A West Space project featuring Ross Coulter, Melody Ellis, Brad Haylock, Veronica Kent, Sanné Mestrom, Lillian O’Neil, Patrick Pound, Ben Sheppard, Utako Shindo, Tai Snaith, Kieran Stewart and Dominic Redfern, with essays by Phip Murray and Kelly Fliedner.
Between the years 1902 to 1908 the 27-year old poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote ten letters to Franz Kappus, a 19-year old student seeking feedback on his poetry but, more broadly, career and life advice. The letters were published in a compendium titled Letters to a Young Poet. Things I Wish I’d Known riffs on Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet; each participating artist will ‘think back’ through their practice to consider the discoveries – and also the pitfalls and anxieties – that attended the development of their arts practices. Rather than acting as notes of guidance, each work within the exhibition will reflect on the processes that take place within the evolution of an artist’s work – the sometime unrecognisable yet fundamental transactions that shape an artist’s career.
The participating artists are all current West Space Board or Program Committee members. West Space has a history of mounting extended group exhibitions that reflect upon and reference the artistic communities around West Space. At the centre of West Space is a focus on artists’ practices and the organisation is proud of its artist-led governance, which manifests in robust critical dialogues that consider the changing needs and practices of artists.
Glory Box features two boxes containing plasma screens installed on the floor. The screens depict an image of an upper body (that of the artist) whose breathing is constrained within a lidless box. Over time the torso is gradually wrapped with slices of soft, skin-coloured clay. White or black paint is then applied to the clay wrapped surface of the body. The treatment of the body in this way evokes a sense of the body as a surface – a visual or cultural canvas. Throughout the duration of the video piece, coloured liquid is gradually poured into the box and the body disappears, sinking beneath the surface of the fluid.
Matthew Perkins is an artist and curator predominantly focused on performance and video art. He has recently exhibited in Testing Ground, Melbourne (2009), Figuratively Speaking: The Figure in Contemporary Video Art, Brisbane (2007), Stranger Geography, Italy (2007) and Skin Alive, Canberra, Melbourne (2007).
Wikipedia notability determines whether a topic merits its own article. Like everyone else, I am trying to piece together a wholly subjective model of notability amongst the world as encountered. I think of my work, including Honeywell Thermostat, as the production of images that constitute a ‘product tour’ of such a model, which currently includes the aesthetics of travel videos, defunct corporate attitudes, the engineering of Concorde, and the histories of specific heat devices. Naturally, it’s ever-changing.
Rowan McNaught lives and works in Melbourne, making cross-disciplinary work utilising video, digital imaging, sculpture and sound. He graduated from the VCA in 2009. http://hollyandrowan.taylorslakesupercolony.org
The West Wing presents Kevin Chin Playing House 21 October–6 November 2010
What happens when you combine the First Home Owners' Grant, TV home makeover shows, and a clueless couple of the Ikea generation undertaking their first home renovation? Drawing on his own renovation experience, Chin applies painting and sculptural processes to home renovating materials from Bunnings. Amidst the new work is a vinyl laminate life-size bear rug, a ‘panic room’ made from thousands of Dulux paint sample cards, and an oil on canvas triptych depicting the calamity of renovating.
Playing House offers a whimsical look at how rising housing prices and the domestic blitz craze affect a generation that refuses to grow up.
The West Wing Throughout 2010 and 2011 West Space is presenting The West Wing, an experimental art project space within Melbourne Central.
The West Wing is a Melbourne Central and West Space partnership. In late 2009 we were approached by Melbourne Central to ascertain our interest in inhabiting retail space as a satellite art space. West Space was pleased to take up an opportunity that would enable free space for artists in the city. We felt that The West Wing offered unique possibilities for artists and audiences, as well as offering shoppers something different to the retail experience ubiquitous to the area. The West Wing represents an interesting and innovative partnership between GPT, a large corporation, and West Space, a small not-for-profit experimental art space.
West Space received a great response from artists to its public call for proposals for The West Wing. We called for projects in any form – such as exhibitions, performances, audiovisual projects, artist talks, research projects or onsite ‘artist in residence’ programs – wanting to be as responsive as possible to artists’ ideas. We have currently programmed a diverse and experimental calendar to the end of January 2011.
