Curated by Clare Lewis – as part of the Firstdraft Emerging Curators Program supported by Arts NSW

Laresa Kosloff, Spirit & Muscle, 2006, digital video, 4:39 minutes. Image courtesy and © the artist and Neon Parc.

A new exhibition opening at Firstdraft this month explores six contemporary Australian artists’ post-minimalist tendencies.
Artists: Peter Adsett, Gail Hastings, Laressa Kosloff, Pat Macan, Elizabeth Newman, Patricia Todarello.
Exhibition opens: Wednesday 16 June 2010, 6-8pm
Exhibition continues: to 4 July 2010
Artist talks: Sunday 4 July 2010 at 4pm

Taint observes the continued currency of the minimalist project through the disparate approaches of six contemporary Australian artists. The artists explore what could loosely be termed a post-minimalist tendency. Their works borrow from the now historical principles of minimalism, but interrupt and compromise the austere surfaces associated with the movement, subverting what was once a puritanical exercise in form, space, colour and composition.

These artists infuse works with pollutants; humour, domestic reference or emotive content and yet the strength of the works’ aesthetic presence could be said to be indebted to their Minimalist forebears. By enlivening and extending the post-minimalism debate, these works force the principles of the movement into a conversation with the present day, and therefore into the amorphous terrain of the postmodern.

The exhibition seeks to question the affect of revisiting the formal aesthetics of this period; of mimicry, re-enactment and a continued interest in reduction to essential form, to the audience and to their relation to the work.

Firstdraft is a non-profit gallery run on a voluntary basis by a group of practicing artists. It is one of the longest running and most successful artist-run initiatives in Australia. Firstdraft asserts the importance of contemporary art production, dissemination and discussion in society, providing a stimulating exhibition space that is professional and accessible for a diverse range of artistic practices and projects.

Firstdraft is assisted by the NSW Government through Arts NSW and by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body. Firstdraft is also supported by Jed Wines and Porter’s Paints.
Firstdraft Depot is supported by City of Sydney.

Firstdraft
116-118 Chalmers St.
Surry Hills NSW 2010
t: +61 (0)2 9698 3665
mail@firstdraftgallery.com
www.firstdraftgallery.com
open: Wed to Sun, 12-6pm