Gertrude Contemporary Slide

SLIDE

The Gertrude Contemporary Slide is a small exhibition space in the front door frame of Gertrude Contemporary. Each year a Gertrude Contemporary Studio Artist curates the program.

HER DIVINE HOLINESS POPE ALICE

Her Divine Holiness Pope Alice, A magnificent reality of joy and celebration: Update from the Galactic Federation of Light and the Spiritual Hierarchy from Planetary Activation Organization.

Exhibition dates: 28 October – 10 December 2016
Exhibition opening: Friday 28 October, 6–8pm

The 2016 Slide curator is Debris Facility Pty Ltd, who has chosen to present Her Divine Holiness Pope Alice for the last edition of Slide for 2016. Read the bio below:

MYSTORY: EMISSION TO PLANET EARTH

THE STORY OF POPE ALICE

begins in Outer Space in the year 5252 ABCD.

Before Earth-time Pope Alice existed on Metalluna, one of a

consortium of planets within the Orion group. At the dawn of the future

Her Divine Holiness falls through a Black Hole (Her concept of reality) and lands

in Australia at Uluru having bounced from Alice Springs, which still bears Her name.

Alice Springs into Wonderland is the extended name of that mysterious inland city.

Sponging the primeval slime from Her frock She sits down to scribe the only

known personal account of pre-history. Critics have said of this work,

‘Alice – a voice crying in the wilderness’. Escaping the pre-human horrors

of OZ in a reed basket prior to the Zep Tepi (an Egyptian equivalent of

Genesis). Pope Alice later journeys across the Pacific Ocean, to the Great

Continent of Mu, home to an advanced civilisation which crowns Her

pontiff. To this day Pope Alice is the Spritual Leader of Mu,

the Motherland of Humankind. Unfortuneately it sank

beneath the waves some 12 500 or more years

ago. Pope Alice believes the ‘Lost’ Continent

will rise again from its watery abode in the near future,

coinciding with the Earth tilting on its axis, or the icecap melting on

Antartica. Her struggle for the United Nations to recognise the autonomy of Mu

continues. There have been countless sightings of Her Divine Holiness, over the millennia.

Any sighting invariably means a crop circle isn’t far behind. As the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin

said, ‘My conversation with Pope Alice completely altered any view I had of History and the Space Race’.

“ Planet Earth is the cosmological equivalent of a provincial town” – Pope Alice

Image: Pope Alice canonizes Alice Jitterbug in the Great Hall of the National Gallery of Victoria, 2014.
Her Divine Holiness Pope Alice appears courtesty of the Galatic Federation of Light and Pope Alice.

TRIPLE CANDIE PRESENTS CLAIRE FONTAINE

Triple Candie presents Claire Fontaine – 'Some Directives for the Sharing of Private Property'

Exhibition dates: 9 September–15 October 2016
Exhibition opening: Friday 9 September, 6–8pm

The 2016 Slide curator is Debris Facility Pty Ltd, who will present Triple Candie presents Claire Fontaine – 'Some Directives for the Sharing of Private Property' for this edition of Slide.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS
Join Debris Facility's reading group for the first half of Claire Fontaine's "Human Strike Has Already Begun and Other Texts" on Monday 26 September 2016, 6-8pm in Studio 18. Click here to view the text.
Access via Studio Artist entrance, door on the right hand side of main gallery entrance.

This book is a tale of seduction. It reveals how to win the resistance of closed doors that we all face each day. We can read that a lock is not a hostile obstacle to our desire but a new potential lover, whose interiority we have to see with the eyes of the soul and whose qualities and defaults we have to imagine. A world of silent dialogues between unanimated beings and humans discloses itself in these pages. Chapter after chapter, a disquieting light is shed on the triad of the artist, the consumer and the lock-picker, all belonging to the same confraternity of bilingual creatures, fearless explorers of the deserts of reification, able to communicate with and through objects. Smelling, touching, listening are to be learnt again by the ones who might want to succeed in lock-picking, and if they do – they are warned - they shouldn’t think “I made it” but wonder “what exactly happened?” Because the point isn’t why resistance leaves the place to openness, but how that happens. There is a science of quality that defies logic, it rules the domain of the love conquest whose champion is Don Giovanni, restless wrecker of moral boundaries and petty bourgeois common sense, moved by the mere pleasure of adding another name to his list. There is a use value that ruins all exchange value. And there is an accumulation of competence that threatens all other possible accumulation. If this manual contains information, it must be said that it can only be used in the way one would follow directions for spiritual exercises. Never think about yourself and never think about the lock: ego gets in the way of lock picking as much as it does for any Zen practice. Visualizing the invisible, evaluating the con-sequences of the least of our gestures, reaching a state of concentrated relaxation are parts of the process, whose unspoken aim is becoming something between flesh and metal - like Odradek is both a bobbin and a begging creature, but he is neither of them. Some instructions for the sharing of private property is a story of asceticism told by various anonymous voices. Because the morality of the lock-picker resembles the one of the fidèles d’amour: there are many easy ways to break into places, but picking a lock is the more virtuous one. Cultivating this virtuosity involves sensing the world more intensely, sanding one’s fingertips until each grain of sand paper can be distinctly felt, making oneself as rigid and cold as a key until perfectly understanding what every clicking noise means, being aware of the infinite states that exist between closed and open, all to be inhabited and influenced. Lock-pickers belong to a clandestine congregation, which has the means to enter our houses and our hearts, but here a choice is presented to us: becoming one of them or taking closed doors for an answer.

