Exhibition | Alex Selenitsch: Life/Text | Heide MOMA

monoton eeeeeee  1969 plastic letters on enamel on composition board 71.5 x 59 x 4 cm Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne © Alex Selenitsch Gift of Alex Selenitsch and Merron Selenitsch 2011

monoton eeeeeee, 1969, plastic letters on enamel on composition board, 71.5 x 59 x 4 cm, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, © Alex Selenitsch, Gift of Alex Selenitsch and Merron Selenitsch 2011

From 24th October 2015

Though primarily known as a concrete poet, Alex Selenitsch works across a broad spectrum of disciplines from architecture to artist books, collage and sculpture. His practice in each of these areas is underpinned by a creative exploration of the notion of theme and variation, often using found materials and the pre-existing systems of language and mathematics. Selenitsch has a long connection to Heide initiated through his friendship with Sweeney Reed, the adopted son of John and Sunday Reed. In 1969 Sweeney’s Strines Gallery was the venue for Selenitsch’s debut exhibition of concrete poetry, the first show of its kind in Australia. Several of these early concrete poems feature in LIFE/TEXT together with other examples from the Heide Collection and select public and private collections, surveying five decades of Selenitsch’s career.

Since the late 1960s, Selenitsch’s practice has combined aspects of his education and work in architecture with his pursuits as a poet and artist. A unifying theme is the use and spatial manipulation of letters, words and objects to create an incisive, conceptual play between meaning and form. This is seen most directly in his three-dimensional creations, but also in concrete poems that likewise present a spatially fertile field. In these works, typographic elements and material properties are as significant in conveying ideas as words themselves.

The title of this exhibition is borrowed from a body of work that typifies Selenitsch’s poetic recycling of everyday and salvaged materials, another constant in his approach. His LIFE/TEXT series, the centrepiece of which is a concrete poem in the form of a life-size door, is among his many creations that explore the way that text and language function within the fabric of life rather than merely describing it.

Dates: 24 October 2020 17 April 2021

Location: Heide II, Heide Museum of Modern Art, 7 Templestowe Rd, Bulleen VIC 3105. Ph: (03) 9850 1500

Opening hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 10am-5pm, Public holidays, 10am-5pm

Curator: Linda Short