Eva Rothschild: Kosmos

Education Kit Australian Centre for Contemporary Art

1 Exhibition Introduction Artist Biography

Eva Rothschild: Kosmos is the latest exhibition in Eva Rothschild was born in in 1971. She studied ACCAs ongoing International Artist Series. It focuses art in Dublin and , and later completed a Master upon the sculptural practice of contemporary artist of Fine Arts at Goldsmiths, University of , in Eva Rothschild. The exhibition was co-curated by 1999. She has lectured in art at the Slade School of Fine ACCA’s Artistic Director Max Delany and Senior Curator Art and currently lives and works in London where she Annika Kristensen. It comprises artworks from the last has a studio. Recently, Rothschild was announced as decade of Rothschild’s practice and is the largest ever Ireland’s representative at the 58th Venice Biennale in exhibition of her artwork in the Southern Hemisphere. 2019. Her artwork is primarily sculptural, and she has The exhibition includes three major new commissions discussed her art as being influenced by minimal art of that have never been exhibited elsewhere before, the 1960s and 1970s, classical architecture, spiritualism alongside significant earlier works. After leaving ACCA and pop culture. Rothschild’s artworks explore the the exhibition will tour to the City Gallery Wellington, formal language of sculpture; including form, shape, New Zealand, in 2019. The exhibition is presented colour, structure and scale. Most of her artworks are in partnership with the Melbourne International Arts made for indoor gallery contexts, however she has also Festival and City Gallery Wellington. completed several large-scale public artworks around the world. Both the materiality of sculpture and its physical presence in space are of significant interest to the artist. Rothschild is a studio-based artist and she uses hands-on processes such as casting, construction, painting and carving to create her artworks. In order to realise many of her artworks, especially very large- scale pieces, she engages professional fabricators and technicians who possess specific skills.

Image Eva Rothschild in her London studio. Photograph: Royal Academy London/ Anne Purkiss

2 How to use this kit Exhibition Floorplan

The Eva Rothschild: Kosmos Education 1. Iceberg hits 2018 Kit has been developed for use alongside 2. Stool 9 2018 visiting the exhibition.Teachers can select 3. Hazard 2018 and adapt the questions and activities 4. An organic threat 2018 provided within the resource for learning 5. Black atom 2013 experiences in the gallery or classroom. 6. Cosmos 2018 7. Stool 3, Stool 5 (both works) 2018 Each key artwork is accompanied by 8. Crystal healing 2018 an inquiry question that is scaffolded to content descriptors from both the 9. Stool 4, Stool 6, Stool 8, Stool 10 (all works) 2018 Australian and Victorian Visual Arts 10. Tooth and claw 2018 11. The way in 2018 Curricula. These descriptors are also 11 listed at the end of the document. 12. Risers (black) 2018 13. Troublemaker 2018 13 14. A sacrificial layer 2018 9 Contents 15. Technical support (ACCA) 2018 16. Do-nut 2009 10 Exhibition Introduction & Artist Biography Artworks & Floorplan 12 8 Key Artworks 15 14 - Hazard 2018 - An organic threat 2018 - Cosmos 2018 - Stool 4; Stool 8; Stool 6; Stool 10 16 (all works) 2018 - The sacrificial layer 2018 - Technical support (ACCA) 2018 3 6 - Cutout 2018 2 4 List of Works Key Ideas & Vocabulary 1 Curriculum Links 5 7