Claire Fontaine is a Paris-based collective, founded in 2004. After lifting her name from a popular brand of school notebooks, Claire Fontaine declared herself a “readymade artist” and began to elaborate a version of neo-conceptual art that often looks like other people’s work. Working in neon, video, sculpture, painting and text, her practice can be described as an ongoing interrogation of the political impotence and the crisis of singularity that seem to define contemporary art today. But if the artist herself is the subjective equivalent of a urinal or a Brillo box – as displaced, deprived of its use value, and exchangeable as the products she makes – there is always the possibility of what she calls the “human strike.” Only twelve years old, Claire Fontaine uses her freshness and youth to make herself a whatever-singularity and an existential terrorist in search of subjective emancipation. She grows up among the ruins of the notion of authorship, experimenting with collective protocols of production, détournements, and the production of various devices for the sharing of intellectual and private property.

Triple Candie, Founded in 2001, is a research-oriented, independent curatorial agency -- run by two art historians -- that produces exhibitions about art but largely devoid of it. Its primary purpose has been to explore the possibilities of exhibition making as a truly alternative, critical practice.
Triple Candie operates from the position that, “the profanation of the unprofanable is the political task of the coming generation." Its methodology privileges the unfaithful copy, the unauthorized reproduction, and the annotated surrogate. A typical Triple Candie exhibition consists of reproductions, surrogates, models, stage-sets, or common objects, displayed using a combination of rhetorical devices borrowed from history and anthropology museums and community art galleries. There is no art. The shows are generally, though not exclusively, realized without the involvement, permission, or knowledge of the artists whose work may be their subject. The projects tend to be ambivalent or skeptical, and sometimes even openly critical, of their subjects. When a show is de-installed, the materials -- both the objects and the display paraphernalia -- are generally recycled for future use or discarded. The art-surrogates, props, and artifacts that are displayed rarely simulate their referents, the exhibitions are never copies or recreations of previously presented exhibitions, and there is no intention to deceive.

Image: Triple Candie Presents Claire Fontaine – 'Some Directives for the Sharing of Private Property', 2016, digital photograph of PDF.

Triple Candie appears courtesy of Triple Candie, Claire Fontaine appears courtesy of Triple Candie, Debris Facility Pty Ltd, T293 Gallery and Metro Pictures.

ANDREA SIMMONS

Exhibition dates: 6 May–25 June
Exhibition opening: 6 May 2016, 6–8pm

The 2016 Slide curator is Debris Facility, who has invited Andrea Simmons to present, when sending a message to someone asking for help - when regarding the weight and specific gravity of -, 2015 for Slide.

2016 Stop biting nails

Make clothes
Coffee
Muesli
Quinoa
Acai
You bring yourself, and I'll bring my selfie
Drinking myself into consciousness

A wild cigarette appears
Dancing till the breath of dawn

My dream:
Cat that adores camera lenses is seen as superficial but does not react to photographs of itself
Cat has Fetish for lenses
Cat becomes famous

The next day
Between your fingers

Image courtesy of the artist.

Details of the work in the gallery:
Andrea Simmons
when sending a message to someone asking for help -
when regarding the weight and specific gravity of -, 2015
Human hair and epoxy

GRACE ANDERSON

Exhibition dates: 18 March–23 April 2016
Exhibition opening: 18 March 2016, 6–8pm

The 2016 Slide curator is Debris Facility, who has invited Grace Anderson to present, Cynthia Slab for Slide.

