Gertrude Contemporary is delighted to announce the 2014 studio artists Ross Coulter, Sarah CrowEST, Søren Dahlgaard, Minna Gilligan, Helen Grogan,  Claire Lambe, Tully Moore, Sean Peoples and Danae Valenza. 

These artists will enter the Gertrude Contemporary Studio Program in 2014 to join the ongoing group of eight artists in residence.

Since its inception in 1983, Gertrude Contemporary’s Studio Program has provided practical support and professional advocacy for many of Australia’s leading contemporary artists. The program, which consists of sixteen non-residential studios, is available to artists in the first fifteen years of their professional practice and provided for two-year tenures. 

Through the ongoing importance of this on-site studio program the artist is placed firmly at the centre of the Gertrude Contemporary community.

Work by the current Gertrude Contemporary studio artists will be exhibited in the annual Gertrude Studios exhibition. Gertrude Studios 2013 opens on Friday 15 November, 6 - 8pm and the exhibition runs until 11 December.

As part of the annual exhibition Gertrude Contemporary Studio Artists will be opening their studios to the public for one afternoon only on Saturday 23 November 1 - 4pm. This is an exclusive opportunity to meet the artists and gain an invaluable insight into their practices.

Gertrude Contemporary is pleased to announce the appointment of Emma Crimmings to the role of Director.

Emma brings to the role strong creative, business and leadership skills, having worked as a filmmaker, a Producer for ABC TV Arts, a curator at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and the Australian Centre for Photography, and most recently as Acting Director and Program Manager of Cultural Affairs at the Australian Embassy in Washington DC.

Gertrude Contemporary Chair of the Board, Mandy Fox, says “We are delighted to welcome Emma Crimmings to the role of Director. From her formative academic speciality in art history and criticism, to acclaimed work as an independent filmmaker, Emma also brings to Gertrude Contemporary tremendous skills in curatorship and project management. We are very pleased to appoint a Director who combines creative vision with such strong management and fundraising experience.”

Over three decades, Gertrude Contemporary has supported experimentation in the production and presentation of contemporary art through a unique combination of exhibition and studio programs, alongside innovative cultural exchange, professional development and public programs that acknowledge the increasingly multi-disciplinary nature of art practice.

With her breadth of experience across artistic disciplines, Emma is well placed to maintain the diversity and ambition of Gertrude Contemporary’s programs, and to lead the organization through an exciting phase in its history.  

Emma’s dynamism and extensive national and international networks throughout the cultural sector will be an asset in working with the Board to galvanize the support of our current community and shore up the organization for a long and sustainable future.

“With a unique and rich history, Gertrude Contemporary plays a vital role within the Australian arts community. I am looking forward to building upon the organization’s strengths, identifying new audiences and spearheading an exciting relocation plan” says Crimmings. 

Emma will begin her role as Director at Gertrude Contemporary in mid-January 2014.

A RARE AND EXCITING OPPORTUNITY TO LEAD THIS NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ART ORGANISATION

Gertrude Contemporary is seeking a charismatic and communicative director who has successfully led an art institution in the past, or who has otherwise shown distinctive leadership in the field of cultural programming and/or contemporary art. The ideal candidate has an in-depth knowledge of cultural initiatives and contemporary art, and an established position within local, national and international cultural networks. 

The ideal candidate is a confident, open art-world professional who has a long-term vision for Gertrude Contemporary, and the necessary social and managerial skills to lead the organisation in the areas of artistic programming and organisational sustainability. 

Reporting to the Chairperson and Board, the Director will provide organisational leadership in the pursuit of significant targets relating to artistic programming, audience development, fundraising, stakeholder liaison, infrastructure and securing a long-term housing solution.  

The role will be integral to creating a sustainable platform for activities in the coming years, nurturing a vision that is both ambitious and feasible in a national and international context. The Board of Directors regards this appointment as an exciting moment for Gertrude Contemporary to build on its existing strengths and explore new opportunities. The Director will be required to ensure the continuation of Gertrude Contemporary’s vital role in supporting the production and presentation of contemporary art, working collaboratively across a complex organisation to deliver exceptional results. 

Gertrude Contemporary Profile: With risk, experimentation and critical ideas at the heart of everything we do, Gertrude Contemporary leads the way as Australia’s first and most influential combined gallery and studio complex.                       

 Established in 1983 in a large converted warehouse in Fitzroy, Melbourne, and named initially after its address – 200 Gertrude Street - the organisation has since expanded, transforming from an address to an entity, and changing its name to Gertrude Contemporary in 2010.

Over three decades Gertrude Contemporary has built on its origins to accommodate the diversification of contemporary art practices. With the artist firmly placed at the centre of all our activities, we continue to position ourselves at the nexus between the production of contemporary art through our studio programs, and its presentation through our exhibitions, publications and public programs. 

