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  • If [then stares stairs stares] #4

    If [then stares stairs stares] #4

  • If [then stares stairs stares] #3

    If [then stares stairs stares] #3

  • If [then stares stairs stares] #2

    If [then stares stairs stares] #2

  • If [then stares stairs stares] #1

    If [then stares stairs stares] #1

  • So she said

    So she said

    ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF ACTUAL ART
    They return home from the party. He is worried; she, annoyed. They have been arguing. He overheard her tell other guests that she is an artist, that her paintings are of vivid historical moments and that hordes of curators wish to exhibit them; or so she said. He beseeches her to look at her so-called colourful canvases on the shelves inside, and tell him what she actually sees. She refuses.

    [floorplan details]
    opposite room;
    where they have been arguing;
    inside the opposite room;
    paintings on shelves

  • plans

    plans

    plans as seen at Heide 1, photo: John Brash
    photo: Albert Tucker, Arvo Tea: Sidney Nolan, Sunday Reed and Joy Hester  1945, gelatin silver photograph, 30.4 x 40.3 cm, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Gift of Barbara Tucker 2001; As quoted from the Heide Guide Book of 2003: ‘”Arvo Tea”, was a daily ritual at Heide at 4pm’.
    photo: John Brash; Thanks to Heide gallery staff who maintained afternoon tea at 4pm; Thanks here to Rebecca Renshaw (left) and Maria Davies (right).

    The sculptural situation ‘plans’, 2003, crams into the front room at Heide I. It doesn’t fit the exhibition room. Against the furthest wall a stack of plywood blocks form a cube on an angle at odds with the exhibition room. It juts out into the room at an orientation of its own determination instead of aligning with the room’s walls. The exhibition room does not determine the space of the artwork, its ‘x’ and ‘y’ axes. The sculptural situation creates its own spatial axes. 

    The space a sculptural situation creates is an ongoing process that begins so as to reach an end, a conclusion. Yet, its ending forever returns to its beginning. The work remains incomplete even though its form, its process, is a complete form.

    Without a plinth’s elevation into a symbolic space, a sculptural situation remains on the messy ground of the everyday where it has to work to create, then recreate, its space over again. Its space isn’t a given. The artwork has to build it.

    A sculptural situation is, therefore, a plan forever being built. The physical components of the work help to build its space. They, themselves, are not ‘the sculpture’ but always the pencilled-in parts of its plan.

    In plans at Heide I, nothing of this ‘plan’ fits. It is out of kilt. 

    The door? Well, it’s not been built yet. The rest of ‘house c’ has, but not the door. They forgot, somehow. Without it, we can’t enter to hang the painting as per our plan. They said they hope to finish it before afternoon tea. That’s at four.

    At four o’clock each day visitors happened to be looking at ‘plans’, gallery staff would at that moment wheel a tea trolley into the exhibition room. The workers in the watercolours wait for afternoon tea before they can complete their task of hanging a painting inside House C. Afternoon Tea at 4:00pm creates a coincidence between the watercolours’ awaited moment and that moment taking place.

    An exhibition brochure accompanies the work with a text that does not explain the work but is, instead, a background text.

    Encyclopaedia watercolour one details, above fireplace at right on entry to the room; photo: Brenton McGeachie
    photo: Brenton McGeachie; Note: the horizontal wall midway through ‘house c’ in each Encyclopaedia watercolour is the wall of the actual room, with individual wooden blocks stacked in front of the wall and a pencilled in door (yet to be built). The three paintings hanging in the exhibition room are the paintings referred to in the watercolours. The blocks in each painting correspond to the wooden blocks stacked in the room with an entrance door stencilled on top.
  • To make a work of ordered art

    To make a work of ordered art

    Statements, Art Basel, 1997

    The watercolour ‘page 1’ is first encountered as a reproduction printed in the exhibition catalogue where it includes four objects — L. I. F. and E — in disarray.

    On the other side of the partition, opposite its reproduction, an actual watercolour ‘page 1’ is this time encountered with three of its objects now in order and one left in disarray.

    [Catalogue reproduction of watercolour page 1 that includes all four objects: L. I. F. and E.]

    Encyclopaedia of Order in Art
    To put some order into this work of art and straighten three of the four objects L. I. F. E. in disarray below, simply follow these directions. Hold a pencil above the objects, close your eyes and think of what in your life you feel needs sorting out. Let your hand fall and select an object. Repeat twice. Open your eyes and note the time _______ and date _______ of this ordering. Take the first selected object, _____, and align it with the painting on page 27; the second object, _____, with the plinth; and the third object, _____, with the bookshelf. This leaves object ___ in disarray, a testimony to what is lost. The work of ordered art is now complete.

    —– page 1 —-

    [framed watercolour page 1 that, upon completion, leaves only object I.]

