4 March - 8 May 2016 Education Kit Australian Centre for Contemporary Art Education 1 NEW Series ACCA’s annual NEW series was established in 2003 to create opportunities for contemporary Australian artists to present newly commissioned work in an ambitious curatorial context, and to encourage new art practices, tendencies and ideas in a public context. The premise of NEW is to commission new works and to enable professional development opportunities for artists by providing them with curatorial expertise and financial assistance to help realise their plans in the demanding spaces of ACCA. The exhibition title does not insist that the artists themselves are ‘new’, although there is a general tendency for the participants to be considered as ‘emerging’. There is no theme for NEW. It is not expected that the artists need to have common purpose or ideas linking their projects. Whilst a characteristic of the NEW series is the involvement of guest curators whose role it is to propose new tendencies and areas of focus around current art ideas and developments, the emphasis is on individual projects which are variously engaging and captivating, and for these projects to have scope enough that the ideas of the artist can come to the front of any and all discussions. Education 2 Jacobus Capone Catherine or Kate Julian Day Gabriella Hirst Mason Kimber Tanya Lee Liam O’Brien Anna Varendorff with Haima Marriott Education 3 NEW16 2016. Installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2016. Photograph: Andrew Curtis Education 4 NEW16 Floorplan Jacobus Capone Gabriella Hirst Julian Day Tanya Lee Mason Kimber Anna Varendorff with Haima Marriott Catherine or Kate Liam O’Brien Education 5 Curatorial rationale Guest Curator NEW16 brings together eight newly commissioned Annika Kristensen is Curator at ACCA. Prior to projects from ten emerging artists around Australia. ACCA Kristensen was the Exhibition and Project Despite there being no over-arching theme – aside Coordinator for the 19th Biennale of Sydney (2014) from an emphasis on new art by new artists – the and the inaugural Nick Waterlow OAM Curatorial projects in this exhibition display a common interest Fellow for the 18th Biennale of Sydney (2012). in navigation and negotiation: exploring thresholds Kristensen has also held positions at Frieze Art Fair, in the relationships between the artists’ and their Artangel, and Film and Video Umbrella, London; work; each other; the visiting public; surrounding and The West Australian Newspaper, Perth. architecture; and the broader environment. Kristensen was a participant in the 2013 Gertrude Contemporary and Art & Australia Emerging Writers Several NEW16 artists bring an informed interest Program and the recipient of an Asialink Arts in another discipline to their art practice. Julian Residency in 2014. Day previously trained as a composer; Catherine or Kate formalised their interest in humour with improvisation, comedy writing and movement classes in Chicago; and Anna Varendorff’s interest in proximity extends from her sculptural practice to her work as a jeweller. Using visual language as a form of storytelling, the artists in NEW16 borrow from these interests as well as genres including comedy, horror, romance and mystery to create a unique series of works that are at once playful and poetic, futile and profound. The result is a very human exhibition – prompting us to reflect upon our own relationships, both with one another and our surrounds. Education 6 Catherine or Kate Founded in Brisbane examines their relationship with each other, as this Live and work in Brisbane relationship does not fit into the categories of friend, sister, lover or business partner. This relationship, My door is always open, unless it’s closed 2016 like any other, has difficulties and imbalances, with ceiling fan, time frame, wheelie good desk moments of disconnection, competition and support. Courtesy the artists My door is always open, unless it’s closed is set up like a studio space; a place you would go to draft Catherine or Kate is a collaborative double act artistic ideas – ideas that may never come to fruition. comprising Catherine Sagin and Kate Woodcroft. In this studio there is an old desk with a large wheel The duo defines their artworks in terms of winning attached that can be ridden like a bicycle, adding a and losing, and play out the division of labour in an participatory element to the work. The bicycle desk artistic practice that employs video, performance, is a portable platform for performance, but could also photography and sculpture. be an escape mechanism. CorK may want to escape from their relations with one another, or perhaps Their collaboration is named ‘Catherine or Kate’, their conflicted desires both to fit in, and push away or CorK for short, however they persistently from, the institutional setting in which the work is disagree with each other, with hints of uncertainty shown (Kristensen, 2016). The walls of the studio (Hopper, 2016). Their close partnership has carried are painted