3 4 Hazard 2018 concrete, steel, synthetic polymer paint 163.5 x 625.5 x 30.0 cm Inquiry Question What kind of sculpture could you make to Hazard 2018 is a sculpture made of a carefully aligned guide exhibition viewers stack of concrete blocks, painted on both sides in through ACCA’s largest an abstract geometric pattern of diagonal shapes. It gallery in a similar way to bisects the gallery, interrupting the path of the viewer Hazard? Think about how and causing them to negotiate the sculpture by walking your sculpture could be around it. In this way, the sculpture shapes a path for adapted from an everyday the viewer to follow through the exhibition. You can structure, like a fence, think of this as being similar to choreography - the wall, or set of stairs. Make instructions used in dance to tell the performers how to a drawing to show how move. your artwork would be installed and label it with Hazard is industrially-scaled and reminiscent of the the title you would give to form of a wall or fence. Rothschild has used the same your artwork. industrial processes required for building an actual concrete wall or fence. The work is hard-edged, Curriculum Links (5&6) non-representational, non-figurative; sharing many VCAVAE029 similarities with minimalist artworks of the 1960s and ACAVAM116 70s. The form and the title Hazard also refer to the roadblocks and control structures which have become Images a feature of our public spaces – what the artist has P. 4 & 5: Eva Rothschild, referred to as ‘hazard architecture’, which is increasingly Hazard 2018; Iceberg hits prevalent in today’s urban spaces. 2018 (detail) Photograph: Andrew Curtis

5 6 An organic threat 2018

Jesmonite, resin, steel, hand-dyed cotton, wax, paint, Inquiry Question fibreglass, foam and plywood Rothschild has put a lot of dimensions variable thought into the placement and order of her sculptures throughout the ACCA An organic threat 2018 is an assemblage of soft and hard, galleries. Take a moment to open and closed sculptural forms. It was commissioned notice how the sequence especially for Kosmos, so it has never been exhibited and spacing shapes a journey elsewhere before. There was some complex planning and for the viewer. Consider coordination involved to make the artwork. Firstly, the fabric how you could arrange the was designed and printed by the artist at her studio in London. artworks differently to create It was then sent to Melbourne, along with detailed plans for an entirely new experience of its transformation into three-dimensional forms. Fiberglass, the exhibition. For example: foam and polystyrene forms were first fabricated and then bundling all the artworks very covered with the printed material. This part of the work was close together in one spot; done by an upholsterer, a person with specialist skills in or, leaving some galleries working with padding and covering items of furniture (such entirely empty. How would as couches and chairs). The slender steel element was also these spatial contrasts fabricated in Melbourne according to the artists plans. change your experience of the exhibition? Because the artwork was produced in Melbourne, the artist only saw it for the first time after arriving in Australia, and then Curriculum Links (7&8) had decide how and where to exhibit the work. An organic VCAVAR038 threat was originally envisaged for a different gallery, however ACAVAM120 once in the space with the artwork Rothschild changed her mind and decided to shift it to another gallery instead. The Images artist then set about arranging the elements. Each piece is P. 6: Eva Rothschild, separate from the others, so the process of building up the sculptural composition happened through placement and An organic threat 2018 arrangement. Many contemporary sculptors use arrangement Photography: Andrew Curtis as a technique to create their artworks. P. 7: Eva Rothschild, For comparison: American artist Carol Bove is an example of An organic threat 2018 a contemporary sculptor who has often used arrangement to (detail). Photograph: Andrew create sculptural compositions. For the exhibition Sculptural Curtis Matter at ACCA in 2012, Bove contributed La Traversée Difficile (The Difficult Crossing) 2008. This work consisted Carol Bove, La traversée of items including sand dollars, petrified wood, gold chain, difficile 2008. Photograph: and a carved bust. These disparate forms came together to Andrew Curtis constitute a sculpture through Bove’s arrangement of each element in relation to the others.

7 8 Cosmos 2018 spray painted aluminium Inquiry Question 350.0 x 370.0 x 340.0 cm Move slowly all around the sculpture (this action is sometimes called At over four meters, the sculpture titled Cosmos 2018 is circumambulation). What large scale, and sits somewhere between architecture changes as you move? and artwork. Viewers of the exhibition are allowed to What in the work appears walk through the sculpture, meaning that it can be differently from different inhabited, even if only temporarily, in a similar way to directions, and how architecture. Cosmos engages traditions of minimalist does this change the sculpture – geometric forms, tilted planes, and ultra- experience of the artwork smooth industrially-fabricated surfaces. This is true of for you? Hint: consider the several other artworks in the exhibition, such as Hazard artist’s use of colour. and The sacrificial layer, so we can understand these qualities as part of the artist’s visual language. Curriculum Links (9&10) VCAVAR045 Cosmos is a textbook example of sculpture in the ACAVAM125 round. This is because it has no obvious front, back or side, and there is seemingly no ‘ideal’ or ‘correct’ Images perspective(s) from which to view the sculpture. The P. 8: Eva Rothschild, title of the artwork reinforces this idea. Cosmos is Cosmos 2018. another word for the universe, which, because it is all- Photograph: Andrew encompassing and its limits unknown, is also an entity Curtis with no hierarchy of front or back, up or down. Cosmos plays on spatial perception – it shifts its arrangement P. 9: Eva Rothschild, of angle and planes according to the movement of the Cosmos 2018 (details) viewer. The use of black as a tone can make the artwork Photograph: Andrew appear as a flat silhouette in the bright gallery space. Curtis Moving around Cosmos reveals colour gradients on interior facets of the tilted planes so the artwork does, from certain angles, appear to flicker between a flat shape and a three-dimensional form.

