BLACK SQUARE – 100 YEARS (1913 – 1915)
Curated by Iakovos Amperidis and Alex Gawronski
21 Oct 2015—07 Nov 2015
Iakovos Amperdis, Consuelo Cavaniglia, Scott Donovan, Alex Gawronski , Shane Haseman, IRWIN (Slovenia), LAIBACH (Slovenia), Mike Parr, Jelena Telecki, Justene Williams & et al. (NZ)
Black Square – 100 years (1913-1915) – is the sequel to the first incarnation of this exhibition curated by Alex Gawronski and Iakovos Amperidis at the AEAF Adelaide in 2013. The exhibition marks the second 100 Year Anniversary of Kazimir Malevich’s seminal modernist work the Black Square. The proposed exhibition marks a significant extension of the first and deliberately invokes Malevich’s self myth-making.
With this in mind, central to our conception of this exhibition, as well as the one preceding it, is the paradox of the Black Square’s two 100 Year Anniversaries; Malevich claims to have first conceived the Black Square in 1913 as part of his set-designs for the Russian Cubo-Futurist Opera ‘Victory Over the Sun’ in which the Black Square featured as a theatre curtain and backdrop. However, the most famous version of this work (and there are others) is Malevich’s oil painting now in the Hermitage in St Petersburg dated 1915.
More broadly, Black Square – 100 years (1913-1915) proposes the Black Square as a foundational work of conceptual art that paradoxically merges materialist and transcendentalist tendencies. Thus the Black Square is both iconically imminent and a portal potentially to another dimension. What it resolutely is not is simply an ‘abstract’ painting. It is this paradoxical dimension that makes the Black Square an exceptionally contemporary work, a work whose conceptual interpretability is mutable and endless like language.
This exhibition brings together both important existing and historical work and brand new interpretations of the Black Square in numerous inventive permutations. All the artists chosen to participate in this exhibition will consider the possibilities of the Black Square as a fundamentally conceptual, rather than merely formal, proposition. Furthermore, in bringing together historical and new work, the Black Square will be highlighted for its contemporaneity the political and conceptual ramifications of which are still to be fully explored.
Iakovos Amperdis; A Kitten Drowning in a Well: Mike Kelley Tribute Exhibition, 55 Sydenham Rd Marrickville NSW 2204 AU (2014); Sure Can! (with Mitchell Cumming) I.C.A.N, Sydney (2013); Near Earth, Wollongong City Art Gallery (upcoming) (2012); Dirt, Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney, Anonymous Show, 55 Sydenham Rd Marrickville NSW 2204 AU (2011); Dirt, I.C.A.N, Sydney (2010); Notolep, Peloton, Sydney, Cones of Zontact, Loose Projects, Sydney
Alex Gawronski; Interest Free, KNULP, Sydney, _____; Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), the University of Melbourne, curated by Alex Gawronski and Biljana Jancic, WRITING ART, Ideas Platform, Artspace, Sydney, curated by Scott Donovan (2015); Missing Wallet, Institute of Contemporary Art Newtown (ICAN), Sydney, Logical Volume Identifier, Plimsoll Gallery, the University of Tasmania, Hobart, Wittgenstein’s House, Heidegger’s Hut etc. Marrickville Garage, Sydney.
Shane Haseman; 2014 Thieves, Restaging-Restaging, Alaska Projects, Sydney; 55 + Propositions, 55 Sydenham Rd Gallery, Sydney; Perseveration Society, Shepparton Art Museum, Victoria 2013 Black Square – 100 Years, Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide; Sinister And Cheap, ICAN Gallery, Sydney; Look This Way, UTS Gallery, Sydney; Goodnight, Peloton Gallery, Sydney 2012 Ladies and Gentlemen, Yuill Crowley Gallery, Sydney; New Paintings Gallery 55, Sydney; No Relation, ICAN, Sydney; I, IV, V,X,XI, Time Machine Experimental Art Festival, Sydney 2011 NEW11, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; Painless Extraction, ICAN, Sydney 2010 Hardbodies, Hazlehurst Regional Gallery, Sydney.
IRWIN; Seminal post-modern collective from Slovenia. Founding member in 1984, and visual arts arm of NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst).
http://www.irwin.si/ http://www.nskstate.com/
LAIBACH; Seminal conceptual/industrial band from Slovenia. Founding member in 1984, and musical arm of NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst).
http://www.laibach.org http://www.nskstate.com/
Mike Parr; Easter Island, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Sydney Blind Self Portraits, ARNDT, Berlin; Direct Democracy, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne; Mix Tape1980: Appropriation, Subculture, Critical Style, National Gallery of Victoria The Red Queen, Dark MOFO, Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania (2013); Mike Parr Edelwiess, Kunsthalle Wein, Vienna; Brain Coral, National Art School Gallery, Sydney (2012).
Jelena Telecki; NEW14, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) Melbourne curated by Kyla McFarlane (2014) Nocturne Arts Projects Australia, Melbourne. Roland’s Mother Gallery 9, Sydney (2013); and Jelena Telecki Gallery 9, Sydney (2012). Teaches at Sydney College of the Arts (SCA).
Justene Williams; The Curtain Breathed Deeply, Artspace, Sydney (2014); Your Boat My Scenic Personality of Space, Institute of Contemporary Art Newtown (I.C.A.N.), Sydney, NSW (2013); She Came Over Singing Like A Drainpipe Shaking Spoon Infused Mixers, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, Christchurch (2012).
et al.; Many-to-many, Freedom Farmers: New Zealand Artists Growing Ideas, Auckland Art Gallery,Toi O Tamaki (2014); trans_cryption, Michael Lett Gallery (NZ); Parekowhai, Hollaway, Henis et al. Michael Lett, Auckland, (2013); films from non-existent in the everyday world? Jonathon Smart Gallery, Christchurch, NZ (2012).