"135th Meridian-East", Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide.

"Death & Taxes"

Wood carving, recycled Baked Bean Tins, Nails & Artist Acrylic.

Franck Gohier

www.aeaf.org.au

For Immediate Release
14 August 2014

Image: Sarah Pirrie, Runoff (installation detail) 2012, handmade paper,
found items from East Point Beach after wet season storm. NCCA, Northern Territory 2012

135^th Meridian-East
Exhibition dates: 5 Sep – 4 Oct 2014

Opening: Thursday 4 September at 6pm
Artists & Curator talk: Friday 5 Sep at 1pm
Artists Sera Waters and Sarah Pirrie with Curator André Lawrence

ARTISTS:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Ali Gumillya Baker
Thom Buchanan
Maarten Daudeij
James Dodd
Sue Kneebone
Pungkai
James Tylor
Sera Waters

NORTHERN TERRITORY
Joshua Bonson
Franck Gohier
Sarah Pirrie
The Mulka Project
Bob Burruwul & Lena Yarinkura

CURATED BY ANDRÉ LAWRENCE
Recipient of the AEAF’s 2014 Emerging Curator Mentorship

In its ongoing commitment to supporting emerging and early-career practitioners, AEAF’s 40^th anniversary celebrations continue with our inaugural Emerging Curator Mentorship recipient, André Lawrence and his exhibition 135^th Meridian-East, which brings together thirteen artists from South Australia and the Northern Territory.

135^th Meridian-East refers to the line of longitude running through the Northern Territory and South Australia, a symbolic Cartesian coordinate. Featured artists have literally and/or conceptually traversed this corridor, establishing affiliations with places, people and ideas that inhabit it. Highlighting connections between those antipodes, the exhibition explores the multifarious ways in which artists engage with identity of place, collective and personal histories, and the rich diversity inherent to this vast tract through the heart of Australia.

The curator says the artists were selected “for the ways in which their practices investigate identities of place, reflecting on the personal senses of culture and belonging in which they are immersed, and how they subscribe to notions of experimental art.” Each of the works explores and reveals “what it means to live in and/or contemplate the rich duality of this expanse”.

HISTORY
The Northern Territory and South Australia have a long-standing historical relationship. Prior to European settlement they were without State and Territory boundaries, and crisscrossed by Aboriginal occupation, trade and a complex, rich and diverse cultural landscape embodied within oral and spiritual traditions and storylines. In the second half of the 19^th Century, South Australia pioneered colonial exploration through the centre of Australia, in an entrepreneurial race with other colonies, motivated by trade, power and prestige, to cut a direct path through to northern shores and open exchanges with the ‘Great Asian Market’. SA eventually succeeded in annexing and governing the ‘northern wasteland’ in 1863, until its independence in 1911.

CURATOR
Adelaide-based French-Australian curator André Lawrence was born and spent his early formative years in the Top End of the Northern Territory and is strongly influenced by its landscapes, people, cultures and histories. Based on this life-long connection, André says: “135th Meridian-East is a mapping project of sorts, extending my curatorial interest in connecting people and places”.

135^th Meridian-East was the basis of Andre’s proposal to AEAF’s Emerging Curator Mentorship call-out in 2013, which won him this position. Fulvia Mantelli, AEAF Program Manager and André’s mentor throughout the project’s development, says that it is: “clearly a determined progression of his curatorial practice. Exploring artists whose works suggest a psychological, metaphorical, historical or experiential reach into this zone. His curatorial strategy lays the foundation for enduring and insightful outcomes.”

ARTISTS
135th Meridian-East artists have, through their own journeys and art practices, developed narratives and relationships along this Meridian, looking north and south into the vastness of the interior and beyond, including:

Sue Kneebone’s engagement with the Gawler Ranges, settler histories, mining, minerals and museum collections;
James Dodd’s excursions into the Kimberleys, Darwin and Arnhem Land where he engages with and appropriates found graffiti and mark-making;
Pungkai’s adopted relationship to Pitjantatjara country and culture and his preoccupations of land use, mining and the potential loss of culture;
Sera Water’s personal investigations into familial and settler histories, and connections to place;
Franck Gohier’s humorous and often satirical use of popular culture iconography imbued with socio-political/socio-historical commentary;
Joshua Bonson’s flourishing emerging practice that investigates his indigeneity and connection with his skin totem, the crocodile; and
The Mulka Project’s ethos as a community-based media center that seeks to sustain and protect Yolgnu culture through new media projects: accessing archival material held by institutions and capturing contemporary community life through song, dance, storytelling and filmmaking.

RESIDENCY + NEW WORKS
Darwin-based artist Sarah Pirrie will be taking residence at the AEAF from Friday 29 August, to make her installation work for the exhibition. The installation will be a new iteration of an earlier work, Run off which, the artist explains, “provides a new image of thought about our environment. Here the gallery becomes a conduit between the ocean and us. Familiar items such as drink bottles are captured on their journey of use, while paper provides the flow from one narrative to the next.”

A further six artists are making new work for the show: in SA, Sera Waters, Sue Kneebone, Thom Buchanan, and Maarten Daudeij; in the NT, The Mulka Project and Franck Gohier.

The project has been supported by an Arts SA Independent Makers and Presenters Project Grant, toward the commissioning of three SA artists, and travel costs associated with André’s professional development in curatorial engagement.

The exhibition launch coincides with the continuation of ART AFTER DARK as Adelaide’s West End comes alive every Thursday night when cultural organisations across the precinct extend their opening hours as part of the new ART AFTER DARK initiative.

Gallery & Bookshop Hours: 11am—5pm Tuesday to Friday; 2—5pm Saturday

For further information:
Fulvia Mantelli,
Program Manager, AEAF
08 82117505
program@aeaf.org.au

IMAGE GALLERY (click for larger image)
From Left to Right: Maarten Daudeij, Be done 2014, barbed wire, 160 x 120 x 15cm. Pungkai, Longa longa time, I bin mine my business, now everyone cummin mine my business 2013, acrylic and plastic objects on canvas, 185 x 191cm. Sera Waters, Stumped: A family gathering 2014, Four kangaroo tails, beads, cotton, linen and stuffing + found bill holder and wallpaper, variable dimensions. Photo: Grant Hancock. Franck Gohier, Death and taxes 2006, Black Wattle wood carving, recycled Baked Bean cans, nails, synthetic polymer paint, 72 x 31 x 22cm. Photo: Courtesy the Artist

lion arts centre, north terrace & morphett st, adelaide, south australia | www.aeaf.org.au
info@aeaf.org.au | (08) 8211-7505 | gallery + bookshop 11am–5pm tues to fri & 2–5pm sat
The AEAF is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, and by the South Australian Government through Arts SA. The AEAF is also supported by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments. The AEAF program is supported by Coriole Vineyards, McLaren Vale.