, action and self within choreography and dance.
Becky Hilton approaches this context through critical ideas and formal means specific to dance, enacting her commissioned lecture as the work DANCERNESS.
Philipa Rothfield presents a new lecture informed by her extensive research within the field of dance and philosophy. For Part 4. Ambiguous edges (philosophy, dance, choreography) Rothfield is working between the experiential approach to somatic experience of Merleau-Ponty’s existential philosophy and the Nietzschean displacement of subjectivity in favour of bodily forces. This philosophical work occurs in relation to a number of ongoing somatic researches, including Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais, ideokinesis and other studio dance explorations.
PHOTOGRPAHIC DOCUMENTATION
AUDIO RECORDING
Ambiguous edges (philosophy, dance, choreography) ONLINE CONTRIBUTIONS
PHILIPA ROTHFIELD
COMMISIONED LECTURE – THINKING CHOREORAPHY – PHILIPA ROTHFIELD
Digital version of diagram distributed in printed form during Thinking Choreography, ACCA, Wednesday 5 November, Philipa Rothfield
Beyond Habit, The Cultivation of Corporeal Difference, 2013, Philipa Rothfield
BECKY HILTON
COMMISIONED LECTURE – DANCERNESS – BECKY HILTON
I AM A DANCER, Becky Hilton, 2014
KATE MACNEILL
Kate MacNeill has contributed the following writing to SPECIFIC IN-BETWEEN (the choreographic negotiated in six parts).
DANCE IS THE REVOLUTION, 2014, Kate MacNeill
PARTICIPANTS AND PRACTICES
BECKY HILTON
Becky Hilton is a Melbourne based dancer, choreographer and chronicler.
In a career spanning thirty years she has contributed to the work of a range of artists including Russell Dumas, Stephen Petronio, Matthew Barney, Michael Clark, Tere O’Connor, Jennifer Monson, John Jasperse, Lucy Guerin, Chrysa Parkinson, Xavier Leroy and Tino Sehgal.
Becky works with dance and choreography in many contexts including universities, arts institutions, dance companies and community organisations, locally, nationally and internationally.
As the recipient of a Fellowship from the Dance Board of the Australia Council, she is writing a book on dance and its transmission, looking at the way a dance moves through us.
PHILIPA ROTHFIELD
Philipa Rothfield is an honorary Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. She writes on philosophy of the body largely in relation to dance. She has looked at the work of Merleau-Ponty, Nietzsche, Klossowski and Deleuze, to see what each of these philosophers can bring to dance and also to see what dance brings to philosophy.
Alongside these commitments, she has been dancing on and off for a long time. She was a member of the Modern Dance Ensemble, has had intermittent opportunities to work with Russell Dumas (Dir. Dance Exchange) and has recently joined Footfall dance ensemble (Dir. Alice Cummins). She is a co-convenor of the Choreography and Corporeality working group with Aoife McGrath (International Federation of Theatre Research). She is a dance reviewer for RealTime Magazine, the Dancehouse Creative Advisor and head of the Editorial Board for the Dancehouse Diary.
KATE MACNEILL
Kate MacNeill is a senior lecturer in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne, where she is the head of the graduate program in arts and cultural management. Her doctoral studies examined counter-identities in Australian contemporary art, and she has published on art, controversy and censorship in the public sphere. With a professional background as a lawyer, her research interests include the intersection between intellectual property law and the performing arts and ethics and creative practices.
Her contribution to SPECIFIC IN-BETWEEN (the choreographic negotiated in six parts) draws on her work on intellectual property and dance. Using quotations from dance makers, writers and revolutionaries she proposes that: Dance is the Revolution.
THE FOLLOWING PERSONS HAVE BEEN FORMALLY INVITED TO INFORMALLY PARTICIPATE
DEANNE BUTTERWORTH, For her knowledge and experience of the intelligence of the dancing body.
ATLANTA EKE, For her knowledge and experience in the politics of bodies.
HANNAH MATHEWS, As curator of Framed Movements, ACCA.
TIM DARBYSHIRE, For being a straight up choreographer.
SHAUN MACLEOD, For his experience and knowledge of improvisation as a method of composing and a method of thinking.
BEN WOODS, For his interest in Deborah Hay’s notion of the front as infinite.