9 10 Stool 4, Stool 8, Stool 6, Stool 10 (all works) 2018 steel, Jesmonite, fibreglass, paint Inquiry Question 41.0 x 31.0 x 31.5 cm What is another example of an artwork that is also a functional object? If you “I want people to know what my work feels like. I haven’t seen anything make stools and benches for people to sit on in my that fits this description, exhibitions, using the same materials as my sculpture. think one up and draw a You can touch the stool and get a sense of what the diagrammatic picture of sculpture feels like, without having your hands all over your new creation. the artwork. It’s an opportunity to make contact with the materials, and an invitation to stay with the work a little Curriculum Links (5&6) longer.” 1 VCAVAV030 - Eva Rothschild ACAVAM114

Distributed throughout the exhibition are the series of Images ten artworks all titled Stool 2018. The artist decided on P. 10: Eva Rothschild, the specific positions for the sculptures throughout out Stool 4 2018; Stool 8 the galleries, however viewers are allowed to move 2018; Stool 6 2018; Stool the stools around during their visit. At the end of the 10 2018. Photograph: day ACCA’s gallery attendants return the stools to their Andrew Curtis original positions. P. 11: Eva Rothschild, They are hybrid objects – functional furniture and Stool 5 2018; Stool 9 artwork simultaneously – you can sit on them, yet they 2018; Stool 3 2018. are also signed by the artist on their underside, just like Photograph: Andrew a traditional artwork. Rothschild has commented that, Curtis collectively, our attention span has become shorter. You can think of her stools as both a way of accommodating viewers and extending the time that they spend with her artworks. They encourage viewers to sit, rest and take time out from their busy schedule. The stools 1 ‘As I See It – Artists in Their are both a generous gesture and a clever strategy to Own Words: Eva Rothschild’, Royal Academy. https://www. optimise the chances that Rothschild’s artwork will royalacademy.org.uk/article/as-i- benefit from a good amount of attention. see-it-eva-rothschild

11 12 The sacrificial layer 2018 polyvinyl chloride Inquiry Question two dissecting curtains: 500.0 x 1323.0 x 12.5 cm; Most of the artworks in 500.0 x 1212.0 x 12.5 cm Kosmos are for viewing at a distance only. This means that, overall, the Reaching all the way from the ceiling of the gallery right exhibition privileges down to the floor, The sacrificial layer 2018 occupies a visual experience. space in a way that is formally reminiscent of a theatre However, The sacrificial curtain or operatic backdrop. Its composition of sharply layer 2018 also engages separated areas of colour reference geometric abstract viewers’ tactile (touch) painting, but on a spectacular scale. However, there is a and aural (hearing) soft quality to the The sacrificial layer that is in contrast senses. When viewing to the hard, crisp edges with which geometric abstract the artwork, try to ignore painting is associated. the visual aspect and instead concentrate on In the gallery, the strips of plastic move slightly with the the feedback you get ambient air currents, and when a viewer walks through from your tactile and aural the piece it dissolves around them and its plastic strips senses. How can you caress their skin. The artwork is at once dominant (in put your experience of that it fills the entire space), and modest (in that it gives the artwork into words if way to the viewer almost effortlessly). An important you focus on touch and idea encompassed within the formal and material sound? aspects of the piece is that it combines binary opposites – hard and soft; architectural and ornamental. Curriculum Links (7&8) VCAVAE033 ACAVAM119

