HOME@735 INVITATIONAL
Featuring a selection of artworks from the Badger & Fox Collection Curated by Anthony Bautovich
Contents Curator’s introduction & Credits............................................................................................................ 3 Our Arrangements Stella Rosa Mcdonald.................................................................................................................................... 5 Artists Kate Mitchell.............................................................................................................................................. 8 Clara Adolph & Jelena Telecki.......................................................................................................... 9 Mick Turner & Nicola Smith........................................................................................................... 10 Patrick Hartigan & Darren McDonald..................................................................................... 11 Opening Night........................................................................................................................................12-17 Artists Mirra Whale & Matila Michell....................................................................................................... 18 Michael Johnson, Charmain Pike & Helene Grove........................................................... 19 Brassaї & Nick Collerson................................................................................................................ 20 Jaque Henri Lartigue & Tom Polo............................................................................................... 21 André Kertész....................................................................................................................................... 22 Sarah Goffman...................................................................................................................................... 23 Elizabeth Rankin & Jordan Richardson..................................................................................... 24 India Mark & Steve Cox.................................................................................................................. 25 Garry Winogrand.........................................................................................................................26-27 Max Dupain............................................................................................................................................ 28 Bill Henson.............................................................................................................................................. 29 Brett Whiteley................................................................................................................................30-31 McLean Edwards...........................................................................................................................32-33 Madeleine Preston.............................................................................................................................. 34 Helen Gauchat...................................................................................................................................... 35 2
Curator's Introduction The Home@735 Invitational exhibition featured artworks from the Badger & Fox Collection including photography by Andre Kertesz, Brassaї, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Garry Winogrand, Max Dupain, Olive Cotton, Bill Henson and painting by Brett Whiteley. I invited a number of artists to submit a work for the exhibition with several artists creating responses to individual artworks from the Badger & Fox Collection. Painter Nick Collerson responded to Brassaї’s iconic photograph ’Eating at the Velodrome’, Alice Couttoupes will be created two ceramic pieces in response to an Olive Cotton photograph, Sarah Goffman made a still life assemblage responding to an Andrea Kertesz photo and Tom Polo painted his response to Jacques-Henri Lartigue’s 40 Rue Cortambert, France, taken in 1903. Home@735 Invitational will become an annual event at our gallery. In 2018 we will be loaning a number of artworks from a Sydney collector and inviting a new group of artists to create responses to the collection. My thanks to Badger & Fox Gallery for their support, the artworks are available online at www.badgerandfoxgallery.com
Art Direction Madeleine Preston Opening night shots on pages 12-17 by Steve McLaren Publication date August 2017
Front cover: central panel from Bill Henson tryptch, Untitled 73 74, 72 3
Olive Cotton, (1911-2003), Pepperina, 1985, Silver gelatin print.
4
Our Arrangements Brassaï: A few years ago, I was in the valley of Les Eyzies in Dordogne. I wanted to see cave art at the source. One thing surprised me: every generation, totally unaware of the ones that preceded it, nevertheless organized the cave in the same way, at a distance of thousands of years. You always find the "kitchen" in the same place. Picasso: Nothing extraordinary about that! Man doesn't change. He keeps his habits. Instinctively, all those people found the same corner for their kitchen. To build a city, don't men choose the same sites? Under cities you always find other cities; other churches under churches, and other houses under houses. Races and religions may have changed, but the marketplace, the living quarters, pilgrimage sites, places of worship, have remained the same. Venus is replaced by the Virgin, but the same life goes on. I imagine Art as Brassaï’s iterative cave. I imagine Artists entering the cave and heading straight for the ‘kitchen corner’, levelling the earth and preparing the build. But the artist, in this conceit, doesn’t behave entirely like Brassaï’s common cave dweller, who remains ignorant of the home’s previous arrangements. The Artist is totally—and necessarily—aware of what came before. This knowledge is essential if they are to raise the galley again, their antecedence guides their sense. And so, they begin to arrange the kitchen once more, in the very same place, but with difference. The idea of working ‘in response’ is not an alien task for the artist, whose arrangements form both the echo and the call. The photographer Olive Cotton (whose own 1985 photograph Pepperina Lace is re-formed here in a 2017 ceramic series by Alice Couttoupes) returned to the same subjects with heartbeat regularity in her life. The photograph Willows (1985), for example, could be the opposing view of the very same tree that is depicted in Willow
5
Alice Couttoupes, Pepperina II, 2017, Porcelain, steel stand, dimensions variable.