PART 5. Migrating frames (of space and view)
Helen Grogan, PART 5. Migrating frames (of space and view). Courtesy the artist. Photo: Laura May Grogan
Helen Grogan, SPECIFIC IN-BETWEEN (The choreographic negotiated in six parts)
PART 5. Migrating frames (of space and view)
DISCURSIVE EVENT, 6:00PM, GALLERY 1, WEDNESDAY 12 NOVEMBER
Katie Lee, Bridie Lunney and Sandra Parker each discuss their approaches to embodiment, movement and absence. These presentations open discussion for the specific ontologies of bodies emerging within the artist’s recent projects and reseach. This simply structure of three distinct presentations is followed by open discussion with the artists, Helen Grogan and Hannah Mathews. This open discussion additional considers recent shifts in curatorial contexts for performance and sculpture. Gwenneth Boelens and Helen Grogan contribute a text on their work Choreography (For Gallery2, ACCA), 2014 that is installed in the Framed Movements exhibition.
PHOTOGRPAHIC DOCUMENTATION
AUDIO RECORDING
Migrating frames (of space and view) ONLINE CONTRIBUTIONS
GWENNETH BOELENS AND HELEN GROGAN
Gwenneth Boelens and Helen Grogan, Writing on ‘Choreography (For Gallery2, ACCA), 2014’. This text piece was developed from and for the artists’ co-authored work Choreography (For Gallery2, ACCA), 2014, exhibited in Gallery 2, ACCA for Framed Movements.
PARTICIPANTS AND PRACTICES
KATIE LEE
Working with installation and sculptural form, Katie Lee’s practice is an exploration of the physical and psychological consequences of the built environment and our negotiations within it. Her materials — wood, rubber, steel, interrupted space, light, video, performative gesture, repetition, resistance, elasticity, fixed form — may be arranged sparsely, inducing agoraphobic sensations, or at other times they exhaust the available space, airlessly, suffocatingly. These affects, these sensations, act as the husk for the political context of the work, for underneath sit larger questions about governance, control, the arrangement and restrictions of public space, of accepted architectural design, of legislation, and of dominance.
Born in Tasmania, where she completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1998, Katie Lee has lived and worked in Melbourne since 2000. Katie has since completed a Postgraduate Diploma of Education in 2001, Honours in Fine Art in 2004 and a Master of Arts in 2009 at RMIT, while regularly exhibiting both in Melbourne and overseas. Katie has spent time in Vietnam where she worked and exhibited independently in 2003/4 and returned as a resident artist with Asialink in 2007. She teaches in the Sculpture department and the Architecture and Design Foundation Studies program at RMIT.
BRIDIE LUNNEY
Bridie Lunney develops her works intuitively, and in relation to the site of presentation, engaging the given context, physical conditions and materials. Combining practices of sculpture, jewellery and durational performance, Lunney acknowledges the body as a conduit between our emotional and psychological selves and the physical world. Performative and sculptural gestures in the works suggest psychological shifts and a reconfiguration of hierarchical relationships between architectural space, objects and the body. These altered relationships suggest both small rebellions in our prescribed choreography of the urban environment and the poetic mimicry of internal psychological spaces.
Her recent exhibitions include There is a way, if we want, into everything, MAF project space for Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 2014; There are these moments Studio 12 Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 2014; Arcadian Revery for ‘White Night’, Queen Victoria Gardens, Melbourne, 2014; This Endless Becoming for ‘Melbourne Now’, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2013-14; Drawing Weight for ‘30 Ways with Time and Space’, Performance Space, Sydney, 2014; Propositions in collaboration with Torie Nimmervoll at Gertrude Contemporary, 2013; Place of Assembly, Melbourne International Arts Festival, 2012; A Condition of Change, Sarah Scout, Melbourne, 2011; Suspension Test, Conical, Melbourne, 2011; Non-Negotiable, Project Space, 2010; Risk Potential, Die Ecke, Santiago, Chile 2010; and, Once more with Feeling, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, 2009.
She is currently teaching Contemporary Practice, Sculpture and Drawing at Monash Art, Design and Architecture and is a Gertrude Contemporary Resident Artist for 2013-2015.
SANDRA PARKER
Sandra Parker’s current practice investigates the viewer’s physical, affective and sensory interaction and engagement with multi-disciplinary installation and performance. Exploring how physical proximity, modes of figuration, representation and interpretation create qualities of experience, Parker’s work investigates ways in which movement, sound, video and text can come together to shape and manipulate perception.
