[...] {...} [...]

Gertrude Contemporary was pleased to present [...] {...} [...] at Gertrude Glasshouse. This project was initiated by Gertrude Studio Artist Fayen d'Evie in collaboration with Troy McConnell, Sophie Takách and Prue Lang; with Bryan Philips, Terry Foley, Louella Hogan, Benjamin Hancock and Harrison Ritchie-Jones.

Throughout October 2016 Glasshouse had been the site for a series of trans-sensory and inter-material translations, accumulating as an evolving haptic exhibition:

//audio-description transfigured as generative, vibrational practice / movement improvisations / hide(s) / work -- works -- work sites / articulated armatures / materials under tension / skin(s) / boundaries of encounters / resistance / responsiveness / contraction and release / transmission from body to material, from material to body, from material to material, from body to body / scores for encounters between bodies and material histories / taxonomies of touch / imprints of contact / distributed authorship / activation / elasticity / vibrational silence / private handovers / public handovers / removal / retreat / return / repeat //

Fayen d’Evie explores blindness as a radical critical position and as a generative methodological principle, which agitates ocularcentric norms of exhibition-making, opening terrain for artistic and curatorial practice attuned to complex embodiment, translation, haptic discourse, structural politics, perceptual enquiry, ephemerality, and the perpetually invisible. Fayen is also the founder of 3-ply, which investigates artist-led publishing as an experimental site for the creation, mutation, dispersal and archiving of texts. Fayen is based in rural Victoria, and was a 2016 studio artist at Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, and a Phd candidate in Curatorial Practice at Monash University. Fayen graduated from the Victoria College of the Arts (Painting) in 2011. Recent exhibitions include: (2016) Human Commonalities, V.A.C. Foundation and the State Museum of Vadim Sidur, Moscow; Endless Circulation: TarraWarra Biennial, Healesville; The Gravity, the Levity, Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco; Habits and Customs..., Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; (2015) 3rd Ural Industrial Biennial, Yekatarinburg; The Material Turn, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne; Not All Treasure is Silver and Gold, Mate..., West Space, Melbourne; Just as Money is the Paper, the Gallery is the Room, Osage Art Foundation, Shanghai; (2014) Macquarie Group Emerging Artist Prize, Sydney; No, You’re Product, Slopes Projects, Melbourne; Sunny and Hilly, Minerva, Sydney; Melbourne Now, NGV, Melbourne.

Troy McConnell is an artist and writer based in rural Victoria. Through his paintings, he explores dynamic gestures and markmaking. His poetry ranges from the emotional turbulence of shipwrecks to the hunting grounds of the spider “straining every nerve for the slightest vibration”. Troy was currently working on a series of stories tracing the adventures and misadventures of Bomber, an eternal optimist who never thinks through the consequences. Troy’s collaboration in this exhibition was facilitated by a partnership between SCOPE Victoria and Gertrude Contemporary.

Sophie Takách is an artist whose object-based sculptural practice incorporates performative action and ephemeral installation. Drawing on a deep interest in science and the underlying physical processes that make up of the material world, she exploits the interactions between force and matter to reveal otherwise intangible forms and actions. Previous exhibitions include 'The Material Turn' curated by Rebecca Coates, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, (peculiar/particulate) a working model collaboration with Susan Jacobs, c3 Contemporary Art Space, and Benglis 73/74 curated by Geoff Newton at Sutton Gallery Project Space. Sophie’s work is included in the artist book collection of Monash University and held in private collections. She lives and works in Melbourne, and undertook postgraduate studies in Fine Art at Monash University in Melbourne. 

After graduating from Victoria College of the Arts in 1992, Prue Lang joined Meryl Tankard’s Australian Dance Theatre. In 1996 she moved to France to work with Choreographic National Centre in Angers, Compagnie Cre-Ange in Paris, as well as creating and facilitating her own independent projects. In 1999 she began an important collaboration with William Forsythe as a leading soloist and choreographer of the Frankfurt Ballett and The Forsythe Company. She created five original works for the company. She is also a leading exponent of Forsythe’s improvisation technologies and a researcher with Motion Bank project. Since 2005 she has been working as an independent choreographer presenting her work in international festivals, theatres and museums throughout the world including Theatre National de Chaillot Paris, HAU 3 Berlin, Mousonturm Frankfurt, Tanzhaus NRW Düsseldorf, Tanzplatform Deutschland, STUK Belguim, Festival Mettre-en-scene Rennes, Rencontres choregraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis, Mains d’oeuvres, Festival faits d’hiver Paris,TATE Modern, London. She has been voted Most Innovative Production, Most Outstanding Choreographer and most Outstanding dancer by Europe’s Balletanz’s Annual Critics’ Survey, awarded in Hybrid Art by the Prix Ars Electronica, and won Green Room awards for Design, Original Choreography and Best Ensemble in Australia.  

Photo credit: Pippa Samaya