San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
151 Third Street
San Francisco, Calafornia
www.sfmoma.org

15 October 2011 – 16 January 2012

Richard Serra’s massive steel sculptures have made him one of the key figures in contemporary art, but his work also takes another striking form: drawing. This first-ever retrospective of Serra’s drawings is a chance to see this major artist’s work from an entirely new angle. The exhibition traces Serra’s evolving ideas and methods since the 1970s, when he began making wall-size abstractions that radically altered the relationship between drawing and architectural space. Serra uses black paintstick to build stark, densely layered forms that manipulate the viewer’s sense of mass and gravity, making for an experience that is as visceral as it is visual. The SFMOMA presentation also features a selection of the artist’s earliest sculptures in lead, rubber, and fiberglass, demonstrating the vital connection between the processes of sculpting and drawing in Serra’s art.

Charles Nodrum Gallery
267 Church Street, Richmond
Victoria, Australia 3121
www.charlesnodrumgallery.com.au

27 October – 19 November 2011

Jon Plapp
Languaged leaves 2005
acrylic on canvas, diptych
both panels signed, titled & dated on reverse
182 x 152  cm

Sarah Cottier Gallery
3 Neild Avenue
Paddington NSW 2021
Australia
www.sarahcottiergallery.com

13 October – 12 November

Mossenson Galleries
115 Hay Street, Subiaco
Western Australia 6008
www.mossensongalleries.com.au

17 October – 7 November 2011

In 1969 Col Jordan wrote:
My paintings are about paradox. Visual embodiments of literal impossibility. A work good to the extent that it reconciles irreconcilables. Daedalus is about directions, tied down and boxed by the stripes of its own identity.

The work referred to was Daedalus Series 6, now held in the National Gallery of Australia, but first exhibited in 1968 in the landmark exhibition The Field in Melbourne. The painting’s shaped boundary suggests a three dimensional form, which is contradicted by the flattening effect of a kaleidoscope of boldly coloured stripes. In Greek mythology Daedalus was the creator of the maze-like labyrinth at the Palace Knossos in Crete, in which the legendary Minotaur, part man, part pull, was kept. As many of Jordan’s works are like a complicated maze it’s tempting to view him as a kind of cunning Daedalus, creator of visual puzzles and enigmas. The complex abstract images he has been making since the mid 1960s reveal a consistent concern with paradox that reflects both the wonder and uncertainty of the human condition. Jordan strives to reconcile the irreconcilable, bringing into dynamic tension opposing forces of structural order and romantic feeling.

Today, Jordan is one of the few Field artists who continue to work in a way consistent with the original principles of the hard-edge Colour Field stlye: large-scale, flat expanses of colour and a minimum of surface detail. He still uses masking tape. Yet within these parameters he remains committed to the possibilities of hard-edge abstraction, finding within its stylistic limitations enough material to sustain an entire career.

Although Jordan’s work may seem international in outlook, there is something quintessentially Australian in its reflection of deceptive simplicities and conflicting realities. Australian culture is full of stories like Ned Kelly, stories which may seem to be simple myths yet are tied up with all kinds of conflicting ideas. For the first crucial decade of his career Jordan lived and worked in Wollongong, a multicultural, somewhat surreal juxtaposition of heavy industry, surfing beaches and rainforest. Today he lives and works in Sydney’s western suburbs where he was born and raised, an even crazier patchwork of concrete, blazing signs and raw energy. The raucous fragments of colour jostling for attention in his Mosaic series are evocative of the carnivalesque signage that lines the busy arterial road running past his studio. Like the skilful Daedelus of Greek mythology Col Jordan continues to weave his enigmatic riddles, working with undiminished passion and energy.

Michael Beare, Exhibition Curator of Col Jordan: An Active Edge, Wollongong City Gallery, 13 August – 25 September 2011
Text from catalogue essay on occasion of the exhibition. 

Gow Langsford Gallery
26 Lorne Street
Auckland, New Zeland
www.gowlangsfordgallery.co.nz

21 October – 12 November 2011

Driven to Abstraction is a group show of contemporary artists who together represent a diverse range of entry points into abstraction.

Judy Millar’s paintings, based on gesture, lend themselves to elements of both Abstract Expressionism and Lyrical Abstraction. Millar plays on the notion of gesture in abstraction but adds an ironic twist to the discussion by using screen-printing techniques to generate the final image. Like Millar, Simon Ingram’s non-objective canvases signal more contemporary approaches in his innovative use of modern technologies combined with the hand drawn, in his painting practice.  The slug-like painted forms in the two Untitled works appear to devour the formal geometric elements of the painting and one senses that with the passing of time these works will return to the pristine plain white surfaces that existed prior to Ingram making his marks.