Application Deadline 5pm Wednesday 9 October 2013  

For more information or to request a copy of the Position Description please direct your enquiries to: Mandy Fox, Chairperson, Board, Gertrude Contemporary, board@gertrude.org.au

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LECTURE #6: NIKOS PAPASTERGIADIS, ON FRIENDSHIP 

Thursday 26 September, 2013, 6pm for 6:30pm, free event, bookings not necessary.

We are pleased to announce that the sixth lecture of the Gertrude Contemporary – Discipline: Contemporary Art Lecture Series will be given by Melbourne academic and writer Professor Nikos Papastergiadis.

In this lecture, On Friendship, Papastergiadis will consider what role sensory awareness plays in our knowledge of contemporary art. He will argue that the answer to these questions requires more than just looking at art.

The Gertrude Contemporary – Discipline: Contemporary Art Lecture Series is a collaboration between Melbourne-based contemporary art journal Discipline and Gertrude Contemporary. The series presents lectures on key concerns, artists and theories of contemporary art.  Throughout 2013 lecturers will speak from the perspective of a variety of different disciplines — including philosophy, cultural studies, art history and literary studies — as well as from academic and non-academic backgrounds.

Nikos Papastergiadis is Professor at the School of Culture and Communication and Director of the Research Unit in Public Cultures at the University of Melbourne. His current research focuses on the investigation of the historical transformation of contemporary art and cultural institutions by digital technology. His publications include Modernity as Exile (1993), Dialogues in the Diaspora (1998), The Turbulence of Migration (2000), Metaphor and Tension (2004) Spatial Aesthetics: Art Place and the Everyday (2006), Cosmopolitanism and Culture (2012) as well as being the author of numerous essays which have been translated into over a dozen languages and appeared in major catalogues such as the Biennales of Sydney, Liverpool, Istanbul, Gwanju, Taipei, Lyon, Thessaloniki and Documenta 13.

Listen to Nikos Papastergiadis' lecture here.

LECTURE #7: INTERFACE, ACCESS, LOSS

Wednesday October 30, 2013, 6pm for 6:30pm, free event, bookings not necessary.

From peer-to-peer utopianism of a decade ago to the power and data centralising within today’s Internet platforms, Sean Dockray will survey how the structure of digital property has changed over recent years with the growth of “the cloud” in the seventh lecture of the Gertrude Contemporary – Discipline: Contemporary Art Lecture Series.

Dockray, initiator of knowledge-sharing platforms The Public School and aaaarg.org, will draw on computer science to trace the shifts in online knowledge sharing in what he calls “a dark lecture, written under the cloud’s shadow”, but one that will attempt to gesture toward “cracks in those interfaces that define the seemingly impermeable contours of this new reality.”

The Gertrude Contemporary - Discipline: Contemporary Art Lecture Series is a collaboration between Melbournebased contemporary art journal Discipline and Gertrude Contemporary. The series presents lectures on key concerns, artists and theories of contemporary art. Throughout 2013 lecturers have spoken from the perspective of a variety of different disciplines — including philosophy, cultural studies, art history and literary studies — as well as from academic and non-academic backgrounds.

Sean Dockray is an artist, a founding director of the Los Angeles non-profit Telic Arts Exchange, and initiator of knowledge-sharing platforms The Public School and aaaarg. org. As a research fellow the Post-Media Lab at Leuphana University last year, he explored the physical infrastructure of the sharing economy, focusing on Facebook’s new northern European datacenter. His written essays address topics such as online education (Frieze), the militarization of universities (in Contestations: Learning from Critical Experiments in Education), book scanning (Fillip), traffic control (Cabinet), and radio (Volume).

Jake Goldenfein is a Fellow and PhD candidate at the Centre for Media and Communications Law at Melbourne Law School doing socio-legal research on histories of communication technologies and the legal regimes governing them with a focus on state archives (criminal records, photos and dossiers). He has been a researcher at Melbourne Law School, New York Law School, and The Swinburne Institute for Social Research in the fields of intellectual property, media and communications history and theory, communications policy, privacy and media law. His recent publications cover topics such as police photography, informal media economies, legal accidents, and the history of the archive.

Gertrude Contemporary congratulates Alexie Glass-Kantor on her recent appointment to the position of Executive Director at Artspace, Sydney. 

After 7 years at the helm, Gertrude Contemporary Director - Senior Curator Alexie Glass-Kantor has announced she will leave her current role to take up the position of Executive Director at Artspace, Sydney. 

Glass-Kantor has lead Gertrude Contemporary through a period of dynamic development, spearheading the expansion of the organisation’s programs and its international standing. 