Sandra Parker is an interdisciplinary artist from Melbourne, Australia. She holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne, a Master of Choreography and Bachelor of Education with major studies in dance and drama. Sandra’s projects combine movement, video, sound and text in works for gallery installation as well as site-specific locations and traditional theatre contexts. Current projects include the interactive installation Three Angles, for the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Australia; Live View, a performance work combining movement and bi-aural sound in headphones; and, a series of videos and live performance Three Frames, Aux Performance Space, Vox Populi, Philadelphia. Recent works include: Playhouse, Guandong Modern Dance Company, Guangzhou, China, 2009; Out of Light, Sandra Parker Dance, Melbourne, Australia, 2009; Liu Bin on the wall, a video and drawing installation created during a Red Gate Gallery residency supported by the Australia China Council, Beijing, China, 2009; Document, Dancehouse, Housemate residency, Melbourne, Australia, 2011; Transit, Sandra Parker Dance, 2010; Melbourne Festival, Melbourne, Australia, 2012; Faits d’hiver, Paris, France, 2013; and, The Recording, Dance Massive, Melbourne, Australia, 2013. Sandra was awarded the Australia Council for the Arts Dance Board Fellowship for 2012 and 2013. Her works have been seen in Australia, Germany, Portugal, France, China and the US.
GWENNETH BOELENS
Gwenneth Boelens (Soest, NL, 1980. Lives and works in Amsterdam), graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in Den Hague and was a resident artist at Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in 2006-2007. Gwenneth Boelens’ practice comprises photography and sculpture, as well as performative and filmic works. Her work is a synthesis of memory, landscape and process. National and international exhibitions from the past years include Riveted, Grimm Gallery, Amsterdam (NL), 2014; Events Unwitnessed, Basis, Frankfurt (DE), 2013; Biennale Online, Artplus (www), 2013; Autumn of Modernism, De Vleeshal, Middelburg (NL), 2012; A Dutch Landscape, La Casa Encendida, Madrid (ES), 2012; The Sound of Downloading Makes Me Want to Upload, Sprengel Museum, Hannover (DE), 2011; and, Performative Structures – New Existentialism, KURATOR Gebert Stiftung für Kultur, Rapperswil-Jona (CH), 2010. Recently her first artist book In Two Minds was published by Roma Publications.
HELEN GROGAN
Helen Grogan’s practice activates and articulates space through sculptural, photographic, filmic and performative means. With a particular focus on what is already here and already happening, Grogan’s works seek an embodied attention to the presence and materiality of our surroundings. Informed by studies in philosophy and choreography, viewing is understood as a temporal and spatial activity; observation and thought is an unfolding process that is always moving. Grogan applies expanded choreographic systems and strategies to works presented predominantly within a visual arts context.
Helen Grogan’s recent solo projects include: Three Performative Structures for Slopes, Slopes, Melbourne, 2014; Specific Applications for This Space (an obituary), Place of Assembly, Melbourne International Arts Festival, 2012. Selected group exhibitions include: Framed Movements, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria International; If This Exhibition Where a Text, Slopes, Melbourne; Interpreting Variable Arrangements, KULTURHUSET, Stockholm; Shelley Lasica’s VIANNE AGAIN, MADA, Monash University, Melbourne; What Moves Us, La Mecedora Collective, Amsterdam/Mexico City; Belinner Zimmer, Kontext Festival, Berlin; South Project Space/Open Studios, Rijksakademie, Amsterdam; We Are Hidden And We Can See You, We Are Hidden And You Can See Us, Gertrude Contemporary. In addition to and as an extension of her artistic practice, Grogan has developed curatorial and research projects including: SPECIFIC IN-BETWEEN (The choreographic negotiated in six parts), Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; Open Archive Project Space (in co-direction with Jared Davis), Melbourne; Feedback Projected (Proposals Towards an Exhibition), Gertrude Contemporary, CHOREOGRAPHY AND RELATED THINKING (in co-direction with Shelley Lasica). Grogan initially studied Philosophy and Contemporary Dance concurrently at Deakin University then The City University of New York. From 2001-2005 she continued this research at The School For New Dance Development, Amsterdam School for The Arts.