    Encyclopaedia of Order in Art
    To put some order into this work of art and straighten three of the four objects L. I. F. E. in disarray below, simply follow these directions. Hold a pencil above the objects, close your eyes and think of what in your life you feel needs sorting out. Let your hand fall and select an object. Repeat twice. Open your eyes and note the time    4:29pm       and date    Monday 27.1.97 of this ordering. Take the first selected object,    F.    , and align it with the painting on page 27; the second object,    E.    , with the plinth; and the third object,    L.    , with the bookshelf. This leaves object    I.     in disarray, a testimony to what is lost. The work of ordered art is now complete.

    —– page 1 —-

    **********

    [The book – The Order of Looking]

    THE ORDER OF LOOKING
    CHAPTER L.
    Published by
    the Bureau of Looking
    1997
    ———page 30———

    THE ORDER OF LOOKING
    CHAPTER L    .
    The Bureau of Looking has recently observed from latest statistics that not every part of a work of art is looked at.
    To understand this phenomenon further, the Bureau has devised this book of a continuous red-watercolour line as a means by which to analyse whether any underlying pattern, or order, dictates which parts of the line are looked at and which parts are not.
    The Bureau therefore asks for your assistance by limiting — or expanding — the parts of this line that you look at to 27, and to number each part, i.e. page, in the order seen (excluding, however, the pages previous to this one).
    ———page 32———

    [following pages]
    THE ORDER OF LOOKING

    Looked at number: ___________

    ———page […]———

  • To complete a work of contemporary art

    To complete a work of contemporary art

    Encyclopaedia of patterns in contemporary art
    To complete the pattern in this work of contemporary art you must first walk into a room in which there is a blue-cubed cushion on top of a white chair. In this room you will find a pattern of repetitive squares that has a missing part (see asterisk*). There is also in this room a plinth with four

    [floor plan]

    objects labelled T., I., M. & E.. Consider each and select the one, the right one, that best accords with the pattern and place it next to the asterisk. You have now completed the pattern in this work of contemporary art. Please note here the time     [6:44pm]     and date     [25.3.97]  .

    ~page 3131~

    [Floor plan details]
    – chair
    – plinth

  • Drawn Lines

    Drawn Lines

    <p><em>Encyclopaedia of drawn lines</em><br /> telephone rang, it was the Bureau of Re-Drawn lines asking whether her line was from choice or circumstance, and whether she wanted it updated: shifted in one direction or another. After<br /> <em>page 25</em></p>
  • A Sculpture by Gail Hastings: a page torn from a secret

    A Sculpture by Gail Hastings: a page torn from a secret

    Secret: Volume Five

    Content of Volume Five
    List of Instructions with accompanying floor plans

    Moment … Page
    I
    II
    III
    IV
    V … 4:43–4:45pm … centre
    VI
    VII
    VIII
    IX
    –––––––

    Moment V: 4:43–4:45 pm
    Instructions
    This moment has been accurately calculated by the Bureau of Cause and Effects. Your passage through has been mathematically determined. Your script is as follows:

    At precisely 4:43pm, hastily depart the room outside, and make an abrupt entrance into the area designated meeting place.

    Here you will find a stranger appearing somewhat bewildered by your entrance. It is of the utmost significance that you totally ignore this stranger, no matter how inquisitive his posture might be. Make absolutely no eye contact — this is detrimental to the determination of the ensuing moments.

    Briefly stop at the centre and secure the exit Sith your sight. Hesitate slightly then depart through the room inside.
    –––––––

    Front of exhibition catalogue card
    Closing act: Gallery blind lowered when the gallery closes at night (pictured: Kate Daw)
  • measuring subjectivity

    measuring subjectivity

  • Floor plan: Empty, except

    Floor plan: Empty, except

    offset printed floor plan on A4 sheets of paper
    sent through the post as the exhibition’s announcement
    with exhibition details on the back

    stencilled measurements:
    12 inconsequences = 1 thought
    3 thoughts = 1 conversation
    e.g. 5th 8in (back wall) = 5 thoughts and 8 inconsequences

    12 inconsequences = 1 thought
    3 thoughts = 1 conversation
    e.g. 10c (right wall) = 10 conversations (which equals 30 thoughts or 360 inconsequences)

  • Room for Love

    Room for Love

    Room for Love, 1990, as seen at Gertrude Contemporary in 2025.

    Room for Love, 1990

    Photograph: Christian Capurro, courtesy the artist and Gertrude Contemporary, © Gail Hastings

    Photograph: Christian Capurro, courtesy the artist and Gertrude Contemporary, © Gail Hastings

  • This Performance — A Passing Thought

    This Performance — A Passing Thought

    Exhibition announcement/booklet mailed
    through the post to regular gallery visitors

Gail Hastings