Rain (1940)—and it probably was, only with 45 years in between. Cotton made careful studies of her subjects and she wrote with even greater caution around the photographs that contained them. Her notes were spare and direct and they tasked the image with the heavy lifting. There are no photographer’s notes for Pepperina Lace (1985, showing here). But from the descriptions Cotton assigned to other photographs, we can assume she might have simply noted the delicacy of the flowers and, perhaps, their equivalence to thread. Because of its small scale, Olive Cotton’s daughter Sally tells me Pepperina Lace was possibly sent out by Olive and her husband as Christmas cards for close family and friends in
6
Alice Couttoupes, Pepperina I, 2017, Porcelain, steel stand, dimensions variable.
the 1980s. The card making was meticulous and heartfelt on the part of Cotton and her family and took around a week from print to post. Some recipients of the cards threw them away at the end of the season; others kept them carefully, and even framed them. Chance plays no small role in laying the foundations for Art’s cave. Beneath the city lies another city, there are churches under churches and houses resting atop the foundations of other houses. The kitchen is, now, where it has always been. We return to each other with time. Stella Rosa Mcdonald
7
Kate Mitchell, Hypnotised Into Being, 2016, HD Digital Video 16:9, colour, no sound. Kate Mitchell is represented by Anna Shwartz Gallery in Melbourne and Chalk Horse, Sydney.
Kate Mitchell For this work Mitchell enlisted a hypnotist to induce her into a sub-conscious state and prompt her to respond to a selection of statements that she had earlier provided. Initially approaching the session with a degree of cynicism, the artist was later amazed that she had indeed been induced into a subliminal state. Mitchell physically enacts various prompts related to art history, critical discourse and her own practice, as if playing a game of charades in a hypnotised state.
8
Clara Adolphs, Jeanine, 2017, oil on linen.
Jelena Telecki, The Romantic, 2014, oil on canvas.
9
Mick Turner, I knew this would happen, 2015, oil on linen.
Nicola Smith, Aurore ClĂŠment as Anna Silver, in Les Rendez-vous d'Anna (Chantal Akerman 1978), 2016, oil on board. Nicola Smith is represented by Sarah Cottier Gallery
10
Patrick Hartigan, Charted, 2013, oil on board.
Darren McDonald, Mick Robbins, 2013, watercolour on paper. Darren McDonald is represented by Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne. 11
12
13
14
15
16
17
Mirra Whale, Philip. Straight on, 2016, oil on board.
Matilda Michell, India, 2017, oil on prepared paper. 18
LEFT: Charmaine Pike, Abstract Landscape 2017 (after MJ), acrylic on board. Charmaine Pike is represented by Defiance Gallery. RIGHT: Michael Johnson, Abstract landscape, 1962, oil on canvas.
Helene Grove, White Teapot, 2006, Synthetic polymer on board. 19
BrassaŃ—, (1899-1984), Untitled (Eating at the Velodrome), circa 1932, silver gelatin print.
Nick Collerson, Last Place, 2017, oil on canvas. Nick Collerson is represented by Liverpool Street Gallery. 20
Jacques Henri Lartigue (1894-1986), 40 Rue Cortambert, 1903, silver gelatin print.
Tom Polo, The Most Elaborate Disguise (15), 2016, oil stick on paper. Tom Polo is represented by STATION, Melbourne 21
André Kertész, (1894-1985), Untitled (Still life on painted bureau), circa 1970, silver gelatin print.
André Kertész André Kertész (2nd July 1894 – 28th September 1985) was a Hungarian-born photographer known for his groundbreaking contributions to photographic composition and his efforts in developing the photo essay. His ability to compose lyrical images, infused with wit and insight would remain a constant throughout his career. Neither a surrealist or a strict photojournalist, Kertész combined a street photographer’s dry humour and eye for the moment with the formal aesthetic of a modernist in his black and white photography. In addition to the street life of Paris, he also photographed many famous artists including Chagall and Mondrian. In 1964 his photography was featured in a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art. The work of Kertész was featured in many exhibitions throughout the world, exhibiting into his early nineties. 22
Sarah Goffman, Table Peace 2017, PET found plastics, resin, enamel paint, permanent marker, silicone, dimensions variable.
Sarah Goffman “…I make what I want to own. And of course, I try to make what I want to see. Sometimes I make work in reaction to other people’s works, or in response to a time, a place, a substance and sometimes in response to myself. When I consider a space, I try to find the perfect response, the response that will highlight the past and it’s tension with today…”
23
Elizabeth Rankin, The Somerton Man, 2016, watercolour and ink on paper.
