ON THE LINE

Curated by Anne Wilson On the line brings together national and international artists whose process involves risk or who use their immediate environment to explore universal themes. Initially these environments are seen relative to the artists’ methodology, yet over time a shift occurs in the viewing experience transporting viewers into a poetically inscribed reflection on the human condition. Produced through a variety of mediums, these works are heartfelt, and the underlying curatorial cohesion comes out of a resonance that continues long after first viewing.

Films by Russian-artist Olga Chernysheva, American-artist Miranda July (early short films) and Australian-filmmaker Sarah Lewis are screening in Gallery Four. Chernysheva’s films are derived from guerrilla-style filmmaking narrating an ardent response to social and political conditions in the streets and parks of contemporary Moscow. Her videos highlight the political through to the personal, by way of carefully selected and edited scenes. July’s early films straddle the boundary between naivety and knowledge; control and loss of innocence. Nest of Tens (2000) presents ‘four alternating stories about mundane, personal methods of control. Children and a developmentally disabled adult operate control panels made out of paper, lists, monsters and their own bodies.’1 Lewis’ film The Staring Girl (2006) explores themes of female sexuality at the coming of age—a young girl tries to express herself sexually albeit inappropriately amidst dysfunctional family dynamics.

Gallery Three contains works of a performative nature—Domenico de Clario’s A Tertiary World (2007), Jan Nelson’s Vertical Composition/Vertical Collapse (1998) and Catherine Bell’s Snow Baby (2003). Each of these works have involved documenting, in video and photography, risky acts that are sincere responses to the transitory nature of memory, the notion of failure and transcendence within art making, and loss. Also in Gallery Three, Kate Swinson uses photography and video to construct subjects for her drawings within which hand-made paper masking devices are used to explore the interior/exterior relationships of her family and friends. Dutch-artist Semâ Bekirovic also uses her immediate environment in photography and video setting up relationships between nature and consumerism. Anne Wilson’s work investigates how representation of the body often fails to express an inner life.

Several publications accompany the exhibition—a hard cover book by Bekirovic entitled Koet, and A Tertiary World by de Clario.

1 http://mirandajuly.com/movies/nest-of-tens

ON THE LINE
Kurator: Anne Wilson

Künstler: Catherine Bell, Sema Bekirovic, Olga Chernysheva, Domenico de Clario, Miranda July, Sarah Lewis, Jan Nelson, Kate Swinson, Anne Wilson