From the Ground Up connecting the world 7–24 July 2021 Room sheet through sculpture Page 1 This exhibition traces one journey free speech and the right to public mistaken for the debris it is based among many possible routes through assembly and protest. upon. James Angus’s Soccerball the Monash University Collection Dropped from 35,000 Feet, 1999, and is presented in three separate The majority of the works in From enacts the force of weight of another iterations: From the Ground Up, The the Ground Up are floor-based and kind: gravity itself. Sculptural Body and In the Air. as such occupy the same spatial plane as humans. Peter Cripps’s Materials hold history and convey Connecting the World through mirrored work is a field of possible much more than formal qualities of Sculpture has been conceived as and changing perspectives that shape and colour, as is evident in the an ‘archaeological dig’ through the disrupts our ability to form a singular repurposed welded steel elements Collection that imagines the gallery or reliable view, ‘off the wall’. In Inge of Marcus Shanahan’s Echo Deco, space as housing a series of spatial King’s Threshold, 1983–84, the artist 1982, in contrast to the delicacy of strata or layers to be revealed over re-introduces the idea of the picture Slee’s tissue paper folds and the the course of the exhibition period. window or framing device, while elasticity of Louise Paramor’s paper encouraging us to see through and and cardboard Black Snake, 2000, This first iteration, From the Ground beyond it. both of which have the potential Up, includes one of the earliest for continual movement and re- sculptural works to enter the Malu Gurruwiwi’s morning star poles composition. Collection: Ron Robertson-Swann’s and Noŋgirrŋa Marawili’s hollowed architecture-inspired Byzantium, logs represent the strong connections One of a number of Low Sculptures 1974, acquired the year it was made. to Country held by these artists and made by the artist, Stuart Ringolt’s Early conceptual works by Aleks its honouring in ceremony. Other Electric Arrow, 2008, brings two Danko and Tony Trembath are also vertically oriented works by Nicholas unlikely elements together in a presented, both of which came into Mangan and Louise Weaver allude to potentially dangerous transfer of the Collection some years after they the environment in a broader sense, energy, reminding us of the agency were first exhibited. to growth and adaptation as well as of sculpture and its role in connecting the impact of human intervention into us to each other and with the world. With a nod to Christo and Jeanne- these processes. Claude’s monumental Wrapped Charlotte Day, Director, MUMA Coast, 1969, Danko’s and Trembath’s The Monash University Collection is wrapped forms move audiences recognised for its support of young away from thinking about sculpture and emerging artists and practices as identifiably figurative, abstract, as is evident in Simone Slee’s Fold permanent and plinth-based. They II, 1996, acquired when she was choose more elusive forms that, quite just out of art school. The idea of literally, could be wheeled around developing an art career from the (in the case of Danko’s work) and ground up and through stages— consist of industrial materials utilised including as an ‘emerging artist’—is more commonly for other purposes playfully reflected on in Emily Floyd’s (in the case of Trembath). Important Emerging Artist, 2004, while Kathy Temin takes charge of Some decades later, Geoff Kleem presenting her own, miniaturised, revisits the idea of modular and mid-career survey in My House, moveable sculpture, adding an 2004–05. additional element of potential ‘usefulness’: the screening device The urge to memorialise through apparent in Three Minutes Ago, 1998. sculpture remains one of its key Celebrating Jan Nelson’s Defiance, 2013, is also concerns, however many artists push 60 Years reminiscent of a ubiquitous form—in against related notions of the heroic Monash University this instance, the water-filled barriers and monumental. No one more than Collection increasingly used to regulate the Matt Hinkley, whose carefully cast movement of people and traffic. It’s and crafted Untitled, 2017, in one a stand-in for wider issues around corner of the gallery could easily be Connecting the World through All works Monash University Sculpture Collection, Melbourne From the Ground Up Room sheet 7–24 July 2021 Page 2 Emily Floyd Noŋgirrŋa Marawili Simone Slee Born 1972, Melbourne, where she Maḏarrpa people Born 1965, Horsham, Vic.; lives and lives and works. Born c.1938, Darrpirra, NT; lives and works in Melbourne. works at Yirrkala and Wandawuy, NT. Important Emerging Artist 2004 Fold II 1996 medium density fibreboard (296 Baratjala 2018 acid-free tissue paper and cotton letters) 2 works: earth pigments on hollowed Donated by private donor 1997 edition 22/35 tree trunks Purchased 2005 Both purchased 2019 Made the year after