PART 6. Space is happening (as we make it)
Helen Grogan, PART 5. Migrating frames (of space and view). Courtesy the artist. Photo: Laura May Grogan
Helen Grogan, SPECIFIC IN-BETWEEN (The choreographic negotiated in six parts)
PART 6. Space is happening (as we make it)
PERFORMANCE + DISCURSIVE EVENT, 6:00PM, GALLERY 1, WEDNESDAY 19 NOVEMBER
Shelley Lasica performs AS WE MAKE IT. The work is part of Lasica’s ongoing interest in using the gallery context to explore modes of communication and exchange in making dance performance. Part 4. Space is happening (as we make it) facilitates the performance AS WE MAKE IT in the spatial context that this dance is designed for. This is not a dance transplanted from the theatre. The space, or more specifically non-theatrical space, is integral to AS WE MAKE IT.
Lasica developed AS WE MAKE IT from BEHAVIOUR Part 5, 1994 and BEHAVIOUR Part 6, Square Dance, 1996 originally shown at Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne. There are also elements of the choreography VIANNE, 2008 within the work. Other versions of AS WE MAKE IT have been shown at Mina no ie, 2013 and Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, 2014.
Lasica’s performance is followed by discussion with Shelley Lasica, Helen Grogan and Hannah Mathews.
PHOTOGRAPHIC DOCUMENTATION
AUDIO RECORDING
Space is happening (as we make it) ONLINE CONTRIBUTIONS
JUSTIN CLEMENS
Justin Clemens has contributed the following writing to Part 6. Space is happening (As we make it) of SPECIFIC IN-BETWEEN (the choreographic negotiated in six parts).
Vianne, Vianne, again; or, the same another, 2012, Justin Clemens
HELEN GROGAN
Helen Grogan has contributed the following writing to Part 6. Space is happening (As we make it) of SPECIFIC IN-BETWEEN (the choreographic negotiated in six parts).
Thoughts on Shelley Lasica’s choreography: In the same moment, specific and unduplicatable, 2014, Helen Grogan
PARTICIPANTS AND PRACTICES
SHELLEY LASICA
Shelley Lasica is an Australian choreographer and dancer whose practice is characterized by cross-disciplinary collaborations and an interest in the presentation of dance in various spatial contexts.
The prolific and vast repertoire of Lasica’s choreographic works and installations spans 30 years and includes Melbourne Festival, National Gallery of Victoria, Centre Nationale de la Danse (Pantin, Paris); Siobhan Davies Studios (London), Dance Massive and Anna Schwartz Gallery.
Her career illustrates an enduring interest in thinking about dance and movement and the many contexts in which they occur. She is concerned with what dance means to people, how it functions and how it can be used to shape our experience of the world. Major themes explored in her work are the interaction between spoken, written and movement language, loss of memory and senses, coincidence and the subject of space.
Lasica is highly recognised as a mentor and creative agent facilitating the development of successful choreographers and dancers.
Recent works and collaborations include Represent (2014), with Tony Clark, and two works as part of Melbourne Now (2014): Inside Vianne Again (2014), with artists Helen Grogan and Anne-Marie May, and As we make it.
Lasica was recently awarded the 2014 ANAT / Synapse Residency with the Centre for Eye Research, University of Melbourne, where she will work with both sighted and vision-impaired participants at the junction between contemporary dance and scientific enquiry in the realm of proprioception. Her new work SOLOS FOR OTHER PEOPLE in which she will make 10 solos for ten dancers performed together will be premiered in Melbourne in March 2015.
JUSTIN CLEMENS
Justin Clemens gained his PhD from the University of Melbourne. He has published extensively on psychoanalysis, contemporary European philosophy, and contemporary Australian art and literature. His recent books include Lacan Deleuze Badiou (Edinburgh UP 2014), with A.J. Bartlett and Jon Roffe; Psychoanalysis is an Antiphilosophy (Edinburgh UP 2013); and Minimal Domination (Surpllus 2011). He was founding Secretary of the Lacan Circle of Melbourne (2004-2009), and was the art critic for the Australian magazine The Monthly (2004-2009). In addition to his scholarly work, he is well-known nationally as a commentator on Australian art and literature, and his essays and reviews have appeared in The Age, The Australian, The Monthly, Meanjin, Overland, Arena Magazine, TEXT, Un Magazine, Discipline, The Sydney Review of Books, and many others. He is currently Senior Lecturer in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne.
