ENTER
Housemuseum Galleries
16 March - 11 August 2019
Curated Fleur Watson and Lyon Corbett.
Brooke Andrews, Ry David Bradley ,Patricia Picinini, Callum Morton, Dan Moynihan Nova Milne, Kate Mitchell, Ian Strange, Shaun Gladwell, Ffixxed Studios X James Deutsher, Constanze Zikos, Baden Pailthorpe, Kenzee Patterson, Esther Stewart, Min Wong,
Enter is the inaugural exhibition for the newly built Houseumuseum galleries. This ambitious and experimental exhibition explores the interrelationships between art, the spaces of the museum and the spectator/observer. These commissioned works unfold as an interconnected pathway of experiential encounters – conversations, confrontations, juxtapositions, provocations – to
be explored and discovered by the gallery visitor. The placement and orientation of works in the spaces of the galleries speculate on new ways of viewing art and on the role that architecture and space play in its presentation and perception.
The exhibition has not been conceived in art historical terms or as part of a continuum – rather it is a radical experiment in curatorial practice, contesting conventional ideas about art and space, and the way the gallery visitor participates in the art experience.
Break on through to the other side… The Doors consists of two gate-like steel sculptures and bent steel forms that directly engage the architecture of the large-scale volume of the central space in the Lyon Housemuseum Galleries. The installation challenges the viewer to enter through these sculptures that act as a doorway to a contemporary utopia.
The contemporary utopia or “non-place” acts as an alternate present and a critique of “the spectacle”. Utopia refers to a better place, a place in which the problems that beset our current condition are transcended or resolved. It also means “No Place”, a place imagined but not realised, that illuminates the limitations of the contemporary world. The gallery exemplifies the neutral, passive ‘non-place’ and the sculptures act in response and are simultaneously activated by the space. The viewer navigates the size and placement of the works in ‘utopia’ and this experience allows for a conversation about the present dystopic human condition and how we navigate this.
The sculptures employ aspects of Modernist and archetypal spiritual forms such as the circle and triangle as symbolic language hidden in the form. These configurations reference tropes of the ancient esoteric and new-age spiritualism. The tubular elongated forms represent the humanistic elements in utopia. By looking back to investigate Modernist utopian impulses of previous eras, we can perhaps reimagine modelling alternative worlds as intimations of possibility, and contribute to the potentialities for shaping the present and futures of contemporary art.