Working on Talking

Opening: Thursday 6 December at 6pm

And for one day only: Friday 7 December from 12 - 6PM

“Some things are weak and some things are strong,” she said. “ I never realised you wrote poetry as well,” he said. “Things can change,” she said, “it could be better to do this alone.” “I have a proposal,” he said, “yes, it’s better this way.” “I notice everything, all things.”

For the night of the 6th and day of the 7th of December 2007, Gambia Castle will present Working On Talking - a collection of work by Ruth Buchanan, Kate Newby and Frances Stark. Working on Talking explores a shared interest in developing potential places of display for the gestural power of voice - creating a conversation where the works speak, or choose not to. The project seeks to facilitate a situation where one wonders what it is, or what it might be, to meet meaning both as a producer and an audience. Ruth Buchanan (NZL, Te Ati Awa/Taranaki) is an artist currently based in The Netherlands. In her recent work she seeks to address how artistic agency in the present is characterised by artistic legacy and chooses to do so by working across several mediums; video, text, 35 mm slide and sculpture. Buchanan graduated with her MA (Fine Art) from the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam this July with the exhibition Knowing Nothing of Agility at TENT, Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam. Following this she was the summer resident at Lothringer13/laden, Munich that culminated in the solo exhibition Open In Total Darkness. In January 2008 she will begin the one-year project Watch the object watching as a Fine Arts Researcher at the Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht. She has exhibited in New Zealand, the USA and Europe as well as working on, intitating and contributing to several publications and print-based projects. Kate Newby (NZL) is an Auckland-based artist whose practice explores ideas of site, architecture and public space. Placing emphasis on ‘doing’, her work often blurs and reconfigures the distinctions between making, performativity, documentation and presentation. Newby has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in New Zealand and abroad. She completed the Masters Programme at Elam School of Fine Arts in 2007, with the project My Poetry, for example. Recent exhibitions include: A Windy Fire, at teTuhi, Auckland; On the Benefits of Building at Gambia Castle, Auckland; Moment Making, Artspace, Auckland. In 2006 Newby exhibited in Silver Clouds, a project curated by Cuckoo in Melbourne, Australia, and in 2004 she participated in Remember New Zealand at 26th Sao Paulo Biennale, Brazil and facilitated a series of site-specific urban projects, Very Interesting, Very International, in public sites in Europe and the USA. Newby actively publishes and contributes to artist’s books.

Frances Stark (USA) is an artist and writer based in Los Angeles. Stark’s work has consistently grappled with an ethics of both address and production. She interweaves personal negotiations into her questions around how to speak as an artist and what constitutes the gesture of making. Working initially as a writer, even her drawings make use of the slow and unfolding time of readership. Stark’s work convincingly opens up her negotiations with her influences and forebears, getting to a space of liberation rather than constriction. Stark is a lecturer at USC in L.A. She has exhibited extensively throughout both the USA and Europe. Recent solo projects include, The Fall of Frances Stark, Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven (2007), Francis Stark: Structures that Fit my Opening, Marc Foxx, Los Angeles (2006), Bless This Mess, greengrassi, London (2004), Destroy Date, Galerie Buchholz, Cologne (2004) And Another One at the Same Time, Gallery, Paula Anglim, San Francisco and I.C.A., London (2004), for nobody knows himself if he is only himself and not another at the same time, Marc Foxx, Los Angeles (2004), ICH SUCHE NACH MEINE FRANCES STARKE SEITE, Kunstverein Galerie, Munich (2000). She has lectured at various conferences including developing symposia; On the future of art school, USC, LA (2006), Why do conceptual artists paint? Because they want to, panel, Frieze art fair, London (2006). Stark writes consistently as part of her practice, for amongst others, Afterall, Art and Text, Context, Frieze. Recent solo publications include, Frances Stark: Collected Writings 1993-2003, Bookworks, London (2007), Frances Stark: Collected works, Bookworks, London (2007), The Architect and the Housewife, Bookworks, London (1999).

Working on Talking
Ruth Buchanan, Kate Newby, Frances Stark