During her time as Director, Glass-Kantor oversaw the growth of the International Residency and Visiting Curators Programs and the establishment of the Gertrude’s Table Patron’s Program. Also during her tenure, Gertrude Contemporary underwent a major rebranding with the launch of a new identity and website by Fabio Ongarato Design. Glass-Kantor led the ongoing partnership with FOD and significant expansion in the publishing program at Gertrude Contemporary, which has generated multiple awards.  

Glass-Kantor curated exhibitions of work by Manuel Ocampo, Ulla Von Brandenburg, Harun Farocki and Young-Hae Chang: Heavy Industries and was instrumental in bringing Australian art into an global context alongside international artworks within the Gertrude Contemporary exhibition program.  She initiated the internationally acclaimed Independence Project, connecting Australian contemporary artists with peers and organisations in the region through residency and exhibition collaborations between Gertrude Contemporary and colleague organisations in Malaysia, Italy, Singapore, China and Korea. Glass-Kantor was invited to speak on this unique program at the Independent Curators International Curators Perspective series in New York in June of this year. 

Mandy Fox, Chair of the Gertrude Contemporary Board of Directors says  “Alexie has been a passionate and hardworking Director in the 7 years she has been with Gertrude. We thank her for all her tireless efforts over this time. Her talent, knowledge, enthusiasm and dedication have been outstanding. Alexie has contributed a great deal to Gertrude during her time with us, and there is no doubt she will be missed by all. We wish her well in her new position.”

Glass-Kantor states, “Over thirty years Gertrude Contemporary has accumulated an impressive alumni of artists, collaborators, supporters and peers. Building on that history it is an organisation that I was honoured to lead and it was immensely rewarding to work in tandem with the talented staff and board to establish new pathways and programming partnerships. Everyday I was reminded of the importance of community and collaboration: Gertrude Contemporary with its unique mix of studios and curatorial programs embodies the best qualities of creativity, generosity and exchange. Making the decision to leave was a difficult one, however I believe the organisation is poised to seize new opportunuties for growth and development. I look forward to a continued involvement with this gutsy and vital institution.”

Glass-Kantor continues as Director - Senior Curator at Gertrude Contemporary until mid October, departing after the launch of The Somali Peace Band, the highly anticipated project presented by Gertrude Contemporary and Melbourne Festival as part of their annual partnership. She replaces former Artspace Executive Director Blair French who is now Assistant Director, Curatorial and Digital at The Museum of Contemporary Art. 

CAOIMHÍN MAC GIOLLA LÉITH                                                                                          

IN CONVERSATION WITH REBECCA COATES

TUESDAY 27 AUGUST, 2013, 6PM FOR 6:30PM, FREE EVENT, BOOKINGS UNNECESSARY

We are pleased to announce that the fifth lecture of the Gertrude Contemporary - Discipline: Contemporary Art Lecture Series will be given by Irish critic and curator Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith, followed by a conversation with Rebecca Coates.

Mac Giolla Léith will draw on his research in the fields of Irish-language linguistics and literary criticism to address artworks including Franz Ackermann’s Mental Maps (1991-), Douglas Gordon’s Play Dead. Real Time (2003) and Ceal Floyer’sThings (2009). He will contextualise these works within wider debates surrounding the relationship between words and things and between naming and mapping. The lecture will also consider various questions raised by the resurgence in recent years of a variety of ahumanist forms of thought.

The Gertrude Contemporary - Discipline: Contemporary Art Lecture Series is a collaboration between Melbourne-based contemporary art journal Discipline and Gertrude Contemporary. The series presents lectures on key concerns, artists and theories of contemporary art.  Throughout 2013 lecturers will speak from the perspective of a variety of different disciplines — including philosophy, cultural studies, art history and literary studies — as well as from academic and non-academic backgrounds.

Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith is visiting Australia as part of the Gertrude Contemporary Visiting Curators Program which is funded by Arts Victoria.

Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith is a critic and occasional curator who teaches in the School of Irish, Celtic Studies, Irish Folklore and Linguistics at University College Dublin.  In addition to his writings on literature in the Irish language he has published widely on contemporary art. Among his most recent publications are monographic essays on the work of Douglas Gordon, Annette Kelm, Elad Lassry, Anj Smith, John Stezaker and James Welling.  He is a contributor to Afterall, Artforum, Frieze, Parkett and Tate Etc.  He has curated exhibitions in Dublin, London, Amsterdam and New York and was a juror for the 2005 Turner Prize.

Rebecca Coates is an independent curator and writer, Associate Curator, ACCA, and lecturer in Art History and Art Curatorship, School of Culture and Communications, University of Melbourne.  In 2013 she completed a PhD in the field of exhibition histories.  She has worked extensively as a curator in Australia and overseas, including ACCA, the NGV, and MOMA Oxford, where she curated and developed an extensive program of touring exhibitions and collaborative projects with art spaces and museums in the UK and Europe.  She writes regularly for Australian and international art journals and publications.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

TUESDAY 13 AUGUST, 2013, 6PM FOR 6:30PM. FREE EVENT, BOOKINGS UNNECESSARY 

The social life of the photograph – fallible, ubiquitous, promiscuous – is the subject of this program.