Images P. 12 & 13: Eva Rothschild, The sacrificial layer 2018 (detail). Photograph: Andrew Curtis

13 14 Technical support (ACCA) 2018

Jesmonite, steel Inquiry Question 550.0 x 16.0 x 16.0 cm Rothschild has stacked the individual elements that constitute Technical support Technical support (ACCA) 2018 towers above the viewer, over (ACCA) in a tall column. How five metres from floor-to-ceiling. It is made up of hundreds has this choice contributed individual sculptures which have been made by casting to your experience of the rolls of tape in Jesmonite, a material that Rothschild uses artwork? Does it affect in many of her artworks. Technical support (ACCA) makes your sense of proportion? art-historical reference to Romanian sculptor Constantin What are three alternative Brancusi’s sculpture Endless Column. Brancusi made several arrangements that the versions of this work with the earliest surviving version, held artist could have potentially in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), chosen, and how would New York, dating back to 1918. Brancusi’s artwork is similar each of these arrangements to Rothschild’s in that it is a stack of uniform elements placed change your experience of directly atop one another. Endless Column is not actually the artwork? Consider what endless, however it is possible to imagine that it could have your new arrangements may been, had the artist chosen to continue stacking his forms. look like: tall or short; random Similarly, Technical support (ACCA) appears to also be or ordered; colour-coded or potentially endless – if only the ceiling had not got in the way. not. This artwork is one of an ongoing series, with each iteration being adjusted to fit the height dimensions of its exhibition Curriculum Links (7&8) space. This is why this version has ‘ACCA’ in its title, to VCAVAR038 indicate that the sculpture has been reconfigured specifically ACAVAM119 for ACCA. Images Rothschild has explained that in her studio she would often P. 14: Eva Rothschild, use rolls of tape to secure rounded sculptural elements to Technical support (ACCA) stop them rolling away. However, this arrangement would be 2018.Photography: Andrew interrupted when she needed to use the tape. Her solution Curtis was to produce a cast a version of the roll of tape so that she could do both things simultaneously. Gradually, the artist P. 15: Eva Rothschild, started to incorporate these objects into her other artwork Technical support (ACCA) as sculptures in and of themselves. In this way Technical 2018 (detail)Photography: support (ACCA) reflects the artist’s process of studio Andrew Curtis production, experimentation and reconceptualisation. Often, all it takes for an object to become an artwork is for an artist Eva Rothschild, Technical to start seeing or thinking of that object as one. support, Sonneveld House, Rotterdam, 2016. Photograph: Johannes Shwartz 15 16 Cutout 2018

Jo Lloyd & Eva Rothschild in collaboration. Performance for ten dancers, 1 October 2018 Inquiry Question Eva Rothschild’s sculptures often look interactive – even As part of the exhibition Eva Rothschild: Kosmos the artist if they are not. Iceberg hits collaborated with Jo Lloyd, a Melbourne-based contemporary 2018 is one example because dancer and choreographer, to create the one-off performance many people immediately piece Cutout 2018. Rothschild and Lloyd met when the artist imagine punching the visited Melbourne on a research trip to plan her exhibition, sculpture – just like a real and during that meeting they discovered that they had shared punching bag. Go through interests in the concepts of structure and fluidity, and open the exhibition and list one and closed form. This meant that they were well-suited physical action that you to collaborate together. They decided that Rothschild’s think is suggested by each contribution to the performance would be her artworks sculpture. For example: and also the fabric for the dancers costumes. Lloyd was touching, laying, climbing, responsible for choreographing movement for ten dancers in etc. response to Rothschild’s exhibition. Curriculum Links (9&10) Because Kosmos is an entirely sculptural exhibition (three- VCAVAE041 dimensional), each artwork takes up physical space and ACAVAR130 influences how viewers’ bodies move through the galleries. Choreography is similar because it also involves directing Images dancers’ bodies through three-dimensional space. A sculpture P. 16: Eva Rothschild in like Hazard 2018, for instance, bisects ACCA’s largest gallery collaboration with Jo Lloyd, by literally blocking most of the open space, so viewers Cutout 2018 (performance have no choice but to move around it. This means that the view). Photograph: Peter experience of the artwork is an embodied one (not only visual, Rosetzky but also physical). P. 17: Eva Rothschild in Cutout was performed once only to an audience of one- collaboration with Jo Lloyd, hundred-and-fifty that moved through the ACCA galleries to Cutout 2018 (performance follow the dancers as the performance unfolded. For one views). Photograph: Peter hour the dancers danced in, around and on the sculptures. Rosetzky This meant that viewers could have a vicarious experience of touching artworks that are otherwise off-limits. The fabric that Rothschild designed was in a colour scheme of violet, green, red and black. Because this colour scheme is used throughout the exhibition a structural link was made between the dancers and the sculptures using visual language.