Cynthia Slab is an on-going, evolving iteration of handbag textures, attitudes and contents. Plastic, paint, spit, gum, Polish, gold, plant matter, rubbish, fabric, steel, pearls, toy hairbrush, hair, glue, clay, money, pitch.

Image courtesy Grace Anderson

URSKA MINDRE

Exhibition Dates: 5 February–5 March 2016
Exhibition Opening: Friday 5 February 2016, 6–8pm

The 2016 curator of Slide is Debris Facility, who has invited Urska Mindre to present the first work.

Urska Mindre's Slide project will draw from her series of speculative botanical illustrations and its processing through digital manipulation. The biological mutation and combination of species is inter-played with mineral pigments the artist formulates. The exacting technique is collapsed through scanning, digital manipulation, and sent digitally to Australia, where it will be cheaply printed, and entrusted to Debris Facility to collaboratively install. There will be an ongoing set of images that will be changed over and accumulated through the exhibition time frame, on a weekly basis.

Image courtesy Urska Mindre

STEPHEN BRAM

1 - Unnamed
Exhibition Dates: 6 November–19 December 2015
Exhibition Opening: 6pm Friday 6 November 2015

The 2015 curator of Slide is Studio Artist Fayen d’Evie, who has invited Stephen Bram to present the sixth and final work for the year.

Stephen Bram lives and works in Melbourne. Recent exhibitions include: 200 Gertrude Street, Gertrude Contemporary, 2014; 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, Australia and Hamish McKay Gallery, New Zealand.

KARENA KEYES

1 - Unnamed
Exhibition dates: 18 September–24 October 2015
Exhibition opening: Friday 18 September 2015, 6–8pm

The 2015 curator of Slide is Studio Artist Fayen d'Evie, who has invited Karena Keyes to present the fifth work.

Karena Keyes completed Bachelor of Art (Visual) at the Canberra School of Art in 2005, and completed a Master of Fine Art at Sydney College of Arts in 2014. In 2008, she was the ACT recipient of the Qantas Contemporary Art Award, a prize that provided her practice with significant professional development. In 2012, she was the recipient of the CAPO London exhibition award. Since 2005, she has undertaken numerous artist residencies including at Takt Kunstprojektraum, Berlin, Artspace Sydney, Canberra Contemporary Art Space (CCAS), and Fraser Street Studios. She has held solo exhibitions at the Reading Room, London; TCB, Melbourne; Grantpirrie, Sydney; Locksmith Projects, Sydney; and CCAS Manuka, Canberra. Keyes' work has been curated into exhibitions at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Penrith Regional Gallery, the Lewers Bequest, Firtsdraft, Locksmith, and Alaska Projects, all in New South Wales; West Space, Melbourne; Sawtooth ARI, Tasmania; and CCAS, Canberra.

ISHMAEL MARIKA

1 - Unnamed
Exhibition opening: Friday 17 July 2015, 6–8pm
Exhibition dates: 17 July–29 August 2015

The 2015 curator of Slide is Fayen d'Evie, who has invited Ishmael Marika to present the fourth work.

My name is Ishmael Marika. I am the grandson of Milirrpum Marika the lead plaintiff in the Gove Land Rights case. I am the son of Gary Waninya Marika—who has an Order of Australia for services to Indigenous health. My mother is Yalmakany Marawili, she is a Yirralka Ranger and exhibited artist—a sister to Djambawa Marawili. I was born in Nhulunbuy but spent my youth in Yilpara. I went to Nhulunbuy Primary School before going to Melbourne to finish years 8 and 9. I finished years 10–12 at a school in Darwin before retuning to Yirrkala in 2009. I worked as a ranger for 6 months before coming to work at the Mulka Project where I have been since 2010.

Ishmael is currently a director, editor, and production officer at The Mulka Project in Yirrkala. He has worked on numerous cultural productions for the Yolngu including documentations of dhapi, bapurru, and other ceremonial events. He is best know for his documentary on Yolngu land rights entitled Wanga Watangumirri Dharuk, which has screened at many festivals as well as a private screening with the East Timor President Ramos Horta. He has recently released his second film a drama depicting YolÅ‹u sorcery entitled Galka. This film was launched to standing ovations at Garma 2014.

DIEUDONNE CARTIER

1 - Unnamed
Exhibition dates: 22 May–4 July 2015
Exhibition opening: Friday 22 May 2015, 6–8pm

In 2015, the Slide exhibition program is curated by Studio Artist Fayen d'Evie. The third Slide artist for 2015 is the French artist Dieudonné Cartier, who is contributing a work titled (w = c + l = c + v + s)/ 2.