The undermining of photographic authority was a favoured sport of conceptual artists, who took the photograph to task for its claims to veracity, gravity and especially, the status of Art. Experimental films by artists about photography tend to exploit the tension between the photograph as documentary record and its obvious constructedness, in the process raising the question: “What is really being exposed here?”

In Richard Serra’s FRAME, the film camera documents as the artist makes a “series of measurements with a six inch ruler that demonstrate the disparity between what is seen through the lens of a camera and the direct visual perception of the same space. An unseen voice directs Serra as he stands just outside of the camera’s frame (with only his arms and hands in sight), talking through his process and reporting his measurements.”

The volatile American filmmaker, Owen Land (formerly George Landow, 1944-2011), earned a special place in the avant-garde film canon with works distinguished by their critique of romantic optics and prescient comment on simulation. The film WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? highlights Land’s concern with faulty facsimiles, bringing the viewer to a direct confrontation with the inherent instability of the image as it circulates in everyday discourse.

Morgan Fisher uses the action of photography as a reflexive gesture to pick apart the mechanics of film production, and the apparatus of the moving image. PRODUCTION STILLS highlights Fisher’s simultaneously playful and deconstructive concerns: a perfectly enclosed narrative of its own production, the image is one long take (11 minutes) of a wall on which a hand pins a number of Polaroids, one after the other. The Polaroids depict the crew making the film, while the synchronous sound allows us to hear their chatter and the hum and whirr of the still camera in ‘real time’.

Japanese artist Takashi Ito probes the seam between the moving and still image. In SPACY, a film composed of entirely of still photographs, the viewer is catapulted into the recursive world of a seemingly endless roller coaster ride through an empty gym. Underscored by a menacing soundtrack, as the late Tokyo playwright Koharu Kisaragi wrote, “the film makes you break out in sweat just by shooting a safe, peaceful gymnasium.” According to Ito, “Film is capable of presenting unrealistic world as a vivid reality and creating a strange space peculiar to the media. My major intention is to change the ordinary everyday life scenes and draw the audience (myself) into a vortex of supernatural illusion by exercising the magic of films.” (Image Forum, Oct.1984)

In BOOBS A LOT, trailblazing Australian filmmaker, provocateur and one-time hot-air balloonist Aggy Read (1941-1998) appropriates softcore girlie magazine photographs as both a provocation to Australian censors, and an assertion of film’s capacity to realise a rebellious transformation of mainstream images. Boobs A Lot is set to and in homage to the titular song by The Fugs.

With links to the tradition of the essay film (a genre noted for its reliance on still images, as in the works of Chris Marker), Melbourne collective JAH JAH SPHINX (an image-dialogue blog started circa 2006CE) describe themselves as “a form of communication between the contributors, secondly a web audience. Thirdly a dialogue between the images and posts themselves opening a myriad of relationships and readings.”

Program:

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

Owen Land, 16mm, 1972,  5 mins, USA

FRAME

Richard Serra, 16mm, 1971, 21 mins, USA

PRODUCTION STILLS

Morgan Fisher, 16mm, 1970, 11 mins, USA

SPACY

Takashi Ito, 16mm, 1981, 10 mins, Japan

BOOBS A LOT

Aggy Read, 16mm, 1966, 3 mins, Australia

Live Presentation

JAH JAH SPHINX

slide show and live sound, 15 mins, Australia

The OtherFilm - Gertrude Contemporary Screening Series presents screenings and events responding to exhibitions and stand-alone programs that survey moving image art.

OtherFilm are an artists’ collective that, since 2004, have explored the creative possibilities of experimental film, video, music and live performance by curating numerous festivals, international screening programs, and exhibitions. OtherFilm are driven by a central curiosity about the limits of the moving image, and its capacity to reorganise human perception. OtherFilm is co-directed by Joel Stern in Melbourne, Danni Zuvela in Brisbane and Sally Golding in London.              

http://otherfilm.org/

16mm prints courtesy of The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA)

Wednesday, 31 July, 6.30 - 7.30pm

Gertrude Contemporary is pleased to announce that New York based curator Lauren Cornell will give the fourth lecture in the Gertrude Contemporary – Discipline: Contemporary Art Lecture Series. Cornell is one of the most innovative curators practising today and is undertaking a curatorial residency at the invitation of Gertrude Contemporary, which has been supported by the Australia Council for the Arts.

