New Exhibitions at Gertrude Contemporary | Ua numi le fau and Andrea Simmons

Image: Frédéric Nauczyciel, A Baroque Ball [Shade] (film still), 2014

Image: Frédéric Nauczyciel, A Baroque Ball [Shade] (film still), 2014

Ua numi le fau

Exhibition dates: 6 May – 25 June 2020

Curated by: Léuli Eshraghi
Artists: Yuki Kihara, Carlos Motta, Frédéric Nauczyciel, Mandy Nicholson, Dale Harding, Atong Atem, Megan Cope and Robbie Thorpe.

Gertrude Contemporary is pleased to present, Ua numi le fau, an exhibition developed through Next Wave’s Emerging Curators Program with Gertrude Contemporary for Next Wave Festival 2016.

The exhibition title, Ua numi le fau, is a Sāmoan expression, literally translating to ‘the string tying the lupe pigeon (prized in Sāmoa) is entangled’ yet metaphorically meaning ‘the affair is complicated and difficult’.

Ua numi le fau considers bodies and kinships through sexuality, spirituality and ecology. Articulated in multiple local and migrant languages and mediums this exhibition reflects on the heritage and practice of Aboriginal civil rights, the union movement and queer rights from Wurundjeri territory of Fitzroy, Collingwood and Abbotsford out into the wider world.

Curator, Léuli Eshraghi, brings together eight local and international artists that draw on First Nations and diasporic cultural traditions in imagining complex futures through performance video, photography and textile artworks. These works explore what kinds of histories have reached us in the present, and which futures we are constructing in our relationships with each other, with our bodies, and with our environment.

The artists include, Yuki Kihara (Apia and Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland), Carlos Motta (Mannahatta New York), Frédéric Nauczyciel (Paris), Mandy Nicholson (Narrm Melbourne), Dale Harding (Mianjin Brisbane), Atong Atem (Narrm Melbourne), Megan Cope (Narrm Melbourne) and Robbie Thorpe (Narrm Melbourne).

A research based catalogue, series of public talks and a screening will accompany this exhibition, further contributing to multiple articulations of Indigenous queer complexity. Public Programs are open to all and will be held at various locations.

Léuli Eshraghi is a Sāmoan and Persian artist, curator and PhD candidate at Monash University Art Design and Architecutre (MADA). His practice is centred on indigeneity, language, body, soverignty, and queer possibility. He has exhibited in Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and the United States. Highlights include The Bill: For Collective Unconscious at Artspace NZ and Future Achaeology at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney. Recent curatorial projects include Vai Niu Wai Niu Coconut Water at Kabul-dja Caboolture Regional Art Gallery, Queensland; So Fukin Native at Blak Dot Gallery, Melbourne; and Wilin 10 at No Vacancy Gallery, Melbourne.

This exhibition is supported by the Victorian Govenment through Creative Victoria, the City of Melbourne, the Curatorial Practice program at Monash University Art Design and Architecture (MADA), the City of Yarra, the Embassy of France in Australia, Creative France, the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), and the Alliance Française de Melbourne.

Next Wave’s long running and highly successful Emerging Curators Program provides the most comprehensive development opportunity for young curators in Australia. Curators are supported to develop research-driven curatorial projects that span broad fields of practice, with one of five partner organisations including Gertrude Contemporary.

Image courtesy of the artist.

Image courtesy of the artist.

Slide: Andrea Simmons

Exhibition dates: 6 May–25 June

The 2016 Slide curator is Debris Facility, who has invited Andrea Simmons to present, when sending a message to someone asking for help – when regarding the weight and specific gravity of –, 2015 for Slide.

2016 Stop biting nails

Make clothes
Coffee
Muesli
Quinoa
Acai
You bring yourself, and I’ll bring my selfie
Drinking myself into consciousness

A wild cigarette appears
Dancing till the breath of dawn

My dream:
Cat that adores camera lenses is seen as superficial but does not react to photographs of itself
Cat has Fetish for lenses
Cat becomes famous

The next day
Between your fingers

Details of the work in gallery:
Andrea Simmons
when sending a message to someone asking for help –
when regarding the weight and specific gravity of –
, 2015
Human hair and epoxy

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