(w = c + l = c + v + s)/ 2 comprises reconstituted paper from 36/2 (18) pages extracted from Das Kapital by Karl Marx. It corresponds to a half-working-day of reading and shredding Das Kapital as part of the performance/installation Transformation de la plus-value en capital in the exhibition De 14h à 18h30 at De La Charge gallery in Brussels from 5 to 12 April 2014. Of the work, Cartier says:

Si w est la valeur d’un produit, on a:
w = c + l = c + v + s
où v est la valeur de la force de travail nécessaire qui revient au travailleur; s la plus-value; l la quantité totale de
valeur ajoutée à l’objet du travail pendant la production. La valeur c, qui correspond à la consommation de capital
constant pendant l’unité de temps considérée, n’est que transférée pendant le processus. Elle contient la dépréciation
des moyens de production (machines, bâtiments, etc.) ainsi que la valeur des produits de base consommés (matières
premières, combustible, composants, etc.)

Dieudonné Cartier is a French artist, presently living and working in Brussels. His preoccupations concern the archive, the apparatus and the status of the document in the field of art. Through publications, multiples or ephemera, he questions principles pertaining to the production, reproduction, and diffusion of art works. Since 2010, Dieudonné has participated in many group show, included Convivio ou la plastique culinaire (curated by Fabien Vallos, centre d'art Micro-Onde, 2011)), Laetitia in convivio (curated by Fabien Vallos, Cneai, 2011), Le Royaume and l'Exil (curated by Christophe Le Gac,Galerie Backslash, 2011), and Une Lettre arrive toujours à destinationS (curated by Sébastien Pluot, La Panacée, 2014). He participated in the project and exhibitions Chrématistique curated by Jérémie Gaulin and Fabien Vallos (2012–2014), and in the research project and exhibitions Art by Telephone… Recalled (curated by Sebastien Pluot and Fabien Vallos, 2012–2014). In 2014, he realised his first solo show in Brussels, De 14h à 18h30 at the gallery De La Charge. In 2015 at Galerie Laurent Mueller in Paris, he presented The Office of Gravitational Documents #FAX.

HAO GUO

2 - Unnamed
Exhibition dates: 27 March – 9 May 2015
Exhibition opening: 6pm Friday 27 March 2015

The 2015 curator of Slide is Fayen d'Evie, who has invited Hao Guo to present the second work, titled 2 art habits.

Hao Guo was born in Ning Xia of China. In 2000, he graduated from the Art Department of Capital Normal University Beijing, then moved to Melbourne to continue his studies, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting), followed by Honours and an MFA, all from the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Hao has exhibited widely including: in Melbourne, at West Space, ACCA, NGV, Y3K, and others; The Russian Frost Farmers Gallery in New Zealand; P10 Gallery in Singapore; the Biennale de Belleville in Franc; AC INSTITUTE NY, and Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, in the United States; the Shanghai Biennale, and many other group and solo shows. He was awarded the Wallara Travelling Scholarship in 2005.

Image: Hao Guo, 2 art habits, 2015.

LIANG LUSCOMBE

Exhibition dates: 30 January – 14 March 2015
Exhibition opening: 6pm Friday 30 January 2015

The 2015 curator of Slide is Fayen d'Evie, who has invited Liang Luscombe to present the first work.

Liang Luscombe is a Melbourne-based artist and curator. Recent solo exhibitions include: Three Sailors, Sutton Project Space, Melbourne, 2014; Non in Casa, 157 Blyth St, Melbourne, 2013; Bauhaus Fisher Price, TCB Art Inc., Melbourne, 2012. Selected group exhibitions include: No fond return of love, I.C.A.N., Sydney, 2014; Dear Masato, all at once, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne, 2014; brimming dissolution, buoyant expenditure, RM, Auckland, 2014; Synonyms for Sincerity, Alaska Projects, Sydney, 2013; Please be quiet, The British School at Rome, Rome, 2013; Navel Gazing, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne, 2013; Fresh Paint, Sutton Projects, Melbourne, 2012; Ménage a Trois, XYZ Gallery Tokyo, 2012; and Impossible Objects, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne, 2011. Luscombe was the recipient of an Australia Council JUMP Mentorship in 2013 and was mentored by Angela Brennan. She has also held residencies at the Australia Council Studio, British School at Rome in 2013 and PICA Studio Residency in 2011.