During her talk, Cornell will give a succinct overview of art engaged with the internet, and explore how the vastly accelerated circulation and distribution of contemporary art has facilitated the emergence of new communities, new aesthetics and formal trends and a host of discursive opportunities, and challenges. Cornell will focus on her work with Rhizome, as well as recent exhibitions she has organized, including Free (2010) at the New Museum, and Circulate (2012) at Foam, Amsterdam, and briefly discuss her work as Curator of the Museum as Hub and The 2015 New Museum Triennale.

Formerly Executive Director of Rhizome, Cornell is now Curator of 2015 Triennial (with Ryan Trecartin), Curator of Digital Projects and the Museum as Hub, which is a new model for curatorial practice and institutional collaboration at the New Museum. During her visit to Australia Cornell will be researching for these projects, meeting with artists, galleries and other curators. Her dynamic approach has been recognised internationally and she has co-curated two recent pivotal exhibitions; The Generational: Younger than Jesus, 2009 (co-curated with Massimiliano Gioni and Laura Hoptman) and Free, 2010, both at the New Museum, amongst numerous other exhibitions.

Gertrude Contemporary’s Visiting Curators Program, funded through the Australia Council for the Arts’ Visiting International Curators Program, aims to open new opportunities for Australian artists to locate their work in an international context, and for international curators to establish ongoing, in-depth relationships with Australian peers and networks. During her visit Cornell will be focusing on research and development for her current curatorial projects at the New Museum.

Cornell’s inclusion in the Gertrude Contemporary - Discipline: Contemporary Art Lecture Series is an exciting and rare opportunity for a Melbourne audience to hear one of the most critically engaged curators speak about key issues in media art today.

The Gertrude Contemporary - Discipline: Contemporary Art Lecture Series is a collaboration between Melbourne based contemporary art journal Discipline and Gertrude Contemporary. The series presents lectures on key concerns, artists and theories of contemporary art. Throughout 2013 lecturers will speak from the perspective of a variety of different disciplines — including philosophy, cultural studies, art history and literary studies — as well as from academic and non-academic backgrounds.

Listen to Lauren Cornell's lecture here.

Saturday 27 July, 2-3pm

As part of Octopus 13: on this day alone, Cuartor Glenn Barkley along with artists Madeleine Preston, Luke Willis Thompson and Agatha-Gothe Snape will provide a guided walk through of the exhibition. 

on this day alone explores the ways that eight Australian and international artists, most of whom are not normally considered photographers, employ photography within their practice. The artists in Barkley’s selection use photography as a means to an end rather than an end in itself, highlighting how photography can be both research material as well as a final object.

You can learn more about the exhibition and view images here.

Gertrude Studio Artist Ash Kilmartin has been awarded the 2013 Maddocks Art Prize which was announced at Gertrude Contemporary on Thursday 6 June.

Since 2005 Maddocks law firm has awarded the Maddocks Art Prize in recognition of the importance of studio residency in contemporary art practice. Maddocks invites participation from five shortlisted artists currently in residence at Gertrude Contemporary (Melbourne) and five shortlisted artists from Artspace (Sydney).

The Maddocks Art Prize was judged this year by Mr Doug Hall AM, Mr Jeff Khan, Co-director of Performance Space, Ms Mira Gojak, winner of the Maddocks inaugural Art Prize in 2005 and Mr Mark Henry, Partner at Maddocks and Australian Commissioner, Venice Biennale 2013. The prize consists of a return air fare to Venice, accommodation in an apartment provided by Maddocks for a week during the Biennale and a stipend. The shortlist of Gertrude artists selected by Maddocks this year included Christopher LG Hill, Alasdair McLuckie, Eliza Dyball, Ash Kilmartin and Agatha Gothe-Snape.  Previous recipients from Gertrude Contemporary alumni include: Michelle Ussher, Richard Lewer, Benjamin Armstrong and Trevelyan Clay.

Ash Kilmartin's constructed sculptural works consider the nature of time, labour and value. Her works occur as semi-permanent alterations to space, or as temporary sculptural responses to their particular locations.

Kilmartin holds Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) and Bachelor of Arts degrees from the Elam School of Fine Arts, the University of Auckland and the University of Melbourne. Recent solo exhibitions include Kilmartin House Museum, Studio 12, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne; The Perpetual Planner, RM, Auckland; STOP WORK, Y3K, Melbourne. Selected group exhibitions include Impossible Objects II, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne; HOUSE WEAR, State of Design Festival, Melbourne; Another Yummy Fantasy II, TCB, Melbourne.

LECTURE #3: JUSTIN CLEMENS, WHAT DO WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT CONTEMPORARY ART?

Monday 24 June, 6pm for 6:30pm. This is a free event and bookings are unnecessary.

We are pleased to announce that the third lecture of the Gertrude Contemporary - Discipline: Contemporary Art Lecture Series will be given by Justin Clemens. His lecture What do we talk about when we talk about contemporary art? will coincide with the publication of his forthcoming book Psychoanalysis is an Antiphilosophy. 

