Reopening
29 March 2015
Artspace
43–51 Cowper Wharf Road
Woolloomooloo NSW 2011
Sydney
Australia
Hours: Tuesday–Friday 11am–5pm,
Saturday–Sunday noon–4pm
T +61 2 9356 0555
www.artspace.org.au
Twitter / Instagram / #ArtspaceSydney
Since 1983 Artspace has been regarded as a significant institutional platform for supporting the production and presentation of contemporary art and for scaffolding associated discourses. For the first time since moving into our current premises at the Gunnery Building in 1992, which is centrally located in a landmark building on the Sydney harbour foreshore, Artspace has undertaken substantial capital development to update all the spaces in this multi-story gallery and studio complex.
Reopening on Sunday 29 March Artspace launches with an expanded program of revised curatorial structures, a new website and online publishing portal, an updated brand and organisational identity, refurbished studios, improved galleries and new exhibition platforms.
Key to our overhauled program is the introduction of our Ideas Platform, conceived as a totally adaptive program space consciously situated at the Artspace entrance. The Ideas Platform serves as a testing ground and venue for experimental, open-ended and responsive critical practice. It is a space for risk and speculation underpinned by the simple concept that if you have an idea, we have a platform. With a program focused on process as much—if not more—than outcome, the Ideas Platform will present a spectrum of projects from artists’ books and independent publishing initiatives, to occupations, performances, workshops, screenings, discussions and socially engaged and collaborative practices. The Ideas Platform launches with a series of work by renowned Los Angeles-based artist Eve Fowler.
Our artistic program for 2015 commences with An Imprecise Science, an ambitious group exhibition exploring how, with idiosyncratic intent, we each determine our own processes for embodying experience or tracking life lived. Curated by Alexie Glass-Kantor (Executive Director, Artspace and Curator, Encounters, Art Basel Hong Kong) with Talia Linz (Curator, Artspace) An Imprecise Science features work by Walead Beshty, Nina Canell, Natalya Hughes, Biljana Jancic, Ragnar Kjartansson and The National, Alicja Kwade, Bridie Lunney, Rob McLeish, Kate Newby, Isabel Nolan, Shinro Ohtake and Daniel von Sturmer. 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. The exhibition proposes that any approach is an imperfect act, experiment or speculation.
Following An Imprecise Science, Artspace will present the comprehensive exhibition Art as a Verb, a collaboration with Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne that takes as its departure point the concept of art as action, both inside the gallery and beyond. The exhibition features a stellar list of over 60 cross-generational artists including Vito Acconci, Francis Alÿs, Ceal Floyer, Andrea Fraser, Teching Hsieh, Allan Kaprow, Bruce Nauman, Yoko Ono, Mike Parr and Martha Rosler. Mid-year, Australian artist Nicholas Mangan will deliver a landmark solo exhibition, co-commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery, London and Artspace that draws upon themes of economic disparity, resource distribution and climatic shifts. A key component of Artspace’s 2015 program is the initiation of the Asia-Pacific region’s first independent artists’ book fair, VOLUME 2015 | Another Art Book Fair. Presented by Artspace in partnership with Perimeter Books, Melbourne and Printed Matter Inc., New York, VOLUME 2015 will engage and profile the breadth of the artist’s book genre, with a focus on independently produced, artist-led publications.
Artspace’s ambitious and expansive artistic program positions the organisation as a leading independent space that generates and connects Australian artistic practice with an international discourse. Artspace’s vision is to promote investment in living artists, across generations, so that Australian artists, writers and curators can be programmed in direct dialogue with their international peers. Artspace’s program enables ideas to germinate and grow, extending the definition of what art is and what it can become.