HELEN GROGAN
Helen Grogan’s practice activates and articulates space through sculptural, photographic, filmic and performative means. With a particular focus on what is already here and already happening, Grogan’s works seek an embodied attention to the presence and materiality of our surroundings. She works to implicate spatiality and temporality within constellations of object and activity, opening a field in which multiple (and particular) experiential events may occur. Informed by studies in philosophy and choreography, viewing is understood as a temporal and spatial activity; observation and thought is an unfolding process that is always moving. Grogan applies expanded choreographic systems and strategies to works presented predominantly within a visual arts context.
Helen Grogan’s recent solo projects include: Three Performative Structures for Slopes, Slopes, Melbourne, 2014; Specific Applications for This Space (an obituary), Place of Assembly, Melbourne International Arts Festival, 2012. Selected group exhibitions include: Framed Movements, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria International; If This Exhibition Where a Text, Slopes, Melbourne; Interpreting Variable Arrangements, KULTURHUSET, Stockholm; Shelley Lasica’s VIANNE AGAIN, MADA, Monash University, Melbourne; What Moves Us, La Mecedora Collective, Amsterdam/Mexico City; Belinner Zimmer, Kontext Festival, Berlin; South Project Space/Open Studios, Rijksakademie, Amsterdam; We Are Hidden And We Can See You, We Are Hidden And You Can See Us, Gertrude Contemporary. In addition to and as an extension of her artistic practice, Grogan has developed curatorial and research projects including: SPECIFIC IN-BETWEEN (The choreographic negotiated in six parts), Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; Open Archive Project Space (in co-direction with Jared Davis), Melbourne; Feedback Projected (Proposals Towards an Exhibition), Gertrude Contemporary, CHOREOGRAPHY AND RELATED THINKING (in co-direction with Shelley Lasica). Grogan initially studied Philosophy and Contemporary Dance concurrently at Deakin University then The City University of New York. From 2001-2005 she continued this research at The School For New Dance Development, Amsterdam School for The Arts.
Interview with Stuart Ringholt
Stuart Ringholt is a Melbourne based artist whose practice is characterized by unwavering sense of art as a social enterprise. Ringholt modifies and augments popular media images and consumer objects in ways that however slight have a significant impact on the original.
Stuart Ringholt, 54th Venice Biennale
What are you hoping to achieve out of Venice?
Science Fiction has been an ongoing interest so I will be thinking
about teleportation when walking around Venice. I want to test the hypothesis that artists are subjecting the gallery visitor to teleportation.
Have you been to the Venice Biennale or Vernissage before?
Yes – I have fond memories of Beuys’ olive stones at The Arsenale.
What is the subject of your practice?
In regard to the public works: education through feeling. I am equally interested in experiencing how an artwork feels and how it reads and this approach doesn’t begin with a subject. I find the subject through the making of the work.
Setting up public situations such as the Anger Workshops or opening the gallery to nudists concludes with a body of knowledge presenting itself. The knowledge comes out of an active meditation and commitment to the body. When the nudist group put their clothes back on, the penny dropped, and I learnt many things about the inherent nature and structure of the art exhibition.
How do you think your work will translate to an international audience?
My work will be secretly embedded in Venice, is of a subtle nature and largely without an arts audience in real-time. Images will be loaded onto the net with its various social networking sites establishing a preliminary arts audience yet, fundamentally, the audience for this work is anyone in Venice. This said, the arts audience may notice the work but only as a peripheral experience. In a round about way, it will belong to the fabric of the Biennale Vernissage.
What preparations have you had to make for going to Venice?
I have worked closely with a small group of people including the couple who will perform the work. Tailoring their clothing has been particularly important, as has been the discussions around how and where they will perform the work.
Of the artists exhibiting from other countries, who would you most like to meet and why?
I hope Hockney is showing. He is producing his best paintings now.
Why this particular project for Venice?
I have been making a new series of video works and the performance is in keeping with what I am doing right now. Venice is a tourist Mecca and I want to contribute to it with a fiction.
This project has a performative aspect, how does it link to your other work?
Colour has been important in my work and I am again using colour. I am aligning colour and rank, which is a first.