Simone Slee completed her studies in sculpture Emily Floyd is known for her text- Larrakitj, or hollow log coffins, were at the Victorian College of the Arts, based sculptures, installations formerly used by Yolŋu people of Melbourne, in 1995, Fold II is an and prints that engage with north-east Arnhem Land to contain early expression of her interest in typography, design and language. bones. Erected as memorials to the failure and vulnerability. It tests the As a tongue-in-cheek reflection on deceased for up to a decade after question ‘How can a sculpture stand the experience of starting out as a person’s death, the poles are up?’ without fear of it doing so. The an artist, she appropriated of one no longer used in ritual mortuary work is constructed as a series of of the art world’s clichéd phrases practice but continue to be made by modules, each containing seven units for her contribution to the annual artists such as Noŋgirrŋa Marawili for of concertina-folded tissue paper Gertrude Editions program, following painting. She draws from the ‘miny’tji’ stitched together with thread. These the studio residency at Gertrude (the Yolŋu word for art, referring to are stood on end, abutting each other Contemporary she undertook from sacred designs) of their clans and so as to appear as a solid overall 2000 to 2002. Just as the residency family members. Her Baratjala works system. It is part of the intention of itself is sometimes seen as a marker are named for the area of coastline the work—and in the nature of its of success for early career Australian and a place of knowledge held by fragile material—that while on display artists, Important Emerging Artist her clan, the Maḏarrpa people. Her it may sometimes suffer fatigue and pokes fun at the hype of the art motifs refer both to the rocks and sea collapse. industry while directing attention to spray of her Country as well as to the the systems and associated language Lightning Snake Mundukul, who spits that assign value to artists and their out an electric ‘curse’ in the form works. Another of Floyd’s works, the of lightning. These larrakitj depict outdoor sculpture This Place Will yukuwa bound in yarn and feathered Always Be Open, 2012, is located flowers—a cultural tradition that opposite MUMA on the elevated relates to Yirritja moiety ceremonies. concourse. Connecting the World through All works Monash University Sculpture Collection, Melbourne From the Ground Up Room sheet 7–24 July 2021 Page 3 Tony Trembath Kathy Temin Marcus Shanahan Born 1946, Sale, Vic.; lives and works Born 1968, Sydney; lives and works Born 1947; died 2008 in Cooma, in Melbourne. in Melbourne. NSW. Untitled—Covered Load of My House 2004–05 Echo Deco 1982 Woodtex 1977 wood, paint, Perspex, felt, synthetic welded steel canvas, rope, Woodtex and fur, polystyrene, foam core board, Purchased 1982 galvanised mild steel bubble wrap, printed matter, 2 LCD Gift of the artist 1995 screens, 2 DVDs, 2 wooden benches, While the strictest concept of 2 clusters of trees made from steel, formalism dictates that an artwork Tony Trembath’s sculpture has its wood, synthetic fur and synthetic be concerned only with its physical roots in Dada objects, perhaps in filling and sensory properties and not with particular Man Ray’s The Enigma of Donated through the Australian anything outside of itself, formalist Isidore Ducasse, 1920, in which a Government’s Cultural Gifts Program sculptors very often made use of sewing machine is obscured under by Kathy Temin, 2012 discarded industrial materials, which an army blanket tied up with string. Commissioned for the exhibition inevitably carry traces of their former Here, Trembath has not quite covered NEW05 by the Australian Centre for purpose. In calling his sculpture a stack of Woodtex panels—an Contemporary Art, 2005 Echo Deco, Marcus Shanahan is acoustic absorber and transmission explicit in the work’s relationship loss barrier made of wood fibre My House can be seen as Kathy both to the past and to design. If Art compression bound with cement. Temin’s self-curated survey exhibition Deco celebrated the machine age at Like his contemporaries making in miniature, inserted into a recreation the beginning of the early twentieth formal compositions in welded steel, of the early 1970s home she century, Shanahan was working with he is also using an industrial material, occupied at the time of its making. its detritus as the end of the century but one with damping rather than Certain rooms are given over entirely drew near. While formalist in its monumental potential. Untitled— to the artist’s projects: My Kylie character, Echo Deco has its ear to Covered Load of Woodtex also Collection, 2001, is an obsessive design currents of the 1980s, such as celebrates the aesthetics of labour, shrine to the Australian pop star that the jaunty shapes of the Milan-based with its taut canvas and neatly tied off was originally installed at the Museum Memphis Group.