FOREWORD

Catherine Benz

In 2003, SLOT first pulled up its roller shutter and presented art to passers-by on a traffic-choked road in a gritty urban part of Sydney. In the ensuing 20 years that this artist-run window gallery has operated, grittiness has given way to gentrification while many other artist-run spaces in Sydney have come and gone.

SLOT has lasted the distance and remains uncompromisingly independent, beholden to no funding bodies, committees or gatekeepers. It has stayed true to its credo that all art deserves to be seen and that art should be part of daily life. Lack of an artist’s CV or money is no barrier to getting a show. In a city such as Sydney, this is very rare indeed.

Over 200 artists have exhibited on Botany Road so far, relishing the freedom SLOT offers to experiment with ideas and share them with anyone who cares to stop and look through the window.

SLOT20 celebrates this 20-year milestone with a selection of 20 installations reassembled at Delmar Gallery. Many of these works are by Southeast Asian artists, testament to SLOT’s success in building connections with the art of our region. This catalogue completes the exhibition with a listing of all the installations realised to date in this 2.5 x 3 m window, and the artists and curators involved. As is clear from both Tony Twigg’s personal account of its history and Rebecca Gallo’s essay, the collegial, social and neighbourly impulses of SLOT are what defines it. SLOT is the sum of all those conversations it enables between the artists, their works and the passers-by.

Delmar Gallery is proud to present this survey exhibition and acknowledge the substantial contribution SLOT has made over the last two decades to Sydney’s cultural landscape.

Annelies Jahn + Jane Burton-Taylor

Bearing witness 2022 [SLOT 207]

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Russell Jeff Picture 2015 [SLOT 126]