I have often directed my works to the laymen and on their turf, whether it be exhibiting in shopping centres or performing at train stations. When I wore a prosthetic nose for a day and shared a table with someone at a cafe, I doubt the other person sitting there, thought I was performing. When kids laughed at me on the train, I also doubt they thought I was performing. Travelling for a day positions a large audience, much larger than any museum can muster. It is only with time and as I later share these stories that an arts audience experiences the work.
After art, what else will be your priority to do before leaving Venice?
My son has been asking to buy new underpants in Venice so lets see.
Selected exhibitions:
Open House, Singapore Biennale (2011), Let the Healing Begin, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2011), 2010 Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia (2010), Vitrines, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Sydney (2010), Still Vast Reserves, Magazzino d’Arte Moderna, Rome (2009), Too Much of Me 7 Paths Through the Absurd (With Detour)*, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (2009), Revolutions: Forms that Turn, 16th Biennale of Sydney (2008), Low Sculpture, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne (2008), TarraWarra Biennial, Victoria (2008), New05, Australian Centre of Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2005).
Interview with Laresa Kosloff
Laresa Kosloff is a Melbourne based artist whose work incorporates a range of Super8 film, choreographed video, sculptural installations and real time performances. Kosloff explores how movement and gesture translate into significance in various public and studio contexts, drawing on a range of references from the slap stick comedy to high-end art.
Laresa Kosloff, 54th Venice Biennale
What are you hoping to achieve out of Venice?
To create a work outside of a familiar context and to expose my practice to a much broader audience. I have no idea about what may happen, however it’s certainly a unique opportunity. I think the performance will be quite physically and socially challenging but fun too.
Have you been to the Venice Biennale or Vernissage before?
I’ve been to the last two biennales but I haven’t attended the Vernissage before.
What is the subject of your practice?
I’m very interested in ideas of mimesis and subjectivity. I’m fascinated by human physicality, human effort and fallibility in relation to idealized or aestheticised criteria. Examining value systems within art, aesthetic formalism, the public domain, architecture, sport, and the every (second) day.
How do you think your work will translate to an international audience?
I’m hoping that my work will function on multiple levels. On the one hand it addresses the biennale environment, my peripheral status as a visiting Australian artist, and art historical precedents. On the other hand I might come across as a geeky person collecting autographs – it depends on individual presumptions. I’m interested in these dual impressions.
What preparations have you had to make for going to Venice?
I’ve had a plaster cast made for my leg, researched the participating artists, called Emirates with some questions, attended Pilates classes twice a week, and looked on the internet for people in Venice with the surname ‘Manzoni’.
Of the artists exhibiting from other countries, who would you most like to meet and why?
I’d like to meet Franz West, Martin Creed, Fischli and Weiss, Roman Ondak, Hany Armanious and Rebecca Warren. It looks like there are quite a lot of younger artists in this biennale and I’m also looking forward to seeing works by people I haven’t heard of before.
Why this particular project for Venice?
I started off thinking about the Vernissage environment and the prospect of traveling to Venice as an Australian artist. I wanted to work with the intense social dynamics of this event and ideas of fandom and endorsement. I became interested in the idea of participating in a somewhat compromised way, but also setting up a situation that might create compensatory effects, for example, the idea of being physically assisted or (hopefully!) upgraded on a plane. I was also thinking about the body as a material in art and all the artworks that get freighted to Venice.
This project has a performative aspect, how does it link to your other work?
The star of this performance is my right leg, and legs have featured in several of my performative videos. Legs are a symbol of autonomy and agency in my practice. Much of my work addresses the relational aspects of art and art historical precedents. My performance in Venice will similarly explore the conditions surrounding a particular situation and art lineage. I am very interested in the expressive potential of the body and the way that the body is a constant reminder of our fallibility and subjectivity. This project plays upon that by setting up a situation where I am both subject and object within the artwork.
After art, what else will be your priority to do before leaving Venice?
To be immersed in an amazing city, look at loads of art, and spend time with interesting people. I’m going to soak it all up!
