About Gail Hastings – Gail Hastings

Thought pronounces physical space in a sculptural situation. The architecture of that relationship has been the basis of my sculpture-based practice since graduating from art college in Melbourne at the end of 1988. In the polaroid above taken in Düsseldorf in 1995, I’m sitting on the floor, knackered, having worked three days and two nights without sleep to set up my work. That’s after building the work’s components, by hand. The painter Ingrid Weber and gallerist Thomas Taubert are trying to squeeze themselves out of view. The image, nevertheless, is of To make a work of thoughtful art, 1995, in which the process of a single thought exhausts the entire space of a room in four stages. The fifth completes the work when a laser-by first encounters it.

GAIL HASTINGS is a visual artist who makes sculptural situations. Her sculptuations Difficult art decisions: wall six, 1996, and Missing walls: bureaucracy at work, 2007, are both in the Daimler Art Collection, Berlin; and So she said, 2007, in the Art Gallery of NSW collection, Sydney. The MCA Primavera collection began in 1993 with the purchase of Hastings’ Flower power:1960s/1990s; and the MCA adopted her sculptuation To make a work of timeless art, 1996, as the title of their 2009 Primavera Acquisitions exhibition. In 2001, Hastings was the first artist the MCA invited to guest curate a Primavera exhibition, marking the first 10 year anniversary of Primavera. Hastings insisted the included artists receive double the arists fee stuck, at the time, at NAVA’s lowly rate of $250. Her recently published book Space Practising Tools, 2021, is the culmination of an experimental studio-based focus on space following in the footsteps of Josef Albers’ Interaction of Color of 1966.

Thought pronounces physical space in a sculptural situation. The architectural articulation of that pronouncement has been the basis of my sculpture-based practice since graduating from art college in Melbourne at the end of 1988. In the polaroid taken in Düsseldorf in 1995, I’m sitting on the floor, knackered, having worked three days and two nights without sleep to set up my work. That’s after building the work’s components, by hand. The painter Ingrid Weber and gallerist Thomas Taubert are trying to squeeze themselves out of view. The image, nevertheless, is of To make a work of thoughtful art, 1995, in which the process of a single thought exhausts the entire space of a room in four stages. The fifth completes the work when its first passer-by writes the date and time.

From the square above cut out a thought into a shape and lean it next to number 1.
From this thought cut out its anger and place it on the plinth at number 2.
From this anger cut out its love and place it at number 3.
From this love cut out its understanding and return it to where the thought had first been taken, at number 4.
Now ask a passer-by the time [21:57] and the date [Freitag.13.10].

Gail Hastings, 2025