17 18 Key Ideas Key Vocabulary

Shape vs Form Geometric Abstraction A shape is a two-dimensional representation, whilst This is a type of art that uses geometric shape and a form is three-dimensional. A drawing of a triangle form to generate abstract compositions. Usually, shows a shape, while a constructed model of a pyramid these artworks are non-representational (not aiming to is a triangular form. As a sculptor, Eva Rothschild represent forms from nature of the real world). spends most of her time considering forms - how to sculpt and arrange them. Minimalism A movement that originated in the USA in the early Artwork Titles 1960s. Minimal artworks are characterised by being: Eva Rothschild often gives poetic and imaginative abstract; free of decoration or ornamentation; featuring titles to her artworks. The artist declines to explain her extreme simplicity of form; literal; and often industrially artwork in terms of purpose or concept, instead she fabricated. leaves meaning up to the viewer’s interpretation. Vicarious Experience As art critic and writer Michael Archer reflected: An experience had in the imagination through the feelings, description, or actions of another person. “By declining to invest her sculptures with any specific narrative, Rothschild ensures there is a broad scope for constructing it oneself. This is not to say that, in Images the face of her work, anything goes; it is more that she P. 18: Eva Rothschild, Kosmos, exhibition view, 2018 recognises the degree to which our apprehension of Photograph: Andrew Curtis form is shaped by experience. ‘Geometric forms’, she says, ‘are totally corrupted by sentiment and desire’.” 2 P. 19: Eva Rothschild, Crystal healing 2018. Photograph: Andrew Curtis