Max Gimblett’s large diptych Either/Or from 1983 appears at first glance to be a classic piece of American minimalist painting. However the surface of the work is activated by Gimblett’s masterful use of heavy brushwork to create texture. In the centre of each square a rectangle painted in the same colour and manner as the rest of the painting subtly reveals itself to the viewer. Allen Maddox’s ardent and impassioned paintings established him as one for the most noted Abstract Expressionists New Zealand has produced. Colin McCahon’s Jump painting is indicative of the abstracted landscapes for which is well known.

Although not strictly abstract American Isaac Layman’s photographs offer an alternative perspective on everyday subjects, as the context of his subjects is shifted.  By shifting scale and limiting colour creates formal abstract compositions. In Blackout Laymen photographs a blind in a window to produce a work that references the American painter Agnes Martin.

Through myriad approaches, media and materials Driven to Abstraction considers the visual language of abstraction.

(image: Isaac Layman Blackout)

Anna Pappas Gallery
2-4 Carlton Street
Prahan, VIC
www.annapappasgallery.com

13 Oct – 12 Nov 11

Without Time continues Brad Haylock’s ongoing questioning of the commodification of critical practices, in particular the intersection of artistic avant-gardes and luxury capitalism. The exhibition’s title is derived with irony from a literal mistranslation of the Italian phrase ‘senza tempo’, accurately translated as ‘timeless’, the name of the 2010 collection by Italian furniture maker Minotti. Certain works in the exhibition evoke suprematist inquiries into an essentialism of form, but take as their content the graphic tropes of fashion magazines and perfume packaging. In contrast, other works evoke the symbolism of oppositional subcultures or the historic political left. In this exhibition, just as in today’s designer home, divergent motifs and materials come together in pursuit of a seamless whole.

Brad Haylock is a Melbourne based artist who holds a PhD from RMIT University and an honours degree in Visual Communication from Monash University where he is currently a lecturer. Haylock’s recent solo exhibitions include Dead Nature (a monument to exactitude) at mzin in Germany in 2011, Inquiry after Jeopardy (with Kieran Stewart) at Rear View and Everyone is Equal (but some are more equal than others) at Kings ARI in 2010. He has participated in a number of group exhibitions in Melbourne including project11: paradise… a hell of a place at Anna Pappas Gallery and Things I wish I’d known at West Space in 2011, Endgame: Late-capitalist Realism at VCA Gallery in 2006, ArtArt at MUMA (Monash Univerity Museum of Art) and Insert Image Here at CCP (Centre for Contemporary Photography) as part of the Next Wave Festival in 2002.

Dianne Tanzer Gallery + Projects
108-111 Gertrude Street
Fitzroy VIC 3065
www.diannetanzergallery.net.au

15 October – 5 November 2011

Anna Schwartz Gallery
185 Flinders Lane
Melbourne VIC 3000
www.annaschwartzgallery.com

28 September – 5 November 2011

This exhibition represents the most recent developments in the EPW: Silver project begun in 1995. Whereas the group of silver paintings exhibited at Anna Schwartz Gallery in 2006 focused on texture and materiality, this group of paintings made over a four-year period (2008–2011) primarily explores principles of construction.

The paintings are ‘built’ from various parts —canvas panels and planes of shaped chipboard. Whilst they have a three-dimensional aspect, they are still undoubtedly paintings. Though predominantly monochrome, they also incorporate black and white elements. The rough industrial surface of the chipboard adds additional texture, whilst in some works sand has been mixed into the paint.

A new dynamism activates these silver monochromes arising from an adherence to strong diagonal lines and planes. Many works take the rectangular canvas hung from one corner as their starting point. The forms—rectangles, squares, and triangles—are combined in both formal and random ways. These basic principles generate multiple possibilities that are explored as ‘variation on a theme’.

Consistent with my multi-faceted practice, the research into the development of the silver monochrome runs parallel to that of the EPW: Polychrome. Both groups of work are done concurrently as are other separate bodies of work using drawing, collage and photography. In their exploration of texture and dynamism, the Silver Paintings also particularly link with my experimental music project The Donkey’s Tail, an open free-music ensemble. Formed in early 2007, the group have to-date released 50 studio and live CDs.

John Nixon
September 2011

Michael Lett
Frieze Art Fair
Regent’s Park, London
Stand F20
www.michaellett.com

13 – 16 October 2011

Milani Gallery
54 Logan Road
Woolloongabba
Brisbane QLD 4102
www.milanigallery.com.au

13 – 29 October 2011