Exhibitions | Kate Newby, Sean Peoples, Ishmael Marika | Gertrude Contemporary

New exhibitions opening at Gertrude Contemporary this Friday 17th July.

Exhibition opening: Friday 17 July 2015, 6–8pm
Exhibition dates: 17 July–29 August 2015

Main galleries: Kate Newby, Always humming

Kate Newby

Kate Newby

Gertrude Contemporary is pleased to present a new, major exhibition by New Zealand artist Kate Newby, featuring a newly commissioned collaboration with composer Samuel Holloway. Titled Always humming, the exhibition takes over both downstairs galleries and extends to the rooflines of buildings on Gertrude Street, and into its back alleyways, creating a fluid relation between indoors and outdoors. Always humming is an exercise in creating an atmospheric experience rather than a series of discrete objects. Its force is anti-climactic, continuous, infectious; what Jennifer Kabat has described as ‘radically slight.’

In contrast to Newby’s recent series of puddle works, which draw viewers’ attention to the pavement underfoot, all the works in this exhibition are elevated, leaving nothing to see on the floors or walls. A drop ceiling made from large panels of fabric mediates a warm glow emanating from the ceiling. One section of the fabric ceiling has travelled from New Zealand where it was washed in the ocean (salt is a natural fixative) then left on the lawn for several weeks to gather information from the weather and environment. Another of the fabric panels was sewn in an upstairs studio at Gertrude Contemporary then hung out on a washing line in industrial Brunswick for several weeks.

Across the street, on the top ledge of one of the buildings opposite the gallery, Newby has installed a cluster of glazed ceramic shapes. Viewable from inside the gallery, as well as from the street outside of gallery hours, the ceramics operate unlike conventional public sculptures—almost imperceptible, perhaps even accidental.

In the back alleyway, where the vans for neighbouring shops Aunt Maggie’s and Harry Evans & Son move in and out, Newby and Holloway have created a wind chime. Using clay, metal, and glass, the wind chime will interact and respond to the environment of the alleyway: the weather, the trees, the day-to-day bustle of the backstreets. Holloway draws sound back into the gallery, creating a sonic connection between the back laneway and the gallery’s interiors. Much like the other parts of this exhibition, this installation concerns attention—it is about listening rather than hearing.

In response to a question about the ephemeral nature of her practice, Newby has said: ‘I often wonder if things get taken for granted when they are permanent. I know for me, I stop seeing a sculpture if I know it’s going to be there tomorrow, so it becomes given, invisible.’ With the gallery’s impending move from its thirty-year home on Gertrude Street, Newby’s commission will create an atmosphere in which viewers see, hear and frame the gallery and its environs in a new way—making it visible again, if only for a moment.

Kate Newby’s recent solo exhibitions include: I memorized it I loved it so much, Laurel Gitlen, New York; I feel like a truck on a wet highway, Lulu, Cuauhtémoc, Mexico, 2014; Maybe I won’t go to sleep at all., La Loge, Brussels, 2014; Let the other thing in, Fogo Island Gallery, Newfoundland, 2013; What a day., Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland, 2013; and How funny you are today, Green Acres Garden, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, 2013. Recent group exhibitions include: Ordering Nature, Marianne Boesky, New York; Where the trees line the water that falls asleep in the afternoon, curated by Chris Sharp, P420, Bologna; NEW15, curated by Matt Hinkley, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2015; An imprecise Science, Artspace, Sydney; The January February March (with Tim Saltarelli, Jennifer Kabat and Anna Moschovakis), New York, 2015; Eraser, Laurel Gitlen, New York, 2015; The Promise, curated by Axel Weider, Arnolfini, Bristol, 2014; Portmanteaux, Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland, 2014; Thin Air, curated by Brooke Babington, Slopes, Melbourne, 2014. Forthcoming exhibitions include a solo exhibition at Laurel Doody, Los Angeles in October 2015; and the group exhibition Inside the City at GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen in July 2015. Kate Newby is represented by Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland, New Zealand.

Samuel Holloway is a composer based in Auckland, New Zealand. His work has been performed by prominent artists and ensembles in Asia, Europe and North America, including Klangforum Wien, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Stroma, and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Holloway has recently undertaken a number of projects with the collective et al., most recently for the common good, West den Haag, The Netherlands, 2015.

Samuel Holloway’s participation in this exhibition is possible thanks to the support of Unitec Institute of Technology.

This exhibition has been kindly supported by Chartwell Trust.

Studio 12: Sean Peoples, Sorting Demon

Sean Peoples

Sean Peoples

In 1920, American child prodigy William Sidis attempted to outline the nature of animate and inanimate matter in the context of thermodynamics. He did so by using a thought experiment developed by the physicist James Clerk Maxwell in which a ‘Sorting Demon’ can hypothetically violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Simply put, the experiment described a very small and nimble demon (sorting fast- and slow-moving particles) who could theoretically defy the Second Law, which states that disorder increases over time. Sidis used this as the groundwork from which to argue that living things are a reversal of the Second Law. In this exhibition, Peoples looks at animating the inanimate while exploring the transgression between entities and their environments through a scrapbook of sculptures using a combination of assemblage and 3D printing.

Sean Peoples graduated from the Victorian College of Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Art in 2006. His recent solo and group shows include Primavera 2014, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2014; and Supreme Universal Order: Alpha of Alpha, Omega, and Channel G, West Space, 2014 and 2013 respectively. Sean is one half of The Telepathy Project, a collaboration formed in 2005 with artist Veronica Kent. Together they have undertaken an Australian Council for the Arts Barcelona residency, Last Ship residency in Mumbai, and a Bundanon Trust residency. Recent Telepathy Project exhibitions and performances have been held for MONA’s Dark Mofo festival, Hobart, Tasmania, 2015, Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2013–14, and Whisper in my mask, TarraWarra Biennial, the TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria, 2014.

Slide: Ishmael Marika

Ishmael Marika

Ishmael Marika

The 2015 curator of Slide is Fayen d’Evie, who has invited Ishmael Marika to present the fourth work.

My name is Ishmael Marika. I am the grandson of Milirrpum Marika the lead plaintiff in the Gove Land Rights case. I am the son of Gary Waninya Marika—who has an Order of Australia for services to Indigenous health. My mother is Yalmakany Marawili, she is a Yirralka Ranger and exhibited artist—a sister to Djambawa Marawili. I was born in Nhulunbuy but spent my youth in Yilpara. I went to Nhulunbuy Primary School before going to Melbourne to finish years 8 and 9. I finished years 10–12 at a school in Darwin before retuning to Yirrkala in 2009. I worked as a ranger for 6 months before coming to work at the Mulka Project where I have been since 2010.

Ishmael is currently a director, editor, and production officer at The Mulka Project in Yirrkala. He has worked on numerous cultural productions for the Yolngu including documentations of dhapi, bapurru, and other ceremonial events. He is best know for his documentary on Yolngu land rights entitled Wanga Watangumirri Dharuk, which has screened at many festivals as well as a private screening with the East Timor President Ramos Horta. He has recently released his second film a drama depicting Yolŋu sorcery entitled Galka. This film was launched to standing ovations at Garma 2014.