2 Archer, Michael. 2010. “In Difference”. In Eva Rothschild, pp. 129 -133. London: Koenig Books.

19 List of Works

A sacrificial layer 2018 Risers (black) 2018 Stool 7 2018 Tooth and claw 2018 polyvinyl chloride two painted steel, rubber, oak steel, jesmonite, aluminium, polyurethane, dissecting curtains: plinth fibreglass, paint fabric, glass beads, 500.0 x 1323.0 x 12.5 cm; 340.0 x 30.0 x 30.0 cm 41.0 x 40.5 x 33.5 cm jesmonite, fibreglass, 500.0 x 1212.0 x 12.5 cm paint, composition board, Stool 1 2018 Stool 8 2018 acrylic plinth An organic threat 2018 steel, jesmonite, steel, jesmonite, 252.5 x 38.0 x 50.0 cm hand-dyed cotton, wax, fibreglass, paint fibreglass, paint jesmonite, resin, steel, 41.0 x 32.0 x 31.5 cm 42.0 x 40.5 x 34.0 cm Troublemaker 2018 paint, fibreglass, foam, jesmonite, polyurethane, polystyrene and plywood Stool 2 2018 Stool 9 2018 synthetic polymer paint, dimensions variable steel, jesmonite, steel, jesmonite, steel 250.0 x 252.0 x fibreglass, paint fibreglass, paint 130.0 cm Cosmos 2018 41.0 x 31.0 x 31.5 cm 41.0 x 32.5 x 30.5 cm spray-painted aluminium Black atom 2013 350.0 x 370.0 x 340.0 cm Stool 3 2018 Stool 10 2018 steel, resin steel, jesmonite, steel, jesmonite, 68.0 x 98.0 x 61.0 cm Crystal healing 2018 fibreglass, paint fibreglass, paint fibreglass, polyurethane, 41.5 x 30.5 x 32.5 cm 41.5 x 32.0 x 30.0 cm Do-nut 2011 jesmonite, paint, concrete ceramic tiles, jesmonite, plinth 247.0 x 30.0 x 30.0 Stool 4 2018 Technical support (ACCA) polystyrene, adhesive, cm steel, jesmonite, 2018 grout fibreglass, paint jesmonite, steel 58.0 x 365.0 x 365.0 cm Hazard 2018 41.0 x 40.5 x 33.0 cm height variable, diameter concrete, steel, synthetic 16.0 cm Images polymer paint Stool 5 2018 P. 20: Eva Rothschild, 163.5 x 625.5 x 30.0 cm steel, jesmonite, The way in 2018 Black atom, 2013. fibreglass, paint leather, aluminium, fabric, Photograph: Andrew Iceberg hits 2018 41.0 x 40.5 x 34.0 cm tape, paint, steel, dyed oak Curtis fabric, wax, wood, card, plinth foam, wadding, steel Stool 6 2018 273.0 x 30.5 x 29.0 cm P. 21: Eva Rothschild, 471.0 x 42.0 x 42.0 cm steel, jesmonite, Troublemaker 2018; Risers fibreglass, paint (black) 2018. Photograph: 41.5 x 42.0 x 32.0 cm Andrew Curtis

20 21 Curriculum Links

VICTORIAN CURRICULUM: VISUAL ARTS Respond and Interpret Analyse and interpret artworks to explore the different Levels 5 and 6 forms of expression, intentions and viewpoints of artists and how they are viewed by audiences. (VCAVAR045) Explore and Express Ideas Explore how artists select and manipulate materials AUSTRALIAN CURRICULUM: VISUAL ARTS and techniques and use these in their own art making. (VCAVAE029) Years 5 and 6

Visual Arts Practices Explain how visual arts conventions communicate meaning Use enquiry as a basis for their own art making and use by comparing artworks from different social, cultural and of materials and techniques, for example, in sculpture, historical contexts, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait how does the choice of material enhance the audience’s Islander artworks. (ACAVAM114) understanding of the artist’s intention? (VCAVAV030) Plan the display of artworks to enhance their meaning for Levels 7 and 8 an audience (ACAVAM116)

Years 7 and 8 Explore and Express Ideas Observing and investigating how artists select and apply Develop ways to enhance their intentions as artists different visual arts techniques to express themes, through exploration of how artists use materials, concepts and ideas and considering how they could use techniques, technologies and processes. (ACAVAM119) these in their own art making. (VCAVAE033) Develop planning skills for art-making by exploring Respond and Interpret techniques and processes used by different artists. Analyse how ideas and viewpoints are expressed (ACAVAM120) in artworks and how they are viewed by audiences. (VCAVAR038) Years 9 and 10

Levels 9 and 10 Conceptualise and develop representations of themes, concepts or subject matter to experiment with their developing personal style, reflecting on the styles of Explore and Express Ideas artists, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Explore how artists manipulate materials, techniques, artists. (ACAVAM125) technologies and processes to develop and express their intentions in art works. (VCAVAE041) Evaluate how representations communicate artistic intentions in artworks they make and view to inform their future art making. (ACAVAR130)

22 Terms of Use

This education resource has been produced by the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art to provide information and classroom support material for education visits to the exhibition Eva Rothschild: Kosmos. The reproduction and communication of this resource is permitted for educational purposes only.

Acknowledgements

Education resource compiled and designed by ACCA’s Education team: Andrew Atchison, Eliza Devlin and Shannon Lyons from texts written by Max Delany, Artist Director and CEO, and Nikki Van der Horst, Curatorial Intern. Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, July 2018.

ACCA’s education resources are supported by the Victorian Government, Department of Education and Training under the Strategic Partnerships Program and the Australian Government, Catalyst–Australian Arts and Culture Fund.

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