Curated by Deborah Smith, In the Space of Elsewhere presents the work of nine international contemporary artists and collectives working in a range of media including sculpture, architecture, video, sound and photography. The exhibition explores the ways that we locate, navigate and determine our relationship with the nature, structure, and qualities of internal space.Your neural networks will be stimulated physically and psychologically, as your own internal space is confronted and refined: Office for Subversive Architecture (EU) and David Moore (UK) explore the broader themes of architecture and its social and political function; Vernon Ah Kee (AU) and Graham Gussin (UK) investigate the internal relationships between the body and its surrounding environs; Rachel Whiteread (UK) and Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro(AU) record the physical manifestations of the spaces we inhabit; and Sandra Selig (AU), Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard (UK) and Ann Lislegaard (D) guide us through a labyrinth of physical, sensory and psychological space.
Commissioned for this exhibition, Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro’s Absent Referent 2008 explores the theory that a tree’s annual rings pertain to differing solar conditions, providing a record of their immediate environment. Rachel Whiteread’s poetic sculptures Untitled (6 Spaces) 1994, give form to empty spaces that provoke a tangible sense of absence. Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard’s Walk with Nauman (Re-Performance Corridor) 2006, acts as a material manifestation of a physical and psychic space, creating ‘an environment of controlled response’. The new commission by Sandra Selig, Light gets used to our form 2008, a delicate webbed construction, is both atmospheric and spatially dynamic, heightening our awareness of the object and our surroundings. I-You -Later-There 2000 by Ann Lislegaard provides a sensory journey of the everyday allowing the visualisation of both the imaginary and the real. Vernon Ah Kee uses the body as a metaphor for his exploration and critique of Australian racial politics, his autobiographical text work borninthisskin 2008 uses language to reveal the crucial role of physical experience on aesthetic encounters. From the psychological to the physical, Graham Gussin’s Dark Corner 2008 brings our attention to the temporal relationship between the object and the gallery’s architectural space. David Moore’s documentary photographs The Last Things 2008 provide compelling insights into the unfamiliar functionality of the underground bunkers of the Ministry of Defence. Office for Subversive Architecture intervene and contribute to the spatial foundation in which all of the artists’ works are presented in the Stanley Picker Gallery.
In the Space of Elsewhere is accompanied by a dedicated publication designed by Valle Walkley with commissioned essays by Penelope Curtis, Anthony Elms, Chris Frith and Rob Wilson and contributions by Lars Bang Larsen, Glenn Barkley, Ilsa Colsell, David Falkner. Hannah Mathews, Sophie Raikes, Alexandra Stara, Deborah Smith and Jonathan Watkins. Copies available at £9.99 from the Gallery.
EVENTS
Wed 1 Oct 5.30pm Exhibition Tour with the curator and exhibiting artists
Wed 1 Oct 6.30-8.30pm Exhibition Launch
Weds 8 Oct & 5 Nov 12.30-1.30pm Lunchtime Talks
Wed 19 Nov 6.30-8.00pm In the space of elsewhere Publication Launch
In the Space of Elsewhere is a Stanley Picker Research Fellowship Project, Kingston University: funded by The National Lottery through Arts Council England; assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body; The Henry Moore Foundation; The Stanley Picker Trust; and supported by the Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London; the Queensland Government, Australia, through the Queensland Indigenous Arts Marketing and Export Agency (QIAMEA) and the Australian High Commission, London.