Jordan Richardson, Allied, 2017, oil on aluminium composite panel. Jordan Richardson is represented by Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin
24
India Mark, Nick Santoro, 2016, oil on panel. India Mark is represented by Egg and Dart Gallery.
Steve Cox, Study of a Young Man (Young Boxer), 2002, acrylic on canvas. 25
Garry Winogrand, (1928-1984), Women Are More Beautiful Than Men, silver gelatin print.
"Photography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts." -Garry Winogrand
26
Garry Winogrand Born in New York in 1928 where he lived and worked much of his life, street photographer Garry Winogrand was lauded for his portrayal of American life and its social issues in the mid-20th century. He received three Guggenheim Fellowships to work on personal projects, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and published four books during his lifetime. He was one of three photographers featured in the influential New Documents exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in ’67 and had solo exhibitions at MOMA in 1969, 1977 and 1988. In 2013 the San Francisco Museum of Art staged a major retrospective exhibition with over 160 photographs of Winogrand’s work. Winogrand's output was prodigious. At his death, he left behind 2500 undeveloped rolls of 36-exposure 35mm film, 6,500 rolls of film that had been developed but not printed and 300 unedited 35mm contact sheets - that’s at least 300,000 images – equal to at least two life's work for other photographers. Garry Winogrand died at the age of 56.
27
Max Dupain, (1911-1992), Roadside Stall Princes Highway, Vintage Silver Gelatin Photograph.
28
Bill Henson, Untitled 73, 74, 72, 1983-84 Artists proof from an edition of 10, C Type Print, (Triptych).
29
Brett Whiteley, (1939-1992), Figure Of A Young Man 1958, oil on board. This is a double-sided work, Portrait of a man is painted verso.
30
Brett Whiteley Brett Whiteley (1939 – 1992) is one of Australia’s most celebrated artists. He won the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes several times, and his artistic career was bolstered by his celebrity status in Australia and abroad. Whiteley started working as a commercial artist in 1956, began life-drawing classes at the Julian Ashton Art School and joined John Santry’s sketch club where he became friends with Australian landscape painter Lloyd Rees, who was a strong influence. On weekends Whiteley painted around the towns of Bathurst, Hill End and Sofala, producing works such as Sofala 1958. In 1959 he was awarded the Italian Government Travelling Art Scholarship, which was judged by Australian artist Russell Drysdale at the Art Gallery of NSW. Whiteley remained in Europe for the next decade, exhibiting his work regularly in group exhibitions in London, Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin, establishing an international reputation. He also lived in the USA, staying at New York’s Chelsea Hotel where he socialized with celebrities such as musicians Janis Joplin and Bob Dylan. Returning to Sydney in 1969, Whiteley moved to Lavender Bay and became involved in the Yellow House artists’ collective in Kings Cross. His work became highly collectable, in particular his Matisse influenced large-scale interiors and landscapes. In 1976 he won both the Archibald Prize for portraiture and the Sulman Prize for genre painting. The following year, he was awarded the Wynne Prize for landscape. He won all three prizes in 1978 (the first artist to do so) and the Wynne a third time in 1984. In 1991 he was awarded an Order of Australia. Brett Whiteley died in Thirroul on the New South Wales south coast in 1992. His last studio and home in Sydney’s Surry Hills - Brett Whiteley Studio - is now a museum managed by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Located at 2 Raper Street in Surry Hills, the studio is open to the public Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, 10am-4pm.
31
McLean Edwards, Art student#19, 2016, oil on canvas. McLean Edwards is represented by Olsen Gallery, Sydney
32
McLean Edwards, Art student#18, 2017, oil on canvas. McLean Edwards is represented by Olsen Gallery, Sydney
McLean Edwards “…painting in oil on canvas, Edwards’s works are fluid and change sometimes dramatically as those thoughts and ideas correspondingly reform. He also scribes his age in the artwork, often in the corner of the canvas as a countdown to his mortality and signature of his work. Edwards paints in an intriguing manner, his brush strokes are confident and loose and yet by contrast are reinforced with delicate lines and considered details. He skilfully makes this technique look easy, however this approach is achieved through his many years of painting full time…”
33
Madeleine Preston, Shirt Head, 2017, oil on paper.
Madeleine Preston, Smoker series - after Guston, underglaze earthenware, 2017, dimensions variable 34
Helen Gauchat, Still Life Variation (green vase), 2017, oil on canvas. Helen Gauchat is represented by Defiance Gallery.
35
Home@735 Gallery • 735 Bourke St. Redfern • www.homeat735.com.au • homeat735@gmail.com