This lecture surveys the most important theories of contemporary art – including those by Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, Boris Groys, Jacques Ranciere, various Octoberites and so-called Speculative Realists – in order to point out their strengths and weaknesses, and outline several possible new ways of talking about art. 

The Gertrude Contemporary - Discipline: Contemporary Art Lecture Series is a collaboration between Melbourne-based contemporary art journal Discipline and Gertrude Contemporary. The series presents lectures on key concerns, artists and theories of contemporary art. Throughout 2013 lecturers will speak from the perspective of a variety of different disciplines — including philosophy, cultural studies, art history and literary studies — as well as from academic and non-academic backgrounds. 

Justin Clemens writes extensively on contemporary Australian art and European philosophy. His books include Psychoanalysis is an Antiphilosophy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP 2013); Minimal Domination(Melbourne: Surpllus 2011), a collection of writings on art; and, with Dominic Pettman, Avoiding the Subject (Amsterdam: Amsterdam UP 2004). His creative works include the poetry chapbook Me ‘n’ me trumpet (Sydney: Vagabond 2011); the novella Black River (Melbourne: re.press 2007), with collages by Helen Johnson; and the mock-epic poem The Mundiad (Melbourne: Black Inc 2004). He is also the co-editor of collections on and by such major contemporary thinkers as Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, and Jacqueline Rose. He teaches at the University of Melbourne. 

Listen to Justin Clemens' lecture What do we talk about when we talk about contemporary art? here.

LECTURE #2: THE TRAUMA OF THE POLITICAL - OR, CATCH ME I'M FALLING (INTO THE ARMS OF THE LAW)

DR JULIET ROGERS IN CONVERSATION WITH MARIA TUMARKIN

Tuesday 28 May, 2013, 6pm for 6:30pm. Free lecture. No bookings necessary.

The second lecture of the Gertrude Contemporary - Discipline: Contemporary Art Lecture Series The Trauma of the Political – or, catch me I’m falling (into the ambivalent arms of law) will be given by Dr Juliet Rogers followed by a conversation with writer and cultural historian Maria Tumarkin.

There is an excitement about falling that betrays itself in images and experiences of the flesh, from Richard Drew’s capture of the Falling Man during September 11, 2001, to climate change activists’ depictions of the psychosis of not believing we will hit the ground, and the suspended nature of the work of William Kentridge. Art and falling go hand in hand, and Rogers suggests, so too does politics. We can see the current politics of the liberal democratic, in which sovereign aggression is excused by sovereign care. Where law both pushes the subject into the abyss in the interests of its protection, and where flesh is cut, tortured and even killed as a mode of justice. A contemporary democratic politics that embodies such paradox offers a thin space between the air and the ground, and demands the fantasy of endless capture, for some, and the foreclosure of the possibility that flesh may fall and not be caught.

The Gertrude Contemporary - Discipline: Contemporary Art Lecture Series is a collaboration between Melbourne based contemporary art journal Discipline and Gertrude Contemporary. The series presents lectures on key concerns, artists and theories of contemporary art. Throughout 2013 lecturers will speak from the perspective of a variety of different disciplines — including philosophy, cultural studies, art history and literary studies — as well as from academic and non-academic backgrounds.

Dr Juliet Rogers is Faculty Member at the School of Political Sciences, Criminology at the University of Melbourne, and currently an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow undertaking a psychoanalytic examination of the ‘Quality of Remorse’ after periods of political and military conflict. She was formerly a community worker and then a psychotherapist. She turned from this life to work in academia and she has recently been a Visiting Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence, at Yale Law School, Connecticut and at the University of Cape Town Law School, South Africa. Her work is always a melding between psychoanalysis and law, that is, it is always a concern with the limit. She recently published Law’s Cut on the Body of Human Rights: Female Circumcision, Torture and Sacred Flesh which will be out in July with Routledge, and she is currently working on a monograph on Remorse.

Maria Tumarkin is a Melbourne-based writer and cultural historian. She is the author of three acclaimed books of ideas: Traumascapes, Courage and Otherland. Maria’s essays – tackling our culture’s preoccupations and blindspots – have been included in Best Australian Essays 2011 and 2012. Maria holds a PhD in cultural history from the University of Melbourne. She has taught at universities and writing centres, directed video clips, written radio documentaries, contributed catalogue essays for galleries and museums, and forged ongoing collaborations with artists and psychologists. She is a 2013-14 Sidney Myer Creative Fellow.

Listen to Juliet Rogers lecture The Trauma of the Political – or, catch me I’m falling (into the ambivalent arms of law) here.
 

OPEN STUDIO EXHIBITION: STUDIO 18, Lv 2 GERTRUDE CONTEMPORARY 

23 April – 27 April 2013, 11am - 5:30pm. (Please note this exhibition and Gertrude Contemporary will be closed on Thursday 25 April due to the Anzac Day public holiday.)

