Laura Castagnini

RE/GENDERED

2010-01-25T03:44:00.000-08:00

Curated by Laura Castagnini
Presented by Platform and Midsumma

Artists: Monika Tichacek (Sydney), Tejal Shah (India), Jake Wotherspoon (Melbourne), Drew Pettifer (Melbourne), Fran Barrett, Kate Blackmore & Anastasia Zaravinos (Sydney), Liam Benson (Sydney), 4evamore (Melbourne), Michelle Tran (Melbourne), Gerard O’Connor & Marc Wasiak (Melbourne).

Platform Artists Group Inc.
Degraves Street Subway (Campbell Arcade) Melbourne
25 January – 6 February 2010
www.platform.org.au

Re/Gendered brought together a number of high profile international and Australian artists in a group exhibition that celebrated the notion of fluid or 'unstable' gender. Set in a public thoroughfare beneath Flinders Street train station, the exhibition and accompanying performances aimed to transgress and blur the boundaries of binary gender. In turns joyful, disturbing, and deliberately ambiguous, the selected artworks expose the theatricality involved in our everyday performance of gender roles.

*The Opening Night, 6- 9pm Monday 25 January, included queer drag performances from guests including Mzzz Erin Tasmania, Ghetto Pussy, Liam Benson, 4evamore, Agent Cleave, Godzilla and Mummy Complex.

This was the final exhibition developed as part of my 2009 Curator In Residence at Platform.

DOCUMENTATION OF OPENING NIGHT EVENT:

CLICK IMAGE BELOW TO VIEW EXHIBITION CATALOGUE:

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IMAGES

Exhibition (images clockwise from left):

Monika Tichacek
"Lineage of the Divine"
Video installation, 21:22 minutes
© 2002

Jake Wotherspoon

"Fiona" and "Kate"
photoprint with hair
© 2009

Opening Performance
artist, glue, hair collection, electric fan
variable dimensions
© 2010

Michelle Tran
"Vinh" and "Untitled"
Photographic prints
© 2010

Gerard O' Connor and Marc Wasiak
Installation
Photographic prints, fabric, paint.
© 2010

Fran Barrett, Kate Blackmore, Anastasia Zaravinos
"Drag Acts"
Video installation
© 2010

Liam Benson

"True Blue"
Video installation, sequins, necklace
© 2009

"Thank you Carrie"
Photographic installation, sequins, necklace
© 2009

Tejal Shah with Marco Paulo Rolla (Brazil)
"Trans"
Dual channel video installation
12 min, colour, sound,
© 2005

Drew Pettifer
"Fluid"
Photographic prints, black acylic paint
© 2010

4evamore
"Mechandise"
video documentation, posters, underwear, signage
© 2010

Re/Gendered- Opening night performances

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In order of appearance:

Mzzz Erin Tasmania, Agent Cleave, Godzilla and Mummy Complex

4evamore

Liam Benson

Ghetto Pussy

*See video footage at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4qlBmC_ShA

Re/Gendered: Reviews and press

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Mini Documentary: “Re/Gendered: A Platform for Exploration”, ABC Arts Online, Monday, 1 February 2010
http://www.abc.net.au/arts/stories/s2806877.htm

Review: Jessie Scott: “Re/Gendered at Platform”, Check Your Tension,
http://checkyourtension.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/regendered-at-platform/ [accessed 16/02/2010]

Review: “Re⁄Gendered & Queer City Lane Dwellers Launch”, Queer Tastes, http://users.tpg.com.au/miethe/midsumma2010_queerlane.htm [accessed 16/02/2010]

"Interview with Re/Gendered Curator: Laura Castagnini", Cherrie, January Issue, p.14

"The Weekend Starts Here", The Age, EG, Friday Jan 29 2010, p. 2

"What's On", The Age; M Magazine, Sunday 24 Jan, 2010 p. 4-5

"Whats On- Your Weekly Guide to the Arts", The Age, Monday 25 Jan, 2010, p. 13

Images from exhibition (Liam Benson and Michelle Tran) featured in Australiasian Science, April issue, 2010.

Platform: Curator In Residence

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My position as Curator in Residence at Platform Artist Group Inc. was a six month paid mentorship in which I curated six solo shows inside Sample space, one of Platform's cabinets which is dedicated to artists under 25 years old.
http://platform.org.au/.
Please find following information about each Sample show.

