Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Martin Smith | Inheritance @ ACP



INHERITANCE with Bindi Cole, Tamara Dean, Lee Grant, June Indrefjord, Bronek Kozka, Ka-Yin Kwok, Tracey Moffatt, Fiona Morris, Aaron Seeto, Martin Smith and Toni Wilkinson.
For more information click here.

Christopher Langton | Soft Sculpture @ NGA



Plastic is cheap, lightweight, flexible, ubiquitous and politically unsound—a synthetic material, derived from petroleum. Formed by industrial methods, with limited application to craft and handforming techniques, it is a perishable material best suited to mass production of cheap consumer goods. Plastic is a material of the kitsch object—a debaser of the ideals of high culture and high art.[1]

Christopher Langton uses plastics technology initially developed for the aeronautic industry.[2] The introduction of high-frequency PVC welding in the 1960s―allowing sheets to be joined with thin, air-tight seams—resulted in a huge increase in the number and types of inflatable items produced.[3] Claes Oldenburg, Jeff Koons, and especially Japanese and Korean artists subsequently employed pneumatics to a remarkable range of effects.[4] Looking at Langton’s sculptures, however, it is mass-produced toys, blow-up pools, beach balls and jumping castles that come to mind. Kitsch, sugary and sometimes spooky, irresistibly consumerist and undeniably desirable―we can’t help but want to join in the fun.

Langton’s oversized toys and other objects are bright, overwhelming and often of frightening proportions. They loom over us, crowd into our space, ignoring the traditional distance between art and viewer. Sugar the pill was originally installed in the basement of a nineteenth-century apothecary’s shop, arranged as if tumbling out of a dispensary. The architectural setting of Sugar the pill may thus be imagined as standing in for the body. The artist has remade components for the 2009 installation—a few repairs were necessary, and he also took advantage of more sophisticated techniques—and some pills are now more colourful, or composed of multiple capsules. From the classic 1960s ‘mother’s little helpers’, to an age when a plethora of substances in capsule form is available to combat anything from weight-gain to depression, we sense that the element of fun masks darker meanings. A spoonful of sugar does indeed make the medicine go down.

Lucina Ward

Curator,
International Painting and Sculpture
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra


For the NGA website click here.


James Dodd @ Cast









During June and July, CAST Gallery in Hobart, Tasmania, will play host to the Cryptophilistinism group exhibition. The show was first presented earlier in 2009 at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne. It has been curated by Amita Kirpilani and features work by Stuart Bailey, James Dodd, Sarah Goffman, Scott Morrison and Justin Trendall.
More shots can be seen on the
CAST site.

James and Eleanor Avery @ Studio Trisorio, Rome, Italy

















FEEDER was constructed specifically for the space at gallery Studio Trisorio in Rome. It consists of a central mirror laminated sculpture and a series of smaller satellite works. FEEDER is a cult group stageset, part sci-fi iconography, part belief system idealogy. It brings together ambitious ideals of discovery and utopian existence, feeding into the prescribed entertainment of contemporary society. For more information go here

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Ryan Renshaw Gallery

Ryan Renshaw is a commercial art gallery located in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The gallery exhibits Australian and International emerging and mid-career artists.

Artists who have exhibited at Ryan Renshaw include Justin Andrews, James Avery, Eleanor Avery, Daniel Askill, Stephan Balleux (Belgium), Bianca Barling, Hannah and Aaron Beehre (NZ), Christopher Bennie, Peter Booth, Matthew Bradley, Andre Brodyk, Kirsty Bruce, Joanna Callaghan (UK), Claudia Damichi, Karl DeWaal, Mark Dean, James Dodd, Jon Dowding, Craig Easton, Franz Ehmann, Leah Emery, Ena (Japan), Christian Flynn, Nicholas Folland, Pat Foster and Jen Berean, Ben Frost, Diena Georgetti, Rodney Glick, Kim Guthrie, Ippei Gyoubu (Japan), Ian Haig, Chris Handran, Irene Hanenburgh, Jessica Herrington, PJ Hickman, Wilkins Hill, Katie Jacobs, Kirra Jamison, Jess Johnson, Jumpei Kawamu (Japan), Mari Kubota (Japan), Kaoru Kuwajima (Japan), Christopher Langton, Saskia Leek, Owen Leong, The Long Way Round (UK), Jennifer Lowrey, Alasdair Macintyre, Peter Madden (NZ), Jordan Marani, Yoshiro Masuda (Japan), Mio Matsumoto (Japan), Scott Miles, Clare Milledge, Viv Miller, Jennifer Mills, Sebastian Moody, Archie Moore, Mimi Murai (Japan), Tom Muller, Ben Murrell, Simeon Nelson (UK), John Nicholson, Michelle Nikou, Takeshi Nitta (Japan), Danielle O'Brien, Shaun O'Connor, Ryuji Otani (Japan), Pandarosa, PCP (Japan), Sonya Peters, Luke Pither, Marisa Purcell, Caitlin Reid, Bruce Reynolds, Nick Robba, Luisa Rossitto, Giles Ryder, David Sequiera, Tim Sharp, Kate Shaw, Neko Showgun (Japan), Sam Smith, Martin Smith, Bryan Spier, Justin Stephens, Masato Takasaka, Regan Tamanui, Emma Van Leest, Re:Verse (Japan), Akira Wakui (Japan), Anne Wallace, Daniel Wallwork, Darren Wardle, Louise Weaver, Phil Williams, Martin Wilson, ZanPon (Japan)