Victoria Wareham, London based artist and current Studio 18 artist in residence at Gertrude Contemporary, is holding an open studio exhibition this week. Make up for you alter ego is a selection of new site-specific works produced during her time in Australia.

Victoria is an award-winning artist based in London and has exhibited film installations across the UK and internationally. She has taught at a number of higher education institutions including the University of the Arts London.

Working with the moving image in physical space, Victoria’s practice addresses theoretical concerns relating to cultural mimicry, performance and social mutation as defined by popular culture.

Hollywood Miosis (2013) is a site-specific series of new video works that recreate iconic scenes from ‘The Shining’ and ‘Vertigo’ in the Studios of Gertrude Contemporary.

The work is presented as a multi-screen, layered projection that plays with the physical and virtual properties of the cinematic image allowing the viewer to inhabit and navigate through the work on multiple levels. The circular incisions made in the projection screen remove the work from its inherent cinematic qualities and replaces them with references to the mechanical operation of the camera and perception and interpretation of the image by the eye.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (2013) is a sculptural work that makes clear reference to the final eight minutes of the iconic film of the same title.  A sculptural representation of this iconic cinematic scene, the work transforms this fictitious two-dimensional reality into a theatrical prop which, when activated by the presence of the viewer, is a clear three-dimensional reconstruction of this scene.

See Victoria's website and blog detailing her residency at Gertrude Contemporary. 

We are delighted to announce the mentees for the 2013 Gertrude Contemporary and Art and Australia Emerging Writers Program. 

Run in partnership with Australia’s leading art magazine Art and Australia, this program offers four emerging writers the opportunity to develop their writing practice and gain further insight into the field of contemporary art writing through a mentorship with a leader in the feild and to create two pieces of professional writing for publication.

In 2013 the participants will be:

Miri Hirschfeld (Melbourne) who will be mentored by Bala Starr, Senior Curator, The Ian Potter Museum Melbourne University

Annika Kristensen (Sydney) who will be mentored by Aaron Seeto,Director, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney

Andrew Purvis (Melbourne) who will be mentored by Dr Peter Hill, artist, writer, independant curator and Associate Professor of Fine Art at RMIT University, Melbourne

Chloé Wolifson (Sydney) who will be mentored by Kathy Bail, Chief Executive, UNSW Press, Sydney.

The Gertrude Contemporary and Art and Australia Emerging Writers Program was established in 2005 to provide a unique opportunity for emerging visual arts writers to contribute to the critical discussion of Australian contemporary art. 

The aim of the Emerging Writers Program is to professionally support emerging arts writers who are committed to a career in the arena of contemporary art and criticism. This program contributes to the growth of a rich and insightful critical culture around contemporary art, providing participants with professional development and mentorship. This is the longest-running program of its kind in Australia and offers unparalleled access to professional networks and the opportunity to publish in Australia’s most important art magazine. 

Each writer will create a catalogue essay for a Gertrude Contemporary Studio 12 exhibition and an artist profile for the Art and Australia / Credit Suisse Private Banking Contemporary Art Award for publication in Art and Australia magazine. 

To view previously published outcomes of this program please see the Emerging Writers section on our website.

This program is made possible with the support of The Ian Potter Foundation.

Gertrude Contempoary has been listed in the online New Museum Art Spaces Directory alongside our incredible international colleague organisations the world over. The Directory is an international guide to independant art spaces "where contemporary art and artists are nurtured, interrogated and sustained". See the New Museum website for more information and to explore the directory.

Gertude Contemporary is pleased to announce the Gertrude Contemporary - Discipline: Contemporary Art Lecture Series. 

The Melbourne-based contemporary art journal Discipline will be collaborating with Gertrude Contemporary to present a series of lectures on key concerns, artists and theories of contemporary art. The guest lecturers will speak from the perspective of a variety of different disciplines — including philosophy, cultural studies, art history and literary studies — as well as from academic and non-academic backgrounds. The lectures will be held at Gertrude Contemporary throughout 2013 and are free of charge. 

The first lecture of the Gertrude Contemporary - Discipline: Contemporary Art Lecture Series will be given by Rex Butler. ‘John Nixon: A Communist Artist’ will examine the work of Melbourne-based abstract artist John Nixon who has been the subject of much discussion over the past twenty years. He has been lauded for continuing the radical experiments of Russian constructivism, criticised for not being truly experimental, and positioned as continuing an avant-garde tradition that somehow brings together the monochrome and the readymade. In his paper, soon to be published in the journal Discipline, Rex Butler reads Nixon’s work through the writings of art critic Boris Groys to suggest that it is—of all things—communist. 

