Room for Love, 1990, as seen at Gertrude Contemporary in 2025.
Photograph: Christian Capurro, courtesy the artist and Gertrude Contemporary, © Gail Hastings
Photograph: Christian Capurro, courtesy the artist and Gertrude Contemporary, © Gail Hastings
Specifications
Room for Love is made of a torn page from a Loveswept novel announcement invitation, acrylic paint of wood (tête-à-tête chair and plinths), pigmented wax on timber (floorpan demarcations), Loveswept edition, ink and lead pencil on paper (paperback novels). Components hand built by Gail Hastings in 1990. In 2000, work intermitted. In 2005, components re-made based on Hastings’ detailed construction drawings.
The work comprises six components with an overall measurement of 80 x 300 x 300 cm.
| 08/02/2025 | A Fictional Retrospective: Gertrude’s First Decade 1985-1995, Gertrude Contemporary (cur. Sue Cramer and Emma Nixon), Naarm Melbourne |
| 22/05/2005 | Pitch Your Own Tent: Art Projects / Store 5 / 1st Floor, Monash University Museum of Art (cur. Max Delany), Melbourne |
| 10/09/1999 | Open House, Pestorius Sweeney House (cur. Ben Curnow), Brisbane |
| 22/09/1996 | The Pool, Centenary Pools (cur. David Pestorius), Brisbane |
| 05/12/1995 | Lovers, Heidi Museum of Modern Art (cur. Juliana Engberg), Melbourne |
| 01/03/1990 | Exsultate, jubilate, Store 5 (cur. Angela Brennan and Elizabeth Newman on invitation by Gail Hastings), Melbourne |
| 09/10/1990 | Dis-location, RMIT Gallery (cur. Robert Owen), Melbourne |
| 21/04/1990 | Room for Love, Store 5 (cur. Gary Wilson), Melbourne |
Bibliography
Barnes Carolyn,
‘Dis-location’,
in Robert Owen (ed.),
Dis-location,
exhibition catalogue,
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology,
Melbourne
1990,
p.6.
Engberg Juliana,
‘Love Tokens’,
Lovers,
exhibition catalogue,
Heidi Museum of Modern Art,
Melbourne
1995.
McKenzie Robyn,
‘The Local Group: Store 5 1989–1993’,
Pitch Your Own Tent: Art Projects / Store 5 / 1st Floor,
exhibition catalogue,
Monash University Museum of Art,
Melbourne
2005,
pp.38–47.
McNamara Andrew,
‘Making space for the invisible architecture of the social’,
Sculptural Situations: Gail Hastings,
exhibition catalogue,
Perth Institute of Contemporary Art,
Perth
2008.
Excerpt
The effect is like walking into an abstract painting, except to say that one may also encounter text, specifically devised furniture or intricate floor plans that actively shape the space of the work. Hastings regards her works as ‘sculptural situation’ rather than as paintings or installations, or even sculptures. Rather than adhering to a pre-existing location, Hastings seeks to craft space — in particular, she seeks to craft an instersubjective space, a social space of conversation and communication. This is at once a remarkably fraught, ambitious and fascinating enterprise. It is also one reason why the experience of Hastings’ evocative situations is like confronting something vaguely familiar, yet weirdly opaque. Hastings thinks of our intersubjective space as a kind of invisible architecture comprised of both intersecting and dissecting personal and public-social trajectories. Hastings seeks to craft space — in particular, she seeks to craft an inter-subjective space, a social space of conversation and communication. This is at once a remarkably fraught, ambitious and fascinating enterprise. It is also one reason why the experience of Hastings’s evocative situations is like confronting something vaguely familiar, yet weirdly opaque.
McNamara Andrew,
‘Making space for the invisible architecture of the social’,
Sculptural Situations: Gail Hastings,
exhibition catalogue,
Art Gallery of New South Wales,
Sydney
no.2.07,
2007.
Excerpt
Downloads – Texts – Studio papers
Andrew McNamara’s essay in ‘Sculptural Situations: Gail Hastings’ at AGNSW 2007
Later artwork
Earlier artwork
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Acknowledgement
I acknowledge the Kulin Nation’s Yaluk-ut Weelam clan of the Boon Wurrung people as custodians of the lands, waterways and skies where I live and work. I pay my respect to their Elders past, present and emerging. I recognise their cultural faithfulness, strength and resilience against the trauma of colonisation. First Peoples’ sovereignty has never been ceded.
Gail Hastings