taupe, an ordinary ceiling fan rotates itself for eight years, creating art that is honest endlessly, and a frame is nailed to the wall but in its expression of negotiation, disagreement hanging on an angle, referencing the wonkiness and consensus. CorK challenge notions of artistic of ACCA’s architecture. collaboration and highlight the inherent tensions and competitive nature of working together. This My door is always open, unless it’s closed is built relationship becomes the fuel to their practice on recent performances in which the pair openly as they stage a fencing duel or survey service discussed doubts about the continuity of their attendants about which of the artists they consider collaborative relationship. These performances have the most physically attractive. all played with the shifting sense of comfort that comes from working with another and also with CorK’s NEW16 work is called My door is always the delays that take place in the public presentation open, unless it’s closed, and involves sculpture, of personal, emotive material. image and text (written and performed). Their work Education 7 Catherine or Kate, My door is always open, unless it’s closed 2016. Installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2016. Courtesy the artists. Photograph: Andrew Curtis Education 8 Liam O’Brien Born in Gold Coast City Lives and works in Brisbane At Arm’s Length is presented at ACCA as a single- channel video. The work can be considered in three At Arm’s Length 2015–16 different sections under the descriptions: people high definition single-channel video installation without phones, people with phones, and phones Edition of 5 without people. O’Brien uses variety of characters Courtesy of the artist and Sullivan + Strumpf, Sydney in the video, often sitting around, scrolling through social media and messaging on their iPhone in isolation. The video utilises elements of screen- With particular interest in the construction of space, such as pop-up windows or scenes that individuality and the ambiguities of personal appear to vertically scroll independently of the freedom, Liam O’Brien utilises personal experience, action. This layering and experimentation extends intuition and theoretical texts to produce video to the use of sound, distributed over speakers in and performance works that explore the human ACCA’s foyer and bathrooms. O’Brien uses phone condition under advanced capitalism. notifications as non-diegetic sound (sounds which are independent of his on-screen narratives) to coax O’Brien’s practice surrounds an ongoing the audience into checking their own mobile devices investigation into networks of connectivity, they are constantly tethered to. interpersonal transactions and our constant engagement with technology, resulting in O’Brien’s research into this subject stems from anaemic experiences (Barikin, 2016). As part of books and articles that he has recently read on our this investigation his work in NEW16 called At complex relationships with technology. Alongside Arm’s Length explores the less meaningful and this media, his research has included sci-fi films dissatisfying interactions that our engagement from the likes of Stanley Kubrick and Spike Jones, with technology causes. He suggests that our TV shows, and similar ideas in the music of Father engagement with technology ‘reduces our John Misty, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Kurt Vile, experiences to merely sight, hearing, and touch via and Parquet Courts. As leisure collapses into work, text, still image, moving image, and sound’ (O’Brien, and our attention lapses between the virtual and the 2016). O’Brien argues that we lose significant and actual, O’Brien’s work poses the question ‘Where is embodied experiences of time and space, in turn, the ‘social’ in social media?’ (Barikin, 2016). losing our solitude, concentration, imagination, self- reflexivity, and productivity. Education 9 Liam O’Brien, At Arm’s Length 2015-16. Installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2016. Courtesy the artist and Sullivan + Strumpf Sydney. Photograph: Andrew Curtis Education 10 Anna Varendorff with Haima Mariott Lives and works in Melbourne the gallery casts shadows from the sculptures onto the walls, transforming the large forms to flat linear here there are infinite arrangements 2016 markings in two dimension. brass, wood composite, electronics 108 x 212 cm 311 - 7902 Hz Varendorff’s objects ask for participation and 205 x 197 cm 130 - 5919 Hz manipulation, including other dimensions such 188 x 182 cm 146 - 5274 Hz as sound and light (Besten, 2016). Upon touch, 168 x 168 cm 155 - 2637 Hz the objects offer a resonant sound coming from 162 x 132 cm 207 - 932 Hz speakers mounted in at the base of the structures, 264 x 122 cm 27 - 392 Hz and a small vibration is felt. This sound responds to 233 x 102 cm 30 - 207 Hz the different ways the audience physically engages Courtesy of the artists with the object - percussive if touched briefly, more sustained if the touch is longer in duration.