Rex Butler teaches in the School of English, Media Studies and Art History at the University of Queensland, specialising in contemporary and Australian art. He is currently working on a book on Deleuze and Guattari’s What is Philosophy? 

FIRST LECTURE: THURSDAY 11 APRIL, 2013, 6PM FOR 6:30PM  

 Rex Butler, John Nixon: A Communist Artist

This event is free. Bookings are unncessesary. 

Banner design generously provided by Annie Wu.

ST PAUL St Gallery is pleased to invite you to the opening of Reason and Rhyme, Thursday 29 September, 5:30pm.

Artists: Damiano Bertoli, Julian Dashper, Richard Frater and Roman Mitch, Starlie Geikie with Helen Walter, Simon Morris, Campbell Patterson, Hanna Tai, Mimi Tong, Jake Walker.
Curated by: Emily Cormack, Charlotte Huddleston, Amita Kirpalani.

Bringing together artists from Australia and New Zealand Reason and Rhyme explores the urge to structure and guide creative production through systems, grids and frameworks.

This is the second exhibition in a two part collaborative exchange project with Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne.  The exhibition at ST PAUL St investigates further how these systematic devices contain and channel creative impulse. It addresses the urge to locate oneself within the map or the doctrine, and to impose rules and structures across creative practice.

Work in this iteration extends upon the first exhibition with the inclusion of a collaborative work by Starlie Geikie and Architect Helen Walter, and a new on-site work by Richard Frater and artist and curator Roman Mitch.

Join us for an artist and curator talk 12.30pm Saturday 1 October ST PAUL St Gallery One

Next Wave Festival and Gertrude Contemporary are pleased to announce that Marcel Cooper and Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris have been selected to participate in the 2012 Emerging Curators Program. This collaborative curatorial team have recently relocated from Sydney to Melbourne and are eager to begin developing their proposed exhibition for launch in March 2012 at Gertrude Contemporary, in association with the 2012 Next Wave Festival.

Established in 2001,  the Emerging Curators Program offers participants the opportunity to develop a major exhibition project in close consultation with Gertrude Contemporary and Next Wave staff, as well as to develop promotion, presentation and project management skills.

The objective of the program is to professionally support emerging curators who are committed to a career in the field.  The program contributes to the growth of a rich and insightful enquiry into emerging artistic practice and contemporary curatorial practice, providing participants with professional development opportunities and valuable technical expertise.

Sriwhana Spong will discuss her work in conversation with Gertrude Curator Emily Cormack. The talk is presented as part of the exhibition Unnerved: The New Zealand Project at The National Gallery of Victoria.

VENUE: National Gallery of Victoria International, St. Kilda Rd, Melbourne
DATE: Saturday 5 February, 12.30pm

"Dynamic duo" appointed to curate 2012 Adelaide Biennial

Art Gallery of South Australia Director, Nick Mitzevich today announced the appointment of Alexie Glass-Kantor and Natasha Bullock as curators of the 2012 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art.

Nick Mitzevich said, “Natasha Bullock and Alexie Glass-Kantor are a dynamic duo with an innovative and exciting vision for the 2012 Adelaide Biennial. The exhibition they are planning will be spectacular. It will raise the bar and reaffirm the Adelaide Biennial’s position as the nation’s foremost statement on contemporary Australian art.”

Natasha Bullock is the Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, while Alexie Glass-Kantor is the Director of Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne. Both are known as creative contributors to the contemporary visual arts scene through their work as curators and writers involved in cutting-edge art projects nationally and internationally.

The Adelaide Biennial was established in 1990 and is staged every two years by the Art Gallery of South Australia as the flagship visual arts event of the Adelaide Festival of Arts. It is dedicated to showcasing up-to-the-minute works by Australian artists and has previously been curated by some of this country’s leading curators who work independently of the Gallery on the project.

Glass-Kantor and Bullock will begin working immediately on the 2012 Biennial, which will feature some site-specific elements and direct responses to the state art collection. Alexie Glass-Kantor and Natasha Bullock stated, “The 2012 Adelaide Biennial will be about new works and new ways of showing what it means to create art in the contemporaneous moment. As curators, we are moved by artists who explore the texture of the contemporary, how ideas emerge and reform over time. We are looking forward to working with the Art Gallery of South Australia to produce exciting and strategic parallels and collisions between the spaces traditionally occupied by the Biennial and the Gallery’s collection spaces.”

Full details of the 2012 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art and the artists selected for inclusion will be revealed in the lead up to the 2012 Adelaide Festival. To arrange an interview with Alexie Glass-Kantor and Natasha Bullock contact: Miranda Starke Young 08 8207 7032 or 0409 919 510 starkeyoung.miranda@artgallery.sa.gov.au | Heidi Chamberlain 08 8207 7554 chamberlain.heidi@artgallery.sa.gov.au Art Gallery of South Australia. North Terrace Adelaide.