Platform: Sample December 2009

2009-12-27T17:57:00.000-08:00

Roberta Rich

"Outside the Square, Inside my Box"

(Video installation)

1 -31 December 2009

"Outside the Square, Inside my Box" comprises of two video 'drawings' of the artist's body, Orifice (Slow Suck Part II) and Nude Thump. Roberta Rich is interested in exploring awkward and confronting bodily actions and displaying them within manipulated loops of video footage. The result is an absurd, repetitious canvas that fuses a feminist visuality with an experimental, masculine soundtrack. The work is manufactured within the broader context of video-art and feminist
performance but remains, at its essence, a genuine interrogation of the artist's
own female body, its socio-political location, and its function as an expressive medium in itself. Moreover, she is choosing to deliberately position my body as both a vulnerable and increasingly complex, challenging entity - as the subject of the voyeuristic gaze.

Roberta Rich is currently completing a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) at Monash University. In 2008, she completed a residency in Prato, Italy, as part of Monash University's Exchange program.

Roberta Rich

Platform: Sample November 2009

2009-11-27T17:49:00.000-08:00

Matthew Greaves

"Or"

(Shopping trolley, humidifier)

2 -27 November 2009

Perpetually warming and moistening, decomposing incommensurably, OR is pervaded by uncertainty and rouses a state of suspicious expectancy.

Using the tragicomic readymade OR regards immanence and imminence: a singular subsistence in a concrete reality of objects, and the impending loss of these objects’ concreteness. Drawing together a shopping jeep and humidifier in a crude, fragile and contingent arrangement, this installation’s predicated decrepitude and apparent decay problematises any resolution.

Matthew Greaves incorporates found objects, video, and multimedia devices into a practice that regards chance and process, substance and purpose. He is currently completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) at VCA and has previously exhibited at Sydney College of the Arts, George Paton Gallery and Margaret Lawrence Gallery as a finalist for the Wallara Traveling Scholarship.

Platform: Sample October 2009

2009-10-30T17:35:00.000-07:00

Maddie Sharrock

"Look"

(False wall, convex & concave mirrors)

1 -3o October 2009

Like Yayoi Kusama’s Peep Shop/Endless Love Show (1966), "Look" intends to investigate the act of staring. By replacing the windows of the Sample cabinet with a white wall and strategically affixing two squared mirrors - one concave and the other convex, which hold at each centre a peephole - the viewer is invited to peer into two darkened spaces. When they do, they will feel nothing but a light breath of air on their eye.

Sharrock's "Look" is an investigation into subjective perception, using ingredients such as darkness, light and mirrors to heighten the viewer’s awareness of their bodily senses and proximities. The work's engagement with the viewer is subtle and aims to quietly ‘nudge’ the limitations of perception.

Maddie is currently studying Sculpture and Spatial Practice at the VCA, and has previously exhibited as part of the Victoria Harbour Young Artists Initiative at Docklands.

Platform: Sample September 2009

2009-09-01T04:41:00.000-07:00

Aaron Cooper and Ben Tarano

"Subterranean Fouling"

(Polyurethane silicone and foam)

1 -25 September 2009

Subterranean fouling is a reworking of Biologically Foul, a site specific installation exhibited as part of the Victoria Harbour Young Artists Initiative at Docklands.

‘Biological Fouling’ is a term used to describe the accretion of naturally growing, aquatic organisms upon submerged human made structures. It is the cause of extensive corrosion to underwater assets and an enormous fiscal threat to marine industries.

Cooper and Tarano simulate fouling of architectural space by creating artificial mussels and barnacles that ‘grow’ inside the Sample cabinet. It entertains the possibility that if current sea levels rise, as we are constantly led to believe, that the Degraves street subway could become prime space for the next wave of urban biological fouling.

Aaron Cooper and Ben Tarano are currently completing a Bachelor of Fine Art at the Victorian College the Arts majoring in Sculpture and Spatial Practice. Working in collaboration they use sculpture and installation as a means to explore tensions arising between the organic and synthetic, urban and natural, aquatic and terrestrial realms.