Selected exhibitions:
Social Sculpture, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Sydney (2011), If Sameness is in the Centre, then difference is on the periphery, Starkwhite, New Zealand (2011), Last Ride in a Hot Air Balloon, 4th Auckland Triennial, Auckland (2010), Sensible world, Artspace, Sydney (2009), In Which the Wind is also a Protagonist, La générale, Sèvres, France (2010), Still Vast Reserves Two, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne (2010), Time/Lapse, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth (2009), Fully Booked, Hotel Beethoven, Bonn (2009), Still Vast Reserves, Magazinno D’Arte Moderna, Rome (2009), What I think about when I think about dancing, Campbelltown Arts Centre, New South Wales (2009), New World Records, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne (2008), Ecstatic City Multiplex Program, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2008), NEW ’06, Australian Centre of Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2006), Brand New/Master Copy, UKS Gallery, Oslo, Norway (2000).
http://www.laresakosloff.com/
Interview with Anastasia Klose
Anastasia Klose, Vernissage of the 54th Venice Biennale
What are you hoping to achieve out of Venice?
I am staging another ‘Film for my Nanna’ style performance, 5 years on from the original. I will be wearing a wedding dress, with a sign around my neck saying ‘Nanna, I am still searching…’ in English, and Italian.
Venice is a wonderful location for this performance; the city is named after Venus, the goddess of love. It is also one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Casanova lived in Venice, so too did Byron and Thomas Mann. Due to these historical figures, and the city’s physical beauty and decay, Venice’s grand themes are love and mortality. I want to exploit these themes and bring them together in my performance – but in a beautiful way.
What am I hoping to achieve from the performance ? The unexpected. You can’t really anticipate people’s responses to a performance, particularly in a strange city. Something always happens though, when a performance takes place in public – and this makes it both fun and scary. Honestly, the moments during performance that make me happiest are those in which I feel a sense of connection with the audience – as if an understanding has passed between us. This is not guaranteed to happen though, and that in it self is interesting, and certainly not a sign of failure. I view every performance as open ended: there are no failed performances, only a failure to learn from what you have done.
Have you been to the Venice Biennale or Vernissage before?
No.
What is the subject of your practice?
My practice is about finding an aesthetic to express different emotional states such as loneliness, misery, hope, joy and boredom.
How do you think your work will translate to an international audience?
I am hoping to harness the power of the wedding dress, and use it to overcome any language/cultural barriers.
What preparations have you had to make for going to Venice?
When I went wedding dress shopping, I spontaneously invented a mythical fiancé called Sandro (Botticelli) to help smooth the way when talking to the shop assistants. (FYI Sandro works at a university in Milan and teaches architecture.) I think the women in the wedding shops smelled a rat when I told them the wedding was only one month away. Apparently, the dedicated bride starts dress shopping years in advance. One shop assistant was also a bit flummoxed when I told her I didn’t know what a bridal party was.
Of the artists exhibiting from other countries, who would you most like to meet and why?
Thomas Hirschhorn. I like his work.
Why this particular project for Venice?
The context is quite specific. I will be performing in a very, very crowded city. I thought very hard about what sort of performance might work. I knew the performance had to be something simple, something that would stand out, and something that ‘makes sense’ to passers by. A sort of re-staging of the ‘Film for my Nanna’ performance seemed the best idea.
My mother, Elizabeth Presa, is also accompanying me on this trip, and will be videoing me as I perform, as she did with ‘Film for my Nanna’.
When I discuss this project with Mum, we both agree that the performance in Venice really symbolizes a marriage between myself and art. I am having my dream wedding, and really, no groom is needed.
This project has a performative aspect, how does it link to your other work?
Performance has been an important part of my practice since 2004. I have done a number of video-ed and live performances. I like performance because it’s so immediate, and you never know how it will go. I always hope to discover something new about myself or people in general from doing them.
After art, what else will be your priority to do before leaving Venice?
Finding a nice little bar where I can relax out of costume. And of course, seeing the work at the Venice Biennale.
Selected exhibitions:
The Poverty Show, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne (2010), I thought I was wrong, but it turned out I was wrong…, Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide (2010), Art in the 21st Century – the First Decade, Gallery of Modern Art, (2010), Mortality, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2010), TWMA Contemporary, TarraWarra Museum, Victoria (2010), Gestures and Procedures, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2010), Feminism Never Happened, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2010), Why we do the things we do, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth (2009), The Happy Artist, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne (2008), Revolutions: Forms that Turn, 16th Biennale of Sydney (2008), Melbourne Operatic, Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Pakuranga, Auckland, New Zealand (2007), New 07, Australian Centre of Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2007), Thanks Duchamp!! Cite International Des Arts Gallery, Paris (2007), Work in Progress, Nextwave Festival, Melbourne (2004).