Helen Grogan
STUDIO WORK(COMPRESSION WITH OPENING PLANE)

Gertrude Contemporary was proud to present STUDIO WORK   (COMPRESSION WITH OPENING PLANE) , a new sculptural work by Studio Artist, Helen Grogan in Studio 10.

This piece was part of a two-month research project undertaken in Studio 10 in which Grogan focused on sculpture as a means of making spatial ‘sketches’ within conditions that are already present. In this brief studio exhibition, the studio integrated itself as an immanent compositional material, functioning as both a physical and conceptual support. 

reiterated notes: compressed space. expanded space. transparent support structures. the sketch is enough. it takes time to get a sense of the workings of this place. tool for offering escape. a poem. a problem.

Informed by studies in philosophy and choreography, Helen Grogan uses sculptural, photographic, and filmic means to approach space and observation as material(s). Her works directly engage exhibition sites as situations to be expanded and opened in material, ontological, and political ways. With a particular interest in framing what is already occurring, Grogan works from the perspective that the gallery exhibition is itself performative and viewers are implicated through the physical act of observation. Grogan's practice operates critically and dynamically with exhibition formats and institutional conditions.  Her works often incorporate explicit processes of flux, drift, layering, and reconfiguration as means to push or stretch potential temporalities and spatialities. By employing devices that resist fixed or prioritised points of view or points in time, her works seek an embodied attention within the ever moving present and actual.

Exhibition dates were Thursday 24 March, Tuesday 29 March, Wednesday 30 March, Thursday 31 March, or by appointment. 

Helen Grogan’s recent exhibitions include:   OBSTRUCTION DRIFT   in ‘Choreography and the Gallery’, Biennale of Sydney;   THREE ADJOINING SPACES WITH MANIFOLD EDGES , WestSpace;   Choreography (2014 Version)   with Gwenneth Boelens and   (RE)SETTING   in ‘Framed Movements’, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art;   INSIDE VIANNE AGAIN   with Shelley Lasica and Anne Marie May in ‘Melbourne Now’, National Gallery of Victoria International;   OBSERVATION PROPOSITION FOR INTERIOR OF INDICATED EDGES AS WELL AS OTHER UNINDICATED PARAMETERS ALREADY IN OCCURRENCE , in ‘2nd Tbilisi Triennial’;   CONCRETE ROOM   and   SOUNDING OUT ART SPACE   in ‘The Ear is a Brain’, Liquid Architecture 2014; T HREE PERFORMATIVE STRUCTURES FOR SLOPES , Slopes;   ACTION AND FRAME(S)   and   CONCRETE ROOM ,   LIGHT   and   FACILITATING FORM   in ‘Object As Score’, VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery;   ACTION AND FRAME (for Gertrude Contemporary gallery with pillar)   in ‘Studio Artist Exhibition - Part 2, Gertrude Contemporary;   CHOREOGRAPHY FOR AN UNKNOWN SPACE ; in ‘Interpreting Variable Arrangements’ Stockholm Kulturhuset;   IF NOTHING HAS SETTLED YET   in ‘Re-Staging Re-Staging’, Alaska Projects;. Her recent curatorial projects include:   SPECIFIC IN-BETWEEN (The choreographic negotiated in six parts),   Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.