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An Imprecise Science

Walead Beshty (UK/USA), Alicja Kwade (Poland), Biljana Jancic (Australia), Bridie Lunney (Australia), Daniel von Sturmer (Australia), Isabel Nolan (Ireland), Kate Newby (New Zealand), Natalya Hughes (Australia), Nina Canell (Sweden), Rob McLeish (USA) and Shinro Ohtake (Japan)

Curated by Alexie Glass-Kantor with Talia Linz

#AnImpreciseScience

Exhibition Dates
28 March – 24 May 2015

Exhibition Opening
Saturday 28 March, 4 – 8pm

 

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

Artspace Exhibition Opening and Art Month Closing Party 
When | Sunday 29 March, 3 – 6pm
Location | Artspace, Ground Floor

'A Lot of Sorrow' Marathon: by Ragnar Kjartansson with The National
When | Friday 22 May, 6pm – 12am
Location | Artspace, Ground Floor

Kate Newby, 'Excellent my Friend', 2014, high fired and glazed porcelain, silk and silver thread, hand dyed rope. Installation view, 'An Imprecise Science', courtesy of the artist and Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland. Photo: Zan Wimberley

Kate Newby, 'Excellent my Friend', 2014, high fired and glazed porcelain, silk and silver thread, hand dyed rope. Installation view, 'An Imprecise Science', courtesy of the artist and Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland. Photo: Zan Wimberley

Overview

 

An Imprecise Science explores how with idiosyncratic intent we each determine our own processes for embodying experience or tracking life lived. Inscription of space, time and materiality, through word, gesture or abandonment of power structures creates the potential for parallel narratives to ferment and for impermanence to take precedence over authority. 

 

An Imprecise Science underscores the ways that matter becomes immaterial; bodies and forms embrace ethereality, defying gravity and rebelling against the limitations of flesh or material. Acts of precarious balance, both human and inanimate, sit alongside deconstructive play and challenges to the constitution of substance and subject. A central tenet of An Imprecise Science is that of endurance, with works that look at the transformative potential of prolonged action. The exhibition proposes that any approach is an imperfect act, experiment or speculation. Here frailty and collapse commingle with resilience and forms of material, physical and psychic ascendance. 

 

Featuring Australian and international artists working across installation, video, performance, sculpture, painting, sound and word, An Imprecise Science will adopt the spirit of its artworks, contaminating the Gunnery building to inhabit the various spaces through which inhabitants and visitors pass. As artworks congeal and seep into both the crevices of the building’s architecture and our mind’s eye, the aim is to prompt a reawakening of a familiar space that is at once both public and highly personal. Indeed in this assembly of approaches, boundaries between works are blurred, veiled and obscured; ordinary materials are rendered sensual while the edifices of the body and the building are debased. 

 

T.S. Eliot wrote: ‘What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from... ‘ An Imprecise Science takes pride of place as Artspace’s first exhibition for 2015. The opening weekend marks the beginning of our exciting new program, in tandem with the re-launch of the refreshed Gunnery building, Artspace brand and website. It is also the closing exhibition for Art Month Sydney, an annual event that fosters audience engagement. The artists exhibiting in An Imprecise Science represent a cross-generational collective, none of whom have previously shown work at Artspace. Our aim is for this to be the beginning of a longer relationship with each of them and their practice. 

An Imprecise Science has been supported by Holdsworth House

 

  • Installation view, 'An Imprecise Science'. Photo: Zan Wimberley

  • Shinro Ohtake, 'Boundary Color series', 2012-13, gouache on paper. Installation view, 'An Imprecise Science', © Shinro Ohtake, courtesy of the artist and Take Ninagawa, Tokyo. Photo: Zan Wimberley

  • Installation view, 'An Imprecise Science'. Photo: Zan Wimberley

  • Daniel von Sturmer, 'Camera Ready Actions', 2014, site-specific installation, dimensions variable. Installation view, 'An Imprecise Science'. Courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne and Sydney. Made with the assistance of The Australia Council for the Arts and Arts Victoria. Photo: Zan Wimberley

  • Daniel von Sturmer, 'Camera Ready Actions', 2014, site-specific installation, dimensions variable. Installation view, 'An Imprecise Science'. Courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne and Sydney. Made with the assistance of The Australia Council for the Arts and Arts Victoria. Photo: Zan Wimberley

  • Installation view, 'An Imprecise Science'. Photo: Zan Wimberley

  • Installation view, 'An Imprecise Science'. Photo: Zan Wimberley

  • Kate Newby, 'Excellent my Friend', 2014, high fired and glazed porcelain, silk and silver thread, hand dyed rope. Installation view, 'An Imprecise Science', courtesy of the artist and Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland. Photo: Zan Wimberley

  • Alicja Kwade, 'Kreisel (Inception)', 2012, HD video with sound, loop, 2 minutes, 19 seconds. © Alicja Kwade, installation view, 'An Imprecise Science', courtesy 303 Gallery, New York. Photo: Zan Wimberley

  • Natalya Hughes, 'Piss Paper', 2015, digitally printed wallpaper, dimensions variable. Installation view, 'An Imprecise Science', courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane. Photo: Zan Wimberley

  • Isabel Nolan, 'The Provisory Rug, adapted and documented for past, present and future', 2012, 6 black and white photographs, each 44 x 39 cm framed, courtesy of the artist and Kerlin Gallery. Installation view, 'An Imprecise Science'. Photo: Zan Wimberley

  • Ragnar Kjartansson and The National, 'A Lot of Sorrow', 2013–14, single-channel video, 6 hours, 9 minutes, 35 seconds. Installation view, 'An Imprecise Science'. © Ragnar Kjartansson and The National, courtesy of the artists and Luhring Augustine, New York. Photo: Zan Wimberley

  • (Foreground): Rob McLeish, 'LapSink (Fishing For Candles)', 2013, steel, stainless steel,epoxy clay, chlorinated water, 130 x 200 x 110cm. Installation view, 'An Imprecise Science'. (Background): Walead Beshty, 'Copper Surrogate (August 28 2014/February 26 2015, Sydney, Australia, March 26 2015, Sydney, Australia)', 2014, polished copper, 76.2 x 76.2 cm. Installation view, 'An Imprecise Science', courtesy of the artist and of Danny and Lisa Goldberg. Photo: Zan Wimberley

  • Installation view, 'An Imprecise Science'. Photo: Zan Wimberley

  • Biljana Jancic, 'pathogen in pink', 2015, site-specific installation, cloth tape, found branches, dimensions variable. Installation view, 'An Imprecise Science'. Photo: Zan Wimberley

  • Biljana Jancic, 'pathogen in pink', 2015, site-specific installation, cloth tape, found branches, dimensions variable. Installation view, 'An Imprecise Science'. Photo: Zan Wimberley

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