exhibitions

STEPHEN BRAM: 200 GERTRUDE STREET

Exhibition Dates: Saturday 14 June – Saturday 12 July 2014
Exhibition Opening: Friday 13 June 2014, 6pm – 8pm

Gertrude Contemporary was pleased to present 200 Gertrude Street, a major site-specific installation by Stephen Bram.

Six wall planes were inserted into the gallery, enfolding the space in an all-encompassing concertina. Three deep ‘valleys’ carved the rooms, repeating from floor to ceiling. Walking through these angular passages the viewer was variously enveloped in light and dark; we experience an internal space that refers constantly to the outside world.

This work drew on Bram’s ongoing project that uses two or three vanishing points in space to create a structural form. These points are outside the boundaries of the work and so the installation constantly reaffirms its relationship with the external world despite its formal appearance.

Our physical, spatial experience of the installation foregrounded a philosophical enquiry; how is meaning attributed through the relationship of objects and people Bram’s project explores this question by refusing to attribute significance to the vanishing points he nominates.

Abstract artwork is sometimes considered either work about nothing or work about itself. In 200 Gertrude Street it was instead abstraction that encompassed the arbitrariness of meaning making. Bram made visible the structural supports of the forms; the timber struts of each wall reveal themselves to the viewer and the parallax view of the work shifts constantly in accordance with our movement.

200 Gertrude Street was the first in series of exhibitions by Gertrude Contemporary alumni in celebration of the community of artists who have shaped a Melbourne institution over three decades.

Stephen Bram lives and works in Melbourne. Previous exhibitions include Songs of Sirens, Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, 2009; Parallel Collisions: 2012 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia; Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, 2013 and Stephen Bram, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne, 2014. Stephen Bram is represented by Anna Schwartz Gallery.

PERFORMANCE: IN AND AROUND STEPHEN BRAM’S 200 GERTRUDE STREET

Jo Lloyd and Nicola Gunn

Saturday 21 June 2014, 1 – 4pm

Jo Lloyd and Nicola Gunn created a performance work in response to the site specific installation of Stephen Bram’s exhibition 200 Gertrude Street.

Choreographer and performer Lloyd and theatremaker Gunn constructed and performed In And Around Stephen Bram’s 200 Gertrude Street over 3 consecutive hours from a score created by the artists, with contributions by viewers and various participants.

Beginning with a conversation, meeting of forms and a handful of movement vocabulary, the two performers accumulated, exchanged and performed a work that was part dance, part conversation – highlighting both the importance and irrelevance of the verbal and physical components.

Performers: Jo Lloyd and Nicola Gunn
Composer: Duane Morrison

Jo Lloyd graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts. She has been performing, choreographing and teaching throughout Australia and overseas for 15 years, presenting her work in Japan, Hong Kong, Dance Massive, the Melbourne International Arts Festival, the Adelaide Fringe, the Next Wave Festival, and for Lucy Guerin’s Pieces for Small Spaces Program. Jo has performed extensively in the works of Shelley Lasica, Chunky Move and Sandra Parker. Jo’s work FUTURE PERFECT (Dance Massive 2013) received several Green Room Award nominations and Best Dance Performance in The Age and Dance Australia. Jo has also worked with Ros Warby, Prue Lang, Back to Back, Ranters Theatre, Nicola Gunn and visual artists Stephen Bram and David Rosetzky - choreographing for his work Half Brother Recently, Jo was commissioned to make an eight hour work for Melbourne NOW at NGVI for White Night in the work of Stephen Bram and performed in Shian Law’s work, Personal Mythologies (Next Wave Festival). Jo is the co-presenter of Dancing on The Radio on Triple R. jolloydcom


Nicola Gunn is a performance artist, writer, designer and director. She creates work that blends participatory performance, live art, video and installation to explore the fragility of the human condition with subversive humor. She draws mainly from her experience to create autobiographical fiction. Recent performances include: At the Sans Hotel, Hello my name is and In Spite of Myself, Melbourne International Arts Festival 2013. Tours include: Canada, US, New Zealand, Berlin, Australia and Edinburgh. She has received numerous awards and nominations including: Green Room Awards, UK Stage Award nomination for Best Solo Performer at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Melbourne Fringe Best Experimental Performance Award and The Blue Room Theatre Judge's Award for Outstanding Theatrical Experience. Nicola recently performed with Jo Lloyd in an eight hour work for White Night in the work of Stephen Bram, as part of Melbourne NOW at NGVI. nicolagunn.com