BURCHILL/MCCAMLEY, MATTHYS GERBER, LIAM GILLICK, ELIZABETH NEWMAN, JENS HAANING, JENNY WATSON

PARALLEL STRUCTURES
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Parallel Structures examined some of the ways that artists have worked to collapse the boundaries between art and life. Involving leading Australian and international artists whose work may in some ways have been understood as representative of a turn towards the idea of ‘Relational Aesthetics’, each of the works in this exhibition were able to remind us of the world outside the gallery, and the artists’ interactions with it. Matthys Gerber combined his parallel roles as a teacher and a painter by showing the work of his students on a wall covered in one of his own wallpaper designs. Danish artist Jens Haaning drew a politically charged parallel between the rarified gallery environment and the hot, cramped workplace of a Vietnamese garment maker. Variously personal, ideological and analytical, Elizabeth Newman engaged with fashion and the remaking of identity, whilst Burchill and McCamley drew reference to the refashioning and redundancy of contemporary suburban architecture. Operating strategically within the parallel spaces of design, media and communication, Liam Gillick’s contribution to the exhibition was manifest in the design of the exhibition catalogue; whilst Jenny Watson’s contribution took the form of a conversation with curator David Pestorius on Saturday 6 April.