Platform: Sample August 2009

2009-09-01T04:20:00.000-07:00

Claire Gallagher
Absence of the Inner

3-29 August, 2009

An empty vitrine, void of material matter other than hot air, suggests suffocation. It alludes to the fate of the subject inside suffering a slow death. Paradoxically, hot sticky air can also generate life, such as within a hot house. With these ideas in mind, Claire Gallagher surrounds an empty glass vitrine with a mix of living pot plants and taxidermied animals. The environment she creates is oddly eerie and monstrous, yet at the same time illustrates a continuation of life. Absence of the Inner suggests that the human desire to control, manipulate and contain the living may originate in an underlying fear of a rampant, uncontrollable nature.

Claire Gallagher is currently completing her Honours degree in Fine Arts at the Victorian College of the Arts and works across sculpture and installation to create environments that explore the tensions and parallels between the living and the dead, the artificial and the natural.

Platform: Sample July 2009

2009-09-01T04:00:00.000-07:00

Jon Oldmeadow Phantom

(1 – 31 July 2009)

Phantom (noun): an image appearing in a dream or formed in the mind

Phantom explores the fascination that comes from things seen for the first time. This series of drawings is automated by an oversized mechanized zoetrope, an analogue animation device. It draws inspiration from cave drawings found in Arnhem Land thought to be of early explorer Ludwig Leichhardt and his horse. Just as European drawings of eucalyptus trees, which appeared more like European deciduous trees, and kangaroos, which looked more like giant rats, must have seemed strange to Aboriginal people, the Indigenous representation of white people and their animals appear very peculiar, like a phantom.

Jon Oldmeadow completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at Monash University in 2007 and has collaborated as a part of Safari Team since 2006. With Safari Team, Jon has exhibited at VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery, TCB art inc (2008 Next Wave Festival) and Seventh Gallery in Melbourne, Firstdraft Gallery in Sydney, Palazzo Vaj in Italy and WLTWSAETLV in Montreal, Canada.

O Projects

2008-01-11T04:46:00.000-08:00

O Projects was an artist run space that I co-initated and managed alongside Kent Wilson, Carl Scrase and Sam Martin in 2008. We held solo and group exhibitions, performative events and discussion nights.

This is a selection of catalogue essays I wrote for O Projects exhibitions.
Please visit http://oprojectsarchive.blogspot.com/ for a more extensive archive.

“Red Lion”, Stephen Rendall and Brian Spier.
O Projects Gallery, March 1-24, 2008

Catalogue Essay: The nature of collaboration.
by Laura Castagnini

It is in the nature of collaboration that ideas shift and change.
Opinions are bounced back and forth between different people, the
original idea gaining momentum as it tumbles headlong into an unknown
arena before standing tall to display itself in a unique and almost
unrecognisable form.
The art produced during collaboration becomes not that of two
individuals, but that of a third person, a collective identity;
another being that would have been impossible to fathom from any other
than the merging of those involved. Collaboration results in one being
forced to give up creative control and simultaneously set aside the
preciousness and habits that have been formed through working alone.
The collaboration becomes a device an artist can use to pursue and
experiment with ideas that are different to their ‘usual style’. This
process creates an outcome that has the essence of each artist but
becomes the work of this newly created collective identity.
This idea of artists ‘merging’ in order to form a newly created
collective entity was realised by William S. Burroughs in his
collaboration with Brion Gysin for their book The Third Mind. When
interviewed they explain this concept as:

GYSIN: When you put two minds together…
BURROUGHS:… there is always a third mind…
GYSIN: …a third and superior mind…
BURROUGHS: …as an unseen collaborator.

Collaboration is described as “complete fusion in a praxis of two
subjectivities…that morph into a third; it is from this collision that
a new author emerges, an absent third person, invisible and beyond
grasp.”1 Burroughs and Gysin insisted that this collaborative process
results in a phantom artist or “Third Mind”.
We can take this idea of this “Third Mind” and consider the newly
found confidence that artists often seem to possess when
collaborating. The creation of an ‘unseen collaborator’ becomes
similar to that of an ‘alter ego’; an artistic entity separate from
one’s personal identity that one can ‘take on’ when necessary. Whilst
supported by the collaborative entity, an artist’s ability to
undertake large projects is immediately increased in comparison to
when working solo. Furthermore it is more comfortable and socially
accepting for artists’ to promote and push forwards the work of this
‘other’ collective identity than it is of an individual practise; this
increased drive can lead to interesting and unexpected results.
An example of this phenomenon emerged during the collaboration between
Steven Rendall and Bryan Spier for their recent exhibition “Red Lion”.
By working on an idea separate from their individual practises Rendall
& Spier found a sense of unprecedented freedom which led them to
surprise even themselves with the consequential outcomes. Spier
describes the exhibition as:

“very different to our previous collaborative work, and different to
what we expected we would do. I think our earlier (collaborative)
paintings rely on a clash of stylistic elements, whereas this time we
are setting aside the habits of our individual practices to reach an
outcome that best responds to the particular setting. The resulting
work is one that neither of us could have conceived individually”.

It is in the nature of this new entity of the phantom“Third Mind” that
collaborative artworks tend to surprise both artist and viewer.
Collaboration extends artistic practise and pushes artists towards
unchartered territory; it is an essential ingredient for the
development of contemporary art.

“The Big Rainbow Funhouse of Cosmic Brutality”, Paul Yore
O Projects Gallery, 24th June- 8th July, 2008.

Catalogue Essay by Laura Castagnini

Is this a fantastical utopia or a critical view of mass culture?

Or simply an acid tripper’s playground?

In “The Big Rainbow Funhouse of Cosmic Brutality” Paul Yore bombards
our senses with “colourful vomit”; an explosion of kitsch plastic
flowers, toys, beer bottles, Tibetan flags, fountains, fairy lights,
music and play- doh.

The process seems playfully decorative and childlike, yet the
resulting artwork appears almost ridiculous. Why on earth would a
grown man spend so much time decorating colourful junk? Confusing and
pointless, it is a monument to the absurd.

In bird- like fashion Yore has obsessively collected the plastic
detritus of our wasteful society and arranged it into this enormous
vibrant nest. The work has a has a life of it’s own; it began with a
desk and chair in his studio at Monash but soon spilled into
neighbouring studios and has since morphed into the all- encompassing
sensory overload that has taken over O Projects.

Yore’s work is decorative and fun yet also highlights the wastefulness
of our culture; the high production rate of such plastic goods is
exhausting our limited natural resources and leaking pollution into
the atmosphere. In an ironic paradox; these objects (such as plastic
flowers or twinkling lights) are an artificial recreation of nature
yet are slowly destroying the very environment they are emulating.

“The Big Rainbow Funhouse of Cosmic Brutality” is built to explore the
incongruous nature of our existence in this world and is showing at O
Projects Gallery from 24th June- 8th July, 2008.

(Paul subsequently exhibited a new version of this installation at Heide Museum of Modern Art. See http://www.heide.com.au/Exhibitions/Paul_Yore)

"Echoes of Gold”, Rachel Feery and Lisa Stewart
O Projects Gallery, 19th August- 4th September, 2008.

Catalogue Essay by Laura Castagnini

Virtually wandering through the deserted landscapes of "Echoes of Gold" one
feels vaguely expectant, that something magical could suddenly occur at any
moment. Innumerable fairy tales are based in similar settings.
Children romanticise them with capital letters; “The Desert”, “The
Mountains” or “Under the Sea”. Anything could happen.

“Echoes of Gold” is a video-installation that takes the viewer to un-
inhabited lands of mysterious origins. The artists invite you to climb
aboard a fabricated boat to be transported from the ordinary into the
imaginary. The viewer is taken on a journey through constructed envi-
ronments to discover the wonderment of magical and artificial realms.

This fantastical enviro-vision reunites one with ‘nature’ as an escape
from the everyday. A frightening glimpse into the future and a parody
of our quick fix culture, it takes us on a ten minute holiday to a simula-
tion of nature. To vast empty expanses of make-believe landscape where
we can shut off our brains and soak in the glitter. Play-doh replaces cliff
tops and blue cellophane substitutes the ocean in picturesque natural
beauty for the future.

“Echoes of Gold” is at once a critique of our advancing technological
culture and a celebration of artistic playfulness and exploration.

(Lisa and Rachel subsequently exhibited a new version of their installation at Firstdraft Gallery in Sydney in 2009. See http://www.firstdraftgallery.com/020%20Exhibition%20Archive/index.html)

2008